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Title: The Book of Hallowe'en
Author: Kelley, Ruth Edna
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Book of Hallowe'en" ***
[Illustration: HALLOWE'EN FESTIVITIES.
_From an Old English Print_]
The
Book of Hallowe'en
By
RUTH EDNA KELLEY, A. M.
_Lynn Public Library_
_ILLUSTRATED_
BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
* * * * *
Published, August, 1919
COPYRIGHT, 1919,
BY LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
_All Rights Reserved_
The Book of Hallowe'en
Norwood Press
BERWICK & SMITH CO.
NORWOOD, MASS.
U. S. A.
* * * * *
_To my Mother and the memory of my Father
who inspired and encouraged me
in the writing of this
book_
* * * * *
PREFACE
This book is intended to give the reader an account of the origin
and history of Hallowe'en, how it absorbed some customs belonging
to other days in the year,--such as May Day, Midsummer, and
Christmas. The context is illustrated by selections from ancient
and modern poetry and prose, related to Hallowe'en ideas.
Those who wish suggestions for readings, recitations, plays, and
parties, will find the lists in the appendix useful, in addition to
the books on entertainments and games to be found in any public
library.
Special acknowledgment is made to Messrs. E. P. Dutton & Company
for permission to use the poem entitled "Hallowe'en" from "The
Spires of Oxford and Other Poems," by W. M. Letts; to Messrs.
Longmans, Green & Company for the poem "Pomona," by William Morris;
and to the Editors of _The Independent_ for the use of five poems.
RUTH EDNA KELLEY.
LYNN, _1919_.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. SUN-WORSHIP. THE SOURCES OF HALLOWE'EN 1
II. THE CELTS: THEIR RELIGION AND FESTIVALS 5
III. SAMHAIN 16
IV. POMONA 23
V. THE COMING OF CHRISTIANITY. ALL SAINTS'. ALL SOULS' 27
VI. ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF HALLOWE'EN OMENS 33
VII. HALLOWE'EN BELIEFS AND CUSTOMS IN IRELAND 35
VIII. HALLOWE'EN BELIEFS AND CUSTOMS IN SCOTLAND
AND THE HEBRIDES 59
IX. HALLOWE'EN BELIEFS AND CUSTOMS IN ENGLAND AND MAN 82
X. HALLOWE'EN BELIEFS AND CUSTOMS IN WALES 101
XI. HALLOWE'EN BELIEFS AND CUSTOMS IN BRITTANY AND FRANCE 107
XII. THE TEUTONIC RELIGION. WITCHES 119
XIII. WALPURGIS NIGHT 136
XIV. MORE HALLOWTIDE BELIEFS AND CUSTOMS 142
XV. HALLOWE'EN IN AMERICA 149
"FOUR POEMS" 172
MAGAZINE REFERENCES TO HALLOWE'EN ENTERTAINMENTS 179
SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF READINGS, RECITATIONS, AND PLAYS 182
INDEX TO QUOTATIONS 184
INDEX 188
ILLUSTRATIONS
Hallowe'en Festivities _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
In Hallowe'en Time 34
The Witch of the Walnut-Tree 100
The Witches' Dance (_Valpurgisnacht_) 138
Fortune-Telling 148
Hallowe'en Tables, I 156
Hallowe'en Tables, II 158
No Hallowe'en without a Jack-o'-lantern 178
The Book of Hallowe'en
CHAPTER I
SUN-WORSHIP. THE SOURCES OF HALLOWE'EN
If we could ask one of the old-world pagans whom he revered as his
greatest gods, he would be sure to name among them the sun-god;
calling him Apollo if he were a Greek; if an Egyptian, Horus or
Osiris; if of Norway, Sol; if of Peru, Bochica. As the sun is the
center of the physical universe, so all primitive peoples made it
the hub about which their religion revolved, nearly always
believing it a living person to whom they could say prayers and
offer sacrifices, who directed their lives and destinies, and could
even snatch men from earthly existence to dwell for a time with
him, as it draws the water from lakes and seas.
In believing this they followed an instinct of all early peoples, a
desire to make persons of the great powers of nature, such as the
world of growing things, mountains and water, the sun, moon, and
stars; and a wish for these gods they had made to take an interest
in and be part of their daily life. The next step was making
stories about them to account for what was seen; so arose myths and
legends.
The sun has always marked out work-time and rest, divided the year
into winter idleness, seed-time, growth, and harvest; it has always
been responsible for all the beauty and goodness of the earth; it
is itself splendid to look upon. It goes away and stays longer and
longer, leaving the land in cold and gloom; it returns bringing the
long fair days and resurrection of spring. A Japanese legend tells
how the hidden sun was lured out by an image made of a copper plate
with saplings radiating from it like sunbeams, and a fire kindled,
dancing, and prayers; and round the earth in North America the
Cherokees believed they brought the sun back upon its northward
path by the same means of rousing its curiosity, so that it would
come out to see its counterpart and find out what was going on.
All the more important church festivals are survivals of old rites
to the sun. "How many times the Church has decanted the new wine of
Christianity into the old bottles of heathendom." Yule-tide, the
pagan Christmas, celebrated the sun's turning north, and the old
midsummer holiday is still kept in Ireland and on the Continent as
St. John's Day by the lighting of bonfires and a dance about them
from east to west as the sun appears to move. The pagan Hallowe'en
at the end of summer was a time of grief for the decline of the
sun's glory, as well as a harvest festival of thanksgiving to him
for having ripened the grain and fruit, as we formerly had
husking-bees when the ears had been garnered, and now keep our own
Thanksgiving by eating of our winter store in praise of God who
gives us our increase.
Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit, lends us the harvest element of
Hallowe'en; the Celtic day of "summer's end" was a time when
spirits, mostly evil, were abroad; the gods whom Christ dethroned
joined the ill-omened throng; the Church festivals of All Saints'
and All Souls' coming at the same time of year--the first of
November--contributed the idea of the return of the dead; and the
Teutonic May Eve assemblage of witches brought its hags and their
attendant beasts to help celebrate the night of October 31st.
CHAPTER II
THE CELTS: THEIR RELIGION AND FESTIVALS
The first reference to Great Britain in European annals of which we
know was the statement in the fifth century B. C. of the Greek
historian Herodotus, that Ph[oe]nician sailors went to the British
Isles for tin. He called them the "Tin Islands." The people with
whom these sailors traded must have been Celts, for they were the
first inhabitants of Britain who worked in metal instead of stone.
The Druids were priests of the Celts centuries before Christ came.
There is a tradition in Ireland that they first arrived there in
270 B. C., seven hundred years before St. Patrick. The account of
them written by Julius Cæsar half a century before Christ speaks
mainly of the Celts of Gaul, dividing them into two ruling classes
who kept the people almost in a state of slavery; the knights, who
waged war, and the Druids who had charge of worship and sacrifices,
and were in addition physicians, historians, teachers, scientists,
and judges.
Cæsar says that this cult originated in Britain, and was
transferred to Gaul. Gaul and Britain had one religion and one
language, and might even have one king, so that what Cæsar wrote of
Gallic Druids must have been true of British.
The Celts worshipped spirits of forest and stream, and feared the
powers of evil, as did the Greeks and all other early races. Very
much of their primitive belief has been kept, so that to Scotch,
Irish, and Welsh peasantry brooks, hills, dales, and rocks abound
in tiny supernatural beings, who may work them good or evil, lead
them astray by flickering lights, or charm them into seven years'
servitude unless they are bribed to show favor.
The name "Druid" is derived from the Celtic word "druidh," meaning
"sage," connected with the Greek word for oak, "drus,"
"The rapid oak-tree--
Before him heaven and earth quake:
Stout door-keeper against the foe.
In every land his name is mine."
TALIESIN: _Battle of the Trees._
for the oak was held sacred by them as a symbol of the omnipotent
god, upon whom they depended for life like the mistletoe growing
upon it. Their ceremonies were held in oak-groves.
Later from their name a word meaning "magician" was formed, showing
that these priests had gained the reputation of being dealers in
magic.
"The Druid followed him and suddenly, as we are told, struck him
with a druidic wand, or according to one version, flung at him a
tuft of grass over which he had pronounced a druidical
incantation."
O'CURRY: _Ancient Irish._
They dealt in symbols, common objects to which was given by the
interposition of spirits, meaning to signify certain facts, and
power to produce certain effects. Since they were tree-worshippers,
trees and plants were thought to have peculiar powers.
Cæsar provides them with a galaxy of Roman divinities, Mercury,
Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva, who of course were worshipped under
their native names. Their chief god was Baal, of whom they believed
the sun the visible emblem. They represented him by lowlier tokens,
such as circles and wheels. The trefoil, changed into a figure
composed of three winged feet radiating from a center, represented
the swiftness of the sun's journey. The cross too was a symbol of
the sun, being the appearance of its light shining upon dew or
stream, making to the half-closed eye little bright crosses. One
form of the cross was the swastika.
To Baal they made sacrifices of criminals or prisoners of war,
often burning them alive in wicker images. These bonfires lighted
on the hills were meant to urge the god to protect and bless the
crops and herds. From the appearance of the victims sacrificed in
them, omens were taken that foretold the future. The gods and other
supernatural powers in answer to prayer were thought to signify
their will by omens, and also by the following methods: the ordeal,
in which the innocence or guilt of a person was shown by the way
the god permitted him to endure fire or other torture; exorcism,
the driving out of demons by saying mysterious words or names over
them. Becoming skilled in interpreting the will of the gods, the
Druids came to be known as prophets.
"O Deirdré, terrible child,
For thee, red star of our ruin,
Great weeping shall be in Eri--
Woe, woe, and a breach in Ulla.
* * * * *
"Thy feet shall trample the mighty
Yet stumble on heads thou lovest."
TODHUNTER: _Druid song of Cathvah._
They kept their lore for the most part a secret, forbidding it to
be written, passing it down by word of mouth. They taught the
immortality of the soul, that it passed from one body to another at
death.
"If, as those Druids taught, which kept the British rites,
And dwelt in darksome groves, there counselling with sprites,
When these our souls by death our bodies do forsake
They instantly again do other bodies take----"
DRAYTON: _Polyolbion._
They believed that on the last night of the old year (October 31st)
the lord of death gathered together the souls of all those who had
died in the passing year and had been condemned to live in the
bodies of animals, to decree what forms they should inhabit for the
next twelve months. He could be coaxed to give lighter sentences by
gifts and prayers.
The badge of the initiated Druid was a glass ball reported to be
made in summer of the spittle of snakes, and caught by the priests
as the snakes tossed it into the air.
"And the potent adder-stone
Gender'd 'fore the autumnal moon
When in undulating twine
The foaming snakes prolific join."
MASON: _Caractacus._
It was real glass, blown by the Druids themselves. It was supposed
to aid the wearer in winning lawsuits and securing the favor of
kings.
An animal sacred to the Druids was the cat.
"A slender black cat reclining on a chain of old silver" guarded
treasure in the old days. For a long time cats were dreaded by the
people because they thought human beings had been changed to that
form by evil means.
The chief festivals of the Druids fell on four days, celebrating
phases of the sun's career. Fires of sacrifice were lighted
especially at spring and midsummer holidays, by exception on
November 1st.
May Day and November Day were the more important, the beginning and
end of summer, yet neither equinoxes nor solstices. The time was
divided then not according to sowing and reaping, but by the older
method of reckoning from when the herds were turned out to pasture
in the spring and brought into the fold again at the approach of
winter--by a pastoral rather than an agricultural people.
On the night before Beltaine ("Baal-fire"), the first of May, fires
were burned to Baal to celebrate the return of the sun bringing
summer. Before sunrise the houses were decked with garlands to
gladden the sun when he appeared; a rite which has survived in
"going maying." The May-Day fires were used for purification.
Cattle were singed by being led near the flames, and sometimes bled
that their blood might be offered as a sacrifice for a prosperous
season.
"When lo! a flame,
A wavy flame of ruddy light
Leaped up, the farmyard fence above.
And while his children's shout rang high,
His cows the farmer slowly drove
Across the blaze,--he knew not why."
KICKHAM: _St. John's Eve._
A cake was baked in the fire with one piece blacked with charcoal.
Whoever got the black piece was thereby marked for sacrifice to
Baal, so that, as the ship proceeded in safety after Jonah was cast
overboard, the affairs of the group about the May-Eve fire might
prosper when it was purged of the one whom Baal designated by lot.
Later only the symbol of offering was used, the victim being forced
to leap thrice over the flames.
In history it was the day of the coming of good. Partholon, the
discoverer and promoter of Ireland, came thither from the other
world to stay three hundred years. The gods themselves, the
deliverers of Ireland, first arrived there "through the air" on May
Day.
June 21st, the day of the summer solstice, the height of the sun's
power, was marked by midnight fires of joy and by dances. These
were believed to strengthen the sun's heat. A blazing wheel to
represent the sun was rolled down hill.
"A happy thought.
Give me this cart-wheel.
I'll have it tied with ropes and smeared with pitch,
And when it's lighted, I will roll it down
The steepest hillside."
HAUPTMANN: _Sunken Bell._
(Lewisohn _trans._)
Spirits were believed to be abroad, and torches were carried about
the fields to protect them from invasion. Charms were tried on that
night with seeds of fern and hemp, and dreams were believed to be
prophetic.
Lugh, in old Highland speech "the summer sun"
"The hour may hither drift
When at the last, amid the o'erwearied Shee--
Weary of long delight and deathless joys--
One you shall love may fade before your eyes,
Before your eyes may fade, and be as mist
Caught in the sunny hollow of Lu's hand,
Lord of the Day."
SHARP: _Immortal Hour._
had for father one of the gods and for mother the daughter of a
chief of the enemy. Hence he possessed some good and some evil
tendencies. He may be the Celtic Mercury, for they were alike
skilled in magic and alchemy, in deception, successful in combats
with demons, the bringers of new strength and cleansing to the
nation. He said farewell to power on the first of August, and his
foster-mother had died on that day, so then it was he set his
feast-day. The occasion was called "Lugnasad," "the bridal of Lugh"
and the earth, whence the harvest should spring. It was celebrated
by the offering of the first fruits of harvest, and by races and
athletic sports. In Meath, Ireland, this continued down into the
nineteenth century, with dancing and horse-racing the first week of
August.
CHAPTER III
SAMHAIN
On November first was Samhain ("summer's end").
"Take my tidings:
Stags contend;
Snows descend--
Summer's end!
"A chill wind raging,
The sun low keeping,
Swift to set
O'er seas high sweeping.
"Dull red the fern;
Shapes are shadows;
Wild geese mourn
O'er misty meadows.
"Keen cold limes each weaker wing,
Icy times--
Such I sing!
Take my tidings."
GRAVES: _First Winter Song._
Then the flocks were driven in, and men first had leisure after
harvest toil. Fires were built as a thanksgiving to Baal for
harvest. The old fire on the altar was quenched before the night of
October 31st, and the new one made, as were all sacred fires, by
friction. It was called "forced-fire." A wheel and a spindle were
used: the wheel, the sun symbol, was turned from east to west,
sunwise. The sparks were caught in tow, blazed upon the altar, and
were passed on to light the hilltop fires. The new fire was given
next morning, New Year's Day, by the priests to the people to light
their hearths, where all fires had been extinguished. The blessed
fire was thought to protect the year through the home it warmed. In
Ireland the altar was Tlactga, on the hill of Ward in Meath, where
sacrifices, especially black sheep, were burnt in the new fire.
From the death struggles and look of the creatures omens for the
future year were taken.
The year was over, and the sun's life of a year was done. The
Celts thought that at this time the sun fell a victim for six
months to the powers of winter darkness. In Egyptian mythology one
of the sun-gods, Osiris, was slain at a banquet by his brother
Sîtou, the god of darkness. On the anniversary of the murder, the
first day of winter, no Egyptian would begin any new business for
fear of bad luck, since the spirit of evil was then in power.
From the idea that the sun suffered from his enemies on this day
grew the association of Samhain with death.
"The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the wither'd leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrub the jay
And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the gloomy day.
"The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the wild rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow:
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the cold clear heaven, as falls the
plague on men,
And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade,
and glen."
BRYANT: _Death of the Flowers._
In the same state as those who are dead, are those who have never
lived, dwelling right in the world, but invisible to most mortals
at most times. Seers could see them at any time, and if very many
were abroad at once others might get a chance to watch them too.
"There is a world in which we dwell,
And yet a world invisible.
And do not think that naught can be
Save only what with eyes ye see:
I tell ye that, this very hour,
Had but your sight a spirit's power,
Ye would be looking, eye to eye,
At a terrific company."
COXE: _Hallowe'en._
These supernatural spirits ruled the dead. There were two classes:
the Tuatha De Danann, "the people of the goddess Danu," gods of
light and life; and spirits of darkness and evil. The Tuatha had
their chief seat on the Isle of Man, in the middle of the Irish
Sea, and brought under their power the islands about them. On a
Midsummer Day they vanquished the Fir Bolgs and gained most of
Ireland, by the battle of Moytura.
A long time afterwards--perhaps 1000 B. C.--the Fomor, sea-demons,
after destroying nearly all their enemies by plagues, exacted from
those remaining, as tribute, "a third part of their corn, a third
part of their milk, and a third part of their children." This tax
was paid on Samhain. It was on the week before Samhain that the
Fomor landed upon Ireland. On the eve of Samhain the gods met them
in the second battle of Moytura, and they were driven back into the
ocean.
As Tigernmas, a mythical king of Ireland, was sacrificing "the
firstlings of every issue, and the scions of every clan" to Crom
Croich, the king idol, and lay prostrate before the image, he and
three-fourths of his men mysteriously disappeared.
"Then came
Tigernmas, the prince of Tara yonder
On Hallowe'en with many hosts.
A cause of grief to them was the deed.
Dead were the men
Of Bamba's host, without happy strength
Around Tigernmas, the destructive man of the north,
From the worship of Crom Cruaich. 'T was no luck for them.
For I have learnt,
Except one-fourth of the keen Gaels,
Not a man alive--lasting the snare!
Escaped without death in his mouth."
_Dinnsenchus of Mag Slecht_ (Meyer _trans._).
This was direct invocation, but the fire rites which were continued
so long afterwards were really only worshipping the sun by proxy,
in his nearest likeness, fire.
Samhain was then a day sacred to the death of the sun, on which had
been paid a sacrifice of death to evil powers. Though overcome at
Moytura evil was ascendant at Samhain. Methods of finding out the
will of spirits and the future naturally worked better then, charms
and invocations had more power, for the spirits were near to help,
if care was taken not to anger them, and due honors paid.
CHAPTER IV
POMONA
Ops was the Latin goddess of plenty. Single parts of her province
were taken over by various other divinities, among whom was Pomona
(_pomorum patrona_, "she who cares for fruits"). She is represented
as a maiden with fruit in her arms and a pruning-knife in her hand.
"I am the ancient apple-queen.
As once I was so am I now--
For evermore a hope unseen
Betwixt the blossom and the bough.
"Ah, where's the river's hidden gold!
And where's the windy grave of Troy?
Yet come I as I came of old,
From out the heart of summer's joy."
MORRIS: _Pomona._
Many Roman poets told stories about her, the best known being by
Ovid, who says that she was wooed by many orchard-gods, but
preferred to remain unmarried. Among her suitors was Vertumnus
("the changer"), the god of the turning year, who had charge of the
exchange of trade, the turning of river channels, and chiefly of
the change in nature from flower to ripe fruit. True to his
character he took many forms to gain Pomona's love. Now he was a
ploughman (spring), now a fisherman (summer), now a reaper
(autumn).
At last he took the likeness of an old woman (winter), and went to
gossip with Pomona. After sounding her mind and finding her averse
to marriage, the woman pleaded for Vertumnus's success.
"Is not he the first to have the fruits which
are thy delight? And does he not hold thy
gifts in his joyous right hand?"
OVID: _Vertumnus and Pomona._
Then the crone told her the story of Anaxarete who was so cold to
her lover Iphis that he hanged himself, and she at the window
watching his funeral train pass by was changed to a marble statue.
Advising Pomona to avoid such a fate, Vertumnus donned his proper
form, that of a handsome young man, and Pomona, moved by the story
and his beauty, yielded and became his wife.
Vertumnus had a statue in the Tuscan Way in Rome, and a temple. His
festival, the Vortumnalia, was held on the 23d of August, when the
summer began to wane. Garlands and garden produce were offered to
him.
Pomona had been assigned one of the fifteen _flamina_, priests
whose duty it was to kindle the fire for special sacrifices. She
had a grove near Ostia where a harvest festival was held about
November first. Not much is known of the ceremonies, but from the
similar August holiday much may be deduced. Then the deities of
fire and water were propitiated that their disfavor might not ruin
the crops. On Pomona's day doubtless thanks was rendered them for
their aid to the harvest. An offering of first-fruits was made in
August; in November the winter store of nuts and apples was opened.
The horses released from toil contended in races.
From Pomona's festival nuts and apples, from the Druidic Samhain
the supernatural element, combined to give later generations the
charms and omens from nuts and apples which are made trial of at
Hallowe'en.
CHAPTER V
THE COMING OF CHRISTIANITY. ALL SAINTS'. ALL SOULS'
The great power which the Druids exercised over their people
interfered with the Roman rule of Britain. Converts were being made
at Rome. Augustus forbade Romans to became initiated, Tiberius
banished the priestly clan and their adherents from Gaul, and
Claudius utterly stamped out the belief there, and put to death a
Roman knight for wearing the serpent's-egg badge to win a lawsuit.
