HALLOWEEN SUPERSTITIONS

Have you had enough of my posts about old Halloween customs? No, Okay, here are a few more.

I wrote in a previous post about divinations and fortune telling. Here are some images of Halloween superstitions. One of the most common superstitions at the turn of the century and into the 1910s and 20s was the idea that if you stood in a darkened room on Halloween night holding a candle before a mirror, you would see the face of your beloved.


In a variation of the candle/mirror superstition, the lady had to walk backward downstairs in order for the trick to work. That must have been hard when wearing a long dress!

Irish and Scottish superstitions focused around learning the attributes of your future spouse by pulling vegetables from the garden. In Scotland, young people were blindfolded and taken into the garden at midnight to pull kale. In Ireland, they pulled cabbages. By looking at the vegetables' roots they could tell if their intended would be short and stunted, tall and healthy or withered and old!

The boy and girl cabbages seem happy,

but what about the guys (?) in the background?

Here, a lady pulls a beet for divination,

with the help of a little imp.

A lady uses a wishbone and pumpkin seeds

marked with the letters L-O-V-E
to see her true love coming first through the door.

I've already posted about throwing an apple peel over your shoulder to determine the initial of your beloved. However, this card is so pretty I couldn't resist showing it. Here, a man is allowed in the game. I hope his name is Steve or Sam, not Dick or Dan!