Old Halloween Customs In Scotland And The Hebrides

As in Ireland,

The Scotch Bar festival of November was called Samhain.

Western Scotland lying nearest Tarra,

Centre alike of pagan and Christian religion in Ireland,

Was colonised by both 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 Bushan,

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 heat,

Broom,

Flags,

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 sun-wise,

To have a good influence.

Brought home at dark,

The torches were thrown down in a heap and made a fire.

This place was called Shamnagan,

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 footprint marked near it in the ashes,

He believed he should die in a year.

In Aberdeenshire boys went about the villages,

Saying,

Geese a-peat,

Burn the witches.

They were taught to be out stealing milk and harming cattle.

Torches used to counteract them were carried from west to east,

Against the sun.

The 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,

Lost 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 Balmora a royal celebration of Halloween 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 set for the occasion.

The torches were thrown down,

And the fire was burning its liveliest.

A hobgoblin appeared,

Throwing in a car the figure of a witch,

Surrounded by fairies carrying dancers.

The people formed a circle about the fire,

And the witch was tossed in.

Then there were dances to the music of bagpipes.

It was the time of the 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 Halloween,

The morning's hallow day,

Nine free nights,

Till Martin mass,

As soon as they'll veer away.

Children born on Halloween could see and converse with supernatural powers.

Mary Aveniel sees the spirit of her father after he has been dead for years.

The White Lady of Aveniel is her peculiar guardian.

The Scottish border where Mary lived is the seat of many superstitions and otherworldly beliefs.

The fairies of Scotland are more terrible than those of Ireland,

As the dales and streams and woods are greater,

Grander,

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 Neighbours or Men of Peace,

Rowan,

Elm and Holly are a protection against them.

I have tied red thread around the bairn's throat and given ilk-ane of them a riding wand of rowan-tree,

Fall by,

Sewing up a slip of witch-elm into their dapples,

And I wish to know of your reverence,

If there be anything mere that a lone woman can do in the matter of ghosts and fairies,

Be here,

That I should have named their unlucky names twice forever.

From Peter Pan and Wendy The sign of the cross is myrtle,

Disarmet,

All evil spirits,

The spirits of the air have not human feelings or motives,

They are consciousness,

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.

Quote from Hopper's Fairy Fiddler 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 steers 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.

On Halloween all traditional spirits are abroad,

The Scotch invented the idea of Samhainek,

A goblin who comes out just at Samhain,

It is he who in Ireland steers children,

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 neighbours every day could for this night fly away and join the other beings in their revels,

When the witches may be seen,

Some of you them black,

Some of them green,

Some of them like a turkey bean.

A witches' party was conducted in this way,

The wretch woman,

Who had sold their souls to the devil,

Left the stick in bed,

Which by evil means was made to have their likeness,

And anointed with the fat of murdered babies,

Flew up the chimney on a broomstick with cat's attendant.

Byrne tells the story of a company of witches pulling ragwort by the roadside,

Getting each astride her ragwort with the summons,

Uphorsey and flying away.

The hag is astride,

This night for a ride,

The devils and she together,

True thick and true thin,

Now out and now in,

Though never so foul be the weather.

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 dancers at the ancient ball,

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 bagpipe,

Made of hen-skull and cat's tail.

Children make themselves spookies on this evening,

Carrying the largest turnip-stake and sape from harvest,

Hollowed out,

And carved yeat and forehead,

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 Halloween.

It is a famous time for divination in love affairs,

A typical eighteenth-century party in western Scotland.

Cabbages are important in Scottish 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.

Cabbage-broth was a regular dish at the Halloween feast.

Mashed potatoes,

As in Ireland,

Are a dish of meal and milk called symbolic object.

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 chopped into the top or stuck into an apple to make the reward greater.

The contestants must keep their hands behind their back.

Nuts are put before the fire in pairs,

Instead of by trees,

As in Ireland,

And named for a lover and his love.

They burn to ashes together.

Long happy married life is destined for the lovers.

They crackle or start away from each other.

Descension and separation are ahead.

Three luckies.

Bowls,

Like the druid lambs,

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 bell still remains,

As does that of hempseed sowing.

One goes out alone with a handful of hempseed,

Sows it across ridges of ploughed land,

And harrows it with anything convenient,

Perhaps with a broom.

Having said,

Hempseed,

I sow thee,

And her that is to be my last,

Come after me and draw thee.

Then he looks behind to see his sweetheart gathering hemp.

This should be tried just at midnight.

A spell that has been continued is throwing the glue of blue yarn.

As it is wound backward,

Something holds it,

The winder must ask to hear the name of the future sweetheart.

Another spell,

Not commonly tried now,

Is winnowing three measures imaginary corn as one stands in the barn alone,

With 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.

At times other prophetic appearances were seen.

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.

Pulling,

Apple-snapping,

And lead-melting 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.

Person will journey in the direction the two points out.

If it falls sole up,

It means bad luck.

Girls would pull a straw each out of a thatch in broad sea,

And would take it to an old woman in Fraserburgh.

The seers would break the straw and find within it a hair,

The color of the lovers 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 chop the white of an egg into a glass of water.

The number of divisions was the number sought.

White of egg is hauled with water in the mouth,

Like the grains of oats in Ireland.

Names are written on papers and laid upon the chimney-peat.

Fate guides the hand of the blindfolded man to the slip which bears his sweetheart's name.

A Halloween mirror is made by the rays of the moon.

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 moonlight glass the image of her lover,

Looking over her left shoulder and asking for the last piece of apple.

The wetting of the sock's sleeve in a south-running burn,

Where three lairds,

Lambsmeat,

And carrying tome dry before the fire,

Was really a Scotch custom but has already been described in Ireland Just before breaking up,

The crowd of young people partook of Samhain's oatmeal porridge cakes with butter and strand,

As they hoped for good luck throughout the year.

In Hebrides,

Scottish islands off the western coast have Halloween 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,

Beldane and November Eve.

In the Hebrides is the Irish custom of eating on Halloween a cake of meal and salt,

Or a salt herring,

Bones and all,

To dream of someone bringing a drink of water,

Not a word must be spoken,

Nor a drop of water drunk,

Till the dream comes.

In St.

Gilda a large triangular cake is baked,

Which must be all eaten up before morning.

A curious custom that prevailed in the island of Lewes in the eighteenth century was the worship of Shoni,

A sea god with a Norse name.

His ceremonies were similar to those baked to Samhain in Ireland,

But more victorious.

Ale was brewed at church from malt,

Brought collectively by the people.

One took a cupful in his hand and waded out in the sea up to his way,

Saying as he powered out,

Shoni,

I give you this cup of ale,

Hoping that you'll be so kind as to send us plenty of seaware 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 to the fields and drank ale with dance and song.

The dump-cake originated in Lewes.

Girls were each apportioned a small piece of dough mixed with any but spring water.

They kneaded it with their left thumbs in silence.

At midnight they prickled initials on them with the new pin and put them by the fire.

The girls withdrew to the further 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 initial.

On Halloween fairies are out.

Halloween will come.

Witchcraft will be said a-going.

Fairies will be at full speed,

Running in every path,

But for the most part disbelief has died out in Scottish land,

Except near the border,

And Halloween is celebrated only by stories and jokes and games,

Songs and dances.