Full Transcript for Mirror ,Mirror, Who Will I Marry? Halloween Fortune Telling Traditions

00:03:57.871 strange little piece of human connection… this is where we take a closer look at all 71 00:03:57.871 --> 00:04:01.508 the odd little things that don’t quite add up. 72 00:04:01.508 --> 00:04:06.629 So settle in, get comfortable… and let’s see where this one takes us. 73 00:04:06.629 --> 00:04:11.379 Today, we’re going to follow that question through three historical scenes—and then 74 00:04:11.379 --> 00:04:13.531 bring it back to us. 75 00:04:13.531 --> 00:04:18.652 Our first stop is a Scottish Halloween gathering as imagined by Robert Burns. 76 00:04:18.652 --> 00:04:23.774 His poem “Halloween” appeared in his 1786 collection, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish 77 00:04:23.774 --> 00:04:29.266 Dialect. He places the gathering near the River Doon, and his notes explain customs 78 00:04:29.266 --> 00:04:31.047 associated with western Scotland. 79 00:04:31.047 --> 00:04:36.910 And those notes are part of what makes this such a good place to begin. 80 00:04:36.910 --> 00:04:42.031 Burns doesn’t just mention that somebody performs a mysterious ritual and expect us 81 00:04:42.031 --> 00:04:44.184 to know what he means. 82 00:04:44.184 --> 00:04:45.965 He explains the procedure. 83 00:04:45.965 --> 00:04:50.344 Then, in the poem, he gives us the people trying it. 84 00:04:50.344 --> 00:04:54.352 People keeping their romantic hopes secret. People getting embarrassed. People 85 00:04:54.352 --> 00:04:59.473 claiming they aren’t frightened and then discovering that they are, in fact, quite 86 00:04:59.473 --> 00:05:00.141 frightened. 87 00:05:00.141 --> 00:05:04.891 We’re not treating the poem as a transcript of one real party. 88 00:05:04.891 --> 00:05:10.383 We’re stepping into a literary scene that gives us both the customs and a 89 00:05:10.383 --> 00:05:13.277 wonderfully messy cast of characters performing them. 90 00:05:13.277 --> 00:05:18.399 From there, we’ll move into a small selection of Irish customs and legends 91 00:05:18.399 --> 00:05:20.551 preserved in folklore collection records. 92 00:05:20.551 --> 00:05:25.301 That lets us look at particular accounts, collected from particular people—not just 93 00:05:25.301 --> 00:05:29.680 announce that “the Irish believed” something and make an entire country 94 00:05:29.680 --> 00:05:32.203 responsible for one alarming mirror story. 95 00:05:32.203 --> 00:05:36.582 We’ll separate the instructions people remembered from the stories they told 96 00:05:36.582 --> 00:05:39.848 about what supposedly happened when someone followed them. 97 00:05:39.848 --> 00:05:46.082 Because “here is how to see your future spouse” and “here is why you might regret 98 00:05:46.082 --> 00:05:50.461 seeing your future spouse” are very different contributions to an evening. 99 00:05:50.461 --> 00:05:54.840 For our third scene, we’ll cross into an American Halloween party. 100 00:05:54.840 --> 00:06:00.332 We’ll look at what happens when predicting the future becomes something a host can 101 00:06:00.332 --> 00:06:02.484 put on the evening’s schedule. 102 00:06:02.484 --> 00:06:04.266 An activity with instructions. 103 00:06:04.266 --> 00:06:06.047 Something prepared for guests. 104 00:06:06.047 --> 00:06:10.426 A way to organize the fun—and potentially make everyone’s romantic interests 105 00:06:10.426 --> 00:06:11.836 everybody else’s business. 106 00:06:11.836 --> 00:06:15.102 And finally, we’ll come back to the present. 107 00:06:15.102 --> 00:06:17.254 Including those little cardboard squares. 108 00:06:17.254 --> 00:06:22.375 Because I want to think about the difference between expecting a game to 109 00:06:22.375 --> 00:06:28.238 know your future and simply finding it very difficult not to look at the answer. 110 00:06:28.238 --> 00:06:30.762 Those aren’t necessarily the same thing. 111 00:06:30.762 --> 00:06:36.996 I cannot tell you exactly how much faith I placed in those initials as a child. 112 00:06:36.996 --> 00:06:42.488 I can tell you that I remember wanting to see which ones flipped over. 113 00:06:42.488 --> 00:06:47.609 And apparently, that was enough to leave me with questions several years later. 114 00:06:47.609 --> 00:06:52.731 Last week, we talked about why Halloween’s history is not a straight line. 115 00:06:52.731 --> 00:06:57.109 We talked about Samhain, Christian observances, and customs that developed in 116 00:06:57.109 --> 00:07:00.375 different places and became tangled together over time. 117 00:07:00.375 --> 00:07:05.496 So this week, rather than searching for the one moment somebody invented Halloween 118 00:07:05.496 --> 00:07:10.246 fortune-telling, we’re going to stop at particular places where the evidence lets 119 00:07:10.246 --> 00:07:12.399 us see people doing it. 120 00:07:12.399 --> 00:07:14.551 Our first stop is Scotland. 121 00:07:14.551 --> 00:07:16.332 The year is 1786. 122 00:07:16.332 --> 00:07:18.856 Not the date these customs began. 123 00:07:18.856 --> 00:07:24.719 The date a young Scottish poet published a book that gives us an unusually detailed 124 00:07:24.719 --> 00:07:26.129 look at them. 125 00:07:26.129 --> 00:07:28.281 His name is Robert Burns. 126 00:07:28.281 --> 00:07:33.774 He is twenty-seven, his background is in farming, and this is his first collection: 127 00:07:33.774 --> 00:07:38.895 Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. Printed in Kilmarnock by John Wilson, its 128 00:07:38.895 --> 00:07:41.418 first run consists of 612 copies. 129 00:07:41.418 --> 00:07:46.910 So before we imagine Burns as a solemn literary institution, remember that we are 130 00:07:46.910 --> 00:07:51.289 meeting a young writer trying to get his work into print. 131 00:07:51.289 --> 00:07:57.152 And the countryside he writes about is not just scenery he has chosen because it 132 00:07:57.152 --> 00:07:58.192 looks attractive. 133 00:07:58.192 --> 00:08:03.684 His livelihood and his writing are closely connected to rural life and the land 134 00:08:03.684 --> 00:08:04.723 around him. 135 00:08:04.723 -->

00:08:08.731 That matters for the Halloween gathering we’re about to enter. 136 00:08:08.731 --> 00:08:13.481 Because the objects in this poem—the crops, the stalks, the nuts, the 137 00:08:13.481 --> 00:08:15.633 yarn—belong to a working world. 138 00:08:15.633 --> 00:08:20.383 They have everyday purposes before anyone asks them to predict a marriage. 139 00:08:20.383 --> 00:08:24.762 Burns places his gathering near the River Doon, in western Scotland. 140 00:08:24.762 --> 00:08:29.512 He begins with a landscape inhabited by fairies: dancing, riding, and moving 141 00:08:29.512 --> 00:08:32.035 through the countryside beneath the moon. 142 00:08:32.035 --> 00:08:37.156 His accompanying note describes Halloween as a night when witches, devils, and other 143 00:08:37.156 --> 00:08:40.051 troublesome beings are thought to be abroad. 144 00:08:40.051 --> 00:08:43.317 That is the supernatural atmosphere surrounding the evening. 145 00:08:43.317 --> 00:08:49.180 But the gathering itself is not a group of people sitting quietly, waiting to be 146 00:08:49.180 --> 00:08:49.848 haunted. 147 00:08:49.848 --> 00:08:52.371 They have come together to celebrate. 148 00:08:52.371 --> 00:08:57.121 There is flirting, teasing, storytelling, food, and a succession of attempts to 149 00:08:57.121 --> 00:09:00.758 discover the future—especially the future of their love lives. 150 00:09:00.758 --> 00:09:04.766 And that is why this scene belongs in our series. 151 00:09:04.766 --> 00:09:09.887 Last week, we looked at how complicated the history of the holiday is. 152 00:09:09.887 --> 00:09:12.410 Here, we can narrow the lens. 153 00:09:12.410 --> 00:09:17.902 Instead of asking, “Where did all of Halloween come from?” we can ask, “What 154 00:09:17.902 --> 00:09:22.652 does this particular writer show people doing at Halloween, in this particular 155 00:09:22.652 --> 00:09:23.320 setting?” 156 00:09:23.320 --> 00:09:26.215 That is a much more manageable question. 157 00:09:26.215 --> 00:09:29.852 And Burns helps us answer it in two ways. 158 00:09:29.852 --> 00:09:31.633 He writes the poem. 159 00:09:31.633 --> 00:09:34.527 Then he adds notes explaining the customs. 160 00:09:34.527 --> 00:09:38.906 We get both the instructions and the social commotion around them. 161 00:09:38.906 --> 00:09:44.399 For an episode about finding your future spouse with household objects, that is an 162 00:09:44.399 --> 00:09:45.438 excellent combination. 163 00:09:45.438 --> 00:09:50.559 Now, if you step into this gathering expecting everyone to consult the same 164 00:09:50.559 --> 00:09:53.824 fortune-teller, that is not what Burns gives us. 165 00:09:53.824 --> 00:09:57.832 One of the first customs Burns describes is called kail-pulling. 166 00:09:57.832 --> 00:10:04.067 Kail is a Scots term used for kale or cabbage. And you need the plant still 167 00:10:04.067 --> 00:10:08.817 growing in the ground, because the roots are part of the prediction. 168 00:10:08.817 --> 00:10:14.309 Participants go outside hand in hand, close their eyes, and pull the first plant 169 00:10:14.309 --> 00:10:19.430 they encounter. No inspecting the rows beforehand. No choosing the one that looks 170 00:10:19.430 --> 00:10:21.953 like it has a promising career. 