 CHAPTER 12 THE TUTONIC RELIGION, WHICHES THE TUTONS, that race of northern peoples called by the Romans barbarians, comprised the Goths and Vandals who lived in Scandinavia, and the Germans who dwelt north of Italy and east of Gaul. The nature of the northern country was such that the people could not get a living by peaceful agriculture. So it was natural that in the intervals of cattle-tending they should explore the seas all about, and ravage neighboring lands. The Romans and Gauls experienced this in the centuries just before and after Christ, and England from the 8th to the 10th centuries. Such a life made the Norsemen adventurous, hardy, warlike, independent and quick of action, while the Celts were by nature more slothful and fond of peaceful social gatherings, though of quicker intellect and wit. Like the Greeks and Romans the Tutons had twelve gods and goddesses, among whom were Odin or Wotan, the king and his wife Freya, queen of beauty and love. Idon guarded the apples of immortality, which the gods ate to keep them eternally young. The chief difference in Tutonic mythology was the presence of an evil god, Loki. Like Vulcan, Loki was a god of fire. Like him, Loki was lame because he had been cast out of heaven. Loki was always plotting against the other gods, as Lucifer, after being banished from heaven by God, plotted against him and his people and became Satan, the enemy. Him the almighty power hurled headlong, flaming from the ethereal sky, with hideous ruin and combustion down to bottomless perdition, there to dwell in adamantine chains and penal fire, who durest defy the omnipotent to arms. Milton, paradise lost. It was this god of evil in Tutonic myth who was responsible for the death of the bright, beautiful sun god, Baldur. Misalto was the only thing in the world which had not sworn to harm Baldur. Loki knew this and gave a twig of Misalto to Baldur's blind brother, Hodor, and Hodor casted at Baldur and unwittingly slew him. Volly, a younger brother of Baldur, avenged him by killing Hodor. Hodor is darkness and Baldur light. They are brothers. The light falls a victim to blind darkness, who reigns until a younger brother, the son of the next day, rises to slay him in turn. Below these gods all nature was peopled with divinities. There were elves of two kinds, black elves called trolls, who were frost spirits, and guarded treasure seeds in the ground, and white elves, who lived in mid-heaven and danced on the earth in fairy-rings, where immortal entering died. Willa the Wisps hovered over swamps to mislead travelers, and jack-o'-lanterns, the spirits of murderers, walked the earth near the places of their crimes. The other worlds of the Tutons were Valhalla, the abode of the heroes whom death had found on the battlefield, and Nifelheim, the misty realm, secure from the cold outside, ruled over by Queen Hel. Valkyries, warlike women who rode through the air on swift horses, seized the heroes from the field of slaughter, and took them to the halls of Valhalla, where they enjoyed daily combats, long feasts, and drinking bouts, music and storytelling. The sacred tree of the Druids was the oak, that of the Tutonic priests the ash. The flat disk of the earth was believed to be supported by a great ash tree, Yggdrasil, supported by three fates, was, will, and shall be. An ash, I know standing, named Yggdrasil, a stately tree sprinkled with water the purist, thence come the dew-drops that fall in the dales, ever blooming it stands over the Urdara fountain. Balus Pasaga, Blackwell translation. The name of was means the past, of will the power, how be it small which men have over present circumstances, and shall be the future over which man has no control. Verda, the name of the latter, gives us the word weird, which means fate or fateful. The three weird sisters in Macbeth are Sieresses. Besides the ash, other trees and shrubs were believed to have peculiar powers, which they have kept, with some changes of meaning to this day. The elder, Elvesgrave, the Hawthorn, the Juniper, were sacred to supernatural powers. The priests of the Tutan sacrificed prisoners of war in consecrated groves to tear God of the sword. The victims were not burned alive as by the druids, but cut and torn terribly, and their dead bodies burned. From these sacrifices auspices were taken. A man's innocent or guilt was manifested by gods to men through ordeals by fire, walking upon red-hot plowshares, holding a heated bar of iron, or thrusting the hands into red-hot gauntlets or into boiling water. If after a certain number of days no burns appeared, the person was declared innocent. If a suspected man, thrown into the water, floated, he was guilty. If he sank, he was acquitted. The rites of the Celts were done in secret, and it was forbidden that they be written down. Those of the Tutans were commemorated in Eda and Saga, poetry and prose. In the far north the shortness of summer and the length of winter so impressed the people that when they made a story about it they told of a maiden, the spring, put to sleep, and guarded along with a horde of treasure by a ring of fire. One night only could break through the flames, awaken her, and seize the treasure. He is the returning sun, and the treasure he gets possession of is the wealth of summer vegetation. So there is the story of Brynhilda, pricked by the sleep-thorn of her father, Wotan, and sleeping until Sigurd awakens her. They marry, but soon Sigurd has to give her up to Gunner, the relentless winter, and Gunner cannot rest until he is killed, Sigurd, and reigns undisturbed. Grimm's story of Rapunzel, the princess who was shut up by a winter witch, and of Briar Rose, pricked by a witch's spindle, and sleeping inside a hedge which blooms with spring at the night's approach, mean likewise the struggle between summer and winter. The chief festivals of the Teutonic year were held at mid-summer and mid-winter. May-day the very beginning of spring was celebrated by May-writings, when winter and spring, personified by two warriors, engaged in a combat in which winter the fur-clad king of ice and snow was defeated. It was then that the sacred fire had been kindled, and the sacrificial feast held. Judgments were rendered then. The summer solstice was marked by bonfires, like those of the Celts on May-Eve and mid-summer. They were kindled in an open place or on a hill, and the ceremonies held about them were similar to the Celtic. As late