The Merry Rout of Halloween

Source: Article from 1897

We are all of us better for an occasional frolic and Halloween with its quaint customs and mystic tricks affords opportunity for much innocent merriment. Halloween, which falls tomorrow, will be celebrated tonight in thousands of homes.

Halloween is a relic of the roistering days of Paganism. However, just when the exact established observance commenced it is Impossible to say. It is known that the ancient -Druids performed certain rites on what is now known as Hallowmas eve. We are told that on this night, fires were lit deep in remote forests, upon the hilltops, and great plains, and mystic rites were performed.

It was the belief that on this night the powers of darkness held a sort of annual mustering within the domain of immortals, and that therefore care must be taken that the living were not brought under the evil influence. Within more recent times, the superstition has more or less died out giving way lo the much more pleasant nut cracking, apple ducking, etc.

In modern times Halloween has always been enjoyable because of the popular superstitions attaching to it as a night when any supernatural story might be believed, any charm tested, any frolic permitted -- a night when imagination might run riot, and any ceremony,  however extravagant, be indulged in.

If you look into folklore and fairy lore you will find that in the days when princes and princesses were changed into wild beast in the evening of October 31 was an important one, for it was then for one brief night they were permitted to assume their natural form.

Halloween is a delightful combination of mystery and mirth; the night most eagerly anticipated of the whole year among children. Small boys go “nutting” weeks beforehand to gather their harvest for this occasion and in the north of England Halloween is still known as nut-cracking night.

Superstitions of Halloween

Halloween, as we know it, is confined to tricks, all of which, have, for their detriment the discovery of one's own true love, or the unravelment of a love affair. Notwithstanding the fact that Halloween is the night of true love, it is not considered a propitious thing to receive a proposal on this night. If your lover proposes on Halloween, let lira bind you by tying a blue ribbon on your wedding ring finger.

It is well in dressing for the evening to have somewhere about your person the requisite bit of ribbon, lest, if you should receive & proposal and accept it, the ribbon might be lacking, the spell would be broken, and your lover would surely leave you within a twelvemonth.

If on Halloween you shake hands with a very blonde man, you will have a proposal before the bells shall have rung in the new year of 1898. If, on the other hand, you shake hands with a very dark man you will not have a proposal within a year. If a medium man, you will receive one next June.

Halloween is the night for deciding if you have two lovers, and are not clear in your mind just which yon prefer. Think of both just before you go to sleep, and you will dream of the one that you should marry.

Into the Cellar Dark, and Cold

The nerviest Halloween test is the best. It is to descend into the cellar at midnight, just as the bells are tolling. In one hand, you carry a candle, in the other a looking glass. On the way down, the shadows throw their fantastic shapes into the glass to scare you, but you must walk on and on until you have reached the cellar bottom. You grope your way on to the furthest corner, and there you stand looking into the depths of the glass. A shape will creep over it until it lies there before you distinctly. This is the face of your future husband. A little imagination is needed to bring out the features, but of course, imagination is in keeping with Halloween.

The Apple Trick

A favorite Halloween divination is the apple trick. You suspend an apple in the doorway so that it hangs five feet above the floor, and as many persons as pass under it so many months will elapse before you marry. This trick should not be told to the rest of the family or they may attempt to thwart you by dodging under the apple. If the tenth person hit the apple, you will marry ten months from this date, or next August.

The apple games are many. The trick of sticking an apple seed on each eyelid is ever new and true. Name each seed, and the seed that sticks longest will stick to you through life.

Play is the Lively Game of "Buzz."

Another lively game is "Buzz!" The guests are seated around the dining table. The one at the head of the table begins by saying, "One," the next, "Two," and soon: only the seventh person and every multiple of seven must remember to say "Buzz" instead; if they fail to do this they drop out of the ring, and the next begins with "One" again. The sport of the game is to remember "seven" or the multiple, viz.: fourteen, twenty-one, twenty-eight, and thirty-five, and so on. The one who holds out the longest is presented with a prize, and the first to fall out of the ring, with the booby prize.

Finding Love in the Cake with Candles

Much sport may be had at suppertime by, haying a large cake in the center of the table with as many candles around it as there are guests, each candle a different color. The cake is passed last. The guests each take a candle and a piece of cake, choosing whatever color pleases their fancy. As they do so some one reads:

He who takes the candle blue,
Will find Ms Sweetheart ever true.

The pink, the sweetest of them all
Will wed a fellow six feet tall

Alas for yellow, bright to see;
Your lover ever will jealous be.

Happy he who orange takes;
Now begin your wedding cakes.

Hopeless, homeless bachelor he,
If white candle his should be.

The hostess" may evolve some other pleasant and clever couplets to finish the list. The candles come in play later, when each tries his or her fate. All candles lighted, each holds his at arm's length, and blows three times should the candle go out the first time he will be married that year; if the second, in two years; if the third, in three years.

How to Entertain the Guests

Any innocent joke, perpetrated in a spirit of friendly mischief, will befit the night. The idea of the olden time centered on the pairing of lad and lass, hence the chestnuts were put before the fire to test the future of those whose names they bore: If they burned steadily the courtship will go well, if, they popped apart the course of true love would not run smooth. Hand glasses with apples beside them should be placed here and there, so that the modern Eve may eat her apple and wait for Adam to peep over her shoulder.

Great pleasure, however, will be found in the games, which all may play. The tub of water, with floating apples, which must be lifted out by the teeth alone, and the fork suspended from the ceiling, with its lighted candle at one end, and the apple, from which a bite is taken, at the other, will cause much merriment. The search for the ring in flour is also much enjoyed. The flour containing a ring is packed upon a large platter. The guests each cut off a slice with a knife and the one uncovering the ring must pick it up with his teeth.

There are many other Halloween tests, but none better than these.