171 00:10:21.953 --> 00:10:24.106 You take what you find. 172 00:10:24.106 --> 00:10:25.887 Then you read it. 173 00:10:25.887 --> 00:10:31.379 First, look at its size and shape. A large plant supposedly predicts a larger-built 174 00:10:31.379 --> 00:10:36.500 spouse; a small plant, a smaller-built spouse. A straight or crooked stalk is 175 00:10:36.500 --> 00:10:41.250 also interpreted as a clue to their physical appearance. Those are the 176 00:10:41.250 --> 00:10:45.629 custom’s historical judgments about bodies, not judgments we need to adopt 177 00:10:45.629 --> 00:10:46.297 ourselves. 178 00:10:46.297 --> 00:10:48.078 Next, examine the roots. 179 00:10:48.078 --> 00:10:52.086 Earth clinging to them represents wealth—your future spouse’s fortune or 180 00:10:52.086 --> 00:10:57.949 marriage portion, which Burns calls their tocher. So dirt attached to the roots is a 181 00:10:57.949 --> 00:10:59.360 promising financial sign. 182 00:10:59.360 --> 00:11:04.481 For once, bringing something muddy into the house is supposed to improve your 183 00:11:04.481 --> 00:11:05.149 prospects. 184 00:11:05.149 --> 00:11:09.899 Then comes the heart of the stalk: the inner part you taste. 185 00:11:09.899 --> 00:11:14.649 Its flavor supposedly reveals your future spouse’s temperament. Think of it this 186 00:11:14.649 --> 00:11:20.141 way: a bitter stalk suggests a bitter disposition; a sweeter taste offers a more 187 00:11:20.141 --> 00:11:24.149 encouraging prediction about their nature. Burns’s note connects taste with 188 00:11:24.149 --> 00:11:28.156 temperament, although he doesn’t lay out a detailed flavor chart. 189 00:11:28.156 --> 00:11:33.278 So, by this point, your vegetable has offered an opinion on their appearance, 190 00:11:33.278 --> 00:11:37.656 their finances, and whether they will be pleasant to live with. 191 00:11:37.656 --> 00:11:40.180 But you still need a name. 192 00:11:40.180 --> 00:11:45.672 For that, the stalks go above the doorway, arranged in order. As people subsequently 193 00:11:45.672 --> 00:11:50.793 enter the house, their first names supply the predicted spouse names: the first 194 00:11:50.793 --> 00:11:56.656 visitor’s name goes with the first stalk, the next visitor’s with the next, and so 195 00:11:56.656 --> 00:11:57.324 on. 196 00:11:57.324 --> 00:11:58.735 Imagine arriving late. 197 00:11:58.735 --> 00:12:01.629 You think you are joining the celebration. 198 00:12:01.629 --> 00:12:07.492 Somebody looks at you, looks at the cabbage, and suddenly has a great deal to 199 00:12:07.492 --> 00:12:08.160 consider. 200 00:12:08.160 --> 00:12:13.281 Burns makes this a noisy group activity, with children carrying stalks over their 201 00:12:13.281 --> 00:12:18.031

shoulders and people reacting to what they have pulled. One unfortunate participant, 202 00:12:18.031 --> 00:12:24.637 Willie, ends up with a stalk so crooked that the poem compares it to a pig’s tail. 203 00:12:24.637 --> 00:12:28.274 Which gives us another important part of the experience. 204 00:12:28.274 --> 00:12:31.539 You may be asking about your private future. 205 00:12:31.539 --> 00:12:35.918 But you are receiving the answer in front of your friends. 206 00:12:35.918 --> 00:12:40.668 And your friends are unlikely to remain respectfully silent about your cabbage. 207 00:12:40.668 --> 00:12:45.047 Once everyone has finished investigating their future through cabbage, Burns brings 208 00:12:45.047 --> 00:12:47.199 us back to the fire. 209 00:12:47.199 --> 00:12:52.321 The older woman of the household brings out her saved supply of nuts. 210 00:12:52.321 --> 00:12:58.184 And this time, instead of asking what an unknown future spouse will be like, you 211 00:12:58.184 --> 00:13:01.821 can ask about somebody you already have in mind. 212 00:13:01.821 --> 00:13:03.602 Here’s how it works. 213 00:13:03.602 --> 00:13:05.383 You take two nuts. 214 00:13:05.383 --> 00:13:10.875 You name one for yourself and the other for the person you’re interested in. 215 00:13:10.875 --> 00:13:15.254 Then you place them beside the fire and watch what happens. 216 00:13:15.254 --> 00:13:20.004 According to Burns’s note, nuts that burn quietly together predict a harmonious 217 00:13:20.004 --> 00:13:25.125 courtship. If they crack, jump, or spring away from one another, that suggests 218 00:13:25.125 --> 00:13:29.875 trouble or separation. The way they behave supposedly reveals the “course and 219 00:13:29.875 --> 00:13:32.399 issue”—the progress and outcome—of the relationship. 220 00:13:32.399 --> 00:13:36.035 So the important thing is whether they stay together. 221 00:13:36.035 --> 00:13:38.930 A peaceful little pair by the fire? 222 00:13:38.930 --> 00:13:39.598 Encouraging. 223 00:13:39.598 --> 00:13:42.863 One suddenly launching itself away from the other? 224 00:13:42.863 --> 00:13:43.903 Less encouraging. 225 00:13:43.903 --> 00:13:49.766 Your romantic future is now being assessed by whether a nut can remain in place. 226 00:13:49.766 --> 00:13:54.145 And Burns gives us a few different reactions to the results. 227 00:13:54.145 --> 00:13:58.153 There’s Jean, who names her nuts for herself and Jock. 228 00:13:58.153 --> 00:14:03.645 She doesn’t tell the others whose names she has chosen. She keeps that part 229 00:14:03.645 --> 00:14:05.426 private and watches carefully. 230 00:14:05.426 --> 00:14:07.949 At first, the nuts burn together. 231 00:14:07.949 --> 00:14:10.473 Then Jock’s jumps up the chimney. 232 00:14:10.473 --> 00:14:11.883 Jean is disappointed. 233 00:14:11.883 --> 00:14:15.149 A rather dramatic way to communicate emotional unavailability. 234 00:14:15.149 --> 00:14:19.528 But that small moment tells us something important about the game. 235 00:14:19.528 --> 00:14:23.535 Jean isn’t waiting for the fire to introduce a stranger. 236 00:14:23.535 --> 00:14:26.059 She already has a preferred answer. 237 00:14:26.059 --> 00:14:28.953 She would like it to be Jock. 238 00:14:28.953 --> 00:14:33.332 And she would prefer not to announce that to the room. 239 00:14:33.332 --> 00:14:38.824 Elsewhere, Nell names her nuts for herself and Rob. They burn together until they 240 00:14:38.824 --> 00:14:44.317 turn white with ash. She is delighted, quietly draws his attention to the result, 241 00:14:44.317 --> 00:14:47.211 and receives a kiss in a corner. 242 00:14:47.211 --> 00:14:49.735 The prediction has become an opportunity. 243 00:14:49.735 --> 00:14:55.969 She can point to the nuts instead of having to begin with, “So, where do you 244 00:14:55.969 --> 00:14:57.379 see this going?” 245 00:14:57.379 --> 00:15:01.016 Apparently, the fire has raised the subject for her. 246 00:15:01.016 --> 00:15:03.539 Not every pairing is welcome, though. 247 00:15:03.539 --> 00:15:08.289 And then there’s Willie again—the man who already pulled the unfortunate cabbage. 248 00:15:08.289 --> 00:15:11.184 His evening does not become less awkward. 249 00:15:11.184 --> 00:15:17.418 His nut is paired with Mallie’s, and she objects to the match. Then her nut jumps 250 00:15:17.418 --> 00:15:19.571 away and burns her foot. 251 00:15:19.571 --> 00:15:24.321 Willie immediately insists that this is exactly what he wanted to happen. 252 00:15:24.321 --> 00:15:26.473 Of course it is, Willie. 253 00:15:26.473 --> 00:15:28.625 First the cabbage. Now this. 254 00:15:28.625 --> 00:15:34.117 Whether or not these games are revealing his future, they are giving him a 255 00:15:34.117 --> 00:15:37.012 considerable amount to explain in the present. 256 00:15:37.012 --> 00:15:41.020 So the same custom can play out in several ways. 257 00:15:41.020 --> 00:15:46.141 You can keep the names secret and privately hope for a good result. 258 00:15:46.141 --> 00:15:50.149 You can share a favorable prediction with someone you like. 259 00:15:50.149 --> 00:15:54.899 Or you can find yourself publicly associated with somebody who would rather 260 00:15:54.899 --> 00:15:56.309 not be involved. 261 00:15:56.309 --> 00:16:01.430 That is what makes this more than a peculiar way to burn snacks. 262 00:16:01.430 --> 00:16:05.067 Naming the nuts introduces the possibility of a relationship. 263 00:16:05.067 --> 00:16:09.074 The fire supposedly tells you how it will turn out. 264 00:16:09.074 --> 00:16:14.938 But the people watching may reveal how they feel about it before the nuts have 265 00:16:14.938 --> 00:16:15.977 finished burning. 266 00:16:15.977 --> 00:16:20.727 And unlike the kale, which offers information about an imagined spouse, this 267 00:16:20.727 --> 00:16:25.848 game can put a very real person at the center of the question. 268 00:16:25.848 --> 00:16:28.371 Not simply, “Will I find love?” 269 00:16:28.371 --> 00:16:30.524 But,

