Mooney.] ^UD [May 3, 



down with his hands behind his back, and dipping his head into the tub, 

 endeavor to bring up the apple in his mouth. As the apple is forced 

 under the water at each attempt, unless he can succeed in seizing it 

 between his teeth, it may readily be supposed that this simple play affords 

 a vast deal of amusement to those gatherd about the tub. 



Sometimes an apple is suspended on a string, fastend at one end to 

 the wall, while the other end is held by one of the company. The biter, 

 with his hands tied behind him, tries to catch the apple between his teeth, 

 while the other strives to defeat his purpose by jerking the string just at 

 the critical moment. To render the feat stil more difficult, the biter is 

 sometimes compeld to bend backward over a stick resting on the backs of 

 two chairs. Again, the apple is hung by a string from the mantel. Then 

 each person runs with head down around a firkin placed in the middle of 

 the floor, keeping his fingers on the firkin all the time until dizzy, and at 

 last, straightening up, tries to take a direct course and hit the apple with 

 his finger. 



This last method seems to be a degenerate form of a more elaborate 

 practice which stil exists in the County Clare, as wel as in the north, and 

 may originally hav had an astronomic meaning. A contrivance known as 

 the "snap apple," and somewhat resembling the hub of a wheel with fifty- 

 two spokes, is suspended by a string from the loft, at about the hight of 

 an average man's head. The spokes ar arranged horizontally around the 

 hub in several series one above another, and of every three spokes the first 

 has a short candle blazing at the extremity, the second is sharpend to a 

 point and the third has an apple stuck upon the end. Under it is placed 

 a stool, around which a line is drawn upon the floor. While one person 

 keeps the wheel revolving, each of the others in turn runs around in this 

 circle, stooping down with one hand on the stool, as already described, as 

 many times as there ar spokes on the wheel, when he rises and endeavors 

 to catch the apple, at the risk of being burnd by the candle or scratchd 

 by the sharpend stick should he fail. 



A writer of 1784, in the Qeiitleman's Magazine, speaking of this celebra- 

 tion in the eastern counties, says, that in his time an important part of the 

 refreshment provided for the occasion was "lamb's wool," made by bruis- 

 ing roasted apples and mixing the pulp with milk, ale, or even wine 

 amongst the upper classes who wer not too refined to take part in these 

 periodical merry-makings. Apples and nuts always accompanied the 

 lamb's wool.* As far back as 1738, the Dublin servants wer accustomd 

 to demand apples, ale and nuts of their employers on this eve.f Another 

 favorit dish on this occasion is culcannon, whence the festival is some- 

 limes known as "culcannon night." It consists chiefly of potatoes and 

 turnips boild and mashd together, with a generous lump of butter swim- 

 ming on the top. 

 Vallancey, also writing in the last century, states that in the south of 



* Quoted in Brand, Antiquities, i, 396. 

 t Brand, Antiquities, i, 377. 



