KEY TO THE CALENDAR. 



character as All-saints' Day has comparatively 

 little affected the popular mind. 



We have notices from both Perthshire and Ire- 

 land of the ist of November being partly regarded 

 as the proper time for returning thanks for the 

 realised fruits of the earth. The Irish, in this 

 regard, called it La Mas UbhalfaaA. is, the day 

 of the apple-fruit and celebrated it with a drink 

 or mess composed of bruised roasted apples 

 amongst ale or milk. This drink in time acquired 

 the strange appellation of lamb's wool, a corrup- 

 tion apparently of the name of the day in the 

 Celtic language. 



It was a custom of our Catholic forefathers to , 

 have a cake baked on this eve for every member | 

 of the family, as a soul mass cake or soul-cake. It 

 was composed of oatmeal, and seeded ; and pasties 

 and frumenty were incidental to the same evening. 

 In families of good condition, a number were 

 baked and set up on a board like the showbread 

 in old pictures in the Bible, to be given to 

 visitors, or distributed amongst the poor. There 

 was a rhyme for the occasion : 'A soul-cake! a 

 soul-cake ! Have mercy on all Christian souls for 

 a soul-cake ! ' 



Essentially connected with all these customs 

 are those better-known ones which Burns has so 

 well and so faithfully described in his poem of 

 Halloween, All over the British Islands, the 

 festive and fortune-telling practices of this evening 

 are very nearly the same. As some proof of this, 

 passages from an English, an Irish, and a Scottish 

 poet may be presented side by side : 



Two hazel-nuts I threw into the flame, 

 And to each nut I gave a sweetheart's name : 

 This with the loudest bounce me sore amazed, 

 That in a flame of brightest colour blazed ; 

 As blazed the nut, so may thy passion grow, 

 For 'twas thy nut that did so brightly glow ! 



The Spell, by Gay. 



These glowing nuts are emblems true 

 Of what in human life we view ; 

 The ill-matched couple fret and fume, 

 And thus in strife themselves consume ; 

 Or from each other wildly start, 

 And with a noise for ever part 

 But see the happy, happy pair, 

 Of genuine love and truth sincere : 

 With mutual fondness, while they burn 

 Still to each other kindly turn ; 



;And as the vital sparks decay, 

 Together gently sink away : 

 Till life's fierce ordeal being past, 

 Their mingled ashes rest at last. 

 Nuts-burning, All-hallow Eve, by Charles Graydon. 



Jean slips in twa wi' tentie e'e, 



Wha 'twas she wadna tell ; 

 But this is Jock and this is me, 



She says in to herseP : 

 He bleezed owre her, and she owre him, 



As they wad never mair part, 

 Till fuff ! he started up the lum, 



And Jean had e'en a sair heart 

 To see't that night. 



Hallowe'en, by Burns. 



Nuts, besides being thus used for divination, are 

 cracked and eaten ; and hence, in the north of 

 England, All-hallow Eve is often called Nut-crack 

 Night. Apples are also extensively eaten, this 

 consumpt of fruit having probably some reference 

 to the heathen character of the day, as that of 



thanksgiving for the produce of the season. The 

 more noteworthy of the fortune-telling customs 

 described by Burns, besides the above, are for a 

 solitary female to go to a kiln, and throwing a 

 blue clew into the pot, to wind it, expecting that 

 ere finished it will be held back, when, by inquir- 

 ing who holds, a response will be obtained dis- 

 closing the name of the future husband to eat an 

 apple at a looking-glass, expecting to see a vision 

 of the future husband peeping over the shoulder 

 to sow hemp-seed in the yard, saying : ' Hemp- 

 seed, I saw thee ; hemp-seed, I saw thee, and her 

 that is to be my true love come after me and 

 draw thee;' expecting that, on looking over the 

 shoulder, a vision will be obtained of the future 

 spouse in the act of pulling grown hemp to dip 

 a shirt-sleeve in a rivulet at the meeting-point of 

 the lands of three proprietors, and then hang it 

 by the fire to dry, trusting to see such a visionary 

 person come in and turn the other side to pull 

 stalks of deceased cabbages blindfolded, without 

 choice, and augur, from their straightness or 

 crookedness, the figure of the future spouse 

 finally, to set three dishes on the floor, one empty, 

 one with clean, and one with foul water, and cause 

 the company to approach them blindfolded, and 

 dip in a hand ; when he who dips in the empty 

 one is expected to remain unmarried ; he who 

 dips in the foul one, to marry a widow ; and he 

 who dips in the clean one, to marry a female not 

 hitherto married. The whole of these rites are as 

 familiar to the Welsh, Irish, and Northumbrian, 

 as to the Ayrshire peasantry. Many of them are 

 also practised in England on St John's Eve, the 

 23d of June. 



Hallowe'en is still observed, but the more 

 daring rites are generally given up. Meetings of 

 young persons take place, and a plentiful store of 

 nuts and apples being provided, a few simple 

 amusements are practised. The experiment of 

 the burning nuts, to test the durability of love or 

 friendship, is still a favourite. Ducking for apples 

 is another. A tub being provided, nearly full of 

 water, and the fruit thrown in, the young people 

 endeavour to seize an apple with their teeth a 

 task of much more difficulty than might be sup- 

 posed, and which generally puts the dress and 

 tresses of fair experimentalists into considerable 

 disorder. Or a cross-stick is suspended by a 

 string from the ceiling, with a short burning 

 candle on one end, and an apple on the other. 

 While it swings rapidly round, lads and lasses, 

 with their hands tied, endeavour to catch the 

 apple with their teeth, but generally suffer a good 

 deal from the candle before they succeed in their 

 object. 



2. All-soul? Day, or the Commemoration of the 

 Faithful Departed. A very solemn festival of the 

 Romish Church, which has masses and cere- 

 monies appropriate to the occasion, designed in 

 favour of the souls of all the dead. ' Odillon, 

 abbot of Cluny, in the ninth century, first enjoined 

 the ceremony of praying for the dead on this day 

 in his own monastery ; and the like practice was 

 partially adopted by other religious houses until 

 the year 998, when it was established as a general 

 festival throughout the western churches. To 

 mark the pre-eminent importance of this festival, 

 if it happened on a Sunday, it was not postponed 

 to the Monday, as was the case with other such 

 solemnities, but kept on the Saturday, in order 



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