Forbidden to practise their rites in Britain, the Druids fled to
the isle of Mona, near the coast of Wales. The Romans pursued them,
and in 61 A. D. they were slaughtered and their oak groves cut
down. During the next three centuries the cult was stifled to
death, and the Christian religion substituted.
It was believed that at Christ's advent the pagan gods either died
or were banished.
"The lonely mountains o'er
And the resounding shore
A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament.
From haunted spring and dale,
Edged with poplar pale,
The parting genius is with sighing sent.
With flower-inwoven tresses torn
The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn."
MILTON: _On the Morning of Christ's Nativity._
The Christian Fathers explained all oracles and omens by saying
that there was something in them, but that they were the work of
the evil one. The miraculous power they seemed to possess worked
"black magic."
It was a long, hard effort to make men see that their gods had all
the time been wrong, and harder still to root out the age-long
growth of rite and symbol. But on the old religion might be grafted
new names; Midsummer was dedicated to the birth of Saint John;
Lugnasad became Lammas. The fires belonging to these times of year
were retained, their old significance forgotten or reconsecrated.
The rowan, or mountain ash, whose berries had been the food of the
Tuatha, now exorcised those very beings. The trefoil signified the
Trinity, and the cross no longer the rays of the sun on water, but
the cross of Calvary. The fires which had been built to propitiate
the god and consume his sacrifices to induce him to protect them
were now lighted to protect the people from the same god, declared
to be an evil mischief-maker. In time the autumn festival of the
Druids became the vigil of All Hallows or All Saints' Day.
All Saints' was first suggested in the fourth century, when the
Christians were no longer persecuted, in memory of all the saints,
since there were too many for each to have a special day on the
church calendar. A day in May was chosen by Pope Boniface IV in 610
for consecrating the Pantheon, the old Roman temple of all the
gods, to the Virgin and all the saints and martyrs. Pope Gregory
III dedicated a chapel in St. Peter's to the same, and that day was
made compulsory in 835 by Pope Gregory IV, as All Saints'. The day
was changed from May to November so that the crowds that thronged
to Rome for the services might be fed from the harvest bounty. It
is celebrated with a special service in the Greek and Roman
churches and by Episcopalians.
In the tenth century St. Odilo, Bishop of Cluny, instituted a day
of prayer and special masses for the souls of the dead. He had been
told that a hermit dwelling near a cave
"heard the voices and howlings of devils, which complained
strongly because that the souls of them that were dead were taken
away from their hands by alms and by prayers."
DE VORAGINE: _Golden Legend._
This day became All Souls', and was set for November 2d.
It is very appropriate that the Celtic festival when the spirits of
the dead and the supernatural powers held a carnival of triumph
over the god of light, should be followed by All Saints' and All
Souls'. The church holy-days were celebrated by bonfires to light
souls through Purgatory to Paradise, as they had lighted the sun to
his death on Samhain. On both occasions there were prayers: the
pagan petitions to the lord of death for a pleasant dwelling-place
for the souls of departed friends; and the Christian for their
speedy deliverance from torture. They have in common the
celebrating of death: the one, of the sun; the other, of mortals:
of harvest: the one, of crops; the other, of sacred memories. They
are kept by revelry and joy: first, to cheer men and make them
forget the malign influences abroad; second, because as the saints
in heaven rejoice over one repentant sinner, we should rejoice over
those who, after struggles and sufferings past, have entered into
everlasting glory.
"Mother, my Mother, Mother-Country,
Yet were the fields in bud.
And the harvest,--when shall it rise again
Up through the fire and flood?
* * * * *
"Mother, my Mother, Mother-Country,
Was it not all to save
Harvest of bread?--Harvest of men?
And the bright years, wave on wave?
_"Search not, search not, my way-worn;
Search neither weald nor wave.
One is their heavy reaping-time
To the earth, that is one wide grave."_
MARKS: _All Souls' Eve._
CHAPTER VI
ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF HALLOWE'EN OMENS
The custom of making tests to learn the future comes from the old
system of augury from sacrifice. Who sees in the nuts thrown into
the fire, turning in the heat, blazing and growing black, the
writhing victim of an old-time sacrifice to an idol?
Many superstitions and charms were believed to be active at any
time, but all those and numerous special ones worked best on
November Eve. All the tests of all the Celtic festivals have been
allotted to Hallowe'en. Cakes from the May Eve fire, hemp-seed and
prophetic dreams from Midsummer, games and sports from Lugnasad
have survived in varied forms.
Tests are very often tried blindfold, so that the seeker may be
guided by fate. Many are mystic--to evoke apparitions from the
past or future. Others are tried with harvest grains and fruits.
Because skill and undivided attention is needed to carry them
through successfully, many have degenerated into mere contests of
skill, have lost their meaning, and become rough games.
Answers are sought to questions about one's future career; chiefly
to: when and whom shall I marry? what will be my profession and
degree of wealth, and when shall I die?
[Illustration: IN HALLOWE'EN TIME.]
CHAPTER VII
HALLOWE'EN BELIEFS AND CUSTOMS IN IRELAND
Ireland has a literature of Hallowe'en, or "Samhain," as it used to
be called. Most of it was written between the seventh and the
twelfth centuries, but the events were thought to have happened
while paganism still ruled in Ireland.
The evil powers that came out at Samhain lived the rest of the time
in the cave of Cruachan in Connaught, the province which was given
to the wicked Fomor after the battle of Moytura. This cave was
called the "hell-gate of Ireland," and was unlocked on November Eve
to let out spirits and copper-colored birds which killed the farm
animals. They also stole babies, leaving in their place
changelings, goblins who were old in wickedness while still in the
cradle, possessing superhuman cunning and skill in music. One way
of getting rid of these demon children was to ill-treat them so
that their people would come for them, bringing the right ones
back; or one might boil egg-shells in the sight of the changeling,
who would declare his demon nature by saying that in his centuries
of life he had never seen such a thing before.
Brides too were stolen.
"You shall go with me, newly married bride,
And gaze upon a merrier multitude;
White-armed Nuala and Ængus of the birds,
And Feacra of the hurtling foam, and him
Who is the ruler of the western host,
Finvarra, and the Land of Heart's Desire,
Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,
But joy is wisdom, time an endless song."
YEATS: _Land of Heart's Desire._
In the first century B. C. lived Ailill and his queen Medb. As they
were celebrating their Samhain feast in the palace,
"Three days before Samhain at all times,
And three days after, by ancient custom
Did the hosts of high aspiration
Continue to feast for the whole week."
O'CIARAIN: _Loch Garman._
they offered a reward to the man who should tie a bundle of twigs
about the feet of a criminal who had been hanged by the gate. It
was dangerous to go near dead bodies on November Eve, but a bold
young man named Nera dared it, and tied the twigs successfully. As
he turned to go he saw
"the whole of the palace as if on fire before him, and the heads
of the people of it lying on the ground, and then he thought he
saw an army going into the hill of Cruachan, and he followed
after the army."
GREGORY: _Cuchulain of Muirthemne._
The door was shut. Nera was married to a fairy woman, who betrayed
her kindred by sending Nera to warn King Ailill of the intended
attack upon his palace the next November Eve. Nera bore summer
fruits with him to prove that he had been in the fairy _sid_. The
next November Eve, when the doors were opened Ailill entered and
discovered the crown, emblem of power, took it away, and plundered
the treasury. Nera never returned again to the homes of men.
Another story of about the same time was that of Angus, the son of
a Tuatha god, to whom in a dream a beautiful maiden appeared. He
wasted away with love for her, and searched the country for a girl
who should look like her. At last he saw in a meadow among a
hundred and fifty maidens, each with a chain of silver about her
neck, one who was like the beauty of his dream. She wore a golden
chain about her throat, and was the daughter of King Ethal Anbual.
King Ethal's palace was stormed by Ailill, and he was forced to
give up his daughter. He gave as a reason for withholding his
consent so long, that on Samhain Princess Caer changed from a
maiden to a swan, and back again the next year.
"And when the time came Angus went to the loch, and he saw the
three times fifty white birds there with their silver chains
about their necks, and Angus stood in a man's shape at the edge
of the loch, and he called to the girl: 'Come and speak with me,
O Caer!'
"'Who is calling me?' said Caer.
"'Angus calls you,' he said, 'and if you do come, I swear by my
word I will not hinder you from going into the loch again.'"
GREGORY: _Cuchulain of Muirthemne._
She came, and he changed to a swan likewise, and they flew away to
King Dagda's palace, where every one who heard their sweet singing
was charmed into a sleep of three days and three nights.
Princess Etain, of the race of the Tuatha, and wife of Midir, was
born again as the daughter of Queen Medb, the wife of Ailill. She
remembers a little of the land from which she came, is never quite
happy,
"But sometimes--sometimes--tell me: have you heard,
By dusk or moonset have you never heard
Sweet voices, delicate music? Never seen
The passage of the lordly beautiful ones
Men call the Shee?"
SHARP: _Immortal Hour._
even when she wins the love of King Eochaidh. When they have been
married a year, there comes Midir from the Land of Youth. By
winning a game of chess from the King, he gets anything he may ask,
and prays to see the Queen. When he sees her he sings a song of
longing to her, and Eochaidh is troubled because it is Samhain, and
he knows the great power the hosts of the air "have then over those
who wish for happiness."
"Etain, speak!
What is the song the harper sings, what tongue
Is this he speaks? for in no Gaelic lands
Is speech like this upon the lips of men.
No word of all these honey-dripping words
Is known to me. Beware, beware the words
Brewed in the moonshine under ancient oaks
White with pale banners of the mistletoe
Twined round them in their slow and stately death.
It is the feast of Sáveen" (Samhain).
SHARP: _Immortal Hour._
In vain Eochaidh pleads with her to stay with him. She has already
forgotten all but Midir and the life so long ago in the Land of
Youth.
"In the Land of Youth
There are pleasant places;
Green meadows, woods,
Swift grey-blue waters.
"There is no age there,
Nor any sorrow.
As the stars in heaven
Are the cattle in the valleys.
"Great rivers wander
Through flowery plains.
Streams of milk, of mead,
Streams of strong ale.
"There is no hunger
And no thirst
In the Hollow Land,
In the Land of Youth."
SHARP: _Immortal Hour._
She and Midir fly away in the form of two swans, linked by a chain
of gold.
Cuchulain, hopelessly sick of a strange illness brought on by Fand
and Liban, fairy sisters, was visited the day before Samhain by a
messenger, who promised to cure him if he would go to the
Otherworld. Cuchulain could not make up his mind to go, but sent
Laeg, his charioteer. Such glorious reports did Laeg bring back
from the Otherworld,
"If all Erin were mine,
And the kingship of yellow Bregia,
I would give it, no trifling deed,
To dwell for aye in the place I reached."
_Cuchulain's Sick-bed._ (Meyer _trans._)
that Cuchulain went thither, and championed the people there
against their enemies. He stayed a month with the fairy Fand. Emer,
his wife at home, was beset with jealousy, and plotted against
Fand, who had followed her hero home. Fand in fear returned to her
deserted husband, Emer was given a Druidic drink to drown her
jealousy, and Cuchulain another to forget his infatuation, and they
lived happily afterward.
Even after Christianity was made the vital religion in Ireland, it
was believed that places not exorcised by prayers and by the sign
of the cross, were still haunted by Druids. As late as the fifth
century the Druids kept their skill in fortune-telling. King Dathi
got a Druid to foretell what would happen to him from one
Hallowe'en to the next, and the prophecy came true. Their religion
was now declared evil, and all evil or at any rate suspicious
beings were assigned to them or to the devil as followers.
"_Maire Bruin:_
Are not they, likewise, the children of God?
_Father Hart:_
Colleen, they are the children of the fiend,
And they have power until the end of Time,
When God shall fight with them a great pitched battle
And hack them into pieces."
YEATS: _Land of Heart's Desire._
The power of fairy music was so great that St. Patrick himself was
put to sleep by a minstrel who appeared to him on the day before
Samhain. The Tuatha De Danann, angered at the renegade people who
no longer did them honor, sent another minstrel, who after laying
the ancient religious seat Tara under a twenty-three years' charm,
burned up the city with his fiery breath.
These infamous spirits dwelt in grassy mounds, called "forts,"
which were the entrances to underground palaces full of treasure,
where was always music and dancing. These treasure-houses were open
only on November Eve
"For the fairy mounds of Erinn are always
opened about Hallowe'en."
_Expedition of Nera._ (Meyer _trans._)
when the throngs of spirits, fairies, and goblins trooped out for
revels about the country. The old Druid idea of obsession, the
besieging of a person by an evil spirit, was practised by them at
that time.
"This is the first day of the winter, and to-day the
Hosts of the Air are in their greatest power."
WARREN: _Twig of Thorn._
If the fairies wished to seize a mortal--which power they had as
the sun-god could take men to himself--they caused him to give
them certain tokens by which he delivered himself into their hands.
They might be milk and fire--
"_Maire Bruin:_
A little queer old woman cloaked in green,
Who came to beg a porringer of milk.
_Bridget Bruin:_
The good people go asking milk and fire
Upon May Eve--woe to the house that gives,
For they have power over it for a year."
YEATS: _Land of Heart's Desire._
or one might receive a fairy thorn such as Oonah brings home, which
shrivels up at the touch of St. Bridget's image;
"Oh, ever since I kept the twig of thorn and hid it, I have seen
strange things, and heard strange laughter and far voices
calling."
WARREN: _Twig of Thorn._
or one might be lured by music as he stopped near the fort to watch
the dancing, for the revels were held in secret, as those of the
Druids had been, and no one could look on them unaffected.
A story is told of Paddy More, a great stout uncivil churl, and
Paddy Beg, a cheerful little hunchback. The latter, seeing lights
and hearing music, paused by a mound, and was invited in. Urged to
tell stories, he complied; he danced as spryly as he could for his
deformity; he sang, and made himself so agreeable that the fairies
decided to take the hump off his back, and send him home a straight
manly fellow. The next Hallowe'en who should come by the same place
but Paddy More, and he stopped likewise to spy at the merrymaking.
He too was called in, but would not dance politely, added no
stories nor songs. The fairies clapped Paddy Beg's hump on his
back, and dismissed him under a double burden of discomfort.
A lad called Guleesh, listening outside a fort on Hallowe'en heard
the spirits speaking of the fatal illness of his betrothed, the
daughter of the King of France. They said that if Guleesh but knew
it, he might boil an herb that grew by his door and give it to the
princess and make her well. Joyfully Guleesh hastened home,
prepared the herb, and cured the royal girl.
Sometimes people did not have the luck to return, but were led away
to a realm of perpetual youth and music.
"_Father Hart._ What are you reading?
_Maire Bruin._ How a Princess Edane,
A daughter of a King of Ireland, heard
A voice singing on a May Eve like this,
And followed, half awake and half asleep,
Until she came into the land of faery,
Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,
Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,
Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue;
And she is still there, busied with a dance,
Deep in the dewy shadow of a wood,
Or where stars walk upon a mountain-top."
YEATS: _Land of Heart's Desire._
If one returned, he found that the space which seemed to him but
one night, had been many years, and with the touch of earthly sod
the age he had postponed suddenly weighed him down. Ossian,
released from fairyland after three hundred years dalliance there,
rode back to his own country on horseback. He saw men imprisoned
under a block of marble and others trying to lift the stone. As he
leaned over to aid them the girth broke. With the touch of earth
"straightway the white horse fled away on his way home, and Ossian
became aged, decrepit, and blind."
No place as much as Ireland has kept the belief in all sorts of
supernatural spirits abroad among its people. From the time when on
the hill of Ward, near Tara, in pre-Christian days, the sacrifices
were burned and the Tuatha were thought to appear on Samhain, to as
late as 1910, testimony to actual appearances of the "little
people" is to be found.
"'Among the usually invisible races which I have seen in Ireland,
I distinguish five classes. There are the Gnomes, who are
earth-spirits, and who seem to be a sorrowful race. I once saw
some of them distinctly on the side of Ben Bulbin. They had
rather round heads and dark thick-set bodies, and in stature were
about two and one-half feet. The Leprechauns are different, being
full of mischief, though they, too, are small. I followed a
Leprechaun from the town of Wicklow out to the Carraig Sidhe,
"Rock of the Fairies," a distance of half a mile or more, where
he disappeared. He had a very merry face, and beckoned to me with
his finger. A third class are the Little People, who, unlike the
Gnomes and Leprechauns, are quite good-looking; and they are very
small. The Good People are tall, beautiful beings, as tall as
ourselves.... They direct the magnetic currents of the earth. The
Gods are really the Tuatha De Danann, and they are much taller
than our race.'"
WENTZ: _Fairy-faith in Celtic Countries._
The sight of apparitions on Hallowe'en is believed to be fatal to
the beholder.
"One night my lady's soul walked along the wall like a cat. Long
Tom Bowman beheld her and that day week fell he into the well and
was drowned."
PYLE: _Priest and the Piper._
One version of the Jack-o'-lantern story comes from Ireland. A
stingy man named Jack was for his inhospitality barred from all
hope of heaven, and because of practical jokes on the Devil was
locked out of hell. Until the Judgment Day he is condemned to walk
the earth with a lantern to light his way.
The place of the old lord of the dead, the Tuatha god Saman, to
whom vigil was kept and prayers said on November Eve for the good
of departed souls, was taken in Christian times by St. Colomba or
Columb Kill, the founder of a monastery in Iona in the fifth
century. In the seventeenth century the Irish peasants went about
begging money and goodies for a feast, and demanding in the name of
Columb Kill that fatted calves and black sheep be prepared. In
place of the Druid fires, candles were collected and lighted on
Hallowe'en, and prayers for the souls of the givers said before
them. The name of Saman is kept in the title "Oidhche Shamhna,"
"vigil of Saman," by which the night of October 31st was until
recently called in Ireland.
There are no Hallowe'en bonfires in Ireland now, but charms and
tests are tried. Apples and nuts, the treasure of Pomona, figure
largely in these. They are representative winter fruits, the
commonest. They can be gathered late and kept all winter.
A popular drink at the Hallowe'en gathering in the eighteenth
century was milk in which crushed roasted apples had been mixed. It
was called lambs'-wool (perhaps from "La Mas Ubhal," "the day of
the apple fruit"). At the Hallowe'en supper "callcannon," mashed
potatoes, parsnips, and chopped onions, is indispensable. A ring is
buried in it, and the one who finds it in his portion will be
married in a year, or if he is already married, will be lucky.
"They had colcannon, and the funniest things were found in
it--tiny dolls, mice, a pig made of china, silver sixpences, a
thimble, a ring, and lots of other things. After supper was over
all went into the big play-room, and dived for apples in a tub of
water, fished for prizes in a basin of flour; then there were
games----"
TRANT: _Hallowe'en in Ireland._
A coin betokened to the finder wealth; the thimble, that he would
never marry.
A ring and a nut are baked in a cake. The ring of course means
early marriage, the nut signifies that its finder will marry a
widow or a widower. If the kernel is withered, no marriage at all
is prophesied. In Roscommon, in central Ireland, a coin, a sloe,
and a bit of wood were baked in a cake. The one getting the sloe
would live longest, the one getting the wood was destined to die
within the year.
A mould of flour turned out on the table held similar tokens. Each
person cut off a slice with a knife, and drew out his prize with
his teeth.
After supper the tests were tried. In the last century nut-shells
were burned. The best-known nut test is made as follows: three nuts
are named for a girl and two sweethearts. If one burns steadily
with the girl's nut, that lover is faithful to her, but if either
hers or one of the other nuts starts away, there will be no happy
friendship between them.
Apples are snapped from the end of a stick hung parallel to the
floor by a twisted cord which whirls the stick rapidly when it is
let go. Care has to be taken not to bite the candle burning on the
other end. Sometimes this test is made easier by dropping the
apples into a tub of water and diving for them, or piercing them
with a fork dropped straight down.
Green herbs called "livelong" were plucked by the children and hung
up on Midsummer Eve. If a plant was found to be still green on
Hallowe'en, the one who had hung it up would prosper for the year,
but if it had turned yellow or had died, the child would also die.
Hemp-seed is sown across three furrows, the sower repeating:
"Hemp-seed, I saw thee, hemp-seed, I saw thee; and her that is to
be my true love, come after me and draw thee." On looking back over
his shoulder he will see the apparition of his future wife in the
act of gathering hemp.
Seven cabbage stalks were named for any seven of the company, then
pulled up, and the guests asked to come out, and "see their
sowls."
"One, two, three, and up to seven;
If all are white, all go to heaven;
If one is black as Murtagh's evil,
He'll soon be screechin' wi' the devil."
Red Mike "was a queer one from his birth, an' no wonder, for he
first saw the light atween dusk an' dark o' a Hallowe'en Eve." When
the cabbage test was tried at a party where Mike was present, six
stalks were found to be white, but Mike's was "all black an' fowl
wi' worms an' slugs, an' wi' a real bad smell ahint it." Angered at
the ridicule he received, he cried: "I've the gift o' the night, I
have, an' on this day my curse can blast whatever I choose." At
that the priest showed Mike a crucifix, and he ran away howling,
and disappeared through a bog into the ground.
SHARP: _Threefold Chronicle._
Twelve of the party may learn their future, if one gets a clod of
earth from the churchyard sets up twelve candles in it, lights and
names them. The fortune of each will be like that of the
candle-light named for him,--steady, wavering, or soon in darkness.
A ball of blue yarn was thrown out of the window by a girl who held
fast to the end. She wound it over on her hand from left to right,
saying the Creed backwards. When she had nearly finished, she
expected the yarn would be held. She must ask "Who holds?" and the
wind would sigh her sweetheart's name in at the window.
