Patrick Kavanagh, Inniskeen, County Monaghan; ‘The eight of December is a Catholic holiday. Since nineteen hundred and twenty-two, my career as a young gangster touched the high spot, fused and went out.
‘Will ye come out with the Mummers?’ a fellow asked me.
‘I wouldn’t think twice of it if I knew the rhymes,’ I said.
‘Rhymes be hanged,’ he said, ‘ye know enough.’
There were about fifteen lads in our troupe of Mummers. I had an insignificant role at the tail of the play. I wore an old black bowler hat and a cardboard false face.
Oxfordshire Mummers – late Nineteenth Century
We headed across, jumping drains and scrambling over hedges. We were well received by the people, hardly any house barred its door against us. We carried a melodeon though none of us could play the instrument. The old folk in the little houses gave us a warm welcome: they looked upon the Mummers as an old Irish custom, which it was not. The big houses looked upon us as hooligans and it might be they were right. During our travels a bottle of poteen made its appearance. One of our characters, Oliver Cromwell, had the bottle on his head…..
In one big house to which we forced our way we were met by silence. A side of bacon hanging from the rafters dangled above our heads. One of our fellows snatched the bacon from its hook and we all ran out.
We went up to a house in a bog village known as Sooty Row. The door was slammed in our faces The ‘Doctor’, part of our cast, carried a huge wooden beetle which he had taken from a tub of pigs’-mash in one of the houses. Bang! Bang! Crash! He struck the closed doors and smashed them to smithereens. Then we all ran.
In another house we got eighteen pence and a warm welcome. That should have satisfied us but it did not. A pile of griddle-cakes stood on the table near the door, one on top of the other. The bottom cake was a lovely fruit cake with cherries and raisins sticking out its sides. As I went out the door I heard a noise and a commotion. I looked around and saw five or six cakes – like the wheels of turf-barrows – rolling about the floor: the fruit cake wasn’t among them. One of our number dashed past me hugging that cake. The man of the house stood in the doorway and we heard him say, very politely: ‘A meaner lot of young men I have never known.’ The cake was devoured in a minute. I got very little, just a crust from which the donor had carefully picked the raisins and cherries.
By the roadside we sat down to count the money. There was a row.
”Yer keepin’ some of it,’ the purse-bearer was told. He got raging mad. ‘There’s the rotten money,’ he said, as he scattered it on the road. One more instance of the saying: ‘A narrow gathering gets a wide scattering.’
We split: it was more or less a political split. The Free Staters turned for home, the Republicans continued ahead.
There was a dance in a near-by hall. I didn’t want to go as I was fagged out.
For my part the dance was a complete flop. I couldn’t see a nice girl in the place.’
The Green Fool 1938
Top photograph from the Wilshire Collection, National Library of Ireland.
The fairies were thought to be particularly active under the light of the full moon. On those brightly illuminated nights fairies, who lived in beautiful palaces under the sea, were said to come up on to the land to revel and converse with the fairies of Ireland, at fairy mounds and around hawthorn trees, as Lady Wilde explains, ‘on moonlight nights they often come up on the land, riding their white horses, and they hold revels with their fairy kindred of the earth, who live in the clefts of the hills, and they dance together on the green sward under the ancient trees, and drink, nectar from the cups of the flowers, which is the fairy wine.’
As fairies and mortals lived separate but connected lives, the full moon presented greater possibilities of association between these two races. On Inishbofin, for example, dread of the fairies was so strong that when the moon was fullest, young girls were encouraged to stay indoors to avoid being abducted as brides to the fairies, while the good people’s* beautiful music and dancing was said to have tempted many a young girl to leave her home on these most ominous evenings. The full moon also presented an opportunity for the fairies to seek revenge on anyone who had slighted them, and anyone who built over a mound or cut down a fairy tree would do well to stay in on these nights for there are many stories that attest that the fairies took their opportunity to seek revenge on those mortals on moonlit evenings.
* When speaking of the fairies the names like the ‘good people’ or the ‘fair folk’ were often used as a precaution to causing offence.
Sources
Lady Jane Wilde, Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms and Superstitions of Ireland, 1887.
Lady Jane Wilde, Ancient Cures, Charms and usages in Ireland, 1890.