“Could it be you?” 270 00:16:30.524 --> 00:16:33.418 But not everybody stays by the fire. 271 00:16:33.418 --> 00:16:38.168 While the others are talking, a young woman named Merran slips away. 272 00:16:38.168 --> 00:16:41.063 She has been thinking about Andrew Bell. 273 00:16:41.063 --> 00:16:46.926 And she is going to try a charm that promises something more specific than the 274 00:16:46.926 --> 00:16:48.707 nuts or the cabbage. 275 00:16:48.707 --> 00:16:49.746 A name. 276 00:16:49.746 --> 00:16:51.528 First name and surname. 277 00:16:51.528 --> 00:16:55.535 Apparently, she would like the universe to stop being vague. 278 00:16:55.535 --> 00:17:02.512 For this one, you need a ball of blue yarn and access to a kiln—a structure used for 279 00:17:02.512 --> 00:17:04.664 drying materials such as grain. 280 00:17:04.664 --> 00:17:10.157 Burns’s instructions say to go alone, throw the ball into the kiln’s pot, or 281 00:17:10.157 --> 00:17:13.793 lower cavity, and keep hold of the loose end. 282 00:17:13.793 --> 00:17:17.430 Then you begin winding the yarn into another ball. 283 00:17:17.430 --> 00:17:20.324 Eventually, something is supposed to catch it. 284 00:17:20.324 --> 00:17:23.219 When you feel that resistance, you ask: 285 00:17:23.219 --> 00:17:24.258 Who holds? 286 00:17:24.258 --> 00:17:30.492 And whatever is holding the other end is supposed to answer with the name of your 287 00:17:30.492 --> 00:17:31.532 future spouse. 288 00:17:31.532 --> 00:17:34.426 I have some concerns about this procedure. 289 00:17:34.426 --> 00:17:40.289 Primarily, that it asks you to throw something into a dark space and then begin 290 00:17:40.289 --> 00:17:43.555 a conversation when you can’t get it back. 291 00:17:43.555 --> 00:17:48.305 But notice how different this is from the games we’ve just watched. 292 00:17:48.305 --> 00:17:51.942 With the kale, you have a plant to examine. 293 00:17:51.942 --> 00:17:55.578 With the nuts, you have a fire to watch. 294 00:17:55.578 --> 00:17:58.844 This charm asks you to expect an answer. 295 00:17:58.844 --> 00:18:00.996 Not a shape you interpret. 296 00:18:00.996 --> 00:18:03.520 Not a promising bit of dirt. 297 00:18:03.520 --> 00:18:06.785 Somebody speaking from a place you cannot see. 298 00:18:06.785 --> 00:18:10.793 And you are supposed to be alone when it happens. 299 00:18:10.793 --> 00:18:15.172 In the poem, Merran gets as far as winding the yarn. 300 00:18:15.172 --> 00:18:18.067 She is frightened, but she keeps going. 301 00:18:18.067 --> 00:18:19.477 Then it catches. 302 00:18:19.477 --> 00:18:21.629 Something has the other end. 303 00:18:21.629 --> 00:18:23.782 Burns offers us three possibilities. 304 00:18:23.782 --> 00:18:25.934 It might be the Devil. 305 00:18:25.934 --> 00:18:29.199 It might be the end of a beam. 306 00:18:29.199 --> 00:18:31.723 Or it might be Andrew Bell. 307 00:18:31.723 --> 00:18:34.246 Those are three very different explanations. 308 00:18:34.246 --> 00:18:36.028 One requires

spiritual intervention. 309 00:18:36.028 --> 00:18:38.180 One requires untangling your yarn. 310 00:18:38.180 --> 00:18:42.930 And one requires asking Andrew why he is lurking in the kiln. 311 00:18:42.930 --> 00:18:47.309 But Merran does not stay to establish which explanation is correct. 312 00:18:47.309 --> 00:18:48.348 She runs. 313 00:18:48.348 --> 00:18:49.387 Fair enough. 314 00:18:49.387 --> 00:18:55.250 There is a point at which knowing whom you will marry becomes less important than 315 00:18:55.250 --> 00:18:59.258 getting back to a room with other people in it. 316 00:18:59.258 --> 00:19:04.379 What I like about this moment is that Burns does not resolve it. 317 00:19:04.379 --> 00:19:08.758 He leaves an ordinary obstruction, a supernatural presence, and possible human 318 00:19:08.758 --> 00:19:10.910 interference sitting beside one another. 319 00:19:10.910 --> 00:19:12.692 The charm promises certainty. 320 00:19:12.692 --> 00:19:14.844 The scene delivers the opposite. 321 00:19:14.844 --> 00:19:17.739 And for Merran, that uncertainty is enough. 322 00:19:17.739 --> 00:19:21.746 She wanted to know who was waiting in her future. 323 00:19:21.746 --> 00:19:26.867 She is considerably less enthusiastic about finding out who might be waiting in 324 00:19:26.867 --> 00:19:27.907 the kiln. 325 00:19:27.907 --> 00:19:32.285 Back at the gathering, another young woman has her own request. 326 00:19:32.285 --> 00:19:37.035 Jenny wants her grandmother to accompany her while she tries the apple-and-mirror 327 00:19:37.035 --> 00:19:37.703 charm. 328 00:19:37.703 --> 00:19:40.227 And Grandma has opinions about that. 329 00:19:40.227 --> 00:19:44.977 Before we get Grandma’s response, here is what Jenny wants to do. 330 00:19:44.977 --> 00:19:50.840 According to Burns’s explanatory note, you take a candle and go alone to a looking 331 00:19:50.840 --> 00:19:51.879 glass—a mirror. 332 00:19:51.879 --> 00:19:55.145 You eat an apple in front of it. 333 00:19:55.145 --> 00:19:58.782 Some versions also require you to comb your hair. 334 00:19:58.782 --> 00:20:02.789 And while you are doing that, you watch the reflection. 335 00:20:02.789 --> 00:20:08.653 Because the face of your future husband or wife is supposed to appear looking over 336 00:20:08.653 --> 00:20:09.692 your shoulder. 337 00:20:09.692 --> 00:20:11.844 That is the promised result. 338 00:20:11.844 --> 00:20:13.254 Not an initial. 339 00:20:13.254 --> 00:20:14.664 Not a description. 340 00:20:14.664 --> 00:20:15.703 A face. 341 00:20:15.703 --> 00:20:20.825 Presumably attached to someone you would be delighted to meet under almost any 342 00:20:20.825 --> 00:20:21.864 other circumstances. 343 00:20:21.864 --> 00:20:26.614 Because I do think there are more considerate ways to introduce yourself 344 00:20:26.614 --> 00:20:30.250 than appearing behind somebody who is trying to eat. 345 00:20:30.250 --> 00:20:35.000 Burns’s instructions do not specify midnight, by the way. We’ll encounter that

346 00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:40.493 detail in a later Irish account, but it isn’t part of this particular explanation. 347 00:20:40.493 --> 00:20:44.500 And Jenny apparently has reservations about the “go alone” portion. 348 00:20:44.500 --> 00:20:47.395 She wants Grandma to come with her. 349 00:20:47.395 --> 00:20:48.805 Which I appreciate. 350 00:20:48.805 --> 00:20:53.184 You can be curious about your destiny and still prefer supervision. 351 00:20:53.184 --> 00:20:57.192 Grandma, however, does not respond by fetching a second candle. 352 00:20:57.192 --> 00:20:59.715 She objects and she objects strongly. 353 00:20:59.715 --> 00:21:05.578 She warns Jenny against seeking the Devil to tell her fortune and talks about people 354 00:21:05.578 --> 00:21:11.071 frightened out of their senses by this sort of thing. During the exchange, an 355 00:21:11.071 --> 00:21:14.707 ember from her pipe burns through her new apron. 356 00:21:14.707 --> 00:21:19.086 So there is quite a lot happening in Grandma’s immediate vicinity. 357 00:21:19.086 --> 00:21:20.868 But her objection matters. 358 00:21:20.868 --> 00:21:25.618 Until now, we’ve watched people take part, flirt, get embarrassed, or become 359 00:21:25.618 --> 00:21:26.285 frightened. 360 00:21:26.285 --> 00:21:31.407 Here is someone explicitly saying that this is something you should not pursue. 361 00:21:31.407 --> 00:21:36.899 Burns does not give us a gathering where everyone agrees about what these customs 362 00:21:36.899 --> 00:21:39.422 mean or whether they are acceptable. 363 00:21:39.422 --> 00:21:42.317 Jenny sees something she wants to try. 364 00:21:42.317 --> 00:21:45.953 Grandma sees a reason to leave well enough alone. 365 00:21:45.953 --> 00:21:48.477 And then Grandma tells a story. 366 00:21:48.477 --> 00:21:50.258 Of course she does. 367 00:21:50.258 --> 00:21:55.750 She remembers a Halloween from her own youth: a cold, wet growing season, grain 368 00:21:55.750 --> 00:21:59.758 still green, and a harvest celebration that fell on Halloween. 369 00:21:59.758 --> 00:22:03.395 At that gathering, a man tried a hemp-seed charm. 370 00:22:03.395 --> 00:22:05.547 And he was badly frightened. 371 00:22:05.547 --> 00:22:09.555 So Jenny has asked, essentially, “Will you come with me?” 372 00:22:09.555 --> 00:22:13.934 And received, “Let me tell you what happened to somebody else.” 373 00:22:13.934 --> 00:22:15.344 A different service. 374 00:22:15.344 --> 00:22:17.496 But not an uninteresting one. 375 00:22:17.496 --> 00:22:22.246 It also changes how the custom reaches the people in the room. 376 00:22:22.246 --> 00:22:26.254 They are not only hearing instructions about what to do. 377 00:22:26.254 --> 00:22:29.891 They are hearing a warning about what might happen. 378 00:22:29.891 --> 00:22:34.270 And a frightening story can complicate your curiosity without necessarily getting 379 00:22:34.270 --> 00:22:35.680 rid of it. 380 00:22:35.680 --> 00:22:39.688 I can’t tell you whether Jenny finds Grandma’s story persuasive. 381 00:22:39.688 --> 00:22:45.922 But I can tell you that somebody else at the gathering hears it and decides the 382 00:22:45.922 --> 00:22:47.332 fear is ridiculous. 383 00:22:47.332 --> 00:22:49.114 His name is Jamie. 384 00:22:49.114 --> 00:22:55.348 And he would like everyone to know that he could try the hemp-seed charm without any 385 00:22:55.348 --> 00:22:56.016 difficulty. 386 00:22:56.016 --> 00:22:59.282 Unfortunately for Jamie, somebody has hemp seed available. 387 00:22:59.282 --> 00:23:01.434 Jamie has heard Grandma’s warning. 388 00:23:01.434 --> 00:23:02.844 He is unimpressed. 389 00:23:02.844 --> 00:23:07.965 As far as he is concerned, there is nothing to be frightened of. 390 00:23:07.965 --> 00:23:13.086 The older man of the household responds by handing him some hemp seed. 391 00:23:13.086 --> 00:23:17.836 Which is the danger of announcing that you could easily do something. 392 00:23:17.836 --> 00:23:19.989 Sometimes the room lets you. 393 00:23:19.989 --> 00:23:22.883 Now, this charm has its own instructions. 