In some charms the devil was invoked directly. If one walked about
a rick nine times with a rake, saying, "I rake this rick in the
devil's name," a vision would come and take away the rake.
If one went out with nine grains of oats in his mouth, and walked
about until he heard a girl's name called or mentioned, he would
know the name of his future wife, for they would be the same.
Lead is melted, and poured through a key or a ring into cold water.
The form each spoonful takes in cooling indicates the occupation
of the future husband of the girl who poured it.
"Now something like a horse would cause the jubilant maiden to
call out, 'A dragoon!' Now some dim resemblance to a helmet would
suggest a handsome member of the mounted police; or a round
object with a spike would seem a ship, and this of course meant a
sailor; or a cow would suggest a cattle-dealer, or a plough a
farmer."
SHARP: _Threefold Chronicle._
After the future had been searched, a piper played a jig, to which
all danced merrily with a loud noise to scare away the evil
spirits.
Just before midnight was the time to go out "alone and unperceived"
to a south-running brook, dip a shirt-sleeve in it, bring it home
and hang it by the fire to dry. One must go to bed, but watch till
midnight for a sight of the destined mate who would come to turn
the shirt to dry the other side.
Ashes were raked smooth on the hearth at bedtime on Hallowe'en, and
the next morning examined for footprints. If one was turned from
the door, guests or a marriage was prophesied; if toward the door,
a death.
To have prophetic dreams a girl should search for a briar grown
into a hoop, creep through thrice in the name of the devil, cut it
in silence, and go to bed with it under her pillow. A boy should
cut ten ivy leaves, throw away one and put the rest under his head
before he slept.
If a girl leave beside her bed a glass of water with a sliver of
wood in it, and say before she falls asleep:
"Husband mine that is to be,
Come this night and rescue me,"
she will dream of falling off a bridge into the water, and of being
saved at the last minute by the spirit of her future husband. To
receive a drink from his hand she must eat a cake of flour, soot,
and salt before she goes to bed.
The Celtic spirit of yearning for the unknown, retained nowhere
else as much as in Ireland, is expressed very beautifully by the
poet Yeats in the introduction to his _Celtic Twilight_.
"The host is riding from Knocknarea
And over the grave of Clooth-na-bare;
Caolte tossing his burning hair,
And Niam calling: 'Away, come away;
"'And brood no more where the fire is bright,
Filling thy heart with a mortal dream;
For breasts are heaving and eyes a-gleam:
Away, come away to the dim twilight
"'Arms are heaving and lips apart;
And if any gaze on our rushing band,
We come between him and the deed of his hand,
We come between him and the hope of his heart.'
"The host is rushing twixt night and day,
And where is there hope or deed as fair?
Caolte tossing his burning hair,
And Niam calling: 'Away, come away.'"
CHAPTER VIII
IN SCOTLAND AND THE HEBRIDES
As in Ireland the Scotch Baal festival of November was called
Samhain. Western Scotland, lying nearest Tara, center alike of
pagan and Christian religion in Ireland, was colonized by both the
people and the customs of eastern Ireland.
The November Eve fires which in Ireland either died out or were
replaced by candles were continued in Scotland. In Buchan, where
was the altar-source of the Samhain fire, bonfires were lighted on
hilltops in the eighteenth century; and in Moray the idea of fires
of thanksgiving for harvest was kept to as late as 1866. All
through the eighteenth century in the Highlands and in Perthshire
torches of heath, broom, flax, or ferns were carried about the
fields and villages by each family, with the intent to cause good
crops in succeeding years. The course about the fields was sunwise,
to have a good influence. Brought home at dark, the torches were
thrown down in a heap, and made a fire. This blaze was called
"Samhnagan," "of rest and pleasure." There was much competition to
have the largest fire. Each person put in one stone to make a
circle about it. The young people ran about with burning brands.
Supper was eaten out-of-doors, and games played. After the fire had
burned out, ashes were raked over the stones. In the morning each
sought his pebble, and if he found it misplaced, harmed, or a
footprint marked near it in the ashes, he believed he should die in
a year.
In Aberdeenshire boys went about the villages saying: "Ge's a peat
t' burn the witches." They were thought to be out stealing milk and
harming cattle. Torches used to counteract them were carried from
west to east, against the sun. This ceremony grew into a game, when
a fire was built by one party, attacked by another, and defended.
As in the May fires of purification the lads lay down in the smoke
close by, or ran about and jumped over the flames. As the fun grew
wilder they flung burning peats at each other, scattered the ashes
with their feet, and hurried from one fire to another to have a
part in scattering as many as possible before they died out.
In 1874, at Balmoral, a royal celebration of Hallowe'en was
recorded. Royalty, tenants, and servants bore torches through the
grounds and round the estates. In front of the castle was a heap of
stuff saved for the occasion. The torches were thrown on. When the
fire was burning its liveliest, a hobgoblin appeared, drawing in a
car the figure of a witch, surrounded by fairies carrying lances.
The people formed a circle about the fire, and the witch was tossed
in. Then there were dances to the music of bag-pipes.
It was the time of year when servants changed masters or signed up
anew under the old ones. They might enjoy a holiday before resuming
work. So they sang:
"This is Hallaeven,
The morn is Halladay;
Nine free nichts till Martinmas,
As soon they'll wear away."
Children born on Hallowe'en could see and converse with
supernatural powers more easily than others. In Ireland, evil
relations caused Red Mike's downfall (q. v.). For Scotland Mary
Avenel, in Scott's _Monastery_, is the classic example.
"And touching the bairn, it's weel kenn'd she was born on
Hallowe'en, and they that are born on Hallowe'en whiles see mair
than ither folk."
There is no hint of dark relations, but rather of a
clear-sightedness which lays bare truths, even those concealed in
men's breasts. Mary Avenel sees the spirit of her father after he
has been dead for years. The White Lady of Avenel is her peculiar
guardian.
The Scottish Border, where Mary lived, is the seat of many
superstitions and other worldly beliefs. The fairies of Scotland
are more terrible than those of Ireland, as the dells and streams
and woods are of greater grandeur, and the character of the people
more serious. It is unlucky to name the fairies, here as elsewhere,
except by such placating titles as "Good Neighbors" or "Men of
Peace." Rowan, elm, and holly are a protection against them.
"I have tied red thread round the bairns' throats, and given ilk
ane of them a riding-wand of rowan-tree, forbye sewing up a slip
of witch-elm into their doublets; and I wish to know of your
reverence if there be onything mair that a lone woman can do in
the matter of ghosts and fairies?--be here! that I should have
named their unlucky names twice ower!"
SCOTT: _Monastery._
"The sign of the cross disarmeth all evil spirits."
These spirits of the air have not human feelings or motives. They
are conscienceless. In this respect Peter Pan is an immortal fairy
as well as an immortal child. While like a child he resents
injustice in horrified silence, like a fairy he acts with no sense
of responsibility. When he saves Wendy's brother from falling as
they fly,
"You felt it was his cleverness that interested him, and not the
saving of human life."
BARRIE: _Peter and Wendy._
The world in which Peter lived was so near the Kensington Gardens
that he could see them through the bridge as he sat on the shore of
the Neverland. Yet for a long time he could not get to them.
Peter is a fairy piper who steals away the souls of children.
"No man alive has seen me,
But women hear me play,
Sometimes at door or window,
Fiddling the souls away--
The child's soul and the colleen's
Out of the covering clay."
HOPPER: _Fairy Fiddler._
On Hallowe'en all traditional spirits are abroad. The Scotch
invented the idea of a "Samhanach," a goblin who comes out just at
"Samhain." It is he who in Ireland steals children. The fairies
pass at crossroads,
"But the night is Hallowe'en, lady,
The morn is Hallowday;
Then win me, win me, and ye will,
For weel I wot ye may.
"Just at the mirk and midnight hour
The fairy folk will ride.
And they that wad their true-love win,
At Miles Cross they maun bide."
_Ballad of Tam Lin._
and in the Highlands whoever took a three-legged stool to where
three crossroads met, and sat upon it at midnight, would hear the
names of those who were to die in a year. He might bring with him
articles of dress, and as each name was pronounced throw one
garment to the fairies. They would be so pleased by this gift that
they would repeal the sentence of death.
Even people who seemed to be like their neighbors every day could
for this night fly away and join the other beings in their revels.
"This is the nicht o' Hallowe'en
When a' the witchie may be seen;
Some o' them black, some o' them green,
Some o' them like a turkey bean."
A witches' party was conducted in this way. The wretched women who
had sold their souls to the Devil, left a stick in bed which by
evil means was made to have their likeness, and, anointed with the
fat of murdered babies flew off up the chimney on a broomstick with
cats attendant. Burns tells the story of a company of witches
pulling ragwort by the roadside, getting each astride her ragwort
with the summons "Up horsie!" and flying away.
"The hag is astride
This night for a ride,
The devils and she together:
Through thick and through thin,
Now out and now in,
Though ne'er so foul be the weather.
* * * * *
"A thorn or a burr
She takes for a spur,
With a lash of the bramble she rides now.
Through brake and through briers,
O'er ditches and mires,
She follows the spirit that guides now."
HERRICK: _The Hag._
The meeting-place was arranged by the Devil, who sometimes rode
there on a goat. At their supper no bread or salt was eaten; they
drank out of horses' skulls, and danced, sometimes back to back,
sometimes from west to east, for the dances at the ancient Baal
festivals were from east to west, and it was evil and ill-omened to
move the other way. For this dance the Devil played a bag-pipe made
of a hen's skull and cats' tails.
"There sat Auld Nick, in shape o' beast;
A tousie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl."[1]
BURNS: _Tam o' Shanter._
[1] Ring.
The light for the revelry came from a torch flaring between the
horns of the Devil's steed the goat, and at the close the ashes
were divided for the witches to use in incantations. People
imagined that cats who had been up all night on Hallowe'en were
tired out the next morning.
Tam o' Shanter who was watching such a dance
"By Alloway's auld haunted kirk"
in Ayrshire, could not resist calling out at the antics of a
neighbor whom he recognized, and was pursued by the witches. He
urged his horse to top-speed,
"Now do thy speedy utmost, Meg,
And win the key-stane of the brig;
There at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running stream they dare na cross!"
BURNS: _Tam o' Shanter._
but poor Meg had no tail thereafter to toss at them, for though she
saved her rider, she was only her tail's length beyond the middle
of the bridge when the foremost witch grasped it and seared it to
a stub.
Such witches might be questioned about the past or future.
"He that dare sit on St. Swithin's Chair,
When the Night-Hag wings the troubled air,
Questions three, when he speaks the spell,
He may ask, and she must tell."
SCOTT: _St. Swithin's Chair._
Children make of themselves bogies on this evening, carrying the
largest turnips they can save from harvest, hollowed out and carved
into the likeness of a fearsome face, with teeth and forehead
blacked, and lighted by a candle fastened inside.
If the spirit of a person simply appears without being summoned,
and the person is still alive, it means that he is in danger. If he
comes toward the one to whom he appears the danger is over. If he
seems to go away, he is dying.
An apparition from the future especially is sought on Hallowe'en.
It is a famous time for divination in love affairs. A typical
eighteenth century party in western Scotland is described by Robert
Burns.
Cabbages are important in Scotch superstition. Children believe
that if they pile cabbage-stalks round the doors and windows of the
house, the fairies will bring them a new brother or sister.
"And often when in his old-fashioned way
He questioned me,...
Who made the stars? and if within his hand
He caught and held one, would his fingers burn?
If I, the gray-haired dominie, was dug
From out a cabbage-garden such as he
Was found in----"
BUCHANAN: _Willie Baird._
Kale-pulling came first on the program in Burns's _Hallowe'en_.
Just the single and unengaged went out hand in hand blindfolded to
the cabbage-garden. They pulled the first stalk they came upon,
brought it back to the house, and were unbandaged. The size and
shape of the stalk indicated the appearance of the future husband
or wife.
"Maybe you would rather not pull a stalk that was tall and
straight and strong--that would mean Alastair? Maybe you would
rather find you had got hold of a withered old stump with a lot
of earth at the root--a decrepit old man with plenty of money in
the bank? Or maybe you are wishing for one that is slim and
supple and not so tall--for one that might mean Johnnie Semple."
BLACK: _Hallowe'en Wraith._
A close white head meant an old husband, an open green head a young
one. His disposition would be like the taste of the stem. To
determine his name, the stalks were hung over the door, and the
number of one's stalk in the row noted. If Jessie put hers up third
from the beginning, and the third man who passed through the
doorway under it was named Alan, her husband's first name would be
Alan. This is practised only a little now among farmers. It has
special virtue if the cabbage has been stolen from the garden of an
unmarried person.
Sometimes the pith of a cabbage-stalk was pushed out, the hole
filled with tow, which was set afire and blown through keyholes on
Hallowe'en.
"Their runts clean through and through were bored,
And stuffed with raivelins fou,
And like a chimley when on fire
Each could the reek outspue.
"Jock through the key-hole sent a cloud
That reached across the house,
While in below the door reek rushed
Like water through a sluice."
DICK: _Splores of a Hallowe'en._
Cabbage-broth was a regular dish at the Hallowe'en feast. Mashed
potatoes, as in Ireland, or a dish of meal and milk holds symbolic
objects--a ring, a thimble, and a coin. In the cake are baked a
ring and a key. The ring signifies to the possessor marriage, and
the key a journey.
Apple-ducking is still a universal custom in Scotland. A sixpence
is sometimes dropped into the tub or stuck into an apple to make
the reward greater. The contestants must keep their hands behind
their backs.
Nuts are put before the fire in pairs, instead of by threes as in
Ireland, and named for a lover and his lass. If they burn to ashes
together, long happy married life is destined for the lovers. If
they crackle or start away from each other, dissension and
separation are ahead.
"Jean slips in twa, wi' tentie[1] e'e;
Wha 't was, she wadna tell;
But this is _Jock_, an' this is _me_,
She says in to hersel;
He bleez'd owre her, an' she owre him,
As they wad never mair part;
Till fuff! he started up the lum,[2]
And Jean had e'en a sair heart
To see't that night."
BURNS: _Hallowe'en._
[1] Careful.
[2] Chimney.
Three "luggies," bowls with handles like the Druid lamps, were
filled, one with clean, one with dirty water, and one left empty.
The person wishing to know his fate in marriage was blindfolded,
turned about thrice, and put down his left hand. If he dipped it
into the clean water, he would marry a maiden; if into the dirty, a
widow; if into the empty dish, not at all. He tried until he got
the same result twice. The dishes were changed about each time.
This spell still remains, as does that of hemp-seed sowing. One
goes out alone with a handful of hemp-seed, sows it across ridges
of ploughed land, and harrows it with anything convenient, perhaps
with a broom. Having said:
"Hemp-seed, I saw thee,
An' her that is to be my lass
Come after me an' draw thee----"
BURNS: _Hallowe'en._
he looks behind him to see his sweetheart gathering hemp. This
should be tried just at midnight with the moon behind.
"At even o' Hallowmas no sleep I sought,
But to the field a bag of hemp-seed brought.
I scattered round the seed on every side,
And three times three in trembling accents cried,
'This hemp-seed with my virgin hand I sow,
Who shall my true-love be, the crop shall mow.'"
GAY: _Pastorals._
A spell that has been discontinued is throwing the clue of blue
yarn into the kiln-pot, instead of out of the window, as in
Ireland. As it is wound backward, something holds it. The winder
must ask, "Wha hauds?" to hear the name of her future sweetheart.
"An' ay she win't, an' ay she swat--
I wat she made nae jaukin;
Till something held within the pat,
Guid Lord! but she was quakin!
But whether 't was the Deil himsel,
Or whether 't was a bauk-en'[1]
Or whether it was Andrew Bell,
She did na wait on talkin
To speir[2] that night."
BURNS: _Hallowe'en._
[1] Cross-beam.
[2] Ask.
Another spell not commonly tried now is winnowing three measures of
imaginary corn, as one stands in the barn alone with both doors
open to let the spirits that come in go out again freely. As one
finishes the motions, the apparition of the future husband will
come in at one door and pass out at the other.
"'I had not winnowed the last weight clean out, and the moon was
shining bright upon the floor, when in stalked the presence of my
dear Simon Glendinning, that is now happy. I never saw him
plainer in my life than I did that moment; he held up an arrow as
he passed me, and I swarf'd awa' wi' fright.... But mark the end
o' 't, Tibb: we were married, and the grey-goose wing was the
death o' him after a'.'"
SCOTT: _The Monastery._
At times other prophetic appearances were seen.
"Just as she was at the wark, what does she see in the moonlicht
but her ain coffin moving between the doors instead of the
likeness of a gudeman! and as sure's death she was in her coffin
before the same time next year."
ANON: _Tale of Hallowe'en._
Formerly a stack of beans, oats, or barley was measured round with
the arms against sun. At the end of the third time the arms would
enclose the vision of the future husband or wife.
Kale-pulling, apple-snapping, and lead-melting (see Ireland) are
social rites, but many were to be tried alone and in secret. A
Highland divination was tried with a shoe, held by the tip, and
thrown over the house. The person will journey in the direction the
toe points out. If it falls sole up, it means bad luck.
Girls would pull a straw each out of a thatch in Broadsea, and
would take it to an old woman in Fraserburgh. The seeress would
break the straw and find within it a hair the color of the
lover's-to-be. Blindfolded they plucked heads of oats, and counted
the number of grains to find out how many children they would have.
If the tip was perfect, not broken or gone, they would be married
honorably.
Another way of determining the number of children was to drop the
white of an egg into a glass of water. The number of divisions was
the number sought. White of egg is held with water in the mouth,
like the grains of oats in Ireland, while one takes a walk to hear
mentioned the name of his future wife. Names are written on papers,
and laid upon the chimney-piece. Fate guides the hand of a
blindfolded man to the slip which bears his sweetheart's name.
A Hallowe'en mirror is made by the rays of the moon shining into a
looking-glass. If a girl goes secretly into a room at midnight
between October and November, sits down at the mirror, and cuts an
apple into nine slices, holding each on the point of a knife before
she eats it, she may see in the moonlit glass the image of her
lover looking over her left shoulder, and asking for the last piece
of apple.
The wetting of the sark-sleeve in a south-running burn where "three
lairds' lands meet," and carrying it home to dry before the fire,
was really a Scotch custom, but has already been described in
Ireland.
"The last Hallowe'en I was waukin[1]
My droukit[2] sark-sleeve, as ye kin--
His likeness came up the house staukin,
And the very grey breeks o' Tam Glen!"
BURNS: _Tam Glen._
[1] Watching.
[2] Drenched.
Just before breaking up, the crowd of young people partook of
sowens, oatmeal porridge cakes with butter, and strunt, a liquor,
as they hoped for good luck throughout the year.
The Hebrides, Scottish islands off the western coast, have
Hallowe'en traditions of their own, as well as many borrowed from
Ireland and Scotland. Barra, isolated near the end of the island
chain, still celebrates the Celtic days, Beltaine and November Eve.
In the Hebrides is the Irish custom of eating on Hallowe'en a cake
of meal and salt, or a salt herring, bones and all, to dream of
some one bringing a drink of water. Not a word must be spoken, nor
a drop of water drunk till the dream comes.
In St. Kilda a large triangular cake is baked which must be all
eaten up before morning.
A curious custom that prevailed in the island of Lewis in the
eighteenth century was the worship of Shony, a sea-god with a Norse
name. His ceremonies were similar to those paid to Saman in
Ireland, but more picturesque. Ale was brewed at church from malt
brought collectively by the people. One took a cupful in his hand,
and waded out into the sea up to his waist, saying as he poured it
out: "Shony, I give you this cup of ale, hoping that you'll be so
kind as to send us plenty of sea-ware, for enriching our ground the
ensuing year." The party returned to the church, waited for a given
signal when a candle burning on the altar was blown out. Then they
went out into the fields, and drank ale with dance and song.
The "dumb cake" originated in Lewis. Girls were each apportioned a
small piece of dough, mixed with any but spring water. They kneaded
it with their left thumbs, in silence. Before midnight they pricked
initials on them with a new pin, and put them by the fire to bake.
The girls withdrew to the farther end of the room, still in silence.
At midnight each lover was expected to enter and lay his hand on
the cake marked with his initials.
In South Uist and Eriskay on Hallowe'en fairies are out, a source
of terror to those they meet.
"Hallowe'en will come, will come,
Witchcraft will be set a-going,
Fairies will be at full speed,
Running in every pass.
Avoid the road, children, children."
But for the most part this belief has died out on Scottish land,
except near the Border, and Hallowe'en is celebrated only by
stories and jokes and games, songs and dances.
CHAPTER IX
IN ENGLAND AND MAN
Man especially has a treasury of fairy tradition, Celtic and Norse
combined. Manx fairies too dwell in the middle world, since they
are fit for neither heaven nor hell. Even now Manx people think
they see circles of light in the late October midnight, and little
folk dancing within.
Longest of all in Man was Sauin (Samhain) considered New Year's
Day. According to the old style of reckoning time it came on
November 12.
"To-night is New Year's night.
Hogunnaa!"
_Mummers' Song._
As in Scotland the servants' year ends with October.
New Year tests for finding out the future were tried on Sauin. To
hear her sweetheart's name a girl took a mouthful of water and two
handfuls of salt, and sat down at a door. The first name she heard
mentioned was the wished-for one. The three dishes proclaimed the
fate of the blindfolded seeker as in Scotland. Each was blindfolded
and touched one of several significant objects--meal for
prosperity, earth for death, a net for tangled fortunes.