Despite having spent all of her short life in Egypt Saint Catherine Alexandria was, at one time, among the most revered saints in Ireland. The many religious institutions named after Saint Catherine give some indication of the saint’s widespread veneration in Ireland over previous centuries, but it is perhaps Saint Catherine’s Bed, one of six penitential beds, at Lough Derg that gives the greatest indication of the high position she previously held among the saints of Ireland.
As Saint Catherine is considered, at least in Ireland, to be the patron saint of seafaring* it is natural that her cult has remained strongest in places like the coastal parishes of Killybegs in Donegal and Ventry in Kerry, both of which have Catherine as their patron saint. Saint Catherine’s Feast Day, 25 November, has continued to be observed in Killybegs and Ventry with pilgrimages and patrons at holy wells which, according to legend , were long ago blessed in Saint Catherine’s honour by survivors of shipwrecks, often monks, who believed the saint had intervened to spare them being drowned. In Killybegs there is also a more recent legend, dating from the middle of the nineteenth century, in which a Protestant rector named Lodge decided to fill the holy well with soil, in an effort to put a stop to the well worship in the area, only to discover that after doing so a spring shot up through the floor-board of his house flooding his drawing room, leading the rector to have the holy well restored to its previous state.
* Internationally and in the Roman Catholic tradition Saint Catherine of Alexandria is considered to be the patron saint of many occupations including unmarried women, millers and archivists, however to the best of my knowledge, seafaring is only ascribed to her in the Irish tradition.
Above photograph of Saint Catherine’s Well, Killybegs, County Donegal, circa 1940, Valentine Collection, National Library of Ireland.
In Ireland there are a host of traditional beliefs and rituals that were once commonly observed to acknowledge the arrival of the New Moon. It which was generally believed that at first sight of a new moon a person’s behaviour could influence their fate until the start of the next moon cycle.
One such widespread belief, which has survived advised that in order for a person to increase their fortune a piece of silver should be borrowed when the New Moon first appeared, in the belief that your wealth would increase as the new moon waxed, while, at least in County Clare, it was considered lucky to turn the coins in your pocket on the first occasion that the luminary is sighted. In a similar manner, but with less favourable results, it was believed to be unlucky to catch sight of the New Moon through glass; a correspondent from a 1903 issue of Ireland’s Own warned that sorrow would follow a person who saw a new moon through glass until the following new moon appeared. Even the position that the New Moon was viewed from was deemed to be of consequence to the viewer’s fate: ideally, for luck, the New Moon should be seen over the right shoulder, while to see the New Moon over the left shoulder was believed to be unlucky, and seeing the New Moon directly before you was said to foretell that the onlooker would have a fall.
Direct appeals were also made to the New Moon, with some believing that a person who demonstrated their veneration for the New Moon upon its first appearance would receive protection for as long as the moon lasted. In his 1870 book Irish Folk Lore Fr. John O’Hanlon provided two accounts of the manner in which salutations were made to the New Moon during the middle of the nineteenth in County Galway.
In the first account, a person kneels down before the moon says a Pater or Ave, and then recites the following address:
‘Oh Moon! May thou leave us safe, as thou hast found us!’
While in the second account a person should ‘make a sign of the Cross, while at the same time chanting in an undertone the following short prayer:
“God and the holy Virgin be about me!”
And finally the following verse:
“I see the moon, and the moon sees me;
God bless the moon, and God bless me!”’
Appeals to the New Moon were also made by young women who sought insight to the identity of their future husband. In the early years of the twentieth-century an elderly woman from County Tipperary gave A. H. Singleton a detailed account of the following salutation which she had tried in her young day for insight into her future love life:
‘When you get a sight of it [the New Moon] kneel down, and with a black-handled knife lift a sod from under your right knee and from under the toe of your right foot repeating:
“New moon, new moon,
Happy may I be;
Whoever is my true love
This night may I see.”
Once this verse is recited a number of times the Lords pray should be repeated, after which the sod of earth is lifted from under your knee and foot and hidden outside your house ‘till you are ready to go to bed, then bring it inside. You must not speak to a living soul once the earth brought into the house. Then put the earth into the right-foot stocking, and put that under your head. But be sure you talk to no one till morning.’
