According to legends of yore, Halloween night is the time when the veil between the living and spirit worlds is the thinnest. This not only means that you may see a spook or two cavorting about, but also that you may be able to use some of the otherworldly energies to peer into the future. Halloween divination games have been popular activities at Halloween gatherings throughout history.
Typically centered around finding love and foretelling one’s fate in the coming year, a variety of fortune-telling games were developed using items that were widely available long ago. Apples, garden vegetables, candles, and mirrors could all be used to glean insight into the future for those who dared to sneak a peek on Halloween night.
So gather your friends and give some of the below Halloween divination games a try this coming Halloween!
Apples were used in many dishes during the harvest season – apple pies, apple cidar, apple sauce, plain ol’ apples themselves, etc. Being so common, it is no surprise that unwed young ladies used apples in their fortune-telling games.
One game involved the peel of an apple. An unbetrothed girl would peel an apple in one long unbroken strand. If the peel broke, then she would have to start again with a new apple until she could peel the entire apple without breaking the peel. Then with her right hand she would throw the peel over her left shoulder. The shape the peel landed in on the floor would indicate the initial of the young lady’s true love. Whether it was the first initial, last initial, or middle initial was often left up to interpretation as the girls often already had a young man in mind.
This is one of my favorite dividation games and I still do it each time I bake an apple pie just to make sure it still lands in the initial of my Honey-Bunny’s name – which it always does (even if I have to squint very hard to see it).
So what happens if you have the attentions of two equally nice suitors and are unsure of which one to choose? If you have two apple seeds, you can try a quick dividation game to determine which one is the better match. Wet two apple seeds and stick one to each eyelid. The first one to fall off indicates the person who is not right for you.
Of course, sometimes you may find yourself twitching one lid just a little more than the other to guide fate to a particular conclusion!
Many Halloween divination games have slightly different variations. Here are two of my favorites that use both apples and mirrors to catch a glimpse of your true love’s face:
Just before midnight on Halloween, place a candle by a mirror in a darkened room and light the wick. Face the mirror and cut an apple into nine slices. Eat eight apple slices while gazing into the mirror. Save the final piece and at the first stroke of midnight offer it to the mirror. If the spirits accept your offering, the face of your true love will appear over your shoulder in the mirror.
Another version of this game is slightly less complex. Sit in front of a mirror at midnight. Eat and apple while combing your hair. Your true love is said to appear in the mirror behind you. I prefer the version with a little more ritual, but this is a great quick game for the casual fortune-teller.
In either version, however, beware. If you see a skull in the mirror, it foretells that youi will die before marrying.
Fruits do not have all the fun when it comes to being a part of Halloween games. Kale vegetable gardens were also plundered for fortune-telling means.
Young men and women would take turns walking backwards and blindfolded out into a vegetable garden. They would then pick out a stalk of kale and bring it back into the party. Once all the players had picked their kale, they would examine each person’s stalk. The kale’s characteristics were said to mirror the picker’s future lover: rich & sweet, or shriveled and bitter.
The game could also continue by hanging the kale in a row above a doorway. The first person to walk through the doorway would share a name with the person who will marry the player to have picked the first stalk. The second person to walk through would share a name with the person to marry the player who picked the second stalk, and so on.
A Scottish Halloween divination game used nuts and a toasty fire to foretell one’s future: Name two nuts after a specific couple then place them into the fire. If the nuts burn together, it foretells that the couple will have a happy life. If the two nuts crackle and spring apart, then the couple is doomed to quarrel.
A delishously fun and easy Halloween party game was baking Irish Barmbrack Cake and adding large charms for guests to find (make sure all guests know there are charms in the cake, or you may have a choking hazard).
You can find a recipe for this traditional Irish dish at Allrecipes.com.
When the cake is served, each guest checks to see if they have received any charms in their slice. The charms received indicate what awaits them in the coming year. Common charms include:
There are a mirad of other fortune-telling games you can play on Halloween to predict your fate for the coming year. Which are your favorite? Have you ever played any? Did they accurately predict your fate? Let me know on Instagram & Twitter @EmilyIsHorror !
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