Before retiring each filled a thimble with salt, and emptied it out
in a little mound on a plate, remembering his own. If any heap were
found fallen over by morning, the person it represented was
destined to die in a year. The Manx looked for prints in the
smooth-strewn ashes on the hearth, as the Scotch did, and gave the
same interpretation.
There had been Christian churches in Britain as early as 300 A. D.,
and Christian missionaries, St. Ninian, Pelagius, and St. Patrick,
were active in the next century, and in the course of time St.
Augustine. Still the old superstitions persisted, as they always do
when they have grown up with the people.
King Arthur, who was believed to have reigned in the fifth century,
may be a personification of the sun-god. He comes from the
Otherworld, his magic sword Excalibur is brought thence to him, he
fights twelve battles, in number like the months, and is wounded to
death by evil Modred, once his own knight. He passes in a boat,
attended by his fairy sister and two other queens,
"'To the island-valley of Avilion;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard-lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea----'"
TENNYSON: _Passing of Arthur._
The hope of being healed there is like that given to Cuchulain (q.
v.), to persuade him to visit the fairy kingdom. Arthur was
expected to come again sometime, as the sun renews his course. As
he disappeared from the sight of Bedivere, the last of his knights,
"The new sun rose bringing the new year."
_Ibid._
Avilion means "apple-island." It was like the Hesperides of Greek
mythology, the western islands where grew the golden apples of
immortality.
In Cornwall after the sixth century, the sun-god became St.
Michael, and the eastern point where he appeared St. Michael's
seat.
"Where the great vision of the guarded mount
Looks toward Namancos, and Bayona's hold."
MILTON: _Lycidas._
As fruit to Pomona, so berries were devoted to fairies. They would
not let any one cut a blackthorn shoot on Hallowe'en. In Cornwall
sloes and blackberries were considered unfit to eat after the
fairies had passed by, because all the goodness was extracted. So
they were eaten to heart's content on October 31st, and avoided
thereafter. Hazels, because they were thought to contain wisdom and
knowledge, were also sacred.
Besides leaving berries for the "Little People," food was set out
for them on Hallowe'en, and on other occasions. They rewarded this
hospitality by doing an extraordinary amount of work.
"--how the drudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-laborers could not end.
Then lies him down the lubbar fiend,
And stretcht out all the chimney's length
Basks at the fire his hairy strength."
MILTON: _L'Allegro._
Such sprites did not scruple to pull away the chair as one was
about to sit down, to pinch, or even to steal children and leave
changelings in their places. The first hint of dawn drove them back
to their haunts.
"When larks 'gin sing,
Away we fling;
And babes new borne steal as we go,
And elfe in bed
We leave instead,
And wend us laughing, ho, ho, ho!"
JONSON: _Robin Goodfellow._
Soulless and without gratitude or memory spirits of the air may be,
like Ariel in _The Tempest_. He, like the fairy harpers of Ireland,
puts men to sleep with his music.
"_Sebastian._ What, art thou waking?
_Antonio._ Do you not hear me speak?
_Sebastian._ I do; and, surely,
It is a sleepy language; and thou speak'st
Out of thy sleep: What is it thou didst say?
This is a strange repose, to be asleep
With eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving,
And yet so fast asleep."
SHAKSPERE: _The Tempest._
The people of England, in common with those who lived in the other
countries of Great Britain and in Europe, dreaded the coming of
winter not only on account of the cold and loneliness, but because
they believed that at this time the powers of evil were abroad and
ascendant. This belief harked back to the old idea that the sun had
been vanquished by his enemies in the late autumn. It was to forget
the fearful influences about them that the English kept festival
so much in the winter-time. The Lords of Misrule, leaders of the
revelry, "beginning their rule on All Hallow Eve, continued the
same till the morrow after the Feast of the Purification, commonlie
called Candelmas day: In all of which space there were fine and
subtle disguisinges, Maskes, and Mummeries." This was written of
King Henry IV's court at Eltham, in 1401, and is true of centuries
before and after. They gathered about the fire and made merry while
the October tempests whirled the leaves outside, and shrieked round
the house like ghosts and demons on a mad carousal.
"The autumn wind--oh hear it howl:
Without--October's tempests scowl,
As he troops away on the raving wind!
And leaveth dry leaves in his path behind.
* * * * *
"'Tis the night--the night
Of the graves' delight,
And the warlock[1] are at their play!
Ye think that without
The wild winds shout,
But no, it is they--it is they!"
COXE: _Hallowe'en._
[1] Devils.
Witchcraft--the origin of which will be traced farther on--had a
strong following in England. The three witches in _Macbeth_ are
really fates who foretell the future, but they have a kettle in
which they boil
"Fillet of a fenny snake,
* * * * *
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blindworm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble----"
SHAKSPERE: _Macbeth._
They connect themselves thereby with those evil creatures who
pursued Tam o' Shanter, and were servants of the Devil. In 1892 in
Lincolnshire, people believed that if they looked in through the
church door on Hallowe'en they would see the Devil preaching his
doctrines from the pulpit, and inscribing the names of new witches
in his book.
The Spectre Huntsman, known in Windsor Forest as Herne the Hunter,
and in Todmorden as Gabriel Ratchets, was the spirit of an ungodly
hunter who for his crimes was condemned to lead the chase till the
Judgment Day. In a storm on Hallowe'en is heard the belling of his
hounds.
"Still, still shall last the dreadful chase
Till time itself shall have an end;
By day they scour earth's cavern'd space,
At midnight's witching hour, ascend.
"This is the horn, the hound, and horse,
That oft the lated peasant hears:
Appall'd, he signs the frequent cross,
When the wild din invades his ears."
SCOTT: _Wild Huntsman._
In the north of England Hallowe'en was called "nut-crack" and
"snap-apple night." It was celebrated by "young people and
sweethearts."
A variation of the nut test is, naming two for two lovers before
they are put before the fire to roast. The unfaithful lover's nut
cracks and jumps away, the loyal burns with a steady ardent flame
to ashes.
"Two hazel-nuts I threw into the flame,
And to each nut I gave a sweetheart's name.
This with the loudest bounce me sore amaz'd,
That in a flame of brightest color blaz'd;
As blaz'd the nut, so may thy passion grow,
For 't was thy nut that did so brightly glow."
GAY: _The Spell._
If they jump toward each other, they will be rivals. If one of the
nuts has been named for the girl and burns quietly with a lover's
nut, they will live happily together. If they are restless, there
is trouble ahead.
"These glowing nuts are emblems true
Of what in human life we view;
The ill-matched couple fret and fume,
And thus in strife themselves consume,
Or from each other wildly start
And with a noise forever part.
But see the happy, happy pair
Of genuine love and truth sincere;
With mutual fondness, while they burn
Still to each other kindly turn:
And as the vital sparks decay,
Together gently sink away.
Till, life's fierce ordeal being past,
Their mingled ashes rest at last."
GRAYDON: _On Nuts Burning, Allhallows Eve._
Sometimes peas on a hot shovel are used instead.
Down the centuries from the Druid tree-worship comes the spell of
the walnut-tree. It is circled thrice, with the invocation: "Let
her that is to be my true-love bring me some walnuts;" and directly
a spirit will be seen in the tree gathering nuts.
"Last Hallow Eve I sought a walnut-tree,
In hope my true Love's face that I might see;
Three times I called, three times I walked apace;
Then in the tree I saw my true Love's face."
GAY: _Pastorals._
The seeds of apples were used in many trials. Two stuck on cheeks
or eyelids indicated by the time they clung the faithfulness of the
friends named for them.
"See from the core two kernels brown I take:
This on my cheek for Lubberkin is worn,
And Booby Clod on t'other side is borne;
But Booby Clod soon drops upon the ground,
A certain token that his love's unsound;
While Lubberkin sticks firmly to the last.
Oh! were his lips to mine but joined so fast."
GAY: _Pastorals._
In a tub float stemless apples, to be seized by the teeth of him
desirous of having his love returned. If he is successful in
bringing up the apple, his love-affair will end happily.
"The rosy apple's bobbing
Upon the mimic sea--
'T is tricksy and elusive,
And glides away from me.
"One moment it is dreaming
Beneath the candle's glare,
Then over wave and eddy
It glances here and there.
"And when at last I capture
The prize with joy aglow,
I sigh, may I this sunshine
Of golden rapture know
"When I essay to gather
In all her witchery
Love's sweetest rosy apple
On Love's uncertain sea."
MUNKITTRICK: _Hallowe'en Wish._
An apple is peeled all in one piece, and the paring swung three
times round the head and dropped behind the left shoulder. If it
does not break, and is looked at over the shoulder it forms the
initial of the true sweetheart's name.
"I pare this pippin round and round again,
My sweetheart's name to flourish on the plain:
I fling the unbroken paring o'er my head.
A perfect 'L' upon the ground is read."
GAY: _Pastorals._
In the north of England was a unique custom, "the scadding of
peas." A pea-pod was slit, a bean pushed inside, and the opening
closed again. The full pods were boiled, and apportioned to be
shelled and the peas eaten with butter and salt. The one finding
the bean on his plate would be married first. Gay records another
test with peas which is like the final trial made with kale-stalks.
"As peascods once I plucked I chanced to see
One that was closely filled with three times three;
Which when I crop'd, I safely home convey'd,
And o'er the door the spell in secret laid;--
The latch moved up, when who should first come in,
But in his proper person--Lubberkin."
GAY: _Pastorals._
Candles, relics of the sacred fire, play an important part
everywhere on Hallowe'en. In England too the lighted candle and the
apple were fastened to the stick, and as it whirled, each person in
turn sprang up and tried to bite the apple.
"Or catch th' elusive apple with a bound,
As with the taper it flew whizzing round."
This was a rough game, more suited to boys' frolic than the ghostly
divinations that preceded it. Those with energy to spare found
material to exercise it on. In an old book there is a picture of a
youth sitting on a stick placed across two stools. On one end of
the stick is a lighted candle from which he is trying to light
another in his hand. Beneath is a tub of water to receive him if he
over-balances sideways. These games grew later into practical
jokes.
The use of a goblet may perhaps come from the story of "The Luck of
Edenhall," a glass stolen from the fairies, and holding ruin for
the House by whom it was stolen, if it should ever be broken. With
ring and goblet this charm was tried: the ring, symbol of marriage,
was suspended by a hair within a glass, and a name spelled out by
beginning the alphabet over each time the ring struck the glass.
When tired of activity and noise, the party gathered about a
story-teller, or passed a bundle of fagots from hand to hand, each
selecting one and reciting an installment of the tale till his
stick burned to ashes.
"I tell ye the story this chill Hallowe'en,
For it suiteth the spirit-eve."
COXE: _Hallowe'en._
To induce prophetic dreams the wood-and-water test was tried in
England also.
"Last Hallow Eve I looked my love to see,
And tried a spell to call her up to me.
With wood and water standing by my side
I dreamed a dream, and saw my own sweet bride."
GAY: _Pastorals._
Though Hallowe'en is decidedly a country festival, in the
seventeenth century young gentlemen in London chose a Master of the
Revels, and held masques and dances with their friends on this
night.
In central and southern England the ecclesiastical side of
Hallowtide is stressed.
Bread or cake has till recently (1898) been as much a part of
Hallowe'en preparations as plum pudding at Christmas. Probably this
originated from an autumn baking of bread from the new grain. In
Yorkshire each person gets a triangular seed-cake, and the evening
is called "cake night."
"Wife, some time this weeke, if the wether hold cleere,
An end of wheat-sowing we make for this yeare.
Remember you, therefore, though I do it not,
The seed-cake, the Pasties, and Furmentie-pot."
TUSSER: _Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry_, 1580.
Cakes appear also at the vigil of All Souls', the next day. At a
gathering they lie in a heap for the guests to take. In return they
are supposed to say prayers for the dead.
"A Soule-cake, a Soule-cake; have mercy on
all Christen souls for a Soule-cake."
_Old Saying._
The poor in Staffordshire and Shropshire went about singing for
soul-cakes or money, promising to pray and to spend the alms in
masses for the dead. The cakes were called Soul-mass or "somas"
cakes.
"Soul! Soul! for a soul-cake;
Pray, good mistress, for a soul-cake.
One for Peter, two for Paul,
Three for them who made us all."
_Notes and Queries._
In Dorsetshire Hallowe'en was celebrated by the ringing of bells in
memory of the dead. King Henry VIII and later Queen Elizabeth
issued commands against this practice.
In Lancashire in the early nineteenth century people used to go
about begging for candles to drive away the gatherings of witches.
If the lights were kept burning till midnight, no evil influence
could remain near.
In Derbyshire, central England, torches of straw were carried about
the stacks on All Souls' Eve, not to drive away evil spirits, as in
Scotland, but to light souls through Purgatory.
Like the Bretons, the English have the superstition that the dead
return on Hallowe'en.
"'Why do you wait at your door, woman,
Alone in the night?'
'I am waiting for one who will come, stranger,
To show him a light.
He will see me afar on the road,
And be glad at the sight.'
"'Have you no fear in your heart, woman,
To stand there alone?
There is comfort for you and kindly content
Beside the hearthstone.'
But she answered, 'No rest can I have
Till I welcome my own.'
"'Is it far he must travel to-night,
This man of your heart?'
'Strange lands that I know not, and pitiless seas
Have kept us apart,
And he travels this night to his home
Without guide, without chart.'
"'And has he companions to cheer him?'
'Aye, many,' she said.
'The candles are lighted, the hearthstones are swept,
The fires glow red.
We shall welcome them out of the night--
Our home-coming dead.'"
LETTS: _Hallowe'en._
[Illustration: THE WITCH OF THE WALNUT-TREE.]
CHAPTER X
IN WALES
In Wales the custom of fires persisted from the time of the Druid
festival-days longer than in any other place. First sacrifices were
burned in them; then instead of being burned to death, the
creatures merely passed through the fire; and with the rise of
Christianity fire was thought to be a protection against the evil
power of the same gods.
Pontypridd, in South Wales, was the Druid religious center of
Wales. It is still marked by a stone circle and an altar on a hill.
In after years it was believed that the stones were people changed
to that form by the power of a witch.
In North Wales the November Eve fire, which each family built in
the most prominent place near the house, was called Coel Coeth.
Into the dying fire each member of the family threw a white stone
marked so that he could recognize it again. Circling about the fire
hand-in-hand they said their prayers and went to bed. In the
morning each searched for his stone, and if he could not find it,
he believed that he would die within the next twelve months. This
is still credited. There is now the custom also of watching the
fires till the last spark dies, and instantly rushing down hill,
"the devil (or the cutty black sow) take the hindmost." A
Cardiganshire proverb says:
"A cutty[1] black sow
On every stile,
Spinning and carding
Every Allhallows' Eve."
[1] Short-tailed.
November Eve was called "Nos-Galan-Gaeof," the night of the winter
Calends, that is, the night before the first day of winter. To the
Welsh it was New Year's Eve.
Welsh fairy tradition resembles that in the near-by countries.
There is an old story of a man who lay down to sleep inside a
fairy ring, a circle of greener grass where the fairies danced by
night. The fairies carried him away and kept him seven years, and
after he had been rescued from them he would neither eat nor speak.
In the sea was the Otherworld, a
"Green fairy island reposing
In sunlight and beauty on ocean's calm breast."
PARRY: _Welsh Melodies._
This was the abode of the Druids, and hence of all supernatural
beings, who were
"Something betwixt heaven and hell,
Something that neither stood nor fell."
SCOTT: _The Monastery._
As in other countries the fairies or pixies are to be met at
crossroads, where happenings, such as funerals, may be witnessed
weeks before they really occur.
At the Hallow Eve supper parsnips and cakes are eaten, and nuts and
apples roasted. A "puzzling jug" holds the ale. In the rim are
three holes that seem merely ornamental. They are connected with
the bottom of the jug by pipes through the handle, and the
unwitting toper is well drenched unless he is clever enough to see
that he must stop up two of the holes, and drink through the third.
Spells are tried in Wales too with apples and nuts. There is
ducking and snapping for apples. Nuts are thrown into the fire,
denoting prosperity if they blaze brightly, misfortune if they pop,
or smoulder and turn black.
"Old Pally threw on a nut. It flickered and then blazed up.
Maggee tossed one into the fire. It smouldered and gave no
light."
MARKS: _All-Hallows Honeymoon._
Fate is revealed by the three luggies and the ball of yarn thrown
out of the window: Scotch and Irish charms. The leek takes the
place of the cabbage in Scotland. Since King Cadwallo decorated his
soldiers with leeks for their valor in a battle by a leek-garden,
they have been held in high esteem in Wales. A girl sticks a knife
among leeks at Hallowe'en, and walks backward out of the garden.
She returns later to find that her future husband has picked up the
knife and thrown it into the center of the leek-bed.
Taking two long-stemmed roses, a girl goes to her room in silence.
She twines the stems together, naming one for her sweetheart and
the other for herself, and thinking this rhyme:
"Twine, twine, and intertwine.
Let his love be wholly mine.
If his heart be kind and true,
Deeper grow his rose's hue."
She can see, by watching closely, her lover's rose grow darker.
The sacred ash figures in one charm. The party of young people seek
an even-leaved sprig of ash. The first who finds one calls out
"cyniver." If a boy calls out first, the first girl who finds
another perfect shoot bears the name of the boy's future wife.
Dancing and singing to the music of the harp close the evening.
Instead of leaving stones in the fire to determine who are to die,
people now go to church to see by the light of a candle held in the
hand the spirits of those marked for death, or to hear the names
called. The wind "blowing over the feet of the corpses" howls about
the doors of those who will not be alive next Hallowe'en.
On the Eve of All Souls' Day, twenty-four hours after Hallowe'en,
children in eastern Wales go from house to house singing for
"An apple or a pear, a plum or a cherry,
Or any good thing to make us merry."
It is a time when charity is given freely to the poor. On this
night and the next day, fires are burned, as in England, to light
souls through Purgatory, and prayers are made for a good wheat
harvest next year by the Welsh, who keep the forms of religion very
devoutly.
CHAPTER XI
IN BRITTANY AND FRANCE
The Celts had been taught by their priests that the soul is
immortal. When the body died the spirit passed instantly into
another existence in a country close at hand. We remember that the
Otherworld of the British Isles, peopled by the banished Tuatha and
all superhuman beings, was either in caves in the earth, as in
Ireland, or in an island like the English Avalon. By giving a
mortal one of their magic apples to eat, fairies could entice him
whither they would, and at last away into their country.
In the Irish story of Nera (q. v.), the corpse of the criminal is
the cause of Nera's being lured into the cave. So the dead have the
same power as fairies, and live in the same place. On May Eve and
November Eve the dead and the fairies hold their revels together
and make excursions together. If a young person died, he was said
to be called away by the fairies. The Tuatha may not have been a
race of gods, but merely the early Celts, who grew to godlike
proportions as the years raised a mound of lore and legends for
their pedestal. So they might really be only the dead, and not of
superhuman nature.
In the fourth century A. D., the men of England were hard pressed
by the Picts and Scots from the northern border, and were helped in
their need by the Teutons. When this tribe saw the fair country of
the Britons they decided to hold it for themselves. After they had
driven out the northern tribes, in the fifth century, when King
Arthur was reigning in Cornwall, they drove out those whose cause
they had fought. So the Britons were scattered to the mountains of
Wales, to Cornwall, and across the Channel to Armorica, a part of
France, which they named Brittany after their home-land. In lower
Brittany, out of the zone of French influence, a language something
like Welsh or old British is still spoken, and many of the Celtic
beliefs were retained more untouched than in Britain, not clear of
paganism till the seventeenth century. Here especially did
Christianity have to adapt the old belief to her own ends.
Gaul, as we have seen from Cæsar's account, had been one of the
chief seats of Druidical belief. The religious center was Carnutes,
now Chartrain. The rites of sacrifice survived in the same forms as
in the British Isles. In the fields of Deux-Sèvres fires were built
of stubble, ferns, leaves, and thorns, and the people danced about
them and burned nuts in them. On St. John's Day animals were burned
in the fires to secure the cattle from disease. This was continued
down into the seventeenth century.
The pagan belief that lasted the longest in Brittany, and is by no
means dead yet, was the cult of the dead. Cæsar said that the Celts
of Gaul traced their ancestry from the god of death, whom he called
Dispater. Now figures of l'Ankou, a skeleton armed with a spear,
can be seen in most villages of Brittany. This mindfulness of
death was strengthened by the sight of the prehistoric cairns of
stones on hilltops, the ancient altars of the Druids, and dolmens,
formed of one flat rock resting like a roof on two others set up on
end with a space between them, ancient tombs; and by the Bretons
being cut off from the rest of France by the nature of the country,
and shut in among the uplands, black and misty in November, and
blown over by chill Atlantic winds. Under a seeming dull
indifference and melancholy the Bretons conceal a lively
imagination, and no place has a greater wealth of legendary
literature.
What fairies, dwarfs, pixies, and the like are to the Celts of
other places, the spirits of the dead are to the Celts of Brittany.
They possess the earth on Christmas, St. John's Day, and All
Saints'. In Finistère, that western point of France, there is a
saying that on the Eve of All Souls' "there are more dead in every
house than sands on the shore." The dead have the power to charm
mortals and take them away, and to foretell the future. They must
not be spoken of directly, any more than the fairies of the
Scottish border, or met with, for fear of evil results.
By the Bretons of the sixth century the near-by island of Britain,
which they could just see on clear days, was called the Otherworld.
