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helping young women identify
their future husbands and reas-
suring them that they would
someday—
with luck,
by next Hal-
loween—be
married. In
18th-century Ireland, a
matchmaking cook
might bury a ring
in her mashed potatoes on Hal-
loween night, hoping to bring
true love to the diner who found
it. In Scotland, fortune-tellers
recommended that an eligible
young woman name a hazelnut
for each of her suitors and then
toss the nuts into the fireplace.
The nut that burned to ashes
rather than popping or explod-
ing, the story went represented
the girl’s future husband. (In
some versions of this legend,
confusingly, the opposite was
true: The nut that burned away
symbolized a love that would
not last.) Another tale had it that
if a young woman ate a sugary
concoction made out of walnuts,
hazelnuts and nutmeg before bed
on Halloween night she would
dream about her future husband.
Young women tossed apple-peels
over their shoulders, hoping
that the peels would fall on the
floor in the shape of their future
husbands’ initials; tried to learn
about their futures by peering
at egg yolks floating in a bowl of
water; and stood in front of mir-
rors in darkened rooms, holding
candles and looking over their
shoulders for their husbands’
faces. Other rituals were more
competitive. At some Halloween
parties, the first guest to find a
burr on a chestnut-hunt would
be the first to marry; at others,
the first successful apple-bobber
would be the first down the aisle.
Of course, whether we are ask-
ing for romantic advice or trying
to avoid seven years of bad luck,
each one of these Halloween
superstitions relies on the good
will of the very same “spirits”
whose presence the
early Celts felt
so keenly.
S