as the eighteenth century these same customs were observed in Iceland. A may-pole, wreathed with magical herbs, is erected as the center of the dance in Sweden, and in Norway a child chosen may-bride is followed by a procession, as at a real wedding. This is a symbol of the wedding of sun and earth deities in the spring. The may-pole, probably imported from Celtic countries, is used at mid-summer because the spring does not begin in the north before June. Ewell Tide in December celebrated the sun's turning back, and was marked by banquets and gaiti. A chief feature of all those feasts was the drinking of toast to the gods with boughs and prayers. By the sixth century Christianity had supplanted druidism in the British Isles. It was the ninth before Christianity made much progress in Scandinavia. After King Olaf had converted his nation the toasts which had been drunk to the pagan gods were kept in honor of Christian saints. For instance, those to Freya were now drunk to the Virgin Mary or to St. Gertrude. The wedding of the sark-sleeve, that custom of Scotland in Ireland, was in its earliest form a right to Freya as the northern goddess of love. To secure her aid in a love affair a maid would wash in a running stream a piece of fine linen, for Freya was fond of personal adornment, and would hang it before the fire to dry an hour before midnight. At half-past eleven she must turn it, and at twelve her lover's apparition would appear to her, coming in at the half-open door. The wind howled through the leafless boughs, and there was every appearance of an early and severe winter as indeed befell. Long before eleven o'clock all was hushed and quiet within the house, and indeed without, nothing was heard, except the cold wind which held mournfully in guests. The house was an old farmhouse, and we sat in the large kitchen with its stone floor, awaiting the first stroke of the eleventh hour. It struck at last, and then all pale and trembling we hung the garment before the fire which we had piled up with wood, and set the door ajar, for that was an essential point. The door was lofty and opened upon the farmyard, through which there was a kind of thoroughfare, very seldom used it is true, and at each end of it there was a gate by which wayfares occasionally passed to shorten the way. There we sat without speaking a word, shivering with cold and fear, listening to the clock which went slowly, tick, tick, and occasionally starting as the door creaked on its hinges, or a half-burnt billet fell upon the hearth. My sister was ghastly white, as white as the garment which was drying before the fire. And now half an hour had elapsed, and it was time to turn. This we did, I and my sister, without saying a word, and then we again sank on our chairs on either side of the fire. I was tired, and as the clock went tick, a tick, I began to feel myself dozing. I did doze, I believe. All of a sudden I sprang up. The clock was striking one, two, but Eric could give the third chime mercy upon us, but Eric could give the third chime mercy upon us. We heard the gate slam, too, with a tremendous noise. Well, and what happened then? Happened. Before I could recover myself, my sister had sprung to the door, and both locked and bolted it. The next moment she was in convulsions. I scarcely knew what happened, and yet it appeared to me for a moment that something pressed against the door with a low moaning sound. Whether it was the wind or not, I can't say. I shall never forget that night. About two hours later my father came home. He had been set upon by a high woman whom he beat off. Borough, Lavengro. Freya and Odin especially had power over the souls of the dead. When Christianity turned all the old gods into spirits of evil, these two were accused especially of possessing unlawful learning as having knowledge of the hidden matters of death. This unlawful wisdom is the first accusation that has always been brought against witches. A mirror is often used to contain it. Such are the crystals of the astrologers and the looking glasses which on Halloween materialize wishes. From that time in the Middle Ages when witches were first heard of, it has nearly always been women who were accused. Women for the most part were the priests in the old days. It was a woman to whom Apollo at Delphi breathed his oracles. In all times it has been women who plucked herbs and concocted drinks of healing and refreshment. So it was very easy to imagine that they experimented with poisons and herbs of magic power under the guidance of the now evil gods. If they were so directed they must go on occasion to consult with their masters. The idea arose of a witch's Sabbath when women were enabled by evil means to fly away and adore and secret the gods from whom the rest of the world had turned. There were such meeting-places all over Europe. They had been places of sacrifice, of judgment, or of wells and springs considered holy under the old religion, and whether the gods had now been banished. The most famous was the Blocksburg in the Harz Mountains in Germany. Dane Bobo first to lead the crew, a tuffled sow and the mother thereon, then followed the witches every one. Giertha, Faust, Taylor translation. In Norway the mountains above Bergen were a resort, and the Doverfield, once the home of the trolls. It's easy to slip in here, but outward the Dover King's gate opens not. Ibsen, Pier Gent, Archer translation. In Italy the witches met under a walnut tree near Benevento, in France, at Puy-de-Dome, in Spain, near Sevilla. In these night ridings Odin was the leader of a wild hunt. In stormy, blustering autumn weather the wanted roar was up among the woods. Milton, Comus. Odin rode in pursuit of a shadowy deer with the furious host behind him. A ghostly huntsman of a later age was Dietrich von Bern, doomed to hunt till the judgment day. Frau Venus in Wagner's Tonhäuser held her revels in an underground place in the Horselberg in Thuringia, Germany. This was one of the seats of Holde, the goddess of spring. Venus herself is like the Christian conception of Freyja and hell. She gathers about her a throng of nymphs, silks, and those she has lured into the mountain by intoxicating music and promises. The enchanting sounds enticed only those in whose hearts wild, sensuous longings had already taken root. Of these, Tonhäuser is one. He has stayed a year, but it seems to him only one day. Already he is tired of the rosy light and