An historian, Procopius, tells how the people nearest Britain were
exempted from paying tribute to the Franks, because they were
subject to nightly summons to ferry the souls of the dead across in
their boats, and deliver them into the hands of the keeper of
souls. Farther inland a black bog seemed to be the entrance to an
otherworld underground. One location which combined the ideas of an
island and a cave was a city buried in the sea. The people imagined
they could hear the bells of Ker-Is ringing, and joyous music
sounding, for though this was a city of the dead, it resembled the
fairy palaces of Ireland, and was ruled by King Grallon and his
fair daughter Dahut, who could lure mortals away by her beauty and
enchantments.
The approach of winter is believed to drive like the flocks, the
souls of the dead from their cold cheerless graves to the food and
warmth of home. This is why November Eve, the night before the
first day of winter, was made sacred to them.
"When comes the harvest of the year
Before the scythe the wheat will fall."
BOTREL: _Songs of Brittany._
The harvest-time reminded the Bretons of the garnering by that
reaper, Death. On November Eve milk is poured on graves, feasts and
candles set out on the tables, and fires lighted on the hearths to
welcome the spirits of departed kinsfolk and friends.
In France from the twelfth to the fourteenth century stone
buildings like lighthouses were erected in cemeteries. They were
twenty or thirty feet high, with lanterns on top. On Hallowe'en
they were kept burning to safeguard the people from the fear of
night-wandering spirits and the dead, so they were called
"lanternes des morts."
The cemetery is the social center of the Breton village. It is at
once meeting-place, playground, park, and church. The tombs that
outline the hills make the place seem one vast cemetery. On All
Souls' Eve in the mid-nineteenth century the "procession of tombs"
was held. All formed a line and walked about the cemetery, calling
the names of those who were dead, as they approached their
resting-places. The record was carefully remembered, so that not
one should seem to be forgotten.
"We live with our dead," say the Bretons. First on the Eve of All
Souls' comes the religious service, "black vespers." The
blessedness of death is praised, the sorrows and shortness of life
dwelt upon. After a common prayer all go out to the cemetery to
pray separately, each by the graves of his kin, or to the "place of
bones," where the remains of those long dead are thrown all
together in one tomb. They can be seen behind gratings, by the
people as they pass, and rows of skulls at the sides of the
entrance can be touched. In these tombs are Latin inscriptions
meaning: "Remember thou must die," "To-day to me, and to-morrow to
thee," and others reminding the reader of his coming death.
From the cemetery the people go to a house or an inn which is the
gathering-place for the night, singing or talking loudly on the
road to warn the dead who are hastening home, lest they may meet.
Reunions of families take place on this night, in the spirit of the
Roman feast of the dead, the Feralia, of which Ovid wrote:
"After the visit to the tombs and to the ancestors who are no
longer with us, it is pleasant to turn towards the living; after
the loss of so many, it is pleasant to behold those who remain of
our blood, and to reckon up the generations of our descendants."
_Fasti._
A toast is drunk to the memory of the departed. The men sit about
the fireplace smoking or weaving baskets; the women apart, knitting
or spinning by the light of the fire and one candle. The children
play with their gifts of apples and nuts. As the hour grows later,
and mysterious noises begin to be heard about the house, and a
curtain sways in a draught, the thoughts of the company already
centred upon the dead find expression in words, and each has a tale
to tell of an adventure with some friend or enemy who has died.
The dead are thought to take up existence where they left it off,
working at the same trades, remembering their old debts, likes and
dislikes, even wearing the same clothes they wore in life. Most of
them stay not in some distant, definite Otherworld, but frequent
the scenes of their former life. They never trespass upon daylight,
and it is dangerous to meet them at night, because they are very
ready to punish any slight to their memory, such as selling their
possessions or forgetting the hospitality due them. L'Ankou will
come to get a supply of shavings if the coffins are not lined with
them to make a softer resting-place for the dead bodies.
The lively Celtic imagination turns the merest coincidence into an
encounter with a spirit, and the poetic temperament of the
narrators clothes the stories with vividness and mystery. They tell
how the presence of a ghost made the midsummer air so cold that
even wood did not burn, and of groans and footsteps underground as
long as the ghost is displeased with what his relatives are doing.
Just before midnight a bell-man goes about the streets to give
warning of the hour when the spirits will arrive.
"They will sit where we sat, and will talk of us as we talked of
them: in the gray of the morning only will they go away."
LE BRAZ: _Night of the Dead._
The supper for the souls is then set out. The poor who live in the
mountains have only black corn, milk, and smoked bacon to offer,
but it is given freely. Those who can afford it spread on a white
cloth dishes of clotted milk, hot pancakes, and mugs of cider.
After all have retired to lie with both eyes shut tight lest they
see one of the guests, death-singers make their rounds, chanting
under the windows:
"You are comfortably lying in your bed,
But with the poor dead it is otherwise;
You are stretched softly in your bed
While the poor souls are wandering abroad.
"A white sheet and five planks,
A bundle of straw beneath the head,
Five feet of earth above
Are all the worldly goods we own."
LE BRAZ: _Night of the Dead._
The tears of their deserted friends disturb the comfort of the
dead, and sometimes they appear to tell those in sorrow that their
shrouds are always wet from the tears shed on their graves.
Wakened by the dirge of the death-singers the people rise and pray
for the souls of the departed.
Divination has little part in the annals of the evening, but one in
Finistère is recorded. Twenty-five new needles are laid in a dish,
and named, and water is poured upon them. Those who cross are
enemies.
In France is held a typical Continental celebration of All Saints'
and All Souls'. On October 31st the children go asking for flowers
to decorate the graves, and to adorn the church. At night bells
ring to usher in All Saints'. On the day itself the churches are
decorated gaily with flowers, candles, and banners, and a special
service is held. On the second day of November the light and color
give way to black drapings, funeral songs, and prayers.
CHAPTER XII
THE TEUTONIC RELIGION. WITCHES
The Teutons, that race of northern peoples called by the Romans,
"barbarians," comprised the Goths and Vandals who lived in
Scandinavia, and the Germans who dwelt north of Italy and east of
Gaul.
The nature of the northern country was such that the people could
not get a living by peaceful agriculture. So it was natural that in
the intervals of cattle-tending they should explore the seas all
about, and ravage neighboring lands. The Romans and the Gauls
experienced this in the centuries just before and after Christ, and
England from the eighth to the tenth centuries. Such a life made
the Norsemen adventurous, hardy, warlike, independent, and quick of
action, while the Celts were by nature more slothful and fond of
peaceful social gatherings, though of quicker intellect and wit.
Like the Greeks and Romans, the Teutons had twelve gods and
goddesses, among whom were Odin or Wotan, the king, and his wife
Freya, queen of beauty and love. Idun guarded the apples of
immortality, which the gods ate to keep them eternally young. The
chief difference in Teutonic mythology was the presence of an evil
god, Loki. Like Vulcan, Loki was a god of fire, like him, Loki was
lame because he had been cast out of heaven. Loki was always
plotting against the other gods, as Lucifer, after being banished
from Heaven by God, plotted against him and his people, and became
Satan, "the enemy."
"Him the Almighty Power
Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky
With hideous ruin and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms."
MILTON: _Paradise Lost._
It was this god of evil in Teutonic myth who was responsible for
the death of the bright beautiful sun-god, Baldur. Mistletoe was
the only thing in the world which had not sworn not to harm Baldur.
Loki knew this, and gave a twig of mistletoe to Baldur's blind
brother, Hodur, and Hodur cast it at Baldur and "unwitting slew"
him. Vali, a younger brother of Baldur, avenged him by killing
Hodur. Hodur is darkness and Baldur light; they are brothers; the
light falls a victim to blind darkness, who reigns until a younger
brother, the sun of the next day, rises to slay him in turn.
Below these gods, all nature was peopled with divinities. There
were elves of two kinds: black elves, called trolls, who were
frost-spirits, and guarded treasure (seeds) in the ground; and
white elves, who lived in mid-heaven, and danced on the earth in
fairy rings, where a mortal entering died. Will-o'-the-wisps
hovered over swamps to mislead travellers, and jack-o'-lanterns,
the spirits of murderers, walked the earth near the places of their
crimes.
The Otherworlds of the Teutons were Valhalla, the abode of the
heroes whom death had found on the battlefield, and Niflheim, "the
misty realm," secure from the cold outside, ruled over by Queen
Hel. Valkyries, warlike women who rode through the air on swift
horses, seized the heroes from the field of slaughter, and took
them to the halls of Valhalla, where they enjoyed daily combats,
long feasts, and drinking-bouts, music and story-telling.
The sacred tree of the Druids was the oak; that of the Teutonic
priests the ash. The flat disk of the earth was believed to be
supported by a great ash-tree, Yggdrasil,
"An ash know I standing,
Named Yggdrasil,
A stately tree sprinkled
With water the purest;
Thence come the dewdrops
That fall in the dales;
Ever-blooming, it stands
O'er the Urdar-fountain."
_Völuspa saga._ (Blackwell _trans._)
guarded by three fates, Was, Will, and Shall Be. The name of Was
means the past, of Will, the power, howbeit small, which men have
over present circumstances, and Shall Be, the future over which man
has no control. Vurdh, the name of the latter, gives us the word
"weird," which means fate or fateful. The three Weird Sisters in
_Macbeth_ are seeresses.
Besides the ash, other trees and shrubs were believed to have
peculiar powers, which they have kept, with some changes of
meaning, to this day. The elder (elves' grave), the hawthorn, and
the juniper, were sacred to supernatural powers.
The priests of the Teutons sacrificed prisoners of war in
consecrated groves, to Tyr, god of the sword. The victims were not
burned alive, as by the Druids, but cut and torn terribly, and
their dead bodies burned. From these sacrifices auspices were
taken. A man's innocence or guilt was manifested by gods to men
through ordeals by fire; walking upon red-hot ploughshares, holding
a heated bar of iron, or thrusting the hands into red-hot
gauntlets, or into boiling water. If after a certain number of
days no burns appeared the person was declared innocent. If a
suspected man, thrown into the water, floated he was guilty; if he
sank, he was acquitted.
The rites of the Celts were done in secret, and it was forbidden
that they be written down. Those of the Teutons were commemorated
in Edda and Saga (poetry and prose).
In the far north the shortness of summer and the length of winter
so impressed the people that when they made a story about it they
told of a maiden, the Spring, put to sleep, and guarded, along with
a hoard of treasure, by a ring of fire. One knight only could break
through the flames, awaken her and seize the treasure. He is the
returning sun, and the treasure he gets possession of is the wealth
of summer vegetation. So there is the story of Brynhild, pricked by
the "sleep-thorn" of her father, Wotan, and sleeping until Sigurd
wakens her. They marry, but soon Sigurd has to give her up to
Gunnar, the relentless winter, and Gunnar cannot rest until he has
killed Sigurd, and reigns undisturbed. Grimms' story of Rapunzel,
the princess who was shut up by a winter witch, and of Briar-Rose,
pricked by a witch's spindle, and sleeping inside a hedge which
blooms with spring at the knight's approach, mean likewise the
struggle between summer and winter.
The chief festivals of the Teutonic year were held at Midsummer and
Midwinter. May-Day, the very beginning of spring, was celebrated by
May-ridings, when winter and spring, personified by two warriors,
engaged in a combat in which Winter, the fur-clad king of ice and
snow, was defeated. It was then that the sacred fire had been
kindled, and the sacrificial feast held. Judgments were rendered
then.
The summer solstice was marked by bonfires, like those of the Celts
on May Eve and Midsummer. They were kindled in an open place or on
a hill, and the ceremonies held about them were similar to the
Celtic. As late as the eighteenth century these same customs were
observed in Iceland.
A May-pole wreathed with magical herbs is erected as the center of
the dance in Sweden, and in Norway a child chosen May-bride is
followed by a procession as at a real wedding. This is a symbol of
the wedding of sun and earth deities in the spring. The May-pole,
probably imported from Celtic countries, is used at Midsummer
because the spring does not begin in the north before June.
Yule-tide in December celebrated the sun's turning back, and was
marked by banquets and gayety. A chief feature of all these feasts
was the drinking of toasts to the gods, with vows and prayers.
By the sixth century Christianity had supplanted Druidism in the
British Isles. It was the ninth before Christianity made much
progress in Scandinavia. After King Olaf had converted his nation,
the toasts which had been drunk to the pagan gods were kept in
honor of Christian saints; for instance, those to Freya were now
drunk to the Virgin Mary or to St. Gertrude.
The "wetting of the sark-sleeve," that custom of Scotland and
Ireland, was in its earliest form a rite to Freya as the northern
goddess of love. To secure her aid in a love-affair, a maid would
wash in a running stream a piece of fine linen--for Freya was fond
of personal adornment--and would hang it before the fire to dry an
hour before midnight. At half-past eleven she must turn it, and at
twelve her lover's apparition would appear to her, coming in at the
half-open door.
"The wind howled through the leafless boughs, and there was every
appearance of an early and severe winter, as indeed befell. Long
before eleven o'clock all was hushed and quiet within the house,
and indeed without (nothing was heard), except the cold wind
which howled mournfully in gusts. The house was an old farmhouse,
and we sat in the large kitchen with its stone floor, awaiting
the first stroke of the eleventh hour. It struck at last, and
then all pale and trembling we hung the garment before the fire
which we had piled up with wood, and set the door ajar, for that
was an essential point. The door was lofty and opened upon the
farmyard, through which there was a kind of thoroughfare, very
seldom used, it is true, and at each end of it there was a gate
by which wayfarers occasionally passed to shorten the way. There
we sat without speaking a word, shivering with cold and fear,
listening to the clock which went slowly, tick, tick, and
occasionally starting as the door creaked on its hinges, or a
half-burnt billet fell upon the hearth. My sister was ghastly
white, as white as the garment which was drying before the fire.
And now half an hour had elapsed and it was time to turn.... This
we did, I and my sister, without saying a word, and then we again
sank on our chairs on either side of the fire. I was tired, and
as the clock went tick-a-tick, I began to feel myself dozing. I
did doze, I believe. All of a sudden I sprang up. The clock was
striking one, two, but ere it could give the third chime, mercy
upon us! we heard the gate slam to with a tremendous noise...."
"Well, and what happened then?"
"Happened! before I could recover myself, my sister had sprung to
the door, and both locked and bolted it. The next moment she was
in convulsions. I scarcely knew what happened; and yet it
appeared to me for a moment that something pressed against the
door with a low moaning sound. Whether it was the wind or not, I
can't say. I shall never forget that night. About two hours
later, my father came home. He had been set upon by a highwayman
whom he beat off."
BORROW: _Lavengro._
Freya and Odin especially had had power over the souls of the dead.
When Christianity turned all the old gods into spirits of evil,
these two were accused especially of possessing unlawful learning,
as having knowledge of the hidden matters of death. This unlawful
wisdom is the first accusation that has always been brought against
witches. A mirror is often used to contain it. Such are the
crystals of the astrologers, and the looking-glasses which on
Hallowe'en materialize wishes.
From that time in the Middle Ages when witches were first heard of,
it has nearly always been women who were accused. Women for the
most part were the priests in the old days: it was a woman to whom
Apollo at Delphi breathed his oracles. In all times it has been
women who plucked herbs and concocted drinks of healing and
refreshment. So it was very easy to imagine that they experimented
with poisons and herbs of magic power under the guidance of the now
evil gods. If they were so directed, they must go on occasions to
consult with their masters. The idea arose of a witches' Sabbath,
when women were enabled by evil means to fly away, and adore in
secret the gods from whom the rest of the world had turned. There
were such meeting-places all over Europe. They had been places of
sacrifice, of judgment, or of wells and springs considered holy
under the old religion, and whither the gods had now been banished.
The most famous was the Blocksberg in the Hartz mountains in
Germany.
"Dame Baubo first, to lead the crew!
A tough old sow and the mother thereon,
Then follow the witches, every one."
GOETHE: _Faust._ (Taylor _trans._)
In Norway the mountains above Bergen were a resort, and the
Dovrefeld, once the home of the trolls.
"It's easy to slip in here,
But outward the Dovre-King's gate opens not."
IBSEN: _Peer Gynt._ (Archer _trans._)
In Italy the witches met under a walnut tree near Benevento; in
France, in Puy de Dome; in Spain, near Seville.
In these night-ridings Odin was the leader of a wild hunt. In
stormy, blustering autumn weather
"The wonted roar was up among the woods."
MILTON: _Comus._
Odin rode in pursuit of shadowy deer with the Furious Host behind
him. A ghostly huntsman of a later age was Dietrich von Bern,
doomed to hunt till the Judgment Day.
Frau Venus in Wagner's _Tannhäuser_ held her revels in an
underground palace in the Horselberg in Thuringia, Germany. This
was one of the seats of Holda, the goddess of spring. Venus herself
is like the Christian conception of Freya and Hel. She gathers
about her a throng of nymphs, sylphs, and those she has lured into
the mountain by intoxicating music and promises. "The enchanting
sounds enticed only those in whose hearts wild sensuous longings
had already taken root." Of these Tannhäuser is one. He has stayed
a year, but it seems to him only one day. Already he is tired of
the rosy light and eternal music and languor, and longs for the
fresh green world of action he once knew. He fears that he has
forfeited his soul's salvation by being there at all, but cries,
"Salvation rests for me in Mary!"
WAGNER: _Tannhäuser._
At the holy name Venus and her revellers vanish, and Tannhäuser
finds himself in a meadow, hears the tinkling herd-bells, and a
shepherd's voice singing,
"Frau Holda, goddess of the spring,
Steps forth from the mountains old;
She comes, and all the brooklets sing,
And fled is winter's cold.
* * * * *
Play, play, my pipe, your lightest lay,
For spring has come, and merry May!"
_Tannhäuser._ (Huckel _trans._)
praising the goddess in her blameless state.
By the fifteenth century Satan, taking the place of the gods,
assumed control of the evil creatures. Now that witches were the
followers of the Devil, they wrote their names in his book, and
were carried away by him for the revels by night. A new witch was
pricked with a needle to initiate her into his company. At the
party the Devil was adored with worship due to God alone. Dancing,
a device of the pagans, and hence considered wholly wicked, was
indulged in to unseemly lengths. In 1883 in Sweden it was believed
that dances were held about the sanctuaries of the ancient gods,
and that whoever stopped to watch were caught by the dancers and
whirled away. If they profaned holy days by this dancing, they were
doomed to keep it up for a year.
At the witches' Sabbath the Devil himself sometimes appeared as a
goat, and the witches were attended by cats, owls, bats, and
cuckoos, because these creatures had once been sacred to Freya. At
the feast horse-flesh, once the food of the gods at banquets, was
eaten. The broth for the feast was brewed in a kettle held over the
fire by a tripod, like that which supported the seat of Apollo's
priestess at Delphi. The kettle may be a reminder of the one Thor
got, which gave to each guest whatever food he asked of it, or it
may be merely that used in brewing the herb-remedies which women
made before they were thought to practise witchcraft. In the kettle
were cooked mixtures which caused storms and shipwrecks, plagues,
and blights. No salt was eaten, for that was a wholesome substance.
The witches of Germany did not have prophetic power; those of
Scandinavia, like the Norse Fates, did have it. The troll-wives of
Scandinavia were like the witches of Germany--they were cannibals,
especially relishing children, like the witch in _Hansel and
Grethel_.
From the fourteenth to the eighteenth century all through Europe
and the new world people thought to be witches, and hence in the
devil's service, were persecuted. It was believed that they were
able to take the form of beasts. A wolf or other animal is caught
in a trap or shot, and disappears. Later an old woman who lives
alone in the woods is found suffering from a similar wound. She is
then declared to be a witch.
"There was once an old castle in the middle of a vast thick wood;
in it lived an old woman quite alone, and she was a witch. By day
she made herself into a cat or a screech-owl, but regularly at
night she became a human being again."
GRIMM: _Jorinda and Joringel._
"Hares found on May morning are witches and should be stoned,"
reads an old superstition. "If you tease a cat on May Eve, it will
turn into a witch and hurt you."
CHAPTER XIII
WALPURGIS NIGHT
Walpurga was a British nun who went to Germany in the eighth
century to found holy houses. After a pious life she was buried at
Eichstatt, where it is said a healing oil trickled from her
rock-tomb. This miracle reminded men of the fruitful dew which fell
from the manes of the Valkyries' horses, and when one of the days
sacred to her came on May first, the wedding-day of Frau Holda and
the sun-god, the people thought of her as a Valkyrie, and
identified her with Holda. As, like a Valkyrie, she rode armed on
her steed, she scattered, like Holda, spring flowers and fruitful
dew upon the fields and vales. When these deities fell into
disrepute, Walpurga too joined the pagan train that swept the sky
on the eve of May first, and afterwards on mountain-tops to
sacrifice and to adore Holda, as the priests had sacrificed for a
prosperous season and a bountiful harvest.
So this night was called Walpurgis Night, when evil beings were
abroad, and with them human worshippers who still guarded the old
faith in secret.
This is very like the occasion of November Eve, which shared with
May first Celtic manifestations of evil. Witches complete the list
of supernatural beings which are out on Hallowe'en. All are to be
met at crossroads, with harm to the beholders. A superstition goes,
that if one wishes to see witches, he must put on his clothes wrong
side out, and creep backward to a crossroads, or wear wild radish,
on May Eve.
On Walpurgis Night precaution must be taken against witches who may
harm cattle. The stable doors are locked and sealed with three
crosses. Sprigs of ash, hawthorn, juniper, and elder, once sacred
to the pagan gods, are now used as a protection against them.