394 00:23:22.883 --> 00:23:28.746 According to Burns’s note, you go out alone with a handful of hemp seed and 395 00:23:28.746 --> 00:23:32.012 scatter it as though you are sowing it. 396 00:23:32.012 --> 00:23:36.762 Then you drag something behind you—a harrow, a stick, or another suitable 397 00:23:36.762 --> 00:23:38.914 object—to imitate covering the seed. 398 00:23:38.914 --> 00:23:41.438 While you do this, you repeat: 399 00:23:41.438 --> 00:23:43.219 “Hemp-seed, I saw thee…” 400 00:23:43.219 --> 00:23:45.000 Here, saw means sow. 401 00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:50.864 You call upon the person who will eventually marry you to come after you and 402 00:23:50.864 --> 00:23:51.903 harvest it. 403 00:23:51.903 --> 00:23:54.797 Then you look over your left shoulder. 404 00:23:54.797 --> 00:24:00.661 Your future partner is supposed to appear behind you, in the act of gathering the 405 00:24:00.661 --> 00:24:01.328 crop. 406 00:24:01.328 --> 00:24:03.481 So you supply the sowing. 407 00:24:03.481 --> 00:24:05.262 They supply the harvesting. 408 00:24:05.262 --> 00:24:08.899 A supernatural introduction with an agricultural division of labor. 409 00:24:08.899 --> 00:24:13.649 Burns also records variations. In some, the figure appears in a different 410 00:24:13.649 --> 00:24:18.770 position; in others, the participant is told to run away because the apparition 411 00:24:18.770 --> 00:24:20.180 will pursue them. 412 00:24:20.180 --> 00:24:24.188 That feels like an important detail to establish before beginning. 413 00:24:24.188 --> 00:24:26.340 Are we expecting a glimpse? 414 00:24:26.340 --> 00:24:27.750 Or a chase? 415 00:24:27.750 --> 00:24:29.903 Because I would prepare differently. 416 00:24:29.903 --> 00:24:33.911 But Jamie has already announced that he can handle this. 417 00:24:33.911 --> 00:24:35.321 Out he goes. 418 00:24:35.321 --> 00:24:39.329 He performs the charm, whistling to keep his

courage up. 419 00:24:39.329 --> 00:24:41.110 Then he hears something. 420 00:24:41.110 --> 00:24:42.149 A squeak. 421 00:24:42.149 --> 00:24:43.188 A groan. 422 00:24:43.188 --> 00:24:44.227 A grunt. 423 00:24:44.227 --> 00:24:48.977 None of which is the clear romantic communication he might have preferred. 424 00:24:48.977 --> 00:24:50.387 He looks back. 425 00:24:50.387 --> 00:24:51.426 He falls. 426 00:24:51.426 --> 00:24:55.434 And he shouts loudly enough to bring the others running. 427 00:24:55.434 --> 00:24:57.215 Something is out there. 428 00:24:57.215 --> 00:24:58.996 Something making those noises. 429 00:24:58.996 --> 00:25:01.149 And eventually, they identify it. 430 00:25:01.149 --> 00:25:02.188 A pig. 431 00:25:02.188 --> 00:25:05.082 Jamie has not discovered his future spouse. 432 00:25:05.082 --> 00:25:10.204 He has discovered that confidence is easier to maintain when you are indoors. 433 00:25:10.204 --> 00:25:15.696 What makes this scene funny isn’t simply that he mistakes an animal for something 434 00:25:15.696 --> 00:25:16.364 supernatural. 435 00:25:16.364 --> 00:25:21.856 It’s that he has publicly announced how little any of this could frighten him. 436 00:25:21.856 --> 00:25:27.348 Now the same people who heard the announcement have come running to see the 437 00:25:27.348 --> 00:25:28.016 result. 438 00:25:28.016 --> 00:25:29.797 His audience has returned. 439 00:25:29.797 --> 00:25:34.547 And unlike Merran’s encounter with the yarn, Burns gives this incident an 440 00:25:34.547 --> 00:25:35.215 explanation. 441 00:25:35.215 --> 00:25:36.996 Her mystery stays unresolved. 442 00:25:36.996 --> 00:25:38.778 Jamie’s has a snout. 443 00:25:38.778 --> 00:25:44.270 The poem has room for both: an uncertain disturbance that sends someone fleeing and 444 00:25:44.270 --> 00:25:47.536 an ordinary animal that thoroughly embarrasses a skeptic. 445 00:25:47.536 --> 00:25:52.286 Either way, somebody is going back to the gathering with a story. 446 00:25:52.286 --> 00:25:57.778 And by this point, that is becoming one of the evening’s most reliable products. 447 00:25:57.778 --> 00:26:00.301 Not confirmed identities of future spouses. 448 00:26:00.301 --> 00:26:04.309 Stories about what happened when people went looking for them. 449 00:26:04.309 --> 00:26:09.059 There are more attempts, more frights, and more ordinary things mistaken for 450 00:26:09.059 --> 00:26:10.098 extraordinary ones. 451 00:26:10.098 --> 00:26:15.961 But before the evening ends, Burns brings us back to a prediction that does not 452 00:26:15.961 --> 00:26:18.114 require anybody to go outside. 453 00:26:18.114 --> 00:26:19.153 Three dishes. 454 00:26:19.153 --> 00:26:20.192 A blindfold. 455 00:26:20.192 --> 00:26:25.313 And one man who is about to become extremely dissatisfied with the results. 456 00:26:25.313 --> 00:26:30.805 After the excursions into the dark, our next prediction brings us back to the 457 00:26:30.805 --> 00:26:31.473 hearth. 458 00:26:31.473

--> 00:26:32.512 No kiln. 459 00:26:32.512 --> 00:26:35.036 No mysterious figure over your shoulder. 460 00:26:35.036 --> 00:26:36.817 And, ideally, no livestock. 461 00:26:36.817 --> 00:26:39.711 For this custom, you need three dishes. 462 00:26:39.711 --> 00:26:41.864 Put clean water in one. 463 00:26:41.864 --> 00:26:43.645 Dirty water in another. 464 00:26:43.645 --> 00:26:45.426 Leave the third empty. 465 00:26:45.426 --> 00:26:50.547 Arrange them by the hearth, blindfold the person seeking their fortune, and lead 466 00:26:50.547 --> 00:26:52.329 them toward the dishes. 467 00:26:52.329 --> 00:26:55.223 They dip their left hand into one. 468 00:26:55.223 --> 00:26:58.860 Which dish they touch supposedly reveals their marriage prospects. 469 00:26:58.860 --> 00:27:04.352 The clean water predicts that their future spouse will not have been married before. 470 00:27:04.352 --> 00:27:08.360 The dirty water predicts a spouse who has been widowed. 471 00:27:08.360 --> 00:27:11.997 And the empty dish predicts no marriage at all. 472 00:27:11.997 --> 00:27:16.375 That association between dirty water and widowhood belongs to the historical 473 00:27:16.375 --> 00:27:17.786 custom—not to us. 474 00:27:17.786 --> 00:27:21.793 But those are the three answers this particular version offers. 475 00:27:21.793 --> 00:27:26.543 You repeat the attempt three times, rearranging the dishes between turns so 476 00:27:26.543 --> 00:27:30.551 the person cannot simply remember where the preferred answer was. 477 00:27:30.551 --> 00:27:36.043 So there is no quietly thinking, “Well, marriage was on the left last time.” 478 00:27:36.043 --> 00:27:37.825 The dishes have moved. 479 00:27:37.825 --> 00:27:39.977 Your destiny has been reshuffled. 480 00:27:39.977 --> 00:27:44.727 And Burns gives us someone who is particularly unhappy with his results. 481 00:27:44.727 --> 00:27:45.766 Uncle John. 482 00:27:45.766 --> 00:27:49.403 He has wanted to marry for a long time. 483 00:27:49.403 --> 00:27:51.555 He reaches for a dish. 484 00:27:51.555 --> 00:27:52.223 Empty. 485 00:27:52.223 --> 00:27:53.633 They rearrange them. 486 00:27:53.633 --> 00:27:55.043 He tries again. 487 00:27:55.043 --> 00:27:55.711 Empty. 488 00:27:55.711 --> 00:27:57.122 One more attempt. 489 00:27:57.122 --> 00:27:58.161 Still empty. 490 00:27:58.161 --> 00:27:59.200 Three opportunities. 491 00:27:59.200 --> 00:28:01.352 Three predictions of no marriage. 492 00:28:01.352 --> 00:28:05.360 Uncle John responds by throwing the dishes into the fire. 493 00:28:05.360 --> 00:28:08.997 Apparently, he has decided the problem is the equipment. 494 00:28:08.997 --> 00:28:14.118 And that is the last fortune-telling incident Burns gives us before the poem 495 00:28:14.118 --> 00:28:16.270 settles into its closing celebration. 496 00:28:16.270 --> 00:28:18.422 It’s an excellent final joke. 497 00:28:18.422 --> 00:28:23.914 After all these attempts to find out what the future holds, here is somebody 498 00:28:23.914 --> 00:28:28.293 receiving an answer and deciding he would rather not accept it. 499 00:28:28.293 --> 00:28:30.446 Which is an important distinction. 500 00:28:30.446 --> 00:28:35.196 Wanting a prediction is not necessarily the same as wanting any prediction. 501 00:28:35.196 --> 00:28:39.204 The poem ends with songs, conversation, unusual tales, and jokes. 502 00:28:39.204 --> 00:28:44.696 Then comes a supper of buttered sowens, followed by a shared drink before the 503 00:28:44.696 --> 00:28:49.446 company parts. Burns’s note identifies sowens served with butter instead of milk 504 00:28:49.446 --> 00:28:53.825 as the Halloween supper associated with the custom he is describing. 505 00:28:53.825 --> 00:28:57.461 And that brings us back to the gathering itself. 506 00:28:57.461 --> 00:29:01.098 The predictions have not happened separately from the evening. 507 00:29:01.098 --> 00:29:05.848 They have been part of its entertainment, its flirtations, its disagreements, and 508 00:29:05.848 --> 00:29:06.887 its stories. 509 00:29:06.887 --> 00:29:09.411 People have gone looking for answers. 510 00:29:09.411 --> 00:29:11.192 Some have found encouragement. 511 00:29:11.192 --> 00:29:12.973 Some have been embarrassed. 512 00:29:12.973 --> 00:29:17.352 Some have discovered that the terrifying presence outside was a pig. 513 00:29:17.352 --> 00:29:22.473 And at least one person has expressed his dissatisfaction through the destruction of 514 00:29:22.473 --> 00:29:23.141 tableware. 515 00:29:23.141 --> 00:29:29.747 We do not have to treat every incident as something that happened at a real party to 516 00:29:29.747 --> 00:29:32.270 see why Burns’s poem is useful. 517 00:29:32.270 --> 00:29:34.422 His notes preserve the instructions. 518 00:29:34.422 --> 00:29:39.172 His characters show what he can make happen when people try them. 519 00:29:39.172 --> 00:29:44.293 And now we’re going to change the kind of evidence we’re looking at. 520 00:29:44.293 --> 00:29:49.043 We’re leaving this literary gathering in Scotland and turning to Irish folklore 521 00:29:49.043 --> 00:29:51.196 records collected from particular people. 522 00:29:51.196 --> 00:29:54.832 There, we’ll meet familiar objects again—nuts, dishes, apples, mirrors—but 523 00:29:54.832 --> 00:29:58.098 not always with the same instructions or meanings. 524 00:29:58.098 --> 00:30:02.848 And alongside the customs, we’ll find stories about what happened when someone 525 00:30:02.848 --> 00:30:03.887 tried them. 526 00:30:03.887 --> 00:30:08.637 Because being told how to see your future spouse is one thing. 527 00:30:08.637 --> 00:30:12.645 Being told what appeared in somebody else’s mirror is another. 528 00:30:12.645 --> 00:30:16.653 For our next stop, we’re moving from Scotland to Ireland. 529 00:30:16.653 --> 00:30:22.145 And we’re moving forward in time—from a book published in 1786 to folklore written 530 00:30:22.145 --> 00:30:24.668 down by schoolchildren in the 1930s. 531