eternal music and langer, and longs for the fresh green world of action he once knew. He fears that he has forfeited his soul salvation by being there at all, but cries, at the holy name Venus and her revelers vanish, and Tonhäuser finds himself in a meadow, hears the tinkling herd-bells, and a shepherd's voice singing, Frau Holde, goddess of the spring, steps forth from the mountains old. She comes and all the brooklets sing, and, fled, is winter's cold. Play, play, my pipe, your lightest lay, for spring has come and merry may. Tonhäuser, huckle translation, praising the goddess in her blameless state. By the fifteenth century Satan, taking the place of the gods, assumed control of the evil creatures. Now that witches were the followers of the devil, they wrote their names in his book, and were carried away by him for the rebels by night. A new witch was pricked with a needle to initiate her into his company. At the party the devil was adored with worship due to God alone. Dancing, a device of the pagans, and hence considered holy wicked, was indulged into unseemly lengths. In 1883 in Sweden it was believed that dances were held about the sanctuaries of the ancient gods, and that whoever stopped to watch were caught by the dancers and whirled away. If they profaned holy days by this dancing they were doomed to keep it up for a year. At the witches' sabbath the devil himself sometimes appeared as a goat, and the witches were attended by cats, owls, bats, and cuckoos, because these creatures had once been sacred to fray at. At the feast horse-flesh, once the food of the gods at banquets was eaten. The broth for the feast was brewed in a kettle held over the fire by a tripod, like that which supported the seat of Apollo's priestess at Delphi. The kettle may be a reminder of the one Thor got, which gave to each guest whatever food he asked of it, or it may be merely that used in brewing the herb remedies which women made before they were thought to practice witchcraft. In the kettle were cooked mixtures which caused storms and shipwrecks, plagues, and blights. No salt was eaten, for that was a wholesome substance. The witches of Germany did not have prophetic power. Those of Scandinavia, like the Norse fates, did have it. The troll-wives of Scandinavia were like the witches of Germany. They were cannibals, especially relishing children like the witch in Hansel and Gretel. From the fourteenth to the eighteenth century all through Europe and the New World, people thought to be witches, and hence in the devil's service were persecuted. It was believed that they were able to take the form of beasts. A wolf or other animal is caught in a trap or shot and disappears. Later an old woman who lives alone in the woods is found suffering from a similar wound. She is then declared to be a witch. There was once an old castle in the middle of a vast thick wood. In it lived an old woman quite alone, and she was a witch. By day she made herself into a cat or a scree-chow, but regularly at night she became a human being again. Grimm. Jorinda and Jorengel. Herr is found on May morning are witches and should be stoned, reads an old superstition. If you tease a cat on May Eve it will turn into a witch and hurt you. End of Section 12. Read by Professor Heather Mby. For more free audiobooks or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Section 13 of the Book of Halloween by Ruth Edna Kelly. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. CHAPTER XIII. WALPURGIS NIGHT. WALPURGIA was a British nun who went into Germany in the eighth century to found holy houses. After a pious life she was buried at Eichstadt, where it is said a healing oil trickled from her rock-tomb. This miracle reminded men of the fruitful dew which fell from the mains of the Valkyrie's horses, and when one of the days sacred to her came on May 1st, the wedding-day of Frau Holda and the sun-god, the people thought of her as a Valkyrie and identified her with Holda. As like a Valkyrie she rode armed on her steed, she scattered, like Holda, spring-flowers and fruitful dew upon the fields and veils. When these deities fell into dispute, Walpurgia, too, joined the pagan train that swept the sky on the eve of May 1st, and afterwards on mountaintops to sacrifice and to adore Holda, as the priests had sacrificed for a prosperous season and a bountiful harvest. So this night was called Walpurgia's night, when evil beings were abroad and with them human worshippers who still guarded the old faith in secret. This is very like the occasion of November Eve, which shared with May 1st Celtic manifestations of evil, which is complete the list of supernatural beings which are out on Halloween. All are to be met at crossroads, with harm to the beholders. A superstition goes that if one wishes to see witches, he must put on his clothes wrong side out, and creep backwards to a crosswords, or wear wild radish on May Eve. On Walpurgia's night, precautions must be taken against witches who may harm cattle. The stable doors are locked and sealed with three crosses. Sprigs of ash, hawthorn, juniper, and elder, once sacred to the pagan gods, are now used as protection against them. Witches are nailed prongs up on the threshold or over the door. Holy bells are hung on the cows to scare away the witches, and they are guided to pasture by a goat which has been blessed. Shots are fired over the cornfield. If one wishes, he may hide in the corn and hear what will happen for a year. Signs and omens on Walpurgia's night have more weight than at other times except on St. John's Day. On Walpurgia's night, make good crops of autumn grain, but rain on May Day is harmful to them. Lovers try omens on this Eve, as they do in Scotland on Halloween. If you sleep with one stocking on, you will find on May morning, in the toe, a hair the color of your sweethearts. Girls try to find out the temperament of their husbands to be, by keeping a linen thread for three days near an image of the Madonna, and at midnight on May Eve pulling it apart, saying, Thread I pull thee, Walpurgia I pray thee, that thou show to me what my husbands like to be. They judge of his disposition by the threads being strong or easily broken, soft or tightly woven. Dew on the morning of May 1st makes girls who wash in it beautiful. The fair maid who on the 1st of May goes to the fields at break of day, and washes and dew from the Hawthorne tree will ever after handsome