Halloween

“ Your Halloween fortune is made—you are a happy being.
But Halloween comes at last—Scotland's Halloween—Burns' Halloween—the Halloween of centuries upon centuries—of the Celt amidst his mountains, the Saxon in his valley, the Druid in his woods, King James the First in his palace—and old Janet Smith in her humble cottage. It was at Janet Smith's that I held the first Halloween of which I have any distinct recollection. There was a kind of couthiness about old Janet, which made her hearth the resort of all the young lads and lasses, boys and girls, around. ”

“ How wonderfully our Halloween party was turning out!
And the turning-out is almost the best part of anything; the time when things are getting together, in the beautiful prosperous way they will take, now and then, even in this vexed world.
There was our lovely little supper-table all ready. People who have servants enough, high-trained, to do these things while they are entertaining in the drawing-room, don't have half the pleasure, after all, that we do, in setting out hours beforehand, and putting the last touches and taking the final satisfaction before we go to dress. ”

“ There are many other customs connected with Halloween, some of them mysterious and uncanny, which you will learn by and bye. But these two, the burning of nuts and the hunting of apples will do you no possible harm. On the contrary, where there is a lot of you children present, they will give much innocent fun and laughter. ”

“ Every Halloween were the ancient windows lighted up, and passers [Pg 124] by saw little figures flitting to and fro inside the building, while they heard the music of flutes and pipes.
It was well known that fairy revels took place; but nobody had the courage to intrude on them.
Jamie had often watched the little figures from a distance, and listened to the charming music, wondering what the inside of the castle was like; but one Halloween he got up, and took his cap, saying to his mother, “I’m awa to the castle to seek my fortune.” ”

“ Assured of their welcome, laughter, jollity, and mystery all attend the Halloween frolics which are given up to sports with kale, apples, nuts, mirror, etc. These ordinarily commonplace articles are claimed, on this eventful eve, to be touched with magic, endowed with the power of prophecy and enabled to tell of wonderful adventure or fortune which will befall any one who puts their virtues to the test. ”

“ Brand says "it is customary on this night with young people in the north of England to dive for apples, or catch at them, when stuck upon one end of a kind of hanging beam, at the other extremity of which is fixed a lighted candle, and that with their mouths only, their hands being tied behind their backs." Robert Burns tells us that Halloween is thought to be a "night when witches, devils, and other mischief making beings, are all abroad on their baneful midnight errands ”

“ As a Halloween joke,
Just then he awoke.
He saw a Halloween lantern in the moon-light. It hung above the window-sill and as it turned round and round, he saw on it a Jack O’ Lantern, a Big Black Cat and a Witch!
He cried,
“’Tis a magic lantern, if I were in it,
I’d change my name to Think-A-Minute.”
Whether he rode in the magic lantern or [36] not, I cannot say, but every year on Halloween a Big Black Cat, sat on his door-step, and a Jack O’ Lantern peeped in his window, and a Witch riding by on a broom said,
“Think-A-Minute, how do you do? ”

“ Pennsylvania.
311. On Halloween put an egg to roast before the fire and leave the doors and windows open. When it begins to sweat a cat will come in and turn it. After the cat will come the man you are to marry, and he will turn it. If you are to die unmarried, the shadow of a coffin will appear.
Chestertown, Md.
312. On Halloween go upstairs backwards, eating a hard boiled egg without salt, and looking in the glass. You will see your future husband in the glass, looking over your shoulder. ”

“ Visitors from far and near went to see the famous spot where Antone's vegetables all ran away one Halloween night; and to this day there lives not a man who can make grow on [Pg 271] that land cabbages or turnips or any other vegetable, although in a spot in the forest, not far off, cabbages and pumpkins and all such vegetables grow wild.
Each year, as regularly as Halloween came to mark the harvest time, Antone and Babette mounted the broomstick with the witch and rode off to the Halloween frolic. ”

“ She manages them so as to spell a man’s name as best she can with the letters at her disposal. The name thus found will be that of her future husband.
Trinity and Catalina Bays, N. F.
309. On Halloween a girl is to go through a graveyard, steal a cabbage and place it above the house-door. The one on whom the cabbage falls as the door is opened is to be the girl’s husband.
Massachusetts.
310. On Halloween walk backwards from the front door, pick up dust or grass, bring it in, wrap it in paper, put it under your pillow, and dream. ”

“ NOTES. All-Saints’ day, as all good Christians should remember, is the first day of November. Halloween, is a sweet Scotticism for its vigil, familiar to the reader of Burns, but which I have grudged to the degrading use which has been made of it, by that unhappy bard.
Instead of the profane rites by which it has been desecrated, I have supposed it observed in Christian homes, by fire-side tales and recollections of the departed, and conversations about the state of Intermediate Repose. ”

“ Numerous have been the ceremonies, spells, and charms, which formerly distinguished All-Hallow-Eve. In England, except in a few remote places in the North, they have ceased to be observed for the last half century; but in the West of Scotland they are still retained with a kind of religious veneration, as is sufficiently proved by the inimitable poem of Burns, entitled Halloween, which, in a vein of exquisite poetry and genuine humour, minutely details the various superstitions, which have been practised on this night from time immemorial. ”

“ When no definite time was set for trying the charm, it was simply put under “projects.”
303. A Halloween custom is to fill a tub with water and drop into it as many apples as there are young folks to try the trick. Then each one must kneel before the tub and try to bite the apples without touching them with the hands. The one who bites one first will marry first.
Alabama.
304. On Halloween hang an apple by the door just the height of the chin. Rub the chin with saliva, stand about six inches from the apple, and hit the chin against the apple. ”