00:30:24.668 --> 00:30:28.676 That does not mean these customs began in the 1930s. 532 00:30:28.676 --> 00:30:32.684 It means this is when these particular accounts were recorded. 533 00:30:32.684 --> 00:30:37.063 The distinction matters, because some of the people contributing these memories 534 00:30:37.063 --> 00:30:40.700 were already describing things as belonging to “long ago.” 535 00:30:40.700 --> 00:30:45.450 Our sources come from the Irish Schools’ Collection, a manuscript collection of 536 00:30:45.450 --> 00:30:47.231 folklore compiled by schoolchildren. 537 00:30:47.231 --> 00:30:51.239 Here, children collected material from people in their communities, preserving 538 00:30:51.239 --> 00:30:55.989 instructions, memories, and stories. The records can identify both the person who 539 00:30:55.989 --> 00:30:59.997 wrote an account down and the person who supplied it. 540 00:30:59.997 --> 00:31:04.375 Which gives us a different kind of window from Burns’s poem. 541 00:31:04.375 --> 00:31:09.125 We are no longer following one writer’s cast through a literary evening. 542 00:31:09.125 --> 00:31:14.618 We are looking at particular accounts of what people remembered, what they said was 543 00:31:14.618 --> 00:31:19.368 practiced, and what they had heard happened to someone who tried it. 544 00:31:19.368 --> 00:31:23.004 And some of the objects will be very familiar. 545 00:31:23.004 --> 00:31:23.672 Apples. 546 00:31:23.672 --> 00:31:24.340 Nuts. 547 00:31:24.340 --> 00:31:25.008 Dishes. 548 00:31:25.008 --> 00:31:26.790 A ball of wool. 549 00:31:26.790 --> 00:31:30.426 Apparently, the household supplies have not finished their work. 550 00:31:30.426 --> 00:31:35.547 One short account from County Donegal was collected by Mary McCafferty from Bernard 551 00:31:35.547 --> 00:31:36.215 McCafferty. 552 00:31:36.215 --> 00:31:42.079 It says that, long ago, young people peeled an apple before a looking glass at 553 00:31:42.079 --> 00:31:43.489 midnight on Halloween. 554 00:31:43.489 --> 00:31:48.610 They expected to see their future wife or husband looking over their shoulder. 555 00:31:48.610 --> 00:31:50.762 There is our mirror again. 556 00:31:50.762 --> 00:31:52.543 But notice the instructions. 557 00:31:52.543 --> 00:31:55.438 In Burns’s note, you eat the apple. 558 00:31:55.438 --> 00:31:57.219 Here, you peel it. 559 00:31:57.219 --> 00:32:00.856 And here, midnight is explicitly part of the custom. 560 00:32:00.856 --> 00:32:05.977 Those differences are worth keeping, because they remind us that there was not 561 00:32:05.977 --> 00:32:08.129 one universal set of instructions. 562 00:32:08.129 --> 00:32:13.250 No central office was making sure everyone had received the latest apple procedure. 563 00:32:13.250 --> 00:32:16.887 In this Donegal account, the basic arrangement is simple. 564 00:32:16.887 --> 00:32:19.040 Wait until midnight on Halloween. 565 00:32:19.040 --> 00:32:22.305 Peel your apple in front of the mirror. 566 00:32:22.305 --> 00:32:26.684 Watch for the person who is supposed to appear behind you. 567 00:32:26.684 --> 00:32:31.805 And the wording includes a future wife or husband—not exclusively a young woman 568 00:32:31.805 --> 00:32:33.586 looking for a man. 569 00:32:33.586 --> 00:32:35.739 It is a brief record. 570 00:32:35.739 --> 00:32:40.860 It doesn’t tell us whether the person trying it was laughing, frightened, or 571 00:32:40.860 --> 00:32:41.899 completely convinced. 572 00:32:41.899 --> 00:32:43.680 It preserves the promise. 573 00:32:43.680 --> 00:32:48.430 Do this, and you might see who is waiting in your future. 574 00:32:48.430 --> 00:32:52.438 Another account gives us much more of the surrounding evening. 575 00:32:52.438 --> 00:32:57.980 One account comes from Mr. Cryan of Tully. A schoolgirl named Maeve Turbitt wrote 576 00:32:57.980 --> 00:33:01.275 down his description of the local Halloween customs. 577 00:33:01.275 --> 00:33:06.817 According to him, Halloween was a night when “pookas” and other evil spirits were 578 00:33:06.817 --> 00:33:11.984 said to roam from house to house, bringing harm to people and animals. 579 00:33:11.984 --> 00:33:16.029 The sensible response, in his telling, was to stay indoors. 580 00:33:16.029 --> 00:33:20.822 But indoors, there was supper—and a little fortune-telling hidden in the food. 581 00:33:20.822 --> 00:33:27.487 The woman of the house made a sweet cake with a ring concealed inside. The cake was 582 00:33:27.487 --> 00:33:33.029 shared at supper, and whoever found the ring in their portion was supposedly going 583 00:33:33.029 --> 00:33:37.073 to be the next person in the group to marry. 584 00:33:37.073 --> 00:33:38.496 That’s the prediction. 585 00:33:38.496 --> 00:33:43.663 The ring didn’t tell you whom you would marry or reveal their name. 586 00:33:43.663 --> 00:33:49.580 It simply singled you out: of the people gathered there, you were supposed to marry 587 00:33:49.580 --> 00:33:50.254 first. 588 00:33:50.254 --> 00:33:56.919 So instead of going outside to pull up a cabbage or standing alone in front of a 589 00:33:56.919 --> 00:34:00.963 mirror, you could receive your romantic forecast while eating cake. 590 00:34:00.963 --> 00:34:03.135 A much more comfortable arrangement. 591 00:34:03.135 --> 00:34:07.928 Although possibly less comfortable once everybody at the table noticed who had 592 00:34:07.928 --> 00:34:09.351 found the ring. 593 00:34:09.351 --> 00:34:12.271 I mean you did come for supper. 594 00:34:12.271 --> 00:34:15.567 Apparently, your wedding prospects are now the conversation. 595 00:34:15.567 --> 00:34:21.483 And if you’re thinking, “Wait—isn’t that a little like finding the baby in a Mardi 596 00:34:21.483 --> 00:34:22.906 Gras king cake?”—yes. 597 00:34:22.906 --> 00:34:25.078 That is a useful parallel. 598 00:34:25.078 --> 00:34:29.496 Different celebration, different meaning, but a similar arrangement: hide an object 599 00:34:29.496 --> 00:34:35.413 in a shared cake, serve

the portions, and whoever receives that piece gets a special 600 00:34:35.413 --> 00:34:36.087 outcome. 601 00:34:36.087 --> 00:34:40.880 In the Irish Halloween ring custom, the result is a marriage prediction. 602 00:34:40.880 --> 00:34:45.673 With king cake, depending on the tradition, finding the hidden token can 603 00:34:45.673 --> 00:34:50.840 mean good luck, being named king or queen of the celebration, or taking 604 00:34:50.840 --> 00:34:55.259 responsibility for supplying the next cake or hosting the next gathering. 605 00:34:55.259 --> 00:34:57.056 One predicts a spouse. 606 00:34:57.056 --> 00:34:59.977 The other can assign you an errand. 607 00:34:59.977 --> 00:35:05.519 We shouldn’t assume that one custom came directly from the other just because they 608 00:35:05.519 --> 00:35:06.942 resemble each other. 609 00:35:06.942 --> 00:35:09.113 But it’s an interesting comparison. 610 00:35:09.113 --> 00:35:14.281 An ordinary slice of cake becomes something everybody has a reason to watch. 611 00:35:14.281 --> 00:35:15.704 Who got it? 612 00:35:15.704 --> 00:35:17.501 What does it mean? 613 00:35:17.501 --> 00:35:21.545 And how much attention is that person about to receive? 614 00:35:21.545 --> 00:35:25.215 Which brings us back to Mr. Cryan’s Halloween evening. 615 00:35:25.215 --> 00:35:29.259 Because the cake is not the only thing making predictions. 616 00:35:29.259 --> 00:35:35.550 Mr. Cryan also describes putting two nuts beside the fire and naming them for a boy 617 00:35:35.550 --> 00:35:36.973 and a girl. 618 00:35:36.973 --> 00:35:40.268 If they remain together, the pair will marry. 619 00:35:40.268 --> 00:35:44.312 If the nuts jump into the fire, they will not. 620 00:35:44.312 --> 00:35:46.858 That should sound familiar after Burns. 621 00:35:46.858 --> 00:35:50.153 But we should keep the local rule intact. 622 00:35:50.153 --> 00:35:54.572 Here, the unfavorable sign is the nuts jumping into the fire. 623 00:35:54.572 --> 00:35:57.493 The favorable sign is their remaining together. 624 00:35:57.493 --> 00:36:01.162 The underlying question is still about a named pair. 625 00:36:01.162 --> 00:36:03.334 Could these two people marry? 626 00:36:03.334 --> 00:36:08.876 And, once again, you can see how easily a group activity can become personally 627 00:36:08.876 --> 00:36:09.550 interesting. 