be. Encyclopedia of Superstitions A heavy dew on this morning presages a good butter year. You will find fateful initials printed in dew on a handkerchief that has been left out all the night of April 30th. On May day girls invoke the cuckoo. Cuckoo, cuckoo, on the bow, tell me truly, tell me how many years there will be till a husband comes to me. Then they count the calls of the cuckoo until he pauses again. If a man wears clothes made of yarn spun on Walpurgis night to the May shooting, he will always hit the bull's eye, for the devil gives away to those he favors, fry cooglin, bullets which always hit the mark. On Walpurgis night, as on Halloween, strange things may happen to one. Jacques tells a story of a Walpurgis night dream that is more a vision than a dream. Led to be unfaithful to his wife, a man murders the husband of a former sweetheart. To escape capture he fires a haystack, from which a whole village is kindled. In his flight he enters an empty carriage and drives away madly, crushing the owner under the wheels. He finds that the dead man is his own brother. Faced by the person whom he believes to be the devil, responsible for his misfortunes, the wretched man is ready to worship him if he will protect him. He finds that the seeming devil is in reality his guardian angel, who sent him this dream that he might learn the depths of wickedness lying unfathomed in his heart, waiting an opportunity to burst out. Both Mae Eve and St. John's Eve are times of freedom and unrestraint. People are filled with a sort of madness which makes them unaccountable for their deeds. For you see, pastor, within every one of us a spark of paganism is glowing. It has outlasted the thousand years since the old Teutonic times. Once a year it flames up high and we call it St. John's fire. Once a year comes freenight. Yes, truly freenight. Then the witches, laughing scornfully, ride to Bloxburg, on the mountaintop, 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. CHAPTER XIV. MORE HALLOWTIDE BELIEFS AND CUSTOMS. Only the Celts and the Teutons celebrate an occasion actually like our Halloween. The countries of southern Europe make of it a religious vigil, like that already described in France. In Italy, on the night of all souls, the spirits of the dead are thought to be abroad as in Brittany. They may mingle with living people and not be remarked. The miseryre is heard in all the cities. As the people pass dressed in black, bells are rung on street corners to remind them to pray for the souls of the dead. In Naples the skeletons in the funeral vaults are dressed up, and the place visited on all souls' day. In Salerno, before the people go to the all-night service at church, they set out a banquet for the dead. If any food is left in the morning, evil is in store for the house. Hark! Hark to the wind! Tis the night, they say, when all souls come back from the far away. The dead have forgotten this many a day, and the dead remembered, I long and well, and the little children whose spirits dwell in God's green garden of Asphodel. Have you reached the country of all content, old souls we know since the day you went, from this time-worn world where your years were spent? Would you come back to the sun and the rain, the sweetness, the strife, the thing we call pain, and then unravel life's tangle again? I leaned to the dark, hush, was it a sigh, or the painted vine-leaves that rustled by, or only a night-bird's echoing cry. Sherd Halloween In Malta bells are rung, and prayers said, and morning worn on all souls day. Graves are decorated, and the inscriptions on tombs red and re-red. For the poor is prepared in all souls dinner, as cakes are given to the poor in England and Wales. The custom of decorating graves with flowers and offering flowers to the dead comes from the crowning of the dead by the ancients with short-lived blooms to signify the brevity of life. In Spain at dark on Halloween cakes and nuts are laid on graves to bribe the spirits not to disturb the vigils of the saints. In Germany the graves of the dead are decorated with flowers and lights, on the first and second of November. To drive away ghosts from a church a key or wand must be struck three times against a beer, and all souls' divination in Germany is a girl's going out and asking the first young man she meets his name. Her husbands will be like it. If she walks thrice about a church and makes a wish she will see it fulfilled. Belgian children build shrines in front of their homes with figures of the Madonna and Candles and beg for money to buy cakes. As many cakes as one eats, so many souls he frees from purgatory. The races of northern Europe believed that the dead returned and were grieved at the lamentations of their living relatives. The same belief was found in Brittany and among the American Indians. Think of this, Ohioatha, speak of it to all the people, but henceforward and forever they know more with lamentations saddened souls of the departed on the islands of the blessed. Longfellow, Ohioatha. The Chinese fear the dead and the dragons of the air. They devote the first three weeks of April to visiting the graves of their ancestors and laying baskets of offerings on them. The great dragon, Fengxin, flies scattering blessings upon the houses. His path is straight unless he meets with some building. Then he turns aside and the owner of the two lofty edifice misses the blessing. At Niko, Japan, where there are many shrines to the spirits of the dead, masks are held to entertain the ghosts who return on mid-summer day. Every street is lined with lighted lanterns, and the spirits are sent back to the other world in straw boats lit with lanterns, and floated down the river. To see ghosts in Japan one must put a hundred rush lights into a large lantern and repeat one hundred lines of poetry, taking one light out at the end of each line, or go out into the dark with one light and blow it out. Ghosts are identified with witches. They come back especially on moonlit nights. On moonlight nights, when the coast wind whispers in the branches of the tree, Omasu and Tioyo may sometimes be seen, with bamboo rakes in their hands, gathering together the needles of the fur. Render, great fur tree of Takasago. There is a Chinese saying that a mirror is the soul of a woman. A pretty story is told of a girl whose mother before she died gave her a mirror saying, Now after I am dead, if you think longingly of me, take out