The tradition of sacrificing a fowl or a farm animal on Saint Martin Eve was once observed in many parts of Ireland, and was still going strong into our grandparents’ times. The type of animal slaughtered depended on the means of the household; in wealthier households a pig, lamb, calf, or other animal was generally chosen, while in the majority of households, especially as the nineteenth century progressed, the slaughter of a fowl, generally a goose, gander, chicken, or duck became the most widespread offering to the saint. For those who could neither afford nor obtain a farm-animal – alternatives were often resorted to. In some coastal areas, for example, seabirds were known to be slaughtered in place of farm-animals on Saint Martin’s Eve, while for those who failed to procure an animal of any kind the spilling of blood was sometimes considered so essential that a member of the family would spill some of their own blood, usually by cutting a finger, to fulfil the obligation to the saint.
The slaughtering of the animal was the responsibility of the head of the household; if a fowl was to be slaughtered the woman of the house generally carried out the ritual, while if a mammal was to be slaughtered the man of the house was thought to be responsible for the ritual. Whether female or male, the head of the household would hold the animal in their hands and proclaim that the animal was been killed in honour of Saint Martin. Once the creature was slaughtered, to protect the household from evil and to encourage prosperity in the coming year, the blood was spilled and sprinkled over the threshold, about the windows, and in each corner of the dwelling. In some instances, the byre, stables and other outbuilding were protected in a similar manner. While, as a form of personal protection, blood from the animal was sometimes used to make the sign of a cross on the forehead of each member of the household. Ronald H. Buchanan tells us that ‘the head of the fowl was sometimes thrown over the roof of the house to ward off evil during the following year.’ While, according to Lady Augustus Gregory, the claw of a foul killed on Saint Martin’s Eve is worth retaining as it is thought to contain the power bring back a child that had been taken by the fairies.
There are many legends warning of the consequences of failing to make an offering to Saint Martin on Saint Martin’s Eve, for example, versions of following short County Leitrim legend were once well known in many parts of Ireland;
‘A man who, having nothing else, killed his only cow in honour of the saint, who rewarded him by increasing his riches in the following year, so that when St Martin’s Day came round again, he was the possessor of many beasts. Then in his plenty, he grudged even a fowl, and by the following 11th November was as poor as he ever was.’
The slaughtered fowl or beast was cooked and shared between the members of the family on Saint Martin’s Day, which along with Michaelmas and Christmas Day were the only holy days when the consumption of meat was permitted amongst the primarily Catholic population of Ireland.
Sources
Buchanan. Ronald H. “Calendar Customs.” Ulster Folklore. Volume 9. Belfast, 1963.
Duncan, Leland L; Whelan Barney; Whelan, Anne; Lynch, Michael; McVittie, Edward; and Drumkeeran. ‘Fairy Beliefs and other Folklore notes from County Leitrim.’ Folklore 7, no. 2 (June 1896), pp. 161-183.
‘It is said that on this one day of the year the souls of the dead are allowed to re-visit their native districts; and if only the human eye had the power to see them, they would be observed about one on every side “as plenty as thranteens [long blades of grass] in an uncut meadow.”
At night time it is customary in every house to light a candle in memory of each member of a family who has died. They are placed in an unused room and allowed to burn till midnight, when, after praying for the souls of the dead, they are extinguished, as by that time the souls themselves have returned to rest.
At the last thing at night the hearth is swept clean, and on it are placed three cups of spring water.’
* That the souls of the dead can visit the living is often said of Hallowe’en, and sometimes extends for a two day period from Hallowe’en to All Souls’ Day.
Journal of the Kildare Historical and Archaeological Society, 1906-8.
Painting by William Gerald Barry (1864-1941), ‘An Old Woman and Children in a Cottage Interior’, 1887. (Crawford Art Gallery, Cork)
Encounters between the fairies and their human counterparts are said to be particularly prevalent at Halloween. For on that dark night, like May Eve, the veil between this world and the otherworld is at its thinnest. It is well known that on Halloween the fairies shift location and hold their revels in ancient raths, on top of hills, and around lonesome hawthorn trees. Many people would avoid going out on Halloween as the fairies, who are often mischievous and sometimes vindictive, were believed to be particularly boisterous on this night.