Horseshoes are nailed prongs up on the threshold or over the door.
Holy bells are hung on the cows to scare away the witches, and they
are guided to pasture by a goad which has been blessed. Shots are
fired over the cornfield. If one wishes, he may hide in the corn
and hear what will happen for a year.
Signs and omens on Walpurgis Night have more weight than at other
times except on St. John's Day.
"On Walpurgis Night rain
Makes good crops of autumn grain,"
but rain on May Day is harmful to them.
[Illustration: THE WITCHES' DANCE (VALPURGISNACHT.)
_From Painting by Von Kreling._]
Lovers try omens on this eve, as they do in Scotland on Hallowe'en.
If you sleep with one stocking on, you will find on May morning in
the toe a hair the color of your sweetheart's. Girls try to find
out the temperament of their husbands-to-be by keeping a linen
thread for three days near an image of the Madonna, and at midnight
on May Eve pulling it apart, saying:
"Thread, I pull thee;
Walpurga, I pray thee,
That thou show to me
What my husband's like to be."
They judge of his disposition by the thread's being strong or
easily broken, soft or tightly woven.
Dew on the morning of May first makes girls who wash in it
beautiful.
"The fair maid who on the first of May
Goes to the fields at break of day
And washes in dew from the hawthorn tree
Will ever after handsome be."
_Encyclopedia of Superstitions._
A heavy dew on this morning presages a good "butter-year." You will
find fateful initials printed in dew on a handkerchief that has
been left out all the night of April thirtieth. On May Day girls
invoke the cuckoo:
"Cuckoo! cuckoo! on the bough,
Tell me truly, tell me how
Many years there will be
Till a husband comes to me."
Then they count the calls of the cuckoo until he pauses again.
If a man wears clothes made of yarn spun on Walpurgis Night to the
May-shooting, he will always hit the bull's-eye, for the Devil
gives away to those he favors, "freikugeln," bullets which always
hit the mark.
On Walpurgis Night as on Hallowe'en strange things may happen to
one. Zschokke tells a story of a Walpurgis Night dream that is more
a vision than a dream. Led to be unfaithful to his wife, a man
murders the husband of a former sweetheart; to escape capture he
fires a haystack, from which a whole village is kindled. In his
flight he enters an empty carriage, and drives away madly, crushing
the owner under the wheels. He finds that the dead man is his own
brother. Faced by the person whom he believes to be the Devil,
responsible for his misfortunes, the wretched man is ready to
worship him if he will protect him. He finds that the seeming Devil
is in reality his guardian-angel who sent him this dream that he
might learn the depths of wickedness lying unfathomed in his
heart, waiting an opportunity to burst out.
Both May Eve and St. John's Eve are times of freedom and
unrestraint. People are filled with a sort of madness which makes
them unaccountable for their deeds.
"For you see, pastor, within every one of us a spark of paganism
is glowing. It has outlasted the thousand years since the old
Teutonic times. Once a year it flames up high, and we call it St.
John's Fire. Once a year comes Free-night. Yes, truly,
Free-night. Then the witches, laughing scornfully, ride to
Blocksberg, upon the mountain-top, on their broomsticks, the same
broomsticks with which at other times their witchcraft is whipped
out of them,--then the whole wild company skims along the forest
way,--and then the wild desires awaken in our hearts which life
has not fulfilled."
SUDERMANN: _St. John's Fire._ (Porter _trans._)
CHAPTER XIV
MORE HALLOWTIDE BELIEFS AND CUSTOMS
Only the Celts and the Teutons celebrate an occasion actually like
our Hallowe'en. The countries of southern Europe make of it a
religious vigil, like that already described in France.
In Italy on the night of All Souls', the spirits of the dead are
thought to be abroad, as in Brittany. They may mingle with living
people, and not be remarked. The _Miserere_ is heard in all the
cities. As the people pass dressed in black, bells are rung on
street corners to remind them to pray for the souls of the dead. In
Naples the skeletons in the funeral vaults are dressed up, and the
place visited on All Souls' Day. In Salerno before the people go to
the all-night service at church they set out a banquet for the
dead. If any food is left in the morning, evil is in store for the
house.
"Hark! Hark to the wind! 'T is the night, they say,
When all souls come back from the far away--
The dead, forgotten this many a day!
"And the dead remembered--ay! long and well--
And the little children whose spirits dwell
In God's green garden of asphodel.
"Have you reached the country of all content,
O souls we know, since the day you went
From this time-worn world, where your years were spent?
"Would you come back to the sun and the rain,
The sweetness, the strife, the thing we call pain,
And then unravel life's tangle again?
"I lean to the dark--Hush!--was it a sigh?
Or the painted vine-leaves that rustled by?
Or only a night-bird's echoing cry?"
SHEARD: _Hallowe'en._
In Malta bells are rung, prayers said, and mourning worn on All
Souls' Day. Graves are decorated, and the inscriptions on tombs
read and reread. For the poor is prepared an All Souls' dinner, as
cakes are given to the poor in England and Wales. The custom of
decorating graves with flowers and offering flowers to the dead
comes from the crowning of the dead by the ancients with
short-lived blooms, to signify the brevity of life.
In Spain at dark on Hallowe'en cakes and nuts are laid on graves to
bribe the spirits not to disturb the vigils of the saints.
In Germany the graves of the dead are decorated with flowers and
lights, on the first and second of November. To drive away ghosts
from a church a key or a wand must be struck three times against a
bier. An All Souls' divination in Germany is a girl's going out and
asking the first young man she meets his name. Her husband's will
be like it. If she walks thrice about a church and makes a wish,
she will see it fulfilled.
Belgian children build shrines in front of their homes with
figures of the Madonna and candles, and beg for money to buy cakes.
As many cakes as one eats, so many souls he frees from Purgatory.
The races of northern Europe believed that the dead returned, and
were grieved at the lamentations of their living relatives. The
same belief was found in Brittany, and among the American Indians.
"Think of this, O Hiawatha!
Speak of it to all the people,
That henceforward and forever
They no more with lamentations
Sadden souls of the departed
In the Islands of the Blessèd."
LONGFELLOW: _Hiawatha._
The Chinese fear the dead and the dragons of the air. They devote
the first three weeks in April to visiting the graves of their
ancestors, and laying baskets of offerings on them. The great
dragon, Feng-Shin, flies scattering blessings upon the houses. His
path is straight, unless he meets with some building. Then he turns
aside, and the owner of the too lofty edifice misses the blessing.
At Nikko, Japan, where there are many shrines to the spirits of the
dead, masques are held to entertain the ghosts who return on
Midsummer Day. Every street is lined with lighted lanterns, and the
spirits are sent back to the otherworld in straw boats lit with
lanterns, and floated down the river. To see ghosts in Japan one
must put one hundred rush-lights into a large lantern, and repeat
one hundred lines of poetry, taking one light out at the end of
each line; or go out into the dark with one light and blow it out.
Ghosts are identified with witches. They come back especially on
moonlit nights.
"On moonlight nights, when the coast-wind whispers in the
branches of the tree, O-Matsue and Teoyo may sometimes be seen,
with bamboo rakes in their hands, gathering together the needles
of the fir."
RINDER: _Great Fir-Tree of Takasago._
There is a Chinese saying that a mirror is the soul of a woman. A
pretty story is told of a girl whose mother before she died gave
her a mirror, saying:
"Now after I am dead, if you think longingly of me, take out the
thing that you will find inside this box, and look at it. When you
do so my spirit will meet yours, and you will be comforted." When
she was lonely or her stepmother was harsh with her, the girl went
to her room and looked earnestly into the mirror. She saw there
only her own face, but it was so much like her mother's that she
believed it was hers indeed, and was consoled. When the stepmother
learned what it was her daughter cherished so closely, her heart
softened toward the lonely girl, and her life was made easier.
By the Arabs spirits were called Djinns (or genii). They came from
fire, and looked like men or beasts. They might be good or evil,
beautiful or horrible, and could disappear from mortal sight at
will. Nights when they were abroad, it behooved men to stay under
cover.
"Ha! They are on us, close without!
Shut tight the shelter where we lie;
With hideous din the monster rout,
Dragon and vampire, fill the sky."
HUGO: _The Djinns._
[Illustration: FORTUNE-TELLING.]
CHAPTER XV
HALLOWE'EN IN AMERICA
In Colonial days Hallowe'en was not celebrated much in America.
Some English still kept the customs of the old world, such as
apple-ducking and snapping, and girls tried the apple-paring charm
to reveal their lovers' initials, and the comb-and-mirror test to
see their faces. Ballads were sung and ghost-stories told, for the
dead were thought to return on Hallowe'en.
"There was a young officer in Phips's company at the time of the
finding of the Spanish treasure-ship, who had gone mad at the
sight of the bursting sacks that the divers had brought up from
the sea, as the gold coins covered the deck. This man had once
lived in the old stone house on the 'faire greene lane,' and a
report had gone out that his spirit still visited it, and caused
discordant noises. Once ... on a gusty November evening, when the
clouds were scudding over the moon, a hall-door had blown open
with a shrieking draft and a force that caused the floor to
tremble."
BUTTERWORTH: _Hallowe'en Reformation._
Elves, goblins, and fairies are native on American soil. The
Indians believed in evil _manitous_, some of whom were water-gods
who exacted tribute from all who passed over their lakes. Henry
Hudson and his fellow-explorers haunted as mountain-trolls the
Catskill range. Like Ossian and so many other visitors to the
Otherworld, Rip Van Winkle is lured into the strange gathering,
thinks that he passes the night there, wakes, and goes home to find
that twenty years have whitened his hair, rusted his gun, and
snatched from life many of his boon-companions.
"My gun must have cotched the rheumatix too. Now that's too bad.
Them fellows have gone and stolen my good gun, and leave me this
rusty old barrel.
"Why, is that the village of Falling Waters that I see? Why, the
place is more than twice the size it was last night--I----
"I don't know whether I am dreaming, or sleeping, or waking."
JEFFERSON: _Rip Van Winkle._
The persecution of witches, prevalent in Europe, reached this side
of the Atlantic in the seventeenth century.
"This sudden burst of wickedness and crime
Was but the common madness of the time,
When in all lands, that lie within the sound
Of Sabbath bells, a witch was burned or drowned."
LONGFELLOW: _Giles Corey of the Salem Farms._
Men and women who had enemies to accuse them of evil knowledge and
the power to cause illness in others, were hanged or pressed to
death by heavy weights. Such sicknesses they could cause by keeping
a waxen image, and sticking pins or nails into it, or melting it
before the fire. The person whom they hated would be in torture, or
would waste away like the waxen doll. Witches' power to injure and
to prophesy came from the Devil, who marked them with a
needle-prick. Such marks were sought as evidence at trials.
"Witches' eyes are coals of fire from the pit." They were attended
by black cats, owls, bats, and toads.
Iron, as being a product of fire, was a protection against them, as
against evil spirits everywhere. It had especial power when in the
shape of a horseshoe.
"This horseshoe will I nail upon the threshold.
There, ye night-hags and witches that torment
The neighborhood, ye shall not enter here."
LONGFELLOW: _Giles Corey of the Salem Farms._
The holiday-time of elves, witches, and ghosts is Hallowe'en. It is
not believed in here except by some children, who people the dark
with bogies who will carry them away if they are naughty.
"Onc't they was a little boy wouldn't say his prayers--
An' when he went to bed at night, away upstairs,
His mammy heerd him holler, an' his daddy heerd him bawl,
An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wasn't there at all!
An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an'
press,
An' seeked him up the chimbley-flue, an' ever'wheres, I guess;
But all they ever found was thist his pants an' roundabout!
An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you, ef you don't watch out!"
RILEY: _Little Orphant Annie._
Negroes are very superstitious, putting faith in all sorts of
supernatural beings.
"Blame my trap! how de wind do blow;
And dis is das de night for de witches, sho!
Dey's trouble going to waste when de ole slut whine,
An' you hear de cat a-spittin' when de moon don't shine."
RILEY: _When de Folks is Gone._
While the original customs of Hallowe'en are being forgotten more
and more across the ocean, Americans have fostered them, and are
making this an occasion something like what it must have been in
its best days overseas. All Hallowe'en customs in the United States
are borrowed directly or adapted from those of other countries.
All superstitions, everyday ones, and those pertaining to Christmas
and New Year's, have special value on Hallowe'en.
It is a night of ghostly and merry revelry. Mischievous spirits
choose it for carrying off gates and other objects, and hiding them
or putting them out of reach.
"Dear me, Polly, I wonder what them boys will be up to to-night.
I do hope they'll not put the gate up on the shed as they did
last year."
WRIGHT: _Tom's Hallowe'en Joke._
Bags filled with flour sprinkle the passers-by. Door-bells are rung
and mysterious raps sounded on doors, things thrown into halls, and
knobs stolen. Such sports mean no more at Hallowe'en than the
tricks played the night before the Fourth of July have to do with
the Declaration of Independence. We see manifested on all such
occasions the spirit of "Free-night" of which George von Hartwig
speaks so enthusiastically in _St. John's Fire_ (page 141).
Hallowe'en parties are the real survival of the ancient merrymakings.
They are prepared for in secret. Guests are not to divulge the fact
that they are invited. Often they come masked, as ghosts or witches.
The decorations make plain the two elements of the festival.
For the centerpiece of the table there may be a hollowed pumpkin,
filled with apples and nuts and other fruits of harvest, or
a pumpkin-chariot drawn by field-mice. So it is clear that this
is a harvest-party, like Pomona's feast. In the coach rides a
witch, representing the other element, of magic and prophecy.
Jack-o'-lanterns, with which the room is lighted, are hollowed
pumpkins with candles inside. The candle-light shines through holes
cut like features. So the lantern becomes a bogy, and is held up at
a window to frighten those inside. Corn-stalks from the garden
stand in clumps about the room. A frieze of witches on broomsticks,
with cats, bats, and owls surmounts the fireplace, perhaps. A full
moon shines over all, and a caldron on a tripod holds fortunes
tied in nut-shells. The prevailing colors are yellow and black: a
deep yellow is the color of most ripe grain and fruit; black stands
for black magic and demoniac influence. Ghosts and skulls and
cross-bones, symbols of death, startle the beholder. Since
Hallowe'en is a time for lovers to learn their fate, hearts and
other sentimental tokens are used to good effect, as the Scotch
lads of Burns's time wore love-knots.
Having marched to the dining-room to the time of a dirge, the
guests find before them plain, hearty fare; doughnuts, gingerbread,
cider, popcorn, apples, and nuts honored by time. The Hallowe'en
cake has held the place of honor since the beginning here in
America. A ring, key, thimble, penny, and button baked in it
foretell respectively speedy marriage, a journey, spinsterhood,
wealth, and bachelorhood.
"Polly was going to be married, Jennie was going on a long
journey, and you--down went the knife against something hard. The
girls crowded round. You had a hurt in your throat, and there,
there, in your slice, was the horrid, hateful, big brass thimble.
It was more than you could bear--soaking, dripping wet, and an
old maid!"
BRADLEY: _Different Party._
[Illustration: A WITCH TABLE.
AN OWL TABLE.
HALLOWE'EN TABLES, I.]
The kitchen is the best place for the rough games and after-supper
charms.
On the stems of the apples which are to be dipped for may be tied
names; for the boys in one tub, for the girls in another. Each
searcher of the future must draw out with his teeth an apple with a
name which will be like that of his future mate.
A variation of the Irish snap-apple is a hoop hung by strings from
the ceiling, round which at intervals are placed bread, apples,
cakes, peppers, candies, and candles. The strings are twisted, then
let go, and as the hoop revolves, each may step up and get a bite
from whatever comes to him. By the taste he determines what the
character of his married life will be,--whether wholesome, acid,
soft, fiery, or sweet. Whoever bites the candle is twice
unfortunate, for he must pay a forfeit too. An apple and a bag of
flour are placed on the ends of a stick, and whoever dares to seize
a mouthful of apple must risk being blinded by flour. Apples are
suspended one to a string in a doorway. As they swing, each guest
tries to secure his apple. To blow out a candle as it revolves on a
stick requires attention and accuracy of aim.
[Illustration: A WITCHES'-CALDRON TABLE.
A BLACK-CAT TABLE.
HALLOWE'EN TABLES, II.]
The one who first succeeds in threading a needle as he sits on a
round bottle on the floor, will be first married. Twelve candles
are lighted, and placed at convenient distances on the floor in a
row. As the guest leaps over them, the first he blows out will
indicate his wedding-month. One candle only placed on the floor and
blown out in the same way means a year of wretchedness ahead. If it
still burns, it presages a year of joy.
Among the quieter tests some of the most common are tried with
apple-seeds. As in England a pair of seeds named for two lovers are
stuck on brow or eyelids. The one who sticks longer is the true,
the one who soon falls, the disloyal sweetheart. Seeds are used in
this way to tell also whether one is to be a traveler or a
stay-at-home. Apple-seeds are twice ominous, partaking of both
apple and nut nature. Even the number of seeds found in a core has
meaning. If you put them upon the palm of your hand, and strike it
with the other, the number remaining will tell you how many letters
you will receive in a fortnight. With twelve seeds and the names of
twelve friends, the old rhyme may be repeated:
"One I love,
Two I love,
Three I love, I say;
Four I love with all my heart:
Five I cast away.
Six he loves,
Seven she loves,
Eight they both love;
Nine he comes,
Ten he tarries,
Eleven he courts, and
Twelve he marries."
Nuts are burned in the open fire. It is generally agreed that the
one for whom the first that pops is named, loves.
"If he loves me, pop and fly;
If he hates me, live and die."
Often the superstition connected therewith is forgotten in the
excitement of the moment.
"When ebery one among us toe de smallest pickaninny
Would huddle in de chimbley cohnah's glow,
Toe listen toe dem chilly win's ob ole Novembah's
Go a-screechin' lack a spook around de huts,
'Twell de pickaninnies' fingahs gits to shakin' o'er de embahs,
An' dey laik ter roas' dey knuckles 'stead o' nuts."
IN WERNER'S _Readings, Number 31_.
Letters of the alphabet are carved on a pumpkin. Fate guides the
hand of the blindfolded seeker to the fateful initial which he
stabs with a pin. Letters cut out of paper are sprinkled on water
in a tub. They form groups from which any one with imagination may
spell out names.
Girls walk down cellar backward with a candle in one hand and a
looking-glass in the other, expecting to see a face in the glass.
"Last night 't was witching Hallowe'en,
Dearest; an apple russet-brown
I pared, and thrice above my crown
Whirled the long skin; they watched it keen;
I flung it far; they laughed and cried me shame--
Dearest, there lay the letter of your name.
"Took I the mirror then, and crept
Down, down the creaking narrow stair;
The milk-pans caught my candle's flare
And mice walked soft and spiders slept.
I spoke the spell, and stood the magic space,
Dearest--and in the glass I saw your face!
"And then I stole out in the night
Alone; the frogs piped sweet and loud,
The moon looked through a ragged cloud.
Thrice round the house I sped me light,
Dearest; and there, methought--charm of my charms!
You met me, kissed me, took me to your arms!"
OPPER: _The Charms._
There are many mirror-tests. A girl who sits before a mirror at
midnight on Hallowe'en combing her hair and eating an apple will
see the face of her true love reflected in the glass. Standing so
that through a window she may see the moon in a glass she holds,
she counts the number of reflections to find out how many pleasant
things will happen to her in the next twelve months. Alabama has
taken over the Scotch mirror test in its entirety.
A girl with a looking-glass in her hand steps backward from the
door out into the yard. Saying:
"Round and round, O stars so fair!
Ye travel, and search out everywhere.
I pray you, sweet stars, now show to me,
This night, who my future husband shall be!"
she goes to meet her fate.
"So Leslie backed out at the door, and we shut it upon her. The
instant after, we heard a great laugh. Off the piazza she had
stepped backward directly against two gentlemen coming in.
"Doctor Ingleside was one, coming to get his supper; the other
was a friend of his.... 'Doctor John Hautayne,' he said,
introducing him by his full name."
WHITNEY: _We Girls._
A custom that is a reminder of the lighted boats sent down-stream
in Japan to bear away the souls of the dead, is that which makes
use of nut-shell boats. These have tiny candles fastened in them,
are lighted, and named, and set adrift on a tub of water. If they
cling to the side, their namesakes will lead a quiet life. Some
will float together. Some will collide and be shipwrecked. Others
will bear steadily toward a goal though the waves are rocked in a
tempest. Their behavior is significant. The candle which burns
longest belongs to the one who will marry first.
The Midsummer wheel which was rolled down into the Moselle River in
France, and meant, if the flames that wreathed it were not
extinguished, that the grape-harvest would be abundant, has
survived in the fortune wheel which is rolled about from one guest
to another, and brings a gift to each.
The actions of cats on Hallowe'en betoken good or bad luck. If a
cat sits quietly beside any one, he will enjoy a peaceful,
prosperous life; if one rubs against him, it brings good luck,
doubly good if one jumps into his lap. If a cat yawns near you on
Hallowe'en, be alert and do not let opportunity slip by you. If a
cat runs from you, you have a secret which will be revealed in
seven days.
Different states have put interpretations of their own on the
commonest charms. In Massachusetts the one who first draws an apple
from the tub with his teeth will be first married. If a girl steals
a cabbage, she will see her future husband as she pulls it up, or
meet him as she goes home. If these fail, she must put the cabbage
over the door and watch to see whom it falls on, for him she is to
marry. A button concealed in mashed potato brings misfortune to the
finder. The names of three men are written on slips of paper, and
enclosed in three balls of meal. The one that rises first when they
are thrown into water will disclose the sought-for name.