the thing that you will find inside this box and look at it. When you do so my spirit will meet yours and you will be comforted. When she was lonely or her stepmother was harsh with her, the girl went to her room and looked earnestly into the mirror. She saw there only her own face, but it was so much like her mother's that she believed it was hers indeed and was consoled. When the stepmother learned what it was her daughter cherished so closely her heart softened toward the lonely girl and her life was made easier. By the Arabs spirits were called jins or genie. They came from fire and looked like men or beasts. They might be good or evil, beautiful or horrible, and could disappear from mortal sight at will. Nights when they went abroad it behooved men to stay undercover. Ha! They are on us, closed without. Shut tight the shelter where we lie. With hideous din the monster rout. Dragon and vampire fill the sky. Hugo. The Jins. CHAPTER XV Halloween in America In colonial days Halloween was not celebrated much in America. Some English still kept the customs of the Old World, such as apple-ducking and snapping, and girls tried the apple-pairing charm to reveal their lovers' initials and the comb and mirror test to see their faces. Ballads were sung in ghost stories told, for the dead were thought to return on Halloween. There was a young officer in Phips's company at the time of the finding of the Spanish treasure ship, who had gone mad at the sight of the bursting sacks that divers had brought up from the sea as the gold coins covered the deck. This man had once lived in the old stone house on the fair green lane, and a report had gone out that his spirit still visited it and caused discordant noises. Once on a gusty November evening, when the clouds were scutting over the moon, a hall door had blown open with a shrieking draft and a force that caused the floor to tremble. Butterworth. Halloween Reformation. Elves, goblins, and fairies are native on American soil. The Indians believed in evil manatews, some of whom were water gods who exacted tribute from all who passed over their lakes. Henry Hudson and his fellow explorers haunted as mountain trolls the Catskill Range. Like Ossian and so many other visitors to the other world, Rip Van Winkle is lured into the strange gathering, and thinks that he passes the night there, wakes and goes home to find that twenty years have whitened his hair, rusted his gun, and snatched from life many of his boon companions. My gun must have cutched the rheumatics, too. Now that's too bad. Them fellows have gone and stolen my good gun, and leave me this rusty old barrel. Why, is that the village of falling waters that I see? Why, the place is more than twice the size it was last night. I— I don't know whether I am dreaming, or sleeping, or waking. Jefferson, Rip Van Winkle. The persecution of witches, prevalent in Europe, reached this side of the Atlantic in the seventeenth century. This sudden burst of wickedness and crime was but the common madness of the time, when in all lands that lie within the sound of Sabbath bells a witch was burned or drowned. Longfellow—Giles Corey of the Salem Farms. Men and women who had enemies to accuse them of evil knowledge and the power to cause illness in others were hanged or pressed to death by heavy weights. Such sicknesses they could cause by keeping a waxen image and sticking pins or nails into it, or by melting it before the fire. The person whom they hated would be in torture or would waste away like the waxen doll. Witch's power to injure and to prophesy came from the devil, who marked them with a needle-prick. Such marks were sought as evidence at trials. Witch's eyes are of coals of fire from the pit. They were attended by black cats, owls, bats, and toads. Iron, as being a product of fire, was a protection against them, as against evil spirits everywhere. It had a special power when in the shape of a horseshoe. This horseshoe I will nail upon the threshold. There unite hags and witches that torment the neighborhood. Ye shall not enter here. Longfellow—Giles Corey of the Salem Farms. The holiday time of elves, witches, and ghosts is Halloween. It is not believed in here except by some children, who people the dark with bogies who will carry them away if they are naughty. Once there was a little boy who wouldn't say his prayers, and when he went up to bed at night, away upstairs, his mammy hear'd him holler, and his daddy hear'd him bawl, and when they turned the covers down he wasn't there at all. And they seek'd him in the rafter room and cubby-hole and press, and seek'd him up the chimney-flu and everywhere's, I guess. But all they ever found was this'd his pants round about. And the goblins'll get you if you don't watch out. Riley, little Orphan Taney. Negroes are very suspicious, putting faith in all sorts of supernatural beings. Blame my trap. How to when do blow? And dis is denied for the witches' show. There's trouble going to waste when they ol' slut whine. And you hear'd a cat a spit in when the moon don't shine. Riley, when the folks is gone. While the original customs of Halloween are being forgotten more and more across the ocean, Americans have fostered them, and are making this an occasion something like what it must have been in its best days overseas. All Halloween customs in the United States are borrowed directly or adapted from those of other countries. All superstitions, every day ones, and those pertaining to Christmas and New Year's, have special value on Halloween. It is a night of ghostly and merry revelry. Mischievous spirits choose it for carrying off gates and other objects, and hiding them or putting them out of reach. Dear me, Polly, I wonder what them boys will be up to to-night. I do hope they'll not put the gate up on the shed as they did last year. Right. Tom's Halloween joke. Bags filled with flowers sprinkle the passers by. Doorbells are rung and mysterious wraps sounded on doors. Things thrown into halls and knobs stolen. Such sports mean no more at Halloween than the tricks played the night before the Fourth of July have to do with the Declaration of Independence. We see manifested on all such occasions the spirit of free night, of which George von Hartvig speaks so enthusiastically in St. John's's fire. Halloween parties are the real survival of the ancient merry makings. They are prepared for in secret. Guests are not to divulge the fact that they