Halloween Part one: Divination, Magic and Ghost Stories at Halloween / Samhain in Ireland

 On of the main activities at Halloween / Oiche Shamhna in Ireland has always been Divination, especially trying to figure out your chances of love or prosperity for the coming year. While we might tend to overlook these practices, or indeed sneer at love spells or divination, like all folk magic these traditions sprang from need, from necessity.

 A peasant population, denied access to medicine, legal redress, education and even access to our own cultural heritage, took refuge in the practices of the ancestors, however imperfectly recalled. And in an era when the fate of an undowried, unwed woman was a life of drudgery and servitude, at best an unpaid skivvy in her brother's household, the chance of a household and children of her own was a matter of absolute urgency. Love, or at least, admiration from a man, was a serious business.

@draiochtceoil Some tips on Divination especially Irish traditions to keep you occupied in October :) #Samhain approaches, a perfect time to lean into folkmagic and fortune #witchcraft #Witchtips #pagan ♬ Great Things - Deeper Soaking Worship

Many of these traditions survive today, although we have replaced the homely parties and visiting of neighbours with pubs and clubs and more sophisticated entertainment. But it's fairly common knowledge that if you get the slice of Barmbrack with the ring in it, you'll definitely be married and if you comb your hair by only candlelight, you'll see a reflection of your future lover in the mirror. Some still remember how to put walnuts or hazelnuts in the fire, and see if they burn together (good news, romantically) or spring apart (bad news!) We also used to peel apples in one continuous peel, throw the length of it over our left shoulders and see what initial it formed. (In fairness, they all looked roughly like J, or G or possible lower case e, but our hopes were heavily projected on them.)

If you weren't content to wait until the lover revealed themselves, and fancied giving things a wee nudge, there were plenty of ways to encourage your love interest. Halloween is a night full of magical possibilities and liminal spaces. 

While some were superstitious about going out, fearful of the entities roaming the night, others were determined to get a touch of that magic into their lives. The very brave might go to a graveyard and take a handful of soil from a recent grave. This would have to be placed on the sole of your potential suitor's boot, and ideally, sprinkled inside it too. How you were to get the boot off their foot to achieve this latter was up to you. Many contented themselves with ensuring they stood on the soil, embedding it in the sole of the footwear. They would then be haunted and tormented by the ghost who was out wandering and visiting that night, until they dreamt of you. 
Presumably, the act of dreaming of you would give the hint that you might be the one. 

If that was too daunting, you could ask the local Bean Feasa* or wise woman, or someone local to you who was held to have the gift of it, to "draw the eye" to you. Now, nowhere is there any suggestion that you could force someone to love you - only that you could draw their attention to you. The rest would be up to you. A Bean Feasa would make two rounds of wax, or sometimes just lumps of wax, and "introduce" them. Then they'd be buried until Lá Fhéile Bríd, the idea being that the love interest would get to know you over the time. 

What if you didn't know of anyone local you could stand to marry? Well, then Halloween was a chance to ask the visiting loved ones, especially the recently departed, for a boon. You'd tell them your troubles, and hopefully by the following Spring, they would send someone good for you.

@draiochtceoil Samhain Traditions part 3. Samhain or Halloween (Halloweve) is strongly tied to remembering the dead. both the recently departed and The Ancestors are welcomed in a variety of ways. it doesn't have to be ritualistic or complicated just simple and heartfelt. #Halloween #witchcraft #Folklore #Samhain ♬ original sound - Draiocht Ceoil

The fact that the dead visited on the eve of All Hallows was a given, sincerely believed well into modern times, and even now many of us still hold to this truth. Without ritualising it, or overstating the tradition, the best place by the fire and a place at the table was kept empty, to make space for them. Good food and drink were left out, and even if you had no one specific in mind, it was manners to leave out in case the spirit of departed neighbour called by visiting the house. 

The horror films of modern times have attached an element of fear to this that really was a absent in my youth. It was a comforting and pleasant thought, that the person was nearby and could hear and participate in the festivities, albeit invisibly. But what was hugely popular and traditional at Halloween was the telling of Ghost Stories. My Dad had a fund of them, all learnt in Co. Wicklow as a child; he was the visiting Dublin kid, down from the city to visit cousins. They seem to have taken especial pleasure in telling him the most bloodcurdling tales, but if they thought it would upset him they miscalculated. He loved the stories, and remembered them well into old age. Some were told about neighbours, but often people recounted their own personal experiences. One he heard, that you'll find repeated by various sources, from all over the country, in The National Folklore Collection is The Ghost Funeral.

Not confined to Halloween night, but regularly associated with it, the story generally goes along these lines - an unwary person, out late at night, either through their own folly or through unavoidable misfortune, meets a funeral procession on the road. It is approaching them, forcing them to turn and walk three steps with the procession (failure to do so with any funeral was bad manners, the height of insult to the dead and their family, and often resulted in being cursed by priests as well as bereaved.) As they walk and nod to the others in the procession, they realise they know no one, and indeed, why would there be a funeral at that hour of the night? Once they stop and turn back to resume their own journey, the procession disappears. A variation is that the traveler hears the noise of a funeral but cannot see it. Wise travellers turned back three steps anyway and showed respect to the dead.

This is only one of the ghost stories told that night, adding another layer to the mystery of the evening.

Traditions varied across the Island, and tastes changed with time, but in many ways the constants of Family, Community, Magic and Death remain throughout the long history of Ireland's unique festival.

Part Two coming soon, some modern memories of Halloween traditions!

Lots more at

ALL LINKS

OR

 Tiktok @draíochtCeoil

Insta & Threads: @GerCeltAuthor

YouTube @GeraldineMoorkensByrneAuthor

BOOKS & Ceremonies: https:www.celebratingwords.com

1.