I talked about divination in 2019, but some of you weren’t here back then and I always have more to say.
It has been foretold…
Why is divination tied to Halloween? Samhain is considered one of the most important sabbats in the witch’s year. A “cross quarter” day – landing roughly midway between equinoxes – this sabbat was considered the start of the “dark” season. The god/masculine aspect/sun returns to the underworld and the goddess enters the “crone” phase of her life (and honestly, same). Some believe that the Celts viewed this sabbat as their new year. In this time of upheaval, rules change. The veil between the realm of the dead and the land of the living was at its thinnest.
Thus, divination would be at its strongest!
More practically speaking, people were heading inside and feeling cooped up after a long harvest season outdoors. They would want little activities to enjoy around the fireplace or by candlelight.
Because Christians abstained from eating meat on All Hallow’s Eve and because all families would’ve had an abundance of apples, wheat and nuts from the harvest, many of the traditional foods of Halloween are vegetarian (think caramel apples, soul cakes, pies and toffee.)
This also meant that a lot of the little divination games people played involved these ingredients! Here are some completely adorable divination methods that involve seasonal ingredients.
Apple bobbing
This could’ve been simply a game or a kind of divination depending on your family’s traditions. The game itself would be played one of two ways. The one you’re probably familiar with features apples floating in some vessel of water. Players must try and bite an apple without using their hands. In this version, either the first or quickest to do so successfully would be the lucky one, or next to marry. In some traditions, letters were carved into the apples, and whichever one you pulled up featured the initial of your future spouse.
In another version, the apples were hung from a string. Unmarried women would line up in front of the string and whichever of them managed to grab a bite first was the next to marry. Because of this, Halloween was often called Snap-Apple Night in Ireland.
Either way, placing a slice of the apple you caught under your pillow on Halloween night will lead to prophetic dreams.
Apple Seeds
Cut an apple in half and count the visible seeds. This might foretell how many children you will have or relate to your future spouse’s name.
Apple peels
Peel an apple. The peel will fall into your lap in the shape of your future spouse’s initial. The longer your peel is before breaking, the deeper the love.
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…
For the Scots and Northern English, it’s Nut-Crack Night. People would gather ‘round the fire and cast nuts — with various predictions either carved onto them or just held in memory — into the flames. Whichever popped out first or burned most brightly would come true, or would mean a positive outcome. Often, the nuts were simply carved with letters, again representing the initial of a future husband.
In another version, pairs of nuts would be tossed in with an intention spoken aloud. If they stayed in the fire, that was a good sign. If one popped away, that was gonna be a “no” from the nuts, dawg.
Nut flour
Rather than roasting, the nuts were sometimes ground into flour (often to make soul cakes). If you ate a cake make from nut flour before you went to bed on Halloween night, you would dream of your future spouse. Listen, they were really worried about getting married and they didn’t have Tinder.
Nut boats
Float walnut shells in water. Place little candles in each, and name them all: one for you, and one for each of your desired suitors. Boats that drift together will hook up, but candles that burn out is a bad sign.
Egg reading
Oomancy is a tradition of using eggs to tell the future. A common method is to crack an egg in a glass of water and interpret the shapes the egg white makes. In Salem, Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams were said to have used eggs to look for omens and predictions about their future loves.
Another version of this was done with molten lead, but I’m not going to recommend it.
Certain kinds of this divination are closely tied to particular cultures, so do your research before co-opting this practice.
Fortune tellin’ on the farm
Walk blindfolded into a vegetable patch, maybe backwards (this is already going great, guys). Pull up a stalk. The length and thickness of your kale stalk means hubba-hubba big love. The amount of oats left on the stalk is the number of oats not sown before marriage. Or maybe you’ll all run around in a circle three times and hope to land in the arms of your true love.
Don’t choke on your fortune
Bake little fortune telling items into little cakes. Maybe a ring for marriage, a coin for money, a little figure for a baby or partner, a ship for travel. That kinda thing. Whatever won’t melt in the oven. Eat your cakes and whoever gets each lucky item will have that to look forward to in their coming year.