“ We hope our readers will sing to the wassail-bowl this Christmas-tide.
We find that in some parts of Ireland and in Germany, and probably in districts of England, too, Christmas Eve is treated as a night of omens, and that practices exist for gathering its auguries having a resemblance to those of our northern neighbors at Halloween. Many beautiful, and some solemn superstitions belong to this night and the following [279] morning. ”

“ With the public I now leave the decision, and shall cheerfully acquiesce in its award whether favourable or the reverse.
A. D.
Woodstock, C. W., Jan., 1867.
[Pg 5]
HALLOWEEN.
This night we meet o’ a’ the nights,
For fun the very wale,
When melancholy taks its flight,
And graning pains grow hale ”

“ There may be witches, and she may be one. This is a very strange night, this Halloween." So said Mrs. Miller.
Obed had received an arrow in his heart. "Although I cannot trust you," the words spoken by Eliza haunted him. He went about a dull, absent-minded young man, and the people attributed his sadness to the sight that he had seen in the midnight ride.
Eliza was always very kind to him. She never spoke to him of the night that he had deserted her but once. It was on the eve before she united with the village church. ”

“ The witches’ rides would not be apt to injure old broomsticks, but should you happen to see any cats the morning after Halloween, notice how tired the poor creatures look after carrying the witches all night! ”

“ Give me the calm of Days decline to muse upon my own
HALLOWEEN,
A ROMAUNT,
WITH
LAYS,
MEDITATIVE AND DEVOTIONAL.
BY
THE AUTHOR OF “CHRISTIAN BALLADS.”
HARTFORD:
H. S. PARSONS.
1845.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, by
H. S. PARSONS,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of Connecticut.
Stereotyped by
RICHARD H. HOBBS,
Hartford, Conn.
Printed by
CASE, TIFFANY AND BURNHAM,
Hartford, Conn.
PREFACE. Halloween has been printed, though never published before. In the winter of 1842 I had a private edition, of fifty copies, struck off for my friends. ”

“ The modes of trying sweethearts, and the various love tests applied, are curious enough. Burning nuts, the love-candle, eating an apple before the looking-glass at midnight, the salt egg, and dropping melted lead through a key into a basin of water, are a few of them, and all must be accompanied by particular ceremonies or incantations, in order that they may have the desired power to lift the veil of futurity.
A few years ago we spent Halloween in the family of a friend who resides fifty miles away from any large town in the interior of Pennsylvania. ”

“ One takes it upon his shoulders; and, running, bears it round the village. A crowd attend. When the first faggot is burnt out, a second is bound to the pole, and kindled in the same manner as before. Numbers of these blazing faggots are often carried about together; and when the night happens to be dark, they form a splendid illumination. This is Halloween, and is a night of great festivity.” [371] Also at Callander, in Perthshire:—“On All Saints Even they set up bonfires in every village. When the bonfire is consumed, the ashes are carefully collected into the form of a circle. ”

“ A frieze of witches on broom-sticks, 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. ”

“ In this long enumeration, our readers will recognize many which have come down to the present day, and form still the amusement of their winter evenings at the Christmas-tide, or on the merry night of Halloween. For an account of many of those which are no longer to be found in the list of holiday games, we must refer such of our readers as it may interest to Brand's "Popular Antiquities," and Strutt's "English [235] Sports." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Eastern Massachusetts.
307. I wind, I wind, my true love to find,
The color of his hair, the clothes he’ll wear,
The day he is married to me.
Throw a ball of yarn into a barn, old house, or cellar, and wind, repeating the above lines, and the true love will appear and wind with you. To be tried at twelve o’clock at night, on Halloween.
Maine. [56]
308. Shortly before midnight a pure white bowl is procured, that has never been touched by any lips save those of a new-born infant. If it is a woman whose fortune is to be tried (and it generally is) the child must be a male. ”

“ Indeed, at all festivals when the entire kin is assembled the deceased members are conceived as assembled with them; a portion of the food is set aside, a portion of the drink is poured out for the departed. The cult of the dead in this form survives into the higher phases of civilisation. At various times in the year, particularly at Halloween, all over Europe, the tables are set, the doors are opened, and the ghosts are invited to partake of the fare provided by their descendants and relatives ”

“ They are meant to succeed each other, as did the experiences which suggested them, from the pursuit of trifles, to the choice of God’s holy service; and to exhibit as a moral what St. Augustine so appositely says in his confessions: Tu, Domine, excitas, ut laudare Te delectat; quia fecisti nos ad Te, et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in Te.
CONTENTS.
H. S. PARSONS
Has for sale, by the author of Halloween,
ATHANASION,
Second Edition, with Notes.
Also will publish shortly, in uniform with Halloween,
CHRISTIAN BALLADS,
Second Edition, with Additions. ”

“ And thus the true Catholic always finds himself living in harmony with nature; for the Author of Nature is the Author of his Holy Religion. He has a joy which the world knows not, in beholding all the works of God. They have a place in that system of the universe, of which the Catholic Church is a part; and Niagara, and Mont Blanc, possess for him a ritual character, as really as the Te Deum, in which he sings, “All the earth doth worship thee the Father Everlasting.”
The warlocks are at their play.
Strophe vii.
Such is one of the familiar superstitions concerning Halloween. ”

“ 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. ”