Leaving offerings to the fairies on Halloween was a widespread in Ireland, although the custom was steadily in decline from the middle of the nineteenth century. Despite the decline, the custom is still carried out in some Irish households to this day. Although the idea of sharing the Halloween feast with our fairy counterparts sounds like a friendly gesture, these offerings were often presented in an attempt to put a stop to the fairies more sinister activities. During his childhood in the 1920s Seán O’Callaghan of Ballygrane in County Cork recalled that his mother always left a plate of barmbrack and a saucer of milk at the gate of their house on Halloween night, and that his mother believed that if she failed to leave this offering ‘the fairies would come in and break all the crockery in the house.’ Attempts to appease the fairies on Halloween were not restricted to rural areas; the famous Irish playwright, William Butler Yeats recalled being told as a child that offerings were still made on Halloween night in the slums of Dublin to secure protection against the fairies. Those who dared to venture out on Halloween would often carry charms including items made of iron and crucifixes to repel the fairies, Elizabeth Andrews in her 1913 book Ulster Folklore noted that on Halloween in parts of County Derry mothers put salt or oats on the heads of their children to protect them from being abducted by the fairies.
Many who ventured out on Halloween found themselves unexplainably lost in what were once familiar surroundings. In his 1889 book, originally titled Donegal 60 Years Ago, Hugh Dorian provided the following account of the disorientation that was supposed to accompany those who found themselves lost on Halloween, ‘the passerby can hear the sound of music coming from some steep rock, or if a man in the dusk of the evening is looking for some stray animal he experiences their tricks by going astray and wandering about himself, and then he hears them laughing aloud at him in his difficulty.’ If you find yourself lost on Halloween night, or on any other night for that matter, a good way to find your bearings is to turn your coat inside out; as doing so is supposed to break the fairies’ enchantment. If Halloween was a dangerous time to be abducted by fairy hosts, it was also a date that provided opportunities to rescue loved ones who were held in the fairy realm. Father John O’Hanlon noted in his 1870 book Irish Folk Lore that ‘persons taken away to the raths are often seen at this time by their living friends, and usually accompanying a fairy cavalcade. If you meet the fairies, it is said, on All-Hallows’ Eve, and throw the dust taken from under your feet at them, they will be obliged to surrender any captive human being.’
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The fairies are not always vindictive to their human counterparts, and there are many stories where the fairies seem to need the assistance of mortals as midwives, musicians, and, in some tales, to carryout abductions. While the fairies are thought to be more inclined to harm humans at Samhain, in some tales their intentions can often seem benevolent; although the outcome can still have a negative impact on the human protagonist as can be discovered in the following short County Leitrim tale taken from the 1894 edition of Folklore:
‘On Hallow Eve, as a young fellow was going home, he chanced to pass a fort, and heard the most beautiful music he had ever listened to in his life. As he stopped to listen, a grand castle seemed to appear before him, and he was invited to enter. Inside he found full of little men running about, and one of them came to him and told him on no account to take any refreshment there or it would be the worse for him, he took nothing. By-and-bye he saw them all trooping out. He followed, and noticed that they all dipped their fingers in a large cask outside the entrance door and rubbed their fingers across their faces. He accordingly dipped his finger in the liquid and rubbed it over one of his eyes. In an instant there was a fine horse ready for him, and away with him and the others over the country, and over the whole world.
Towards morning he found himself lying on the butt of an old haystack, about half-a-mile from his own door, and getting up, he made his way home. The next day he had occasion to go into the market town, and whom should he see, but all his friends of the night, mingling with the people of the place, and going up and down through the market. What must he do but up and speak to some of them, and asked them how they did. Said one to him, “How can you see us?” So he told them that he had dipped his finger in the barrel before the castle door and rubbed it over his right eye. That instant as he spoke the little man struck his eye with a stick he had, and took the sight from it, and it was no more he saw either the good people or anything else with that eye.’
I’m going to finish up this post on Halloween & the Fairies in Irish Folklore with the following popular tale of fairy abduction titled ‘The Fairy Bride.
Goblin Market by Arthur Rackham, 1867-1939
There was a young farmer who did not believe in the fairies, and so did not fear walking alone near areas where the fairies were known to frequent. One dark Halloween evening he was out hunting geese when he saw three dark figures carrying a coffin. Noticing that they were a man short, and out of respect for the dead, the farmer took the fourth corner of the coffin procession advanced in silence, but soon one of the three figures said that it was time to have a rest, and with that they proceeded to lower the coffin onto the road. As the young farmer laid his corner of the coffin down, he lost sight of the other three bearers, and when he looked up again, they were nowhere to be seen.