are invited. Often they come masked as ghosts or witches. The decorations make plain the two elements of the festival. For the centerpiece of the table there may be a hallowed pumpkin, filled with apples and nuts and other fruits of the harvest, or a pumpkin chariot drawn by field mice. So it is clear that this is a harvest party, like Pomona's feast. In the coach rides a witch, representing the other element of magic and prophecy. Jack-o-lanterns, with which the room is lighted, are hallowed pumpkins with candles inside. The candle-light shines through holes cut like features. So the lantern becomes a bogey and is held up at a window to frighten those inside. Corn stalks from the garden standing clumps about the room. A freeze of witches on broomsticks, with cats, bats and owls surmance the fireplace, perhaps. A full moon shines over all, and a cauldron 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 demonic influence. Ghosts and skulls and crossbones, symbols of death, startle the beholder. Since Halloween 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-nots. Having marched into the dining-room, to the time of a dirge, the guests find before them plain, hearty fare, doughnuts, gingerbread, cider, popcorn, apples, and nuts honored by time. The Halloween cake has held the place of honor since the beginning here in America. A ring, key, thimble, penny, and button baked in it for tell respectively, speedy marriage, a journey, spinsterhood, wealth, and bachelorhood. Polly was going to be married, Jenny was going on a long journey, and you, down went the knife against something hard. The girls crowded round. You had a hurt in your throat, and there, there in your slice, was the horrid, hateful, big breast thimble. It was more than you could bear, soaking, dripping wet, and an old maid. Bradley, the kitchen is the best place for the rough games and after supper-charns. On the stems of the apples, which are to be dipped for, may be tied names, for the boys in one tub, for the girls in another. Each searcher of the future must draw out with his teeth an apple with a name which will be like that of his future mate. A variation of the Irish snap-apple is a hoop hung by strings from the ceiling, round which, at intervals, are placed bread, apples, cakes, peppers, candies, and candles. The strings are twisted, then let go, and as the hoop revolves, each may step up and get a bite from whatever comes to him. By the taste he determines what the character of his married life will be, whether wholesome, acid, soft, fiery, or sweet. Whoever bites the candle is twice unfortunate, for he must pay a forfeit too. An apple and a bag of flour are placed on the ends of a stick, and whoever dares to seize a mouthful of apple must risk being blinded by fire. Apples are suspended to one string in a doorway. As they swing, each guest tries to secure his apple. To blow out a candle as it revolves on a stick requires attention and accuracy of aim. The one who first succeeds in threading a needle as he sits on a round bottle on the floor will be first married. Twelve candles are lighted and placed at convenient distances on the floor in a row. As the guest leaps over them, the first he blows out will indicate his wedding month. One candle only placed on the floor and blown out in the same way means a year of wretchedness ahead. If it still burns it presages a year of joy. Among the quieter tests some of the most common are tried with apple seeds. As in England a pair of seeds named for two lovers are stuck on brow or eyelids. The one who sticks longer is the true, the one who soon falls the disloyal sweetheart. Seeds are used in this way to tell also whether one is to be a traveler or stay at home. Apple seeds are twice ominous, partaking of both apple and nut nature. Even the number of seeds found in a core has meaning. If you put them upon the palm of your hand and strike it with the other, the number remaining will tell you how many letters you will receive in a fortnight. With twelve seeds and the names of twelve friends the old rhyme may be repeated. One I love, two I love, three I love I say, four I love with all my heart, five I cast away, six he loves, seven she loves, eight they both love, nine he comes, ten he tarries, eleven he courts, and twelve he marries. Nuts are burned in the open fire. It is generally agreed that the one for whom the first that pops is named loves. If he loves me, pop and fly. If he hates me, live and die. Often the superstition connected therewith is forgotten in the excitement of the moment. When every one among us toe to smallest pick and any would huddle in the chimbly conus glow, to listen to them chilly winds of old novembas, go astretian like a spook round of huts, twel to pick and any's fingers gets to shake in autumn embers, and they like to roast in knuckles instead of nuts. In Werner's readings, number thirty-one. Letters of the alphabet are carved on a pumpkin. Fate guides the hand of the blindfolded seeker to the fateful initial which he stabs with a pin. Tears cut out of paper are sprinkled on water in a tub. They form groups from which any one with imagination may spell out names. Girls walk down cellar backward with a candle in one hand and a looking glass in the other, expecting to see a face in the glass. Last night was witching Halloween. Dearest, an apple-russet brown, I paired and thrice above my crown, whirled the long skin. They watched it keen, I flung it far, they laughed and cried me shame. Dearest, there lay the letter of your name. Took the mirror, then, uncrepped, down, down the creaking narrow stair, the milk-pans caught my candle's flair, and mice walked soft and spiders slept. I broke the spell and stood the magic space. Dearest, and in the glass I saw your face. And then I stole out in the night, alone the frogs piped sweet and loud. The moon looked through a ragged cloud, thrice round the house I sped me light. Dearest, and there me thought, charm of my charms, you met me, kissed me, took me to your arms. Opera, the charms. There are many mirror tests. A girl who sits before a mirror at midnight on Halloween, combing her hair and eating an apple, will see the face of her true love reflected in the glass. Standing so that through a window she may see the moon in a glass she holds, she counts the number of reflections to find out how many pleasant things will happen to her in the next twelve months. Alabama has