Halloween: old dream charms for a future love

Halloween, October 31, is the eve of All Saints' Day. In Ireland and Scotland it also marked the start of winter, called Samhain in Irish. Long before costumes and candy, it was the great fortune-telling night of the year. Families cracked nuts by the fire, bobbed for apples and played games to learn who would marry whom. Most charms were tried in the evening, but some went to bed with the young people, in the hope that the night would bring a dream of a future sweetheart.

Charms for a Halloween dream

Shoes in a T in County Louth

In Collon, County Louth, some people still tried this in the 1930s. When they took off their shoes, they set the toe of the right shoe against the heel of the left to make a "T" and put them under the pillow. Then they said a rhyme asking to see a true love that night, with the color of his hair and the clothes he would wear on the wedding day. After that they didn't speak again, hoping to dream of a future husband. Others simply put a little salt under the pillow.

Nine ivy leaves in County Galway

At Tynagh, County Galway, an older man remembered that nine ivy leaves were placed under a girl's pillow on Halloween night. She said a rhyme asking to dream of the man she was going to wed and to see him at the foot of her bed.

Yarrow in County Leitrim

In County Leitrim, a girl plucked yarrow in the hour before sunset on Halloween and slept on it, hoping to dream of her future husband.

A salted egg in Dublin

A Dublin woman told a contributor to "Notes and Queries" in 1869 that on Halloween some women boiled an egg hard, took out the yolk, filled the hollow with salt and ate it. They drank nothing until morning and paid close attention to what they dreamed about their sweethearts that night.

Allan apples in Cornwall

In west Cornwall, Halloween was "Allantide." Fruit sellers in Penzance set out very large "Allan apples," and one was given to each member of the family for luck. The folklorist Margaret Courtney wrote in 1890 that the older girls put theirs under the pillow before eating them, to dream of their sweethearts. In St. Ives, children went to bed with an Allan apple hidden beneath the pillow.

Dust from the doorstep in Pennsylvania

In Pennsylvania, according to Fanny Bergen's collection "Current Superstitions" (1896), a person stepped backward out of the front door on Halloween, picked up a little dust or grass, wrapped it in paper and slept with it under the pillow to bring a dream.

A garter on the wall in Maryland

A Maryland collection, cited by North Carolina folklorists, describes a girl pinning her garter to the wall on Halloween and saying: "I pin my garter to the wall, I hope to hear my true lover call." In the night she would dream of someone knocking, and whoever knocked was to be her husband.

Other Halloween customs

Most Halloween charms were played out before bedtime, often as party games. In Scotland, Robert Burns described many of them in the notes to his poem "Halloween" (1785). Young people pulled kale stalks with their eyes shut: a big or small, straight or crooked stalk hinted at the future husband or wife. They named two nuts for a couple, set them by the fire and watched whether the two burned quietly together or jumped apart. Some went alone to a looking-glass and ate an apple in front of it, hoping to glimpse a future spouse over their shoulder. A bolder charm had a person dip a shirt sleeve in a stream where the lands of three lairds (landowners) met, hang it to dry by the fire and lie awake in bed, waiting for the future spouse to come and turn it. In North Carolina, children once set a little cornmeal beside the bed on Halloween, and in the morning they looked for the name of a future spouse written in it.

Two October nights before Halloween

Old charm books named two earlier October nights for dreaming of love as well.

St. Faith's Day (October 6)

In the north of England, three young women made a cake of flour, spring water, salt and sugar, each adding an equal share. They baked it in silence and turned it nine times, three turns each. Each cut her third of the cake into nine strips, passed every strip three times through a borrowed wedding ring and ate them while getting ready for bed, with a verse asking St. Faith to show her future husband. Then all three got into one bed, with the ring hanging on a string at the head of it, hoping to dream of the men they would marry.

St. Luke's Day (October 18)

A later edition of the charm book "Mother Bunch's Closet," printed around 1780, claimed that St. Luke's Day worked even better than St. Agnes' Eve. Its charm used dried garden herbs, honey and vinegar, and a short rhyme said three times when lying down: "St. Luke, St. Luke, be kind to me; in dreams let me my true love see." The book said the future husband would then appear in the dreamer's sleep, walking near the bed, and that a loving one would come with a smile.

Today

Today, Halloween means pumpkins, costumes and candy, and the old love charms live on mostly as stories. If you'd like a quiet ritual of your own, put an apple by your bed on October 31 and write down your dream in the morning. It won't reveal a future sweetheart, but it may show what's on your mind as the year turns toward winter.

Related symbols

Sources

Dream interpretations are for entertainment.