THE APPLE. 27 



land, and also in Ireland, to fasten the fruit at one end of 

 a suspended beam, a lighted candle being fixed at the 

 other, while the players, with hands tied, amused them- 

 selves by attempting with their mouths to 



" Catch the illusive apple with a bound, 

 As with its taper it flew whizzing round." 



While in Scotland the game was varied by the apples 

 being put into a tub of water, and thus " bobbed" for 

 with the mouth. At the festival of Allhallow Even this 

 fruit occupied a very prominent position, apples in various 

 forms affording, in conjunction with nuts, the chief part 

 of the entertainment, and " lamb's- wool," consisting of 

 apples roasted on a string until they dropped off into a 

 bowl of spiced and sugared ale, being the especial drink 

 for the occasion not unhaunted by fairy influences, if, as 

 we have the authority of Shakespeare for affirming, one 

 of the most potent of elves was wont sometimes to 



" Lurk in a gossip's bowl 

 In very likeness of a roasted crab." 



The name of this beverage is said to be a corruption of 

 La mas abJial (pronounced lamasool), i. e. the day of apple 

 fruit, the 1st of November having been, it is supposed, 

 dedicated to the heathen goddess Pomona, and in later 

 days reconsecrated to the angel presiding over fruits and 

 seeds. The apple, too, afforded one of the numerous 

 methods resorted to at that season, in order to gain for 

 the unmarried a revelation concerning their future part- 

 ners, the youths or maidens retiring alone with a candle 

 to eat an apple before a looking-glass, looking intently 

 meanwhile for the reflection of a bride or bridegroom to 

 appear peeping over their shoulder. Burns, in his poem 

 on " Hallowe'en," alludes to this ceremony in the words, 



" Wee Jenny to her grannie says, 

 ' Will ye go wi' me, grannie? 

 I'll eat the apple at the glass 

 I gat from uncle Johnnie. 3 " 



But it was not on this sacred night alone that the apple 

 lent its kindly aid to lovers' rites; and Gray, in his 

 " Spell," describes two kinds of pomaceous divination, in 

 one of which the paring was thrown over the shoulder, 