taken over the scotch mirror test in its entirety. A girl with a looking glass in her hand steps backward from the door out into the yard, saying, round and round, oh, stars so fair, you travel and search out everywhere, I pray you, sweet stars, now show to me, this night, who my future husband shall be. She goes to meet her fate. So Leslie backed out at the door, and then we shut it upon her. The instant after we heard a great laugh. Off the piazza she had stepped backward directly against two gentlemen coming in. Dr. Ingleside was one, coming to get his supper. The other was a friend of his. Dr. John Hotain, he said, introducing him by his full name. Whitney, we girls. A custom that is a reminder of the lighted boats sent downstream in Japan to bear away the souls of the dead is that which makes use of nutshell boats. These have tiny candles fastened in them, are lighted and named, and set adrift on a tub of water. If they cling to the side, their namesake will lead a quiet life. Some will float together. Some will collide and be shipwrecked. Others will bear steadily toward a goal though the waves are rocked in a tempest. Their behavior is significant. The candle which burns longest belongs to the one who will marry first. The Midsummer Wheel which was rolled down into the Moselle River in France, and meant if the flames that wreathed it were not extinguished, that the great harvest would be abundant, has survived in the Fortune Wheel which is rolled about from one guest to another, and brings a gift to each. The actions of cats on Halloween betoken good or bad luck. If a cat sits quietly beside anyone, he will enjoy a peaceful, prosperous life. If one rubs against him it brings good luck, doubly good if one jumps into his lap. If a cat yawns near you on Halloween, be alert and do not let opportunity slip by you. If a cat runs from you, you have a secret which will be revealed in seven days. Different states have put interpretations of their own on the commonest charms. In Massachusetts, the one who first draws an apple from the tub with his teeth will be first married. If a girl steals a cabbage, she will see her future husband as she pulls it up, or meet him as she goes home. If these fail, she must put the cabbage over the door and watch to see whom it falls on, for him she is to marry. A button concealed in mashed potato brings misfortune to the finder. The names of three men are written on slips of paper and enclosed in three balls of meal. The one that rises first when they are thrown into water will disclose the sought-for name. Maine has borrowed the yarn test from Scotland. A ball is thrown into a barn or cellar and wound off on the hand. The lover will come and help to wind. Girls in New Hampshire place in a row three dishes with earth, water, and a ring in them respectively. The one who blindfolded touches the earth will soon die, water will never marry, the ring will soon be wedded. To dream of the future on Halloween in Pennsylvania, one must go out of the front door backward, pick up dust or grass, wrap it in paper, and put it under his pillow. In Maryland, girls see their future husbands by a right similar to the scotch wedding of the Sark's Leave. They put an egg to roast and open wide all the doors and windows. The man they seek will come in and turn the egg. At supper girls stand behind the chairs, knowing that the ones they are to marry will come to sit in front of them. The South has always been famous for its hospitality in good times. On Halloween a miniature druid fire burns in a bowl on the table. In the blazing alcohol are put fortunes wrapped in tin foil, figs, orange peel, raisins, almonds, and dates. The one who snatches the best will meet his sweetheart inside of a year, and all may try for a fortune from the flames. The origin of this custom was the taking of almonds from the death struggles of creatures burning in the fire of sacrifice. Another southern custom is adapted from one in Brittany. Needles are named and floated in a dish of water, those which cling side by side are lovers. Good fortune is in store for the one who wins an apple from the tub, or against who's glass a ring suspended by hair strikes with a sharp chime. A very elaborate charm is tried in Newfoundland. As the clock strikes midnight a girl puts the twenty-six letters of the alphabet cut from paper into a pure white bowl which has been touched by the lips of a newborn babe only. After saying, kind fortune, tell me where is he, who my future lord shall be, from this bowl all that I claim is to know my sweetheart's name. As she puts the bowl into a safe place until morning, then she is blindfolded and picks out the same number of letters as there are in her own name and spells another from them. In New Brunswick, instead of an apple, a hard-boiled egg without salt is eaten before a mirror with the same result. In Canada a thread is held over a lamp. The number that can be counted slowly before the thread parts is the number of years before the one who counts will marry. In the United States a hair is thrown to the winds with the stands enchanted I pluck this lock of hair off my head to tell whence comes the one I shall wed. Fly silk and hair, fly all the world round, until you reach the spot where my true love is found. The direction in which the hair floats is prophetic. The taste in Halloween festivities is now to study old traditions and hold a scotch party using Burns's poem Halloween as a guide or to go a-soling as the English used. In short, no custom that was once honored at Halloween is out of fashion now. Cinever has been borrowed from Wales and the dumb cake from the Hebrides. In the scotch custom of cabbage-stop pulling, if the stonk comes up easily, the husband or wife will be easy to win. The melted lead test to show the occupation of the husband to be has been adopted in the United States. If the metal cools in round drops, the tester will never marry, or her husband will have no profession. Quite a fag is used in the same way. Like the Welsh test is that of filling the mouth with water and walking around the house until one meets one's fate. An adaptation of the Scottish Three Luggies is the row of four dishes holding dirt, water, a ring, and a rag. The dirt means divorce, the water a trip across the ocean, the ring, marriage, and the rag no marriage at all. After the charms have been tried, faggots are passed about, and by the eerie light of burning