Maine has borrowed the yarn-test from Scotland. A ball is thrown
into a barn or cellar, and wound off on the hand. The lover will
come and help to wind. Girls in New Hampshire place in a row three
dishes with earth, water, and a ring in them, respectively. The one
who blindfolded touches earth will soon die; water, will never
marry; the ring, will soon be wedded.
To dream of the future on Hallowe'en in Pennsylvania, one must go
out of the front door backward, pick up dust or grass, wrap it in
paper, and put it under his pillow.
In Maryland girls see their future husbands by a rite similar to
the Scotch "wetting of the sark-sleeve." They put an egg to roast,
and open wide all the doors and windows. The man they seek will
come in and turn the egg. At supper girls stand behind the chairs,
knowing that the ones they are to marry will come to sit in front
of them.
The South has always been famous for its hospitality and good
times. On Hallowe'en a miniature Druid-fire burns in a bowl on the
table. In the blazing alcohol are put fortunes wrapped in tin-foil,
figs, orange-peel, raisins, almonds, and dates. The one who
snatches the best will meet his sweetheart inside of a year, and
all may try for a fortune from the flames. The origin of this
custom was the taking of omens from the death-struggles of
creatures burning in the fire of sacrifice.
Another Southern custom is adapted from one of Brittany. Needles
are named and floated in a dish of water. Those which cling side by
side are lovers.
Good fortune is in store for the one who wins an apple from the
tub, or against whose glass a ring suspended by a hair strikes with
a sharp chime.
A very elaborate charm is tried in Newfoundland. As the clock
strikes midnight a girl puts the twenty-six letters of the
alphabet, cut from paper, into a pure-white bowl which has been
touched by the lips of a new-born babe only. After saying:
"Kind fortune, tell me where is he
Who my future lord shall be;
From this bowl all that I claim
Is to know my sweetheart's name."
she puts the bowl into a safe place until morning. Then she is
blindfolded and picks out the same number of letters as there are
in her own name, and spells another from them.
In New Brunswick, instead of an apple, a hard-boiled egg without
salt is eaten before a mirror, with the same result. In Canada a
thread is held over a lamp. The number that can be counted slowly
before the thread parts, is the number of years before the one who
counts will marry.
In the United States a hair is thrown to the winds with the stanza
chanted:
"I pluck this lock of hair off my head
To tell whence comes the one I shall wed.
Fly, silken hair, fly all the world around,
Until you reach the spot where my true love is found."
The direction in which the hair floats is prophetic.
The taste in Hallowe'en festivities now is to study old traditions,
and hold a Scotch party, using Burns's poem _Hallowe'en_ as a
guide; or to go a-souling as the English used. In short, no custom
that was once honored at Hallowe'en is out of fashion now.
"Cyniver" has been borrowed from Wales, and the "dumb-cake" from
the Hebrides. In the Scotch custom of cabbage-stalk pulling, if the
stalk comes up easily, the husband or wife will be easy to win. The
melted-lead test to show the occupation of the husband-to-be has
been adopted in the United States. If the metal cools in round
drops, the tester will never marry, or her husband will have no
profession. White of egg is used in the same way. Like the Welsh
test is that of filling the mouth with water, and walking round the
house until one meets one's fate. An adaptation of the Scottish
"three luggies" is the row of four dishes holding dirt, water, a
ring, and a rag. The dirt means divorce, the water, a trip across
the ocean, the ring, marriage, the rag, no marriage at all.
After the charms have been tried, fagots are passed about, and by
the eerie light of burning salt and alcohol, ghost stories are
told, each concluding his installment as his fagot withers into
ashes. Sometimes the cabbage stalks used in the omens take the
place of fagots.
To induce prophetic dreams salt, in quantities from a pinch to an
egg full, is eaten before one goes to bed.
"'Miss Jeanette, that's such a fine trick! You must swallow a
salt herring in three bites, bones and all, and not drink a drop
till the apparition of your future spouse comes in the night to
offer you a drink of water.'"
ADAMS: _Chrissie's Fate._
If, after taking three doses of salt two minutes apart, a girl goes
to bed backward, lies on her right side, and does not move till
morning, she is sure to have eventful dreams. Pills made of a
hazelnut, a walnut, and nutmeg grated together and mixed with
butter and sugar cause dreams: if of gold, the husband will be
rich; if of noise, a tradesman; if of thunder and lightning, a
traveler. As in Ireland bay-leaves on or under a man's pillow cause
him to dream of his sweetheart. Also
"Turn your boots toward the street,
Leave your garters on your feet,
Put your stockings on your head,
You'll dream of the one you're going to wed."
Lemon-peel carried all day and rubbed on the bed-posts at night
will cause an apparition to bring the dreaming girl two lemons. For
quiet sleep and the fulfilment of any wish eat before going to bed
on Hallowe'en a piece of dry bread.
A far more interesting development of the Hallowe'en idea than
these innocent but colorless superstitions, is promised by the
pageant at Fort Worth, Texas, on October thirty-first, 1916. In the
masque and pageant of the afternoon four thousand school children
took part. At night scenes from the pageant were staged on floats
which passed along the streets. The subject was _Preparedness for_
_Peace_, and comprised scenes from American history in which peace
played an honorable part. Such were: the conference of William Penn
and the Quakers with the Indians, and the opening of the East to
American trade. This is not a subject limited to performances at
Hallowtide. May there not be written and presented in America a
truly Hallowe'en pageant, illustrating and befitting its noble
origin, and making its place secure among the holidays of the
year?
HALLOWE'EN
Bring forth the raisins and the nuts--
To-night All-Hallows' Spectre struts
Along the moonlit way.
No time is this for tear or sob,
Or other woes our joys to rob,
But time for Pippin and for Bob,
And Jack-o'-lantern gay.
Come forth, ye lass and trousered kid,
From prisoned mischief raise the lid,
And lift it good and high.
Leave grave old Wisdom in the lurch,
Set Folly on a lofty perch,
Nor fear the awesome rod of birch
When dawn illumes the sky.
'Tis night for revel, set apart
To reillume the darkened heart,
And rout the hosts of Dole.
'Tis night when Goblin, Elf, and Fay,
Come dancing in their best array
To prank and royster on the way,
And ease the troubled soul.
The ghosts of all things, past parade,
Emerging from the mist and shade
That hid them from our gaze,
And full of song and ringing mirth,
In one glad moment of rebirth,
Again they walk the ways of earth,
As in the ancient days.
The beacon light shines on the hill,
The will-o'-wisps the forests fill
With flashes filched from noon;
And witches on their broomsticks spry
Speed here and yonder in the sky,
And lift their strident voices high
Unto the Hunter's moon.
The air resounds with tuneful notes
From myriads of straining throats,
All hailing Folly Queen;
So join the swelling choral throng,
Forget your sorrow and your wrong,
In one glad hour of joyous song
To honor Hallowe'en.
J. K. BANGS _in Harper's Weekly, Nov. 5, 1910_.
HALLOWE'EN FAILURE
Who's dat peekin' in de do'?
Set mah heart a-beatin'!
Thought I see' a spook for sho
On mah way to meetin'.
Heerd a rustlin' all aroun',
Trees all sort o' jiggled;
An' along de frosty groun'
Funny shadders wriggled.
Who's dat by de winder-sill?
Gittin' sort o' skeery;
Feets is feelin' kind o' chill,
Eyes is sort o' teary.
'Most as nervous as a coon
When de dawgs is barkin',
Er a widder when some spoon
Comes along a-sparkin'.
Whass dat creepin' up de road,
Quiet like a ferret,
Hoppin' sof'ly as a toad?
Maybe hit's a sperrit!
Lordy! hope dey ain't no ghos'
Come to tell me howdy.
I ain't got no use for those
Fantoms damp an' cloudy.
Whass dat standin' by de fence
Wid its eyes a-yearnin',
Drivin' out mah common-sense
Wid its glances burnin'?
Don't dass skeercely go to bed
Wid dem spookses roun' me.
Ain't no res' fo' dis yere head
When dem folks surroun' me.
Whass dat groanin' soun' I hear
Off dar by de gyardin?
Lordy! Lordy! Lordy dear,
Grant dis sinner pardon!
I won't nebber--I declar'
Ef it ain't my Sammy!
Sambo, what yo' doin' dar?
Yo' can't skeer yo' mammy!
CARLYLE SMITH _in Harper's Weekly, Oct. 29, 1910_.
HALLOWE'EN
Pixie, kobold, elf, and sprite
All are on their rounds to-night,--
In the wan moon's silver ray
Thrives their helter-skelter play.
Fond of cellar, barn, or stack
True unto the almanac,
They present to credulous eyes
Strange hobgoblin mysteries.
Cabbage-stumps--straws wet with dew--
Apple-skins, and chestnuts too,
And a mirror for some lass
Show what wonders come to pass.
Doors they move, and gates they hide
Mischiefs that on moonbeams ride
Are their deeds,--and, by their spells,
Love records its oracles.
Don't we all, of long ago
By the ruddy fireplace glow,
In the kitchen and the hall,
Those queer, coof-like pranks recall?
Eery shadows were they then--
But to-night they come again;
Were we once more but sixteen
Precious would be Hallowe'en.
JOEL BENTON _in Harper's Weekly, Oct. 31, 1896_.
[Illustration: NO HALLOWE'EN WITHOUT A JACK-O'-LANTERN.]
HALLOWE'EN
A gypsy flame is on the hearth,
Sign of this carnival of mirth.
Through the dun fields and from the glade
Flash merry folk in masquerade--
It is the witching Hallowe'en.
Pale tapers glimmer in the sky,
The dead and dying leaves go by;
Dimly across the faded green
Strange shadows, stranger shades, are seen--
It is the mystic Hallowe'en.
Soft gusts of love and memory
Beat at the heart reproachfully;
The lights that burn for those who die
Were flickering low, let them flare high--
It is the haunting Hallowe'en.
A. F. MURRAY _in Harper's Weekly, Oct. 30, 1909._
Magazine References to Hallowe'en Entertainments
CHARADES:
Charades, menu, tests. H. Bazar, 32:894.
CHILDREN'S PARTIES:
Fortune games for very little children. St. N., 23:33.
Hallowe'en fortunes for boys and girls. Delin., 66:631.
Masquerade, games, tests. W. H. C., 35:43.
Decorations. W. H. C., 36:34.
Old-fashioned games. St. N., 35:51.
Children's celebration of Hallowe'en. St. N., 32:1124.
CHURCH PARTIES:
Mystic party. L. H. J., 22:57.
For Young People's Soc. L. H. J., 26:34.
"Phantom fair." W. H. C., 39:32.
CLUB PARTIES:
For Country Club. Invitation. Costumes. Supper. Dance.
W. H. C., 41:30.
"Candle-light café." W. H. C., 42. Oct., 1915.
COSTUMES:
Delin., 78:258.
COUNTRY-HOUSE PARTY:
Country Life, 18:624.
DANCES:
Dances, drills, costumes. Delin., 78:258.
Hallowe'en party. W. H. C., 40:39.
Barn party. W. H. C., 34:30.
DECORATIONS AND FAVORS:
Autumn-leaf decorations and prizes. Delin., 64:638.
Cobweb party. Delin., 91:44.
Hall: Handicraft for handy girls.
Place-cards, verses. L. H. J., 28:50.
L. H. J., 31:40.
H. Bazar, 39:1046.
L. H. J., 20:48.
L. H. J., 16:38.
Cinderella party. W. H. C., 34:30.
Favors. H. Bazar, 45:516.
Nut favors. W. H. C., 32:53.
Original decorations. W. H. C., 32:32.
Fads and frills. W. H. C., 32:24.
GAMES AND FORTUNES:
Witchery games for Hallowe'en. Delin., 64:576.
H. Bazar., 33:1650.
L. H. J., 20:48.
L. H. J., 25:58.
Blain: Games for Hallowe'en.
Quaint customs. H. Bazar, 46:578.
H. Bazar, 32:894.
Witches' think cap. L. H. J., 32:29.
Hallowe'en happenings. St. N., 35:51.
INVITATIONS:
H. Bazar, 33:1650.
PARTIES (miscellaneous):
H. Bazar, 28 pt. 2:841.
H. Bazar, 32:894.
L. H. J., 29:105.
L. H. J., 30:103.
Nut-crack night party. H. Bazar, 41:1106.
Nut-crack party. H. Bazar, 38:1092.
Novel party. W. H. C., 31:42.
Yarn party. L. H. J., 26:63.
L. H. J., 23:68.
L. H. J., 14:25.
Barn party. W. H. C., 34:30.
Novel party with musical accompaniment. Musician, 18:665.
Cotter's Saturday night. W. H. C., 38:40.
"Ghosts I have met" party. Pantomime. W. H. C., 37:27.
Two jolly affairs. W. H. C., 39:32.
Tryst of witches. Good H., 53:463.
Tam o' Shanter party. Delin., 85:26.
Jolly good time. Delin., 74:367.
Hints for Hallowe'en hilarities. L. H. J., 27:46.
Jolly party. L. H. J., 19:41.
Hallowe'en fun. L. H. J., 33:33.
Pumpkin stunt party. W. H. C., 45. Oct., 1917.
Character party. W. H. C., 45. Oct., 1917.
SCHOOL PARTIES:
"Cotter's Saturday night." W. H. C., 38:40.
High school party. W. H. C., 42:34.
How the college girl celebrates Hallowe'en. W. H. C., 31:16.
SUPPERS, TABLE DECORATIONS, MENUS:
Hallowe'en suppers. H. Bazar, 35:1670.
H. Bazar, 37:1063.
L. H. J., 24:78.
L. H. J., 16:38.
W. H. C., 40:39.
W. H. C., 43:35.
H. Bazar, 44:641.
H. Bazar, 45:507.
Hallowe'en party table. L. H. J., 29:44.
H. Bazar, 32:894.
Hallowe'en supper. Good H., 53:569.
The pages refer always to the October number of the year.
Supplementary List of Readings, Recitations, and Plays
* * * * *
TITLE AUTHOR SOURCE
_All Hallowe'en_ (story) All the Year Round,
60:347
_All Souls' Eve_ (story) Hopper Eng. Illus. Mag., 18:225
_All Souls' Eve_ (story) Lyall Temple Bar., 124:379
_Black cat_ (story) Poe
_Boogah Man_ Dunbar Eldridge Entertainment
House
_Brier-Rose_ (story) Grimm Fairy tales
_Broomstick brigade_ J. T. Wagner 6 Barclay St., N. Y. City
_Bud's fairy tale_ (poem) Riley Child-world
Children's Play with musical
accompaniment Musician, 16:693
_Corn-song_ (poem) Whittier
_Elder-tree mother_ (story) Andersen Fairy tales
_Fairies_ (poem) Allingham
_Fairy and witch_ (play) Nelson Eldridge Entertainment
House
_Feast of the little lanterns_
(operetta) Bliss
_Fisherman and the genie_ _Arabian Nights_
(story)
_Ghost_ (story) O'Connor
_Ghosts I have met_ Bangs
_Ghost's touch_ (story) Collins
_Golden arm_ (story) Clemens _How to tell a story_
_Goblin stone_ (play) Wickes Child's Book, p. 127
_Guess who_ (song and drill) Murray Eldridge Entertainment
House
_Hallowe'en adventure_ McDonald Canad. Mag., 12:61
(story)
_Hallowe'en adventure_ Koogle Eldridge Entertainment
(play) House
_Hallowe'en frolic_ Cone St. N. 20 pt. 1:15
(poem)
_Haunted gale_ (play) Wormwood Eldridge Entertainment
House
_House in the wood_ Grimm Fairy tales
(story)
_Little Butterkin_ Asbjornsen _Fairy tales from the
(story) far north_
_Little Donna Juana_ Brooks
(story)
_Mother Goose recital_ Musician, 21:633
_Nix of the mill-pond_ Grimm Fairy tales
(story)
_Peter Pan in Kensington_ Barrie
_Gardens_ (story)
_Rapunzel_ (story) Grimm Fairy tales
_Red shoes_ (story) Andersen Fairy tales
_Scarecrows a-roaming_ Eldridge Entertainment
(play) House
_Seein' things_ (poem) Field Love songs of childhood
_Snow-white_ (story) Grimm Fairy tales
_Straw phantom_ (pantomime) Blackall St. N., 44:1133
_Testing of Sir Gawayne_ Merington _Festival plays_,
(play) p. 211
_Voyage of Bran_ Meyer
_Walpurgisnight_ (story) Zschokke
_Wind in the rose-bush_ Freeman
(story)
INDEX TO QUOTATIONS
* * * * *
TITLE |AUTHOR |PAGE |SOURCE
---------------------------------------------------------------------
_All-hallows honeymoon_ | | |New Eng. Magazine,
(story) |Marks |104 | 37:308
_All Souls' Eve_ (poem) |Marks, J.P.|31-32 |
_Ancient Irish_ |O'Curry |7 |
_Ballad of Tam Lin_ | |65 |Child's Ballads
_Battle of the trees_ |Taliesin |7 |_Neo-druidical heresy_
_Caractacus_ (poem) |Mason |11 |
_Celtic twilight_ (poem | | |
in introduction to) |Yeats |58 |
_Charms_ (poem) |Opper |161 |Munsey, 30:285
_Comus_ (play) |Milton |131 |
_Cuchulain of Muirthemne_|Gregory |37-38- |
| |39 |
_Cuchulain's sick-bed_ | |42 |
_Death of the flowers_ |Bryant |18-19 |
(poem) | | |
_Different party_ |Bradley |156-157|Harper's Bazar, 41:131
(story) | | |
_Dinnsenchus of Mag | |21 |_Neo-druidical heresy_
Slecht_ | | |
_Djinns_ (poem) |Hugo |148 |
_Druid song of Cathvah_ | | |
(poem) |Todhunter |9 |
_Expedition of Nera_ | |44 |
"Fair maid who" | |139 |Encyc. of Superstitions
_Fairy-faith in Celtic | | |
countries_ |Wentz |48-49 |
_Fairy fiddler_ (poem) |Hopper |64 |
_Fasti_ |Ovid |114 |
_Faust_ (play) |Goethe |130 |
_First winter song_ | | |
(poem) |Graves |16 |
"Five hundred points" |Tusser |98 |
_Giles Corey of the Salem| | |
Farms_ (play) |Longfellow |151-152|
_Golden Legend_ |De Voragine|30 |
_Great fir-tree of | | |
Takasago_ (story) |Rinder |146 |_Old-world Japan_
"Green fairy island" |Parry |103 |Welsh Melodies
_Hag_ (poem) |Herrick |66-67 |
_Hallowe'en_ (poem) |Burns |73-74- |
| |75 |
_Hallowe'en_ (poem) |Coxe |18-19- |
| |88-89- |
| |96 |
_Hallowe'en_ (poem) |Letts |99-100 |
_Hallowe'en_ (poem) |Sheard |143 |Canadian mag., 36:33
_Hallowe'en_ (poem) |Bangs |172-173|Harper's Weekly, Nov.
| | | 5, 1910
_Hallowe'en_ (poem) |Benton |176-177|Harper's Weekly, Oct.
| | | 31, 1896
_Hallowe'en_ (poem) |Murray |178 |Harper's Weekly, Oct.
| | | 30, 1909
_Hallowe'en Failure_ |Smith |175 |Harper's Weekly, Oct.
(poem) | | | 29, 1910
_Hallowe'en or Christie's|Adams |169 |Scribner's, 3:26
fate_ (story) | | |
_Hallowe'en in Ireland_ |Trant |51 |_Dewdrops and Diamonds_
_Hallowe'en Fantasy_ |Pyle |49 |Harper's Bazar, 31, pt.