628 00:36:09.550 --> 00:36:15.467 You don’t need to announce that this is the most important question of your life. 629 00:36:15.467 --> 00:36:19.136 You can say you are simply joining the game. 630 00:36:19.136 --> 00:36:22.431 Then pay unusually close attention to two nuts. 631 00:36:22.431 --> 00:36:25.352 The same account also describes three saucers. 632 00:36:25.352 --> 00:36:30.145 But these are not quite the dishes we left with Uncle John. 633 00:36:30.145 --> 00:36:33.815 In this version, you put water in one saucer. 634 00:36:33.815 --> 00:36:35.238 Clay in another. 635 00:36:35.238 --> 00:36:37.784 And a ring in the third. 636 00:36:37.784 --> 00:36:43.326 Then the people taking part are blindfolded in turn and touch one of them. 637 00:36:43.326 --> 00:36:46.247 Here is what the results supposedly mean. 638 00:36:46.247 --> 00:36:51.414 Touch the water, and you will cross water before the year is out. 639 00:36:51.414 --> 00:36:54.335 Touch the ring, and you will marry. 640 00:36:54.335 --> 00:36:57.255 Touch the clay, and you will die. 641 00:36:57.255 --> 00:37:02.048 That is a significant escalation from wondering whether your future husband will 642 00:37:02.048 --> 00:37:03.097 be agreeable. 643 00:37:03.097 --> 00:37:06.392 And it changes what the game is asking. 644 00:37:06.392 --> 00:37:10.062 In Burns’s explanation, all three dishes concern marriage prospects. 645 00:37:10.062 --> 00:37:14.106 Here, marriage is one possible future among travel and death. 646 00:37:14.106 --> 00:37:17.401 We should also be careful with the water. 647 00:37:17.401 --> 00:37:23.317 The account says you will “cross water.” It doesn’t give us enough detail to turn 648 00:37:23.317 --> 00:37:26.613 that automatically into a prediction of permanent emigration. 649 00:37:26.613 --> 00:37:30.282 But even without adding anything, the range is striking. 650 00:37:30.282 --> 00:37:30.956 Movement. 651 00:37:30.956 --> 00:37:31.630 Marriage. 652 00:37:31.630 --> 00:37:32.304 Mortality. 653 00:37:32.304 --> 00:37:35.225 Three possible futures arranged on ordinary saucers. 654 00:37:35.225 --> 00:37:41.516 That is why I don’t want to describe all of these customs as simply cute romantic 655 00:37:41.516 --> 00:37:42.190 games. 656 00:37:42.190 --> 00:37:43.613 Some are playful. 657 00:37:43.613 --> 00:37:45.785 Some carry much darker possibilities. 658 00:37:45.785 --> 00:37:50.203 And sometimes the same familiar format—close your eyes, touch an object, 659 00:37:50.203 --> 00:37:52.375 receive a result—can contain both. 660 00:37:52.375 --> 00:37:56.725 Now this is the moment when the account becomes a warning. 661 00:37:56.725 --> 00:37:59.601 Mr. Cryan also remembers the apple-and-mirror custom. 662 00:37:59.601 --> 00:38:05.426 He describes a girl going into a dark room, peeling an apple before a mirror, 663 00:38:05.426 --> 00:38:09.407 and expecting her future husband’s face to appear at midnight. 664 00:38:09.407 --> 00:38:15.232 But he says this particular custom is no longer practiced, placing it in the past. 665 00:38:15.232 --> 00:38:17.002 Then the account changes. 666 00:38:17.002 --> 00:38:18.771 It stops giving instructions. 667 00:38:18.771 --> 00:38:20.910 It starts telling a story. 668 00:38:20.910 --> 00:38:26.735 A girl named McDonagh, from Keash, was said to have seen her future husband in 669 00:38:26.735 --> 00:38:28.873 the mirror one Halloween night. 670 00:38:28.873 --> 00:38:33.960 About two months later, she encountered the same man while returning from town. 671 00:38:33.960 --> 00:38:39.417 According to the story, she fainted, never recovered from the shock,

and died within 672 00:38:39.417 --> 00:38:40.449 three months. 673 00:38:40.449 --> 00:38:42.956 That is what the account says. 674 00:38:42.956 --> 00:38:48.781 We are not treating it as a verified medical history or proof that someone saw 675 00:38:48.781 --> 00:38:49.813 the future. 676 00:38:49.813 --> 00:38:53.057 It is a story attached to the custom. 677 00:38:53.057 --> 00:38:57.039 And it changes the emotional meaning of the promised vision. 678 00:38:57.039 --> 00:38:59.177 The instructions offer something desirable. 679 00:38:59.177 --> 00:39:02.053 You can see whom you will marry. 680 00:39:02.053 --> 00:39:07.140 The story asks whether you would actually be prepared to recognize that person 681 00:39:07.140 --> 00:39:07.804 afterward. 682 00:39:07.804 --> 00:39:09.942 It turns anticipation into dread. 683 00:39:09.942 --> 00:39:13.186 Which is quite a journey for an apple. 684 00:39:13.186 --> 00:39:19.011 And this is not the only collected story in which the mirror gives someone more 685 00:39:19.011 --> 00:39:20.412 than they wanted. 686 00:39:20.412 --> 00:39:25.131 For the next one, we have a date written beneath the account: 687 00:39:25.131 --> 00:39:26.532 May 6, 1938. 688 00:39:26.532 --> 00:39:27.933 And two names. 689 00:39:27.933 --> 00:39:29.334 Peg and Etna. 690 00:39:29.334 --> 00:39:35.527 The next account was written down by Ettie Millar on May 6, 1938, and preserved in 691 00:39:35.527 --> 00:39:40.246 the Schools’ Collection at Kilmore, County Roscommon. Its action takes place on 692 00:39:40.246 --> 00:39:44.228 Halloween night. It turns the apple-and-mirror custom into a warning: 693 00:39:44.228 --> 00:39:50.053 what if the face you saw belonged to someone you should never have invited into 694 00:39:50.053 --> 00:39:51.085 your life? 695 00:39:51.085 --> 00:39:53.592 It is simply titled “A Story.” 696 00:39:53.592 --> 00:39:56.836 And that is how we should approach it. 697 00:39:56.836 --> 00:40:01.924 Not as a verified account of a supernatural encounter, but as a story 698 00:40:01.924 --> 00:40:07.011 someone considered worth recording about what could happen when you tried to see 699 00:40:07.011 --> 00:40:08.412 your future husband. 700 00:40:08.412 --> 00:40:13.868 It begins on Halloween night, with two young women living in the same house. 701 00:40:13.868 --> 00:40:16.375 Their names are Peg and Etna. 702 00:40:16.375 --> 00:40:19.251 Right away, the storyteller establishes a contrast. 703 00:40:19.251 --> 00:40:22.126 Peg is described as “rough and wild.” 704 00:40:22.126 --> 00:40:24.265 Etna is “mild and gentle.” 705 00:40:24.265 --> 00:40:26.772 Those descriptions are doing some work. 706 00:40:26.772 --> 00:40:32.228 Before anything happens, we have been told who is likely to take the risk. 707 00:40:32.228 --> 00:40:35.841 And who might be expected to recognize the danger. 708 00:40:35.841 --> 00:40:40.191 The girls have been trying tricks to discover their future husbands. 709 00:40:40.191 --> 00:40:45.647 The custom in this story involves entering a haunted room, peeling an apple, and 710 00:40:45.647 --> 00:40:48.154 watching the mirror for a face. 711 00:40:48.154 --> 00:40:49.924 Notice that extra requirement. 712 00:40:49.924 --> 00:40:52.062 Not simply a dark room. 713 00:40:52.062 --> 00:40:53.463 A haunted room. 714 00:40:53.463 --> 00:40:58.182 Apparently, the ordinary mirror service was insufficient. We have upgraded to a 715 00:40:58.182 --> 00:40:59.951 location with known issues. 716 00:40:59.951 --> 00:41:02.090 Peg decides to try it. 717 00:41:02.090 --> 00:41:04.228 She begins peeling the apple. 718 00:41:04.228 --> 00:41:06.366 Then she hears terrible laughter. 719 00:41:06.366 --> 00:41:09.242 And a man appears in the mirror. 720 00:41:09.242 --> 00:41:13.592 Now, I would consider the aforementioned terrible laughter as relevant information. 721 00:41:13.592 --> 00:41:19.786 Before we get distracted by the face, I would like to know why the room is 722 00:41:19.786 --> 00:41:20.449 laughing. 723 00:41:20.449 --> 00:41:27.011 But the next day, a man arrives at the old haunted ruin where the story takes place. 724 00:41:27.011 --> 00:41:30.993 He is the same man Peg saw in the glass. 725 00:41:30.993 --> 00:41:33.869 She falls deeply in love with him. 726 00:41:33.869 --> 00:41:37.113 They plan to marry and go away together. 727 00:41:37.113 --> 00:41:41.463 So, at first, the story appears to fulfill the ritual’s promise. 728 00:41:41.463 --> 00:41:44.339 She wanted to see her future husband. 729 00:41:44.339 --> 00:41:46.108 She saw a man. 730 00:41:46.108 --> 00:41:47.509 The man arrived. 731 00:41:47.509 --> 00:41:50.385 For Peg, that seems to settle something. 732 00:41:50.385 --> 00:41:55.841 But for us, listening, the haunted room and the laughter are still sitting there, 733 00:41:55.841 --> 00:41:56.505 unresolved. 734 00:41:56.505 --> 00:41:59.011 And now the story introduces secrecy. 735 00:41:59.011 --> 00:42:05.205 On the night they intend to leave, Peg arranges for Etna to go to bed early. 736 00:42:05.205 --> 00:42:10.661 The account does not explain exactly why she wants Etna out of the way. 737 00:42:10.661 --> 00:42:13.537 We don’t need to invent a reason. 738 00:42:13.537 --> 00:42:18.993 What matters is that the plan would leave Peg answering the door without her. 739 00:42:18.993 --> 00:42:21.500 Except that is not what happens. 740 00:42:21.500 --> 00:42:24.338 Late that night, there is a knock. 741 00:42:24.338 --> 00:42:26.812 Peg is not ready to answer. 742 00:42:26.812 --> 00:42:28.558 Etna comes downstairs instead. 743 00:42:28.558 --> 00:42:31.032 And she brings a good light. 744 00:42:31.032 --> 00:42:33.506 That is such a useful detail. 745 00:42:33.506 --> 00:42:38.163 We began with someone looking into a mirror in a haunted room. 746 00:42:38.163 --> 00:42:42.819 Now somebody approaches the actual visitor with enough light to inspect him. 747 00:42:42.819 --> 00:42:44.202 Etna looks down.