Confused by the sudden disappearance of the other three bearers the young farmer looked around and waited for their return, but with the passing of time he came to believe that they would not be returning. While waiting the young farmer felt compelled to look inside coffin. To his great surprise he found a young woman dressed in ordinary clothes, rather than habit that the dead were usually buried in at the time. As he stared at this strange sight the woman opened her eyes at put out her arm to the young farmer. Though he was shocked at seeing the animation in the face and the body of the young woman he extended his hand and helped her to her feet. Once she was standing, he asked the young woman how she came to be in the coffin, but she made no reply to any of his questions and only shook her head, at which stage he realised that she was unable to speak. Not knowing what to do with the young woman the young farmer took her back to his home. She took on many of the household chores, and they got on well, but she never spoke a word.
On the following Halloween the young farmer happened to be passing near the very spot where he had first encountered the young woman on the previous year when he heard voices coming from a nearby rath. He soon realised that the voices were complaining about their failure to carry off the young woman the previous Halloween. One of the voices bragged “he was never able to discover how to make her speak,” to which a second voice replied “and there’s not much hope of that! – small chance he’ll ever find the small pin behind her ear.” Upon hearing this method for breaking the fairies’ enchantment the young farmer raced home and took the pin from behind young woman’s ear, and from that moment her power of speech returned. The two of them kept talking and they were married within the year.
Sources
Andrews, Elizabeth. Ulster Folklore. London 1913.
Dorian, Hugh. The Outer Edge of Ulster: A Memoir of Social Life in Nineteenth-Century Donegal. Edited by Breandán Mac Suibhne & David Dickson. Dublin, 2000.
In Ireland Hallowe’en has a long tradition as a night for games and escapades. At one time, at least in parts of County Waterford, Hallowe’en was known as oídhche na h-aimléise, ‘The night of mischief or con’, while in some areas of Counties Cork and Kerry Hallowe’en is traditionally referred to as Snap Apple Night – in recognition to the central role played of apples in a number Hallowe’en games that are still played annually on this the last night of October which welcomes the winter. While many of the following traditional games and pranks, documented from nineteenth and twentieth sources in this post, have managed to survive into our own times – others have fallen into disuse over the past century.
Bobbing, Diving, or Ducking for Apples
This is a game that has survived into our own times and remains a favourite pastime with children on Hallowe’en night. In setting up the game a barrel or basin of water is placed on the floor with a number of apples floating on the surface. The contestants hold their hands behind their backs. The game is played by the participants attempting to sink their teeth into one of the apples – a feat which can only be achieved if the apple is pushed to the bottom of the container. In variants of the game coins are added either to the bottom of the barrel or wedged halfway into the apples.
Snap Apple
Snap Apple is another game still widely played in households across Ireland on Hallowe’en night. For this game an apple is suspended, just above the height of the contestants, by tying the apple’s stalk with string to a beam, rafter or some other elevated surface in the house. The contestants stand some distance away and take turns in making a running leap at the apple in an attempt to sink their teeth and take a bite of the apple.
Illustration from the Book of Halloween by Ruth Edna Kelley, 1919.
A more boisterous and potentially dangerous variant of Snap apple, which has declined in popularity dramatically over the past century, involves the use of two pieces of wood or sticks with pointed ends tightly fastened together in the shape of an x or cross. A lighted candle and an apple were impaled on alternative ends of the cross. The cross would be suspended from the rafter with a piece of cord which was twisted tight so that it would revolve at a great pace when untangling itself. The object of the game is to get a bite of the apple – but many would end up with a face full of wax as they missed their target.
Riding or shoeing the Wooden Mare
Another game that was a feature of Hallowe’en gatherings was known as ‘Riding or Shoeing the Wooden Mare.’ John Donaldson gives a detailed description of how the game was played in his 1838 work A Historical and Statistical Account of the Barony of Upper Fews in the County of Armagh:
‘It [the wooden mare] is made of a pole, or strong handle of a fork or shovel, about 6 feet long; this is tied at both ends with a rope which is secured in the middle to a joist or beam from which it suspends in a horizontal position about 18 inches from the ground.
The operator mounts and places his limbs like a tailor across the pole and catches it between his thighs with one hand, and has a short stick to balance himself in the other hand. When he has his beast settled (for she is ticklish and uneasy), he hits her a blow with his short stick, which is putting in a nail, and then as soon as possible applies the stick to the ground in order to balance himself, but it often happens, if the stick be not placed near her centre, she wheels round and the operator falls. There are some people, however, who have a knack of keeping her steady and putting in the requisite number of nails.’