(play), | | | 2: 947
(Priest and the Piper)| | |
_Hallowe'en reformation_ |Butterworth|149-150|Century, 27:48
(story) | | |
_Hallowe'en wish_ (poem) |Munkittrick|93-94 |Harper's Weekly, Oct.
| | | 27, 1900
_Hiawatha_ (poem) |Longfellow |145 |
_Immortal Hour_ (play) |Sharp |39-40- |Fortn. Rev. 74:867
| |41 |
_Jorinda and Joringel_ |Grimm |135 |Grimm's Fairy Tales
(story) | | |
_L'Allegro_ (poem) |Milton |86 |
_Land of Heart's Desire_ | |36-43- |
(play) |Yeats |45-47 |
_Lavengro_ (story) |Borrow |129 |
_Little Orphant Annie_ |Riley |152-153|
_Loch Garman_ |O'Ciarain |36 |
_Lycidas_ (poem) |Milton |85 |
_Macbeth_ (play) |Shakspere |89 |
_Monastery_ (story) |Scott |62-63- |
| |76-103 |
_Night of the dead_ |Le Braz |116-117|_Legend of the dead_
"On nuts burning" |Graydon |91-92 |
_On the morning of | | |
Christ's nativity_ | | |
(poem) |Milton |28 |
_Paradise Lost_ (poem) |Milton |120 |
_Passing of Arthur_ |Tennyson |84 |
(poem) | | |
_Pastorals_ (poem) |Gay |74-75- |
| |92-93- |
| |94-95- |
| |97 |
_Peer Gynt_ (play) |Ibsen |131 |
_Peter and Wendy_ (story)|Barrie |64 |
_Polyolbion_ (poem) |Drayton |10 |
_Pomona_ (poem) |Morris |23 |
_Rip Van Winkle_ (play) |Jefferson |150-151|
_Robin Goodfellow_ (poem)|Johnson |86 |
_St. John's Eve_ (poem) |Kickham |12 |
_St. John's Fire_ (play) |Sudermann |141 |
_St. Swithin's Chair_ | | |
(poem) |Scott |69 |
"Soul, soul" | |98 |Notes and Queries
_Spell_ (poem) |Gay |91 |
_Splores of a Hallowe'en_| | |
(poem) |Dick |72 |
_Sunken bell_ (play) |Hauptmann |14 |
_Tale of Hallowe'en_ | | |
(story) | |76 |Leisure Hour, 23:765
_Tam Glen_ (poem) |Burns |79 |
_Tam o' Shanter_ (poem) |Burns |67-68 |
_Tannhäuser_ (play) |Wagner |132-133|
_Tempest_ (play) |Shakspere |67 |
_Three-fold chronicle_ |Sharp |54-56 |Harper's, 73:842
(story) | | |
_Tom's Hallowe'en joke_ |Wright |154 |_Dewdrops and Diamonds_
(story) | | |
_Twig of thorn_ (play) |Warren |44-45 |
_Vertumnus and Pomona_ |Ovid |24 |
(poem) | | |
_Völuspa_ (poem) | |122 |
_We girls_ (story) |Whitney |162-163|
"When comes the harvest" |Botrel |112 |_Songs of Brittany_
_When de folks is gone_ |Riley |153 |
(poem) | | |
"When ebery one" | |160 |Werner's Readings,
| | | No. 31
_Wild huntsman_ (poem) |Scott |90 |
_Willie Baird_ (poem) |Buchanan |70 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
INDEX
Aberdeenshire, 60
Adder-stone, (serpent's-egg badge), 11, 27
Ailill, 36-38, 39
Ale, 80, 103
All Hallows Eve, 29, 88, 102, 106. See also Hallowe'en
All Saints', 4, 29-30, 110, 118, 126
All Souls', 4, 30-31, 98-99, 106, 110, 113, 118, 142, 144
Alphabet, 96, 160, 166-167
America, 149, 153
Anaxarete, 24
Angus, 36, 38-39
Ankou, 109, 115
Apollo, 1, 129, 134
Apparitions. See Ghosts
Apples, 23, 26, 50-53, 72, 77-78, 92, 95, 103-104, 106-107, 115,
120, 149, 155, 157-158, 161, 162, 164, 166
Apple-island, 85
Apple-seeds, 92-93, 158-159
Arabs, 147
Ariel, 87
Armorica, 108
Arthur, King, 84, 108
Ash-tree, 63, 105, 122, 137;
berries of, 29
Ashes, 56, 60, 68, 83
Augury. See Omens
August, Roman festival in, 25-26
August first, Celtic festival of, 15
Augustus, 27
Avilion (Avalon), 84-85, 107
Ayrshire, 68
Baal, 8, 12-13, 17
Baal-fire, 12
Baldur, 120-121
Balmoral, 61
Barra, 79
Bats, 134, 152, 155
Bay-leaves, 170
Bean, 94
Bedivere, 84
Belgian, 144
Beltaine, 12, 79
Bells, 99, 111, 116, 118, 132, 137, 142, 154
Benevento, 131
Bergen, 130
Black, 156
Black sheep, 17, 50
Black sow, 102
"Black vespers," 113
Blindfolded seekers, 33, 70, 73, 77-78, 83, 160
Blocksberg, 130, 141
Boats, 146, 163
Bochica, 1
Bonfires, 3, 8-9, 12, 13, 17, 21, 50, 59-61, 101-102, 125;
to light through Purgatory, 31, 106;
to protect from evil, 29, 101
Boniface, 29
Border, Scottish, 62, 81, 111
Bretons, 99, 110-111
Briar, 57
Briar-Rose, 125
Bride, 36
Britain, 5-6, 27, 87, 109, 111
British Isles, 5, 107, 109, 126
Brittany, 108-109, 142, 145, 166
Brynhild, 124
Buchan, 59
Button, 156, 164
Cabbages, 53-54, 70-72, 77, 95, 104, 164, 168-169
Cadwallo, King, 104
Caer, 38
Cæsar, 5-8, 109
Cake, 13, 33, 79, 97-98, 103, 144, 145, 156
Callcannon, 51
Canada, 167
Candlemas Day, 88
Candles, 50, 53, 55, 59, 69, 80, 95-96, 99, 112, 118, 145, 155,
158, 163
Cardiganshire, 102
Carnutes, 109
Cat, 11, 49, 66, 68, 134, 152, 155, 164
Catskill Mts., 150
_Celtic twilight_, 58
Celts, classes of, 5;
beliefs, 6, 15, 18, 30, 33, 79, 82, 107-110, 124, 125, 142;
characteristics of, 115, 119
Cemeteries, 54-55, 113-114, 142
Changelings, 35-36, 86
Charms. See Omens
Chartrain, 109
Cherokees, 3
Chinese, 145
Christ, 4-5, 27, 119
Christian religion, 3, 27-31, 50, 59, 83, 101, 109, 126, 129;
in Britain, 27, 129;
in Ireland, 42;
in Brittany, 109;
in Scandinavia, 126
Christmas, 3, 97, 110, 154
Church, 3-4, 30-31, 80, 89, 113, 118, 143, 144;
festivals, 3
Circle, 8
Claudius, 27
Cluny, 30
Coel Coeth, 101
Coins, 51-52, 72, 156
Colonies, 149
Columb Kill. See St. Colomba
Connaught, 35
Continent, 3, 118
Corn, 138;
-stalks, 155
Cornwall, 85, 108
Creed, 55
Crom Croich (Cruaich), 20-21
Cross, sun-symbol, 8;
Christian, 29, 42, 63, 137;
-roads, 65, 103, 137
Cruachan, 35, 37
Cuchulain, 41-42, 84
Cuckoos, 134, 139-140
Cyniver, 105, 168
Dagda, 39
Dahut, 111
Dance, 3, 44, 56, 61, 67, 80, 81-82, 103, 106, 126, 133
Danann. See Tuatha De Danann
Danu, 20
Dathi, 43
Dead, 19-20, 30, 37, 98-99, 109-117, 129, 142 _et seq._;
return, 4, 99, 107, 114-117, 145, 146, 149;
disturbed by weeping, 117, 145
Death, 10, 112, 156;
Lord of. See Saman.
Samhain associated with, 20-21, 30-31;
prophesied, 52, 57, 60, 65, 83, 102, 106
Decoration of graves, 118, 144
Delphi, 129, 134
Derbyshire, 99
Deux-Sèvres, 109
Devil, 43, 50, 55, 57, 66-68, 89, 102, 133-135, 140
Dew, 136, 139
Dietrich von Bern, 131
Dishes, 73, 83, 104, 165, 168
Dispater, 109
Dissatisfied, 39-40, 57-58, 132, 141
Djinns, 147-148
Doll, wax, 151
Dolmens, 110
Dorsetshire, 99
Dovrefeld, 130
Dragon, 145
Dreams, 140;
prophetic, 14, 57, 79, 165, 169
Drink, 57, 79
Druid, meaning, 6-7;
draught, 42;
festivals, 11, 26, 101;
lamps, 73;
stone, 11;
stones, 110;
wand, 7;
-fire, 50, 166
Druids, 9-11, 29, 42-43, 92, 103, 109-110, 122-123, 126;
as priests, 5-6;
powers of, 7, 27
"Drus," 6
Dumb-cake, 80, 168
Dwarfs, 110
Earth, 54, 83, 165
Edane, 47. See also Etain
Edda, 124
Egg, 165, 167;
white of, 77-78, 168;
-shells, 36
Egyptian beliefs, 1, 18
Eichstatt, 136
Elder, 123, 137
Elizabeth, Queen, 99
Elm, 63
Elves, 121, 149, 152
Emer, 42
England, 87, 89, 97, 99, 106, 108, 119, 144
English, 149
Eochaidh, 39-40
Episcopalians, 30
Eriskay, 81
Etain, 39-40
Ethal, 38
Europe, 87, 130, 135, 142, 145
Excalibur, 84
Exorcism, 9, 29, 42
Fagots, 96, 169
Fairies, 6, 44, 46, 49, 61-65, 81-82, 84-85, 96, 103, 107, 110,
149
Fand, 41-42
Fates, 89, 123, 134
Feast, of dead, 116, 143;
of poor, 144
Feng-Shin, 145
Feralia, 114
Fern, 14, 59
Finistère, 110, 117
Fir Bolgs, 20
Fire, 21, 23, 45, 123-125;
-god, 120;
spirits of, 147
Fires, 11, 17, 28-29, 50, 52, 101, 109, 112. See also Bonfires
_Flamina_, 25
Flour, 52, 57, 154, 158
Flowers, 118, 144
Fomor, 20, 35
Footprints, 57, 60, 83
"Forced-fire," 17
Fort Worth, 170
Forts, fairy, 37, 44, 46
France, 108, 110, 112, 118, 131, 142
Franks, 111
"Free-night," 141, 154
Freya, 120, 127, 129, 131, 134
"Furious Host," 131
Future, questions about, 34, 69
Gabriel Ratchets, 90
Gaul, 5-6, 27, 109, 119
Germans, 119
Germany, 130, 131, 134, 136, 144
Ghosts, 49, 63, 69, 76-77, 88, 116, 127, 144, 146, 152, 155.
See also Dead
Glass, 10-11, 96, 166
Gnomes, 48
Goat, 67-68, 134
Goblin, 35-36, 61, 64, 149, 153
Gods of Ireland. See Tuatha De Danann
"Good Neighbors," 63
"Good People," 45, 49
Goths, 119
Grallon, 111
Great Britain. See Britain
Greek, 1, 5, 6, 30, 85, 120
Gregory, 29-30
Guleesh, 46
Gunnar, 124
Hair, 77, 96, 138, 166-167
Hallowe'en, 3-4, 35, 43, 46, 49-50, 61, 64-66, 68, 72, 79, 81,
85, 89, 90, 95-96, 99, 103, 105, 106, 112, 129, 138, 140,
142, 144, 149, 152, 154, 164, 165, 170;
pagan, 3, 21;
charms at, 26, 33, 53, 56;
born on, 54, 62
_Hallowe'en_, poem, 70, 168
_Hansel and Grethel_, 134
Hares, 135
Hartz Mts., 130
Harvest, 3-4, 15, 17, 25, 30-31, 34, 59, 69, 97, 106, 112, 137,
155
Hawthorn, 123, 137
Hazel, 85
Hearts, 156
Hebrides, 79
Hel, 122, 131
Hemp, 14, 33, 53, 74
Henry VIII, 99
Henry Hudson, 150
Herbs, 46-47, 53, 66, 126, 129-130
Herne the Hunter, 90
Herodotus, 5
Hesperides, 85
Highlands, 59, 65, 77
Hodur, 121
Holda, 131-132, 136
Holiday, 61
Hollow Land, 41
Holly, 63
Hoop, 157
Horselberg, 131
Horseshoes, 138, 152
Horus, 1
Husking-bees, 3
Iceland, 125
Idun, 120
Immortality, 10, 85, 107, 120
Indians, 3, 145, 150
Invocation, 21, 92
Iona, 50
Iphis, 24
Ireland 3, 5, 13, 15, 17, 20, 35, 48-50, 59, 62, 72-73, 78-80,
104, 107, 127, 170;
belief in fairies, 6, 35
Irish Sea, 20
Iron, 152
Italy, 119, 131, 142
Ivy, 57
Jack-o'-lantern, 49-50, 69, 121, 155
Japan, 2, 146
Jokes, 154
Jonah, 13
Juniper, 123, 137
Jupiter, 8
Kale. See Cabbages
Kensington Gardens, 64
Ker-Is, 111
Kettle, 89, 134, 155
Key, 55, 72, 144, 156
Laeg, 42
"Lambswool," 51
Lammas, 28
Lancashire, 99
Land of Heart's Desire, 36
Land of Youth, 40
"Lanterns of the dead," 112
Lanterns in Japan, 146
Latin. See Rome
Lead-melting, 55-56, 77, 168
Leek, 104-105
Legends, origin of, 2
Lemons, 170
Leprechauns, 48
Lewis, 80
Liban, 41
Lincolnshire, 89
"Little People," 48-49, 85
"Livelong," 53
Loki, 120
London, 97
Lords of Misrule, 88
Love-knots, 156
Lucifer, 120
"Luck of Edenhall," 96
Luggies. See Dishes
Lugh, 14-15
Lugnasad, 15, 28, 33
_Macbeth_, 123
Magic, 7, 15, 155;
black, 28, 156
Maine, 165
Malt, 80
Malta, 144
Man, Isle of, 20, 82
Manitous, 150
Mars, 8
Martinmas, 62
Mary, Virgin, 29, 126, 132, 138, 145
Mary Avenel, 62
Maryland, 165
Massachusetts, 164
Master of the Revels, 97
May-bride, 126
May Eve and Day, 4, 11-13, 29, 33, 45, 47, 107, 125, 135, 136,
_et seq._;
-fires, 13, 61;
-pole, 126;
-ridings, 125;
-shooting, 140
Meal, 83, 164
Meath, 15, 17
Medb, 36, 39
Meg, 68
"Men of Peace," 63
Mercury, 8, 15
Midir, 39-41
Middle Ages, 129
Midsummer, 3, 11, 20, 28, 33, 53, 125, 146
Milk, 45, 51, 112
Minerva, 8
Mirror, 85, 129, 146-147, 149, 161-162
_Miserere_, 142
Mistletoe, 7, 40, 120
Modred, 84
Mona, 27
_Monastery_, 62
Moon, 40, 74, 76, 77, 146, 155, 162
Moray, 59
Moytura, 20, 22, 35
Music, 36, 39-40, 43-47, 56, 64, 67, 87, 111
Myths, origin of, 2
Naples, 142
Needles, 117, 133, 151, 158, 166
Negroes, 153
Nera, 37, 107
Net, 83
Neverland, 64
New Brunswick, 167
New Hampshire, 165
New Year, 82, 102, 154. See also Year's end
New Year's Day, 17
Niflheim, 122
Nikko, 146
Norse, 80, 82, 119, 134
Norway, 1, 126, 130
"Nos Galan Gaeof," 102
November, Eve, 33, 35, 37, 44, 50, 59, 79, 101-102, 107, 112,
137;
first, 4, 11, 16, 25-26, 137, 144;
in Rome, 30;
second, 30, 118, 144
Nuts, 26, 33, 50-52, 73, 90-92, 103-104, 109, 115, 144, 155,
159-160, 169
Oak, 6-7, 27, 40, 122
Oats, 55, 77
Oatmeal cakes, 79
Obsession, 44
October 31st, 4, 10, 17, 50, 82, 85, 118
Odin, 120, 124, 129, 131
"Oidhche Shamhna," 50
Olaf, 126
Omens, 14, 22, 26, 50-52, 104, 117, 137;
from sacrifices, 9, 17, 33, 123, 166;
evil, 28
Oonah, 45
Ops, 23
Ordeal, 9, 123-124
Osiris, 1, 18
Ossian, 47-48, 150
Ostia, 25
Otherworld, 19, 39, 42, 47, 84, 103, 107, 111, 115, 121, 146, 150
Ovid, 24, 114
Owls, 134, 152, 155
Paddy Beg, 46-47
Paddy More, 46-47
Paganism, 30, 35, 59, 109, 141
Pageant, 170
Pantheon, 29
Paradise, 31
Partholon, 13
Parties, Hallowe'en, 155
Peace, 171
Peas, 92, 94
Pelagius, 83
Pennsylvania, 165
Perthshire, 59
Peru, 1
Peter Pan, 63-64
Ph[oe]nicians, 5
Picts, 108
Piper, fairy, 43-44, 64, 87
Pixies, 103, 110
Pomona, 4, 23-26, 50, 85, 155
Pontypridd, 101
_Preparedness for Peace_, 170
Procopius, 111
Prophets,
Druids as, 9, 43;
witches as, 89, 134, 151
Pumpkins, 155, 160
Purgatory, 31, 99, 106, 145
Puy de Dome, 131
"Puzzling-jug," 103-104
Races, 15, 26
Rapunzel, 125
Red Mike, 54, 62
Rick, 55
Ring, 51-52, 55, 72, 96, 156, 165, 168
Rip Van Winkle, 150
Rome, 8, 23-30, 114, 119-120;
relations to Druids, 27;
All Saints' in, 32
Roses, 105
Rowan. See Ash-tree
Sacrifices, 20, 109, 137;
to Baal, 8-9, 11-13, 17, 101;
omens from, 33;
to Tyr, 123
St. Augustine, 83
St. Bridget, 45
St. Colomba, 50
St. Gertrude, 126
St. John's Day and Eve, 3, 28, 109, 110, 137, 141
St. Kilda, 79
St. Michael, 85
St. Ninian, 83
St. Odilo, 30
St. Patrick, 5, 43, 83
Saga, 124
Salerno, 142
Salt, 57, 67, 79, 82, 83, 134, 169
Saman, 10, 31, 50, 80
Samhain (Sáveen), 16, 18, 20-22, 26, 31, 35-36, 38, 40-41, 43,
48, 59, 65, 82
Samhnagan, 60
Samhanach, 64
Sark. See Shirt
Satan, 120, 133
Sauin. See Samhain
Scandinavia, 119, 126, 134
Scotland, 59, 78, 79, 81, 82, 99, 104, 127, 156;
belief in fairies in, 6, 62-64
Scots, 108
Seasons, 1
Seaweed, 80
Secrecy, 45, 77-78, 124, 155;
in Druid rites, 9-10, 124
Seed-cake, 97
Seeds, 14, 92, 121
Serpent's-egg. See Adder-stone
Seville, 131
Shee, 39
Shirt-sleeve, wetting the, 56, 78-79, 126-129, 165
Shoe, 77, 170
Shony, 80
Shropshire, 98
"Sid," 37, 49. See also Forts
Sigurd, 124
Sîtou, 18
Sleep, 39, 47, 87, 124-125
Sloe, 52, 85
Snakes. See Adder-stone
Snap-apple. See Apples
Sol, 1
Soul-cakes. See Cake
South, 165
South Uist, 81
Sowens, 79
Spain, 131, 144
Spectre Huntsman, 90
Spirits, 6, 20, 103;
abroad, 14, 22, 31, 35, 44, 48;
evil, 4, 18, 20, 56, 63, 87, 99, 129
Staffordshire, 98
Stones, 60, 101-102, 106, 109
Stories, 81, 96, 149, 169
Straw, 77, 99
Strunt, 79
"Summer's end," 3-4, 11-12, 16, 25, 44
Sun-god, 1-3, 8, 15, 44, 84-85, 87, 120-121, 124, 126, 136;
-worship, 21;
-wise, 3, 17, 60, 67
Superstitions, 33, 62, 83, 135, 153-154
Swans, 38-39, 41
Swastika, 8
Sweden, 126, 133
Symbols, 7-8, 28
Tam o' Shanter, 68-69, 89
Tannhäuser, 131-133
Tara, 17, 21, 43, 48, 59
_Tempest_, 87
Teuton, 108, 124, 142
Teutonic, 4, 125
Thanksgiving, 3-4;
for harvest, 59
Thimble, 51, 72, 83, 156
Thor, 134
Thorn, 45
Thread, 138, 167
Thuringia, 131
Tiberius, 27
Tigernmas, 20-21
"Tin Islands," 5
Tlactga, 17
Toads, 152
Toasts, 126
Todmorden, 90
Torches, 14, 60-61, 68, 99
Tree-worship, 7-8, 92, 123
Trefoil, 8, 29
Trinity, 29
Tripod, 65, 134, 155
Trolls, 121, 130, 150
Tuatha De Danann, 20, 29, 38-39, 43, 48-50, 107-108
Tub, 53, 93, 96, 160;
apples in. See Apples
Tyr, 123
United States, 153
Valhalla, 121-122
Vali, 121
Valkyries, 122, 136
Vandals, 119
Venus, 131-132
Vertumnus, 24-25
Vortumnalia, 25
Vulcan, 120
Vurdh, 123
Wales, 27, 101, 105, 106, 108, 144, 168;
belief in fairies in, 6
Walnut-tree, 92
Walpurga, 136
Ward, Hill of. See Tara
Water, 57, 68, 97, 165
Wedding of sun and earth, 126, 136
"Weird Sisters," 123
Wendy, 64
Wheel,
sun-symbol, 8, 13, 17;
of fortune, 163
White Lady, 62
Wild Huntsman, 90, 131
Will-o'-the-wisps, 121
Windsor Forest, 90
Winnowing, 75-76
Winter, first day of, 18, 44, 87, 102, 112
Witches, 4, 60-61, 65-69, 89, 99, 101, 129-131, 133-135, 146, 155
Witchcraft, 4, 81, 89, 134
Wood, 52, 57, 97
Wotan. See Odin
Yarn, 55, 75, 104, 140, 165
Year's end, 10, 17-18, 84
Yellow, 156
Yggdrasil, 122
Yorkshire, 97
Yule, 3, 126
Zschokke, 140
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
Represented the "oe" ligature as [oe].
Adjusted placement of footnotes.
Page 88: Retained alternate spelling of "Candelmas" in quoted
material versus standard spelling in index.
Page 182: Standardized punctuation.
Pages 191 & 194: Standardized index cross-reference words.
Page 204: Standardized spelling of "sick-bed."
Page 207: Standardized spelling of _Völuspa_.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Book of Hallowe'en" ***
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