748 00:42:44.202 --> 00:42:45.584 At his feet. 749 00:42:45.584 --> 00:42:46.967 They are cloven. 750 00:42:46.967 --> 00:42:53.079 She recognizes the visitor as the Devil and points this out to Peg, saving her, in 751 00:42:53.079 --> 00:42:55.553 the story’s words, from “eternal damnation.” 752 00:42:55.553 --> 00:42:58.391 So the mirror did produce a face. 753 00:42:58.391 --> 00:43:02.320 The face was not the part they needed to check. 754 00:43:02.320 --> 00:43:05.885 Before committing to the mysterious stranger, inspect the feet. 755 00:43:05.885 --> 00:43:08.359 Apparently, that was the background check. 756 00:43:08.359 --> 00:43:13.380 But the story does not end with Peg laughing off a narrow escape. 757 00:43:13.380 --> 00:43:18.764 She becomes very ill and, according to the account, “never did much good after.” 758 00:43:18.764 --> 00:43:24.149 The closing line says the incident put an end to Halloween tricks in that 759 00:43:24.149 --> 00:43:27.350 neighborhood “for a long and many a day.” 760 00:43:27.350 --> 00:43:33.462 That last claim belongs to the story. We cannot use it as independent proof that a 761 00:43:33.462 --> 00:43:35.936 whole neighborhood actually abandoned the custom. 762 00:43:35.936 --> 00:43:40.593 But it tells us what kind of ending the narrator gives it. 763 00:43:40.593 --> 00:43:43.431 This is not a successful matchmaking story. 764 00:43:43.431 --> 00:43:45.177 This is a warning. 765 00:43:45.177 --> 00:43:49.834 What interests me here is that the mirror does not simply fail. 766 00:43:49.834 --> 00:43:52.308 Peg sees someone who subsequently appears. 767 00:43:52.308 --> 00:43:56.601 The apparent confirmation is part of what makes the situation dangerous. 768 00:43:56.601 --> 00:43:57.983 She recognizes him. 769 00:43:57.983 --> 00:43:59.730 She falls in love. 770 00:43:59.730 --> 00:44:03.659 The sequence gives her a reason to trust the connection. 771 00:44:03.659 --> 00:44:07.224 Then Etna notices something that recognition has not revealed. 772 00:44:07.224 --> 00:44:12.972 That is my reading of the tale, rather than a claim about what every teller 773 00:44:12.972 --> 00:44:13.627 intended. 774 00:44:13.627 --> 00:44:17.556 But it makes an unsettling reversal of the original promise. 775 00:44:17.556 --> 00:44:19.303 The custom offers certainty. 776 00:44:19.303 --> 00:44:22.504 Here is the face you are looking for. 777 00:44:22.504 --> 00:44:26.797 The story asks whether seeing that face actually tells you enough. 778 00:44:26.797 --> 00:44:32.182 And it also gives us a contrast between the two women’s ways of looking. 779 00:44:32.182 --> 00:44:35.383 Peg watches a reflection, hoping for a future. 780 00:44:35.383 --> 00:44:38.585 Etna examines the person standing at the door. 781 00:44:38.585 --> 00:44:40.331 With a good light. 782 00:44:40.331 --> 00:44:42.805 The first act produces the mystery. 783 00:44:42.805 --> 00:44:44.551 The second exposes it. 784 00:44:44.551 --> 00:44:49.208 That makes this a useful place to pause in our Irish material. 785 00:44:49.208 --> 00:44:54.229 We have encountered instructions that promise a name, a face, or a prediction. 786 00:44:54.229 --> 00:44:58.522 We have also encountered stories that attach consequences to seeking that 787 00:44:58.522 --> 00:44:59.177 knowledge. 788 00:44:59.177 --> 00:45:02.378 Those are related, but they are not interchangeable. 789 00:45:02.378 --> 00:45:08.490 A record of how to perform a charm tells us what someone said you should do. 790 00:45:08.490 --> 00:45:13.511 A legend about the Devil arriving afterward tells us what someone said you 791 00:45:13.511 --> 00:45:14.893 ought to fear. 792 00:45:14.893 --> 00:45:17.367 And a tradition can preserve both. 793 00:45:17.367 --> 00:45:19.114 The invitation to try. 794 00:45:19.114 --> 00:45:21.224 And the warning not to. 795 00:45:21.224 --> 00:45:26.608 So far, we have moved from Burns’s lively gathering to Irish records of remembered 796 00:45:26.608 --> 00:45:28.355 customs and frightening stories. 797 00:45:28.355 --> 00:45:34.103 For our next stop, we need to ask what happens when this kind of fortune-telling 798 00:45:34.103 --> 00:45:36.577 is deliberately organized as party entertainment. 799 00:45:36.577 --> 00:45:39.778 Not a secret departure for a haunted room. 800 00:45:39.778 --> 00:45:42.616 Something a host prepares for the guests. 801 00:45:42.616 --> 00:45:44.726 Instructions laid out in advance. 802 00:45:44.726 --> 00:45:49.019 The future, scheduled somewhere between the refreshments and the next game. 803 00:45:49.019 --> 00:45:54.767 That is where we turn to an American Halloween party—and look at what the host 804 00:45:54.767 --> 00:45:57.241 is actually being told to arrange. 805 00:45:57.241 --> 00:46:01.534 For our American scene, we’re stepping back to Delaware in 1912. 806 00:46:01.534 --> 00:46:06.555 The Irish accounts we just explored were collected in the 1930s, often describing 807 00:46:06.555 --> 00:46:11.576 older customs. This time, we have a newspaper report of an actual Halloween 808 00:46:11.576 --> 00:46:12.230 party. 809 00:46:12.230 --> 00:46:17.251 Not a poem or a legend, but a local account describing the decorations, 810 00:46:17.251 --> 00:46:18.634 activities, and guests. 811 00:46:18.634 --> 00:46:23.290 On November 9, 1912, The Middletown Transcript reported that the Queen Esther 812 00:46:23.290 --> 00:46:27.583 Circle of Bethesda Methodist Episcopal Church had held its regular Halloween 813 00:46:27.583 --> 00:46:30.057 party at the parsonage—the minister’s residence. 814 00:46:30.057 --> 00:46:33.259 Which brings us, rather unexpectedly, back to church. 815 00:46:33.259 --> 00:46:38.279 I started this episode remembering the future-spouse game I played with friends I 816 00:46:38.279 --> 00:46:43.300 met through church. This is a different denomination, place, and time. I’m not 817 00:46:43.300 --> 00:46:45.046 suggesting a direct connection. 818 00:46:45.046 -->

00:46:49.339 But I did have a moment reading this where I thought: 819 00:46:49.339 --> 00:46:50.358 Of course. 820 00:46:50.358 --> 00:46:55.015 I’ve followed the fortune-telling through Scotland and Ireland, and now somebody is 821 00:46:55.015 --> 00:46:57.125 serving cocoa at the parsonage. 822 00:46:57.125 --> 00:47:00.691 The house is decorated with orange-and-black crepe paper, autumn 823 00:47:00.691 --> 00:47:05.713 leaves, and jack-o’-lanterns. In the dining room, red and yellow ears of corn 824 00:47:05.713 --> 00:47:07.096 serve as candlesticks. 825 00:47:07.096 --> 00:47:11.026 And the entertainment begins before the guests even get inside. 826 00:47:11.026 --> 00:47:16.411 Witches meet them at the front door, then silently and solemnly escort them around 827 00:47:16.411 --> 00:47:18.886 the house to the back entrance. 828 00:47:18.886 --> 00:47:20.996 You’ve reached the right address. 829 00:47:20.996 --> 00:47:23.835 You’re just being given the scenic route. 830 00:47:23.835 --> 00:47:29.948 Once the guests are welcomed, a paper bag is tied over each person’s hand. They are 831 00:47:29.948 --> 00:47:34.242 instructed to wear it out by shaking hands with their neighbors. 832 00:47:34.242 --> 00:47:36.353 An icebreaker with additional packaging. 833 00:47:36.353 --> 00:47:41.738 It’s an unusual introduction, but it gives everyone something to do—and a reason to 834 00:47:41.738 --> 00:47:45.304 approach one another without having to invent a conversation. 835 00:47:45.304 --> 00:47:48.507 That sense of arrangement runs through the evening. 836 00:47:48.507 --> 00:47:51.709 The decorations are ready. The games have instructions. 837 00:47:51.709 --> 00:47:54.547 And the future has its own room. 838 00:47:54.547 --> 00:47:59.205 The library has been darkened and transformed into a “Witches Den,” where 839 00:47:59.205 --> 00:48:00.952 two witches tell fortunes. 840 00:48:00.952 --> 00:48:05.610 The newspaper calls them two of the “weirdest” witches and describes their 841 00:48:05.610 --> 00:48:07.720 predictions as “really most remarkable.” 842 00:48:07.720 --> 00:48:12.742 Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell us what they predicted or how they did it. 843 00:48:12.742 --> 00:48:17.764 We don’t know whether they used cards, read palms, or prepared messages in 844 00:48:17.764 --> 00:48:18.419 advance. 845 00:48:18.419 --> 00:48:23.077 But we do know that fortune-telling was a planned attraction. Someone had 846 00:48:23.077 --> 00:48:27.371 transformed a room, adopted a character, and prepared to receive guests. 847 00:48:27.371 --> 00:48:31.664 That is a different arrangement from standing alone before a mirror. 848 00:48:31.664 --> 00:48:34.139 Here, the mysterious figures are expected. 849 00:48:34.139 --> 00:48:36.250 They have a designated space. 850 00:48:36.250 --> 00:48:39.088 The supernatural is on the evening’s program. 851 00:48:39.088 --> 00:48:44.837 It would be tempting to turn this into a neat progression: first people believed in 852 00:48:44.837 --> 00:48:47.312 fortune-telling, and then it became entertainment. 853 00:48:47.312 --> 00:48:50.514 But our earlier examples have already complicated that. 854 00:48:50.514 --> 00:48:54.444 Burns’s poem contains flirting, jokes, skepticism, and ordinary explanations for 855 00:48:54.444 --> 00:48:58.374 frightening events. The Irish records preserve both playful predictions and 856 00:48:58.374 --> 00:49:01.577 disturbing stories. Belief and entertainment were not necessarily 857 00:49:01.577 --> 00:49:02.595 separate categories. 858 00:49:02.595 --> 00:49:06.162 This newspaper cannot tell us what every guest thought. 859 00:49:06.162 --> 00:49:10.456 What it does show is that, at this particular Methodist parsonage, 860 00:49:10.456 --> 00:49:15.113 fortune-telling could be organized and publicly described as part of an enjoyable 861 00:49:15.113 --> 00:49:16.132 Halloween party. 862 00:49:16.132 --> 00:49:20.426 That doesn’t establish what every Methodist—or even every person in the 863 00:49:20.426 --> 00:49:21.081 room—believed. 864 00:49:21.081 --> 00:49:26.103 It simply gives us a more interesting picture than a firm boundary between 865 00:49:26.103 --> 00:49:28.214 church activities and fortune-telling games. 866 00:49:28.214 --> 00:49:30.688 Here, they were sharing a house. 867 00:49:30.688 --> 00:49:33.768 The fortunes are only part of the entertainment. 