Mischief
Making mischief on Hallowe’en night is a long-established tradition in Ireland. Through the veil of darkness all sorts of antics are resorted to by wandering gangs of youths as they travel though the lonely country roads, villages and the towns of Ireland creating havoc with the knowledge that their transgressions could be blamed on the fairies, who are known to be particularly active on Hallowe’en night.
A number of imaginative ruses were noted by Irish folklore collectors over a hundred years ago which included removing gates from hinges, pouring water down the chimneys, and a sophisticated form of the knick knack* prank, which involved tying the knockers of a row or a terrace of houses together so that when one door was opened the knockers of the remaining houses tap and rattle in unison. Cabbages seem to have played an important role in the revelry that accompanied Hallowe’en; an 1893 article noted that in County Leitrim ‘the lads steal all the cabbages they can, and break them in pieces by throwing them on the roads, which are sometimes found covered with the debris of broken cabbage in the morning.’ While in a 1907 article by Hugh James Byrne described how the youths in Roscommon targeted misers and difficult neighbours for their “practical jokes” which included taking ‘the pith out of a cabbage-stalk and stuff it in with hay, and put in a lighted turf, which makes the hay smoulder, and puff the smoke through the keyhole, filling the house with a disagreeable smell.’
*Ringing a doorbell or knocking on a door and running away.
Sources
Byrne, Hugh James. ‘All Hallows Eve and Other Festivals in Connacht.’ Folklore 18, no. 4 (1907), 437-439.
Dorian, Hugh. The Outer Edge of Ulster: A Memoir of Social Life in Nineteenth-Century Donegal. Edited by Breandán Mac Suibhne & David Dickson. Dublin, 2000.
Donaldson, John. A Historical and Statistical Account of the Barony of Upper Fews in the County of Armagh. Dundalk, 1923.
Duncan, Leland L. ‘Folk-Lore Gleamings from County Leitrim.’ Folklore 4, no, 2 (June 1893), pp. 176-194.
Haddon, A. C. ‘A Batch of Irish Folklore’ Folklore 4, no. 3 (1893), 349-364.
Omorethi. ‘Customs Peculiar to Certain Days, Previously Observed in County Kildare.’ Journal of the Co. Kildare Archaeological Society and Surrounding Districts V (1906-1908), 439-454.
O’Sullivan, Maurice. Twenty Years A-Growing. Translated by Moya Llewelyn Davies and George Thomson. Dublin and London, 1933.
Featured painting at top of post is Snap Apple Night by Daniel Maclise, 1834. Currently in a private collection.
In Ireland Hallowe’en is the most popular night of the year to practice divination, which provides much amusement and excitement. As summer turns to winter on this night, the boundaries between this world and the Otherworld are believed to be less pronounced, and so on Hallowe’en many games, rituals and rites were, and still are, performed partly in jest and partly in earnest, with the object of gaining insight into one’s fate.
One activity involved setting several objects out in saucers or plates, which were then laid on a table. The chosen objects varied from one region to another, and even between different households, but generally a few of the following were included; a ring, a piece of wood, clay, a bean, a coin, salt, water, a button or a thimble. Once the saucers were set, a blindfolded person, seat before them would pick one, the item which the person touched was symbolically believed to indicate their future situation in life. A ring meant the person would be married, a piece of wood or clay meant that they would die young, a bean or a rag meant that they would always be poor, while a coin indicated that they would be wealthy, salt was for luck, water meant that the person would emigrate or travel, while if one picked the saucer with a button or thimble it was believed they would die bachelor or a spinster.
In another divination game nuts were used to determine if two young people would be good together when married. Two nuts were named after a pair, usually both being present, and placed on the grate or on the turf ashes of the fire, to burn side by side. Chestnuts, wall-nuts and hazelnuts were traditionally the most popular for this activity, while grains of wheat were also sometimes used. If the nuts burned together it was taken as a sign that the young couple would end their days happily married to one and other, however, the pair would not marry if one hopped off, while if one burned fully and not the other, it was taken as a sign of unrequited love.