salt and alcohol, ghost stories are told, each concluding his installment as his faggot withers into ashes. Sometimes the cabbage stalks are used in the elements to take the place of faggots. To induce prophetic dreams, salt, in quantities from a pinch to an egg-full, is eaten before one goes to bed. Miss Jeanette, that's such a fine trick. You must swallow a salt herring in three bites, bones and all, and not drink a drop till the apparition of your future spouse comes in the night to offer you a drink of water. Adams, Chrissie's Fate. If after taking three doses of salt two minutes apart, a girl goes to bed backwards, lies on her right side, and does not move till morning, she is sure to have eventful dreams. Pills made of a hazelnut, a walnut, and nutmeg grated together and mixed with butter and sugar cause dreams. If of gold, the husband will be rich. If of noise, a tradesman. If of thunder and lightning, a traveller. As in Ireland, bay leaves on or under a man's pillow will cause him to dream of a sweetheart. Also, turn your boots toward the street, leave your garters on your feet, put your stockings on your head, you'll dream of the one you're going to wed. Lemon peel carried all day and rubbed on the bed-posts at night will cause an apparition to bring the dreaming girl two lemons. For quiet sleep and the fulfilment of any wish, eat before going to bed on Halloween a piece of dry bread. A far more interesting development of the Halloween idea than these innocent but colourless superstitions is promised by the pageant at Fort Worth, Texas, on October 31, 1916. In the mask and pageant of the afternoon, four thousand school children took part. At night scenes from the pageants were staged on floats which passed along the streets. The subject was preparedness for peace, and comprised scenes from American history in which peace played an honourable part. Such were the Conference of William Penn and the Quakers with the Indians, and the opening of the East to American trade. This is not a subject limited to performances at Halotide. May there not be written and presented in America a truly Halloween pageant illustrating and befitting its noble origin and making its place secure among the holidays of the year? End of Section 15 Red for LibriVox.org Bring forth the raisins and the nuts, to-night all hallows specter struts along the moonlit way. No time is this for tear or sob, or other woes, our joys to rob, but time for pippin' and for bob, and jack-o'-lantern gay. Come forth, he lass and trousered kid, from prison to mischief raise the lid, and lift it good and high. Leave grave old wisdom in the lurch, set folly on a lofty perch, nor fear the awesome rod of birch when dawn allumes the sky. Tis night for revel set apart, to reallume the darkened heart and rout the hosts of dole. Tis night when goblin, elf, and fey come dancing in their best array, to prank and roister on the way and ease the troubled soul. The ghosts of all things past parade, emerging from the mist and shade that hid them from our gaze, and full of song and ringing mirth in one glad moment of rebirth, again they walk the ways of earth as in the ancient days. The beacon light shines on the hill, the willow wisps, the forest fill, with flashes filched from noon, and witches on their broomstick spry, speed here and yonder in the sky, and lift their strident voices high unto the hunter's moon. The air resounds with tuneful notes, for myriads of straining throats, all hailing folly queen. So join this welling choral throng, forget your sorrow and your wrong, in one glad hour of joyous song to honor halloween. J.K. Bangs in Harper's Weekly, November 5, 1910. Halloween Failure Who's that peaking in to do, set my heart a-beatin'? Thought I see a spook for show, on my way to meeting. Here to rustlin' all around, trees all sorta jiggled, and along the frosty ground funny shatters wiggled. Who's that by the winter-sail, gettin' sorta scary? Feets is feelin' kinda chill, eyes is sorta teary. Most nervous as a coon when da dogs is barkin', or a witter when some spoon comes along a-sparkin'. What's that creepin' up da road, quiet like a ferret, hoppin' softly as a toad, maybe it's a spirit! Lordy, hope there ain't no ghosts, come to tell me howdy! I ain't got no use for those phantoms, damp and cloudy. What's that standin' by defense, with its eyes a-yurnin', drivin' out my common sense, with its glance and its burnin'? Don't da scarcely go to bed with them spooks round me. Ain't no rest for this year head when them folks around me. What's that groanin' sound I hear, off dare by the garden? Lordy, lordy, lordy, dear, grant this sinner pardon! Won't never, I declare, if it ain't my Sammy. Sembo, what you doin' dare? You can't scare yo' mammy! Carlyle Smith in Harper's Weekly, October 29, 1910 Halloween Pixie, cobalt, elf and sprite, are all on their rounds tonight, in the wan-moon-silver ray thrives their helter-skelter play. Fond of cellar, barn or stack, true unto the almanac, they present to credulous eyes strange hobgoblin mysteries. Cabbage-stumps, straws wet with dew, apple-skins and chestnuts, too, and a mirror for some lass, show what wonders come to pass. Doors they move and gates they hide, mischiefs on moon-beams ride, are their deeds, and by their spells, love records as oracles. Don't we all, of long ago, by the ruddy fireplace glow, in the kitchen and the hall, those queer, coof-like pranks recall? Eerie shadows they were then, but to-night they come again. For we once more, but sixteen, precious would be Halloween. Joel Benton in Harper's Weekly, October 31, 1896 Halloween A gypsy flame's on the hearth, sign of this carnival of mirth, through the dunned fields and from the glade, flash merry folk in the masquerade, it is the witching Halloween. Pale tapers glimmer in the sky, the dead and dying leaves go by, dimly across the faded green, strange shadows, stranger shades are seen, it is the mystic Halloween. Soft gusts of love and memory, beat at the heart reproachfully, the lights that burn for those who die, were flickering low, let them flare high, it is the haunting Halloween. AF Murray in Harper's Weekly, October 30, 1909 End of Section 16 End of the Book of Halloween by Ruth Edna Kelly Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain by Professor Heather Mby in Carrollton, Georgia in October 2009 For more free audiobooks or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org