868 00:49:33.768 --> 00:49:37.898 The newspaper calls the “crowning game” of the evening “Hat Trimming.” 869 00:49:37.898 --> 00:49:43.427 The young men find the women whose numbers match their own. Each man selects and 870 00:49:43.427 --> 00:49:49.657 decorates a hat for his partner, who then wears it as he escorts her to the dining 871 00:49:49.657 --> 00:49:50.287 room. 872 00:49:50.287 --> 00:49:55.117 This is not a marriage prediction. The report doesn’t claim that the matching 873 00:49:55.117 --> 00:49:56.797 numbers identify destined spouses. 874 00:49:56.797 --> 00:50:00.227 But it is another way the hosts organize encounters. 875 00:50:00.227 --> 00:50:05.057 The guests don’t have to decide whom to approach or how to begin. 876 00:50:05.057 --> 00:50:06.736 They have a number. 877 00:50:06.736 --> 00:50:08.416 They have a partner. 878 00:50:08.416 --> 00:50:11.146 They have a hat that needs attention. 879 00:50:11.146 --> 00:50:15.976 The newspaper playfully describes some of the finished creations as “a thing of 880 00:50:15.976 --> 00:50:18.006 beauty and a joy forever.” 881 00:50:18.006 --> 00:50:21.436 I appreciate the word some doing its work there. 882 00:50:21.436 --> 00:50:25.916 Then come doughnuts, cocoa, fruit, candy, and popcorn. The guests declare the 883 00:50:25.916 --> 00:50:26.896 evening delightful. 884 00:50:26.896 --> 00:50:28.575 No reported cloven feet. 885 00:50:28.575 --> 00:50:30.955 No crockery thrown into the fire. 886 00:50:30.955 --> 00:50:32.635 A comparatively smooth gathering. 887 00:50:32.635 --> 00:50:36.415 One

party cannot represent every American Halloween celebration in 1912. 888 00:50:36.415 --> 00:50:41.595 But this one gives us a documented example of fortune-telling woven into a larger 889 00:50:41.595 --> 00:50:44.675 evening of decorations, performances, social games, and refreshments. 890 00:50:44.675 --> 00:50:49.505 And it brings us back to a distinction we’ve encountered throughout the episode. 891 00:50:49.505 --> 00:50:54.684 Knowing what people did is not the same as knowing exactly what they believed. 892 00:50:54.684 --> 00:51:00.564 We know the witches told fortunes. We know the library was prepared for them. We know 893 00:51:00.564 --> 00:51:03.294 the newspaper treated the activity as entertainment. 894 00:51:03.294 --> 00:51:08.474 We don’t know whether a particular guest laughed off a prediction or quietly hoped 895 00:51:08.474 --> 00:51:10.154 it might come true. 896 00:51:10.154 --> 00:51:13.934 And that uncertainty brings me back to those cardboard initials. 897 00:51:13.934 --> 00:51:18.063 I can’t tell you how much faith I put in them. 898 00:51:18.063 --> 00:51:20.793 I can’t even remember what they said. 899 00:51:20.793 --> 00:51:24.223 But I remember waiting to see which ones flipped. 900 00:51:24.223 --> 00:51:29.053 After all these apples, nuts, mirrors, and saucers, that moment of antici—pation is 901 00:51:29.053 --> 00:51:30.733 what stays with me. 902 00:51:30.733 --> 00:51:34.513 Not evidence that every custom came from the same place. 903 00:51:34.513 --> 00:51:38.992 Not a claim that everyone understood the games in the same way. 904 00:51:38.992 --> 00:51:41.022 Just that small, tempting possibility: 905 00:51:41.022 --> 00:51:45.152 Something ordinary is about to tell you something you don’t know. 906 00:51:45.152 --> 00:51:47.532 And even if you’re only playing— 907 00:51:47.532 --> 00:51:49.562 You still want to look. 908 00:51:49.562 --> 00:51:51.493 Looking back, the funniest part is that I remember everything around the prediction. 909 00:51:51.493 --> 00:51:51.885 The family. 910 00:51:51.885 --> 00:51:52.277 The books. 911 00:51:52.277 --> 00:51:52.809 The Pokémon cards. 912 00:51:52.809 --> 00:51:54.600 The fact that they understood how much I loved wizards and magic. 913 00:51:54.600 --> 00:51:56.531 I remember making the little cardboard squares and waiting to see which initials 914 00:51:56.531 --> 00:51:56.923 flipped over. 915 00:51:56.923 --> 00:51:57.595 But the initials themselves? 916 00:51:57.595 --> 00:51:57.987 No idea. 917 00:51:57.987 --> 00:52:00.058 And that’s fine. I have a partner. I’m not checking whether some childhood cardboard 918 00:52:00.058 --> 00:52:00.730 has a competing recommendation. 919 00:52:00.730 --> 00:52:02.661 What interests me now isn’t, “Who was I supposed to end up with?” 920 00:52:02.661 --> 00:52:05.152 It’s, “Why did we play that? Where did the idea come from? And how did something so 921 00:52:05.152 --> 00:52:06.523 ordinary become a way to ask about the future?” 922 00:52:06.523 --> 00:52:08.175 Apparently, the part that stayed with me wasn’t the predicted answer. 923 00:52:08.175 --> 00:52:08.846 It was the question. 924 00:52:08.846 --> 00:52:09.938 And, eventually, all the questions behind it. 925 00:52:09.938 --> 00:52:14.948 That is what I’ve enjoyed following through this episode. 926 00:52:14.948 --> 00:52:20.981 Not whether these customs could actually identify somebody’s perfect match, but 927 00:52:20.981 --> 00:52:24.458 what happened when people tried them. 928 00:52:24.458 --> 00:52:32.535 In Burns’s poem, a private hope can hide inside a public game. Someone can quietly 929 00:52:32.535 --> 00:52:40.102 name the nuts, watch the fire, and avoid telling everybody else why the result 930 00:52:40.102 --> 00:52:41.022 matters. 931 00:52:41.022 --> 00:52:47.566 In the Irish records, instructions for seeing a future spouse sit alongside 932 00:52:47.566 --> 00:52:51.554 stories warning that you might regret looking. 933 00:52:51.554 --> 00:52:58.098 And at the Delaware party, fortune-telling becomes one activity in an evening 934 00:52:58.098 --> 00:53:01.063 designed to bring people together. 935 00:53:01.063 --> 00:53:05.562 Those are different settings, not one unchanged tradition. 936 00:53:05.562 --> 00:53:12.617 But each gives us something to explore beyond whether the prediction came true. 937 00:53:12.617 --> 00:53:20.695 Who taught you the game? Who played it with you? Did everyone laugh? Did somebody 938 00:53:20.695 --> 00:53:22.126 get frightened? 939 00:53:22.126 --> 00:53:29.182 And what made the experience memorable enough to tell someone about it afterward? 940 00:53:29.182 --> 00:53:36.748 For me, it was being around people who welcomed my interests and gave my 941 00:53:36.748 --> 00:53:39.202 imagination somewhere to go. 942 00:53:39.202 --> 00:53:45.746 They probably didn’t realize that a few cardboard squares would eventually become 943 00:53:45.746 --> 00:53:48.712 part of a podcast episode. 944 00:53:48.712 --> 00:53:52.188 To be fair, neither did I. 945 00:53:52.188 --> 00:53:56.052 Last week, we explored the complicated history of Halloween. 946 00:53:56.052 --> 00:54:02.283 This week, we looked more closely at some of the things people did with it. 947 00:54:02.283 --> 00:54:06.936 A Scottish gathering where crops and household objects became tools of 948 00:54:06.936 --> 00:54:07.646 prediction. 949 00:54:07.646 --> 00:54:11.905 Irish customs and stories that offered both promises and warnings. 950 00:54:11.905 --> 00:54:17.347 An American church party where the witches had their own room and refreshments 951 00:54:17.347 --> 00:54:18.845 followed the entertainment. 952 00:54:18.845 --> 00:54:24.681 And somewhere along the way, I found myself thinking about a family from my 953 00:54:24.681 --> 00:54:27.757 childhood who taught me a little game. 954 00:54:27.757 --> 00:54:32.016 That game didn’t leave me with a name I remembered. 955 00:54:32.016 --> 00:54:35.486 It left me with something I’m still using. 956 00:54:35.486 --> 00:54:37.379 The urge to ask: 957 00:54:37.379 --> 00:54:40.060 “Wait. Why do we do that?” 958 00:54:40.060 --> 00:54:43.925 Which is a lovely thing to carry into adulthood. 959 00:54:43.925 --> 00:54:48.578 Although it does make researching an episode considerably more complicated than 960 00:54:48.578 --> 00:54:49.682 originally anticipated. 961 00:54:49.682 --> 00:54:53.546 And that question is coming with us next week. 962 00:54:53.546 --> 00:54:58.988 Because we’ve spent this episode looking at how people used Halloween to discover 963 00:54:58.988 --> 00:55:02.064 what might be waiting in their future. 964 00:55:02.064 --> 00:55:06.717 Next, we’re turning toward what might be waiting on the doorstep. 965 00:55:06.717 --> 00:55:10.976 Costumes. Candy. Neighborhood children with an evening’s worth of plans. 966 00:55:10.976 --> 00:55:15.235 We’re getting into the American afterlife of trick-or-treating: the organized 967 00:55:15.235 --> 00:55:19.888 campaigns, the candy economy, the postwar suburbs, and the great costume-and-prank 968 00:55:19.888 --> 00:55:20.598 war. 969 00:55:20.598 --> 00:55:25.645 This week, the question was, “Who’s going to appear in the mirror?” 970 00:55:25.645 --> 00:55:30.693 Next week, it’s, “Who’s ringing the doorbell—and what happens if we don’t 971 00:55:30.693 --> 00:55:31.403 answer?” 972 00:55:31.403 --> 00:55:32.507 Different activities. 973 00:55:32.507 --> 00:55:34.399 Potentially more property damage. 974 00:55:34.399 --> 00:55:37.081 But, as always, I have questions. 975 00:55:37.081 --> 00:55:42.917 And just like that, this week’s obsession comes to an end… thanks for getting 976 00:55:42.917 --> 00:55:44.810 wonderfully lost with me. 977 00:55:44.810 --> 00:55:51.435 If you’d like to keep this cozy corner of the strange alive, everything you need is 978 00:55:51.435 --> 00:55:56.877 waiting in the notes below—or head over to my website, mylatestfixation.com where the 979 00:55:56.877 --> 00:56:02.318 magic quietly hums. You can browse peculiar merch, learn the story behind the 980 00:56:02.318 --> 00:56:08.549 show, or leave a little offering. Spend $50 or more, and you’ll get free shipping. 981 00:56:08.549 --> 00:56:14.779 Have a dark history footnote, a lonely cryptid, or a digital mystery you think I 982 00:56:14.779 --> 00:56:20.615 absolutely need to fixate on? Send your thoughts via carrier pigeon… if you can 983 00:56:20.615 --> 00:56:26.452 find one with a good sense of direction. Otherwise, the website works much better. 984 00:56:26.452 --> 00:56:32.288 And if you enjoyed your stay, share the show with another kindred spirit… that’s 985 00:56:32.288 --> 00:56:35.364 how our tiny, haunted hearth keeps growing. 986 00:56:35.364 --> 00:56:38.045 Stay curious. Stay obsessed. Stay human.