Other activities took place outside the house on Hallowe’en, for example, cabbages were picked by blindfolded young women*on that night, in the belief that the appearance of the cabbage would reflect the attributes of their future husbands. If a well grown cabbage was picked it indicated that the girl would have a handsome husband, while if the cabbage had a rotten or crooked stalk it was said to signify that the girl’s husband would be a “stingy old man”. A cabbage with two heads was said to protend that the girl would end a widow, while if the cabbage was hollow in the centre it foretold that the young woman would never marry and end her days as a spinster. Additionally, the number buds on the cabbage were believed to correspond the number of children the marriage would produce, and many accounts state that the cabbage must be stolen.
Illustrated London News, 1865, by J.T. Lucas
While the above practices were generally carried out in company, other forms of divination were traditionally carried out a person alone. These practices often commenced at midnight, and were always performed in the name of the devil. One described by Lady Jane Wilde as “the most fearful of all” involved a girl uttering an incarnation before a looking-glass, in the expectation of catching a glimpse of her future husband, it happened sometimes that instead of seeing their future love, the looking-glass instead reflected an image “too terrible to describe”, and the girl from shock would either die or spend the rest of her days in a state of great distress.
Many of divination rites practiced on Hallowe’en were aimed at inducing a dream of one’s future lover. One method of achieving this was to eat a salted egg, a smoked herring, or some other food that would cause thirst – in the hope that whilst asleep your future lover would come to your aid in a dream with a glass of water. Another rite, which was supposed to give you a glimpse future love while sleeping, involved gathering ten ivy or yarrow leaves – cut with a black handled knife, and without speaking a word. The tenth leaf was thrown away, while the remaining nine were sneaked into the house once everyone was asleep, and were then placed under a pillow in a sock or stocking, with only the following words uttered:-
“Nine ivy leaves I place under my head,
To dream of the living and not of the dead.
If ere I be married or wed unto thee,
To dream of her to-night, and her for to see,
The colour of her hair, and the clothes that she wears,
And the day that she’ll be wedded to me.”
* In some areas, including parts of County Mayo, both young women and men participated in this activity.
Sources
Donaldson, John. A Historical and Statistical Account of the Barony of Upper Fews in the County of Armagh, 1838.
McGlinchey, Charles, The Last of a Name
Wilde, Lady Jane. Ancient Cures, Charms and Usages in Ireland. 1890
Folklore, various articles, 1881-1916
Journal of the Kildare Historical and Archaeological Society, 1908
The souls of the dead were believed to be able to walk among the living between Hallowe’en and All Souls Day. When darkness fell great care was taken by the living to honour and extend hospitality to their own departed. To welcome the wandering dead on Hallowe’en, front doors were left open, food was prepared, and seats were set by the fire, which was built to burn through the night. Before the household retired to bed prayers were said and candles lit for the souls of those family members who had passed away. In parts of County Wexford candles served another purpose, and were placed in the windows of houses to assist departed loved ones in finding their past homes.
While released from their suffering the hospitality extended to the dead was, in part, offered out of respect, but also as a precautionary measure, as the dead were supposed to be jealous of the living, and believed to take revenge over past grievances. Many feared to set foot outside on Hallowe’en; as Lady Wilde explained ‘according to the popular belief, it is not safe to be near a churchyard on Hallow Eve, and people should not leave their homes after dark, or the ghosts would pursue them . . . if on that night you hear footsteps following you, beware of looking round; it is the dead who are behind you ; and if you meet their glance, assuredly you must die.’
For the mothers of babies who had died before baptism, even as they sat at home, Hallowe’en presented a night of great anguish and sorrow, as prayers could not save the souls of their unbaptised offspring who where thought to be the captives of the fairies, and only released on Hallowe’en when the fairies had their own revels. As a Mayo correspondent wrote to the Graphic newspaper in 1881, unbaptised babies ‘come to gaze hopelessly in at the warm kitchen and the mother from whom it was so crudely torn, while it shivers and wails in the cold. Then she will make the sign of the cross and then weep, but dares not offer up a prayer for the doomed soul, which, she believes, must wander hopelessly for eternity.’
Sources
Carbery, Mary. The Farm by Lough Gur: The Story of Mary Fogarty. Dublin, 1937.
McGlinchey, Charles. The Last of the Name. Edited by Brian Friel. Belfast, 1986.
Thiselton Dyer, T. R. (Rev). British Popular Customs Past and Present: Illustrating the Social and Domestic Manners of the People. London 1900.
Various articles from volumes of the Folklore Journal and the Graphic.
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