Superstitions

Halloween…A Time for Romance?

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Happy October, friends!

Along with ghosts, goblins, and trick-or-treating, I learned Halloween was as much a time for romance as it was for pranks. Who would have thought?

To find love on the night of the dead, demons, witches, and goblins? Um, that’s a little bit concerning, no? Would you go ‘yay’ or be ‘boo-ed’ away by these strange Halloween traditions?

Many old Halloween traditions included fortune telling, and many of those fortune-telling rituals focused on how to learn about your true love. Here are a few Halloween love spells that I found in in my research. Most of these Halloween traditions were popular in the 1800s and later. Each is something that people said you could do on Halloween night to learn of your true love.

If Match.com hasn’t been working for you perhaps you want to try one of these vintage Halloween traditions, or perhaps you will just find them interesting like I did.

Oh, and the idea of seeing my true love as an apparition, as is the hope of many of these rituals, would be disconcerting. These Halloween traditions make me happy I’m not in the market for romance or marriage.

Reflection in the mirror

There are a few versions of a Halloween tradition that results in seeing your true love in a mirror at midnight.

One version says you should go secretly into a room at midnight on Halloween and cut an apple into nine slices. You should eat the apple slices in front of a mirror, holding each slice on the point of knife before eating it. As you do this you will supposedly see the image of your true love over your left shoulder asking for the final apple slice.

Another version says you should eat the apple while holding a candle and looking in the mirror. Then you will see your future husband or wife over your shoulder.

Yet another version says you should comb your hair while eating the apple and looking in the mirror in order to see your future spouse over your shoulder.

The most precarious version says that at midnight you should go down the stairs backwards and holding a mirror, in which you will see your future mate.

I suspect that last one only works if your future mate happens to be the paramedic who responds after your horrible fall from walking down the stairs backwards in the middle of the night.

Burning the nuts

Place two hazelnuts (or some say chestnuts) in a fire after naming each for the people in a couple. If the nuts burn together side by side the relationship will last. But if one of the nuts cracks or jumps out of the fire the couple will split.

Pulling the cabbage

The cabbage’s popularity also made its way into becoming a fortune telling device. One popular method was for a girl to steal a cabbage and then place that cabbage over a door. The first man the cabbage fell on would be the man she was supposed to marry. Women would also pick cabbages and use the stumps to predict information about their future husband.

Making cakes

Fortune telling in cakes has been a tradition for many different holidays. The Irish had their own version called Barmbrack where various objects were baked into bread to tell one’s future relationship status. If a person received a pea, that person would not marry in the upcoming year, a stick would signify an unhappy marriage, and a ring would mean that person would be wed within a year.

The three bowls

Place three bowls in a row. Fill one with clean water and one with dirty water. Leave the third bowl empty. Put the bowls in a random order then lead a man blindfolded to them to dip his left hand in one of the bowls. If he puts his hand in the clean water, he will have a young wife. If he puts his hand in the dirty water, he will end up with an old widow. If he puts his hand in the empty bowl, he will forever be a bachelor. This process should be done three times moving the bowls each time.

 The other end of the yarn

Throw a ball of yarn out the window (or into a pot of water on the stove, depending on the version), and hold onto to the other end. As you wind the yarn back up repeat, “I wind, who holds?” again and again. Before you reach the end of the yarn the face of your love will appear in the window and/or the name of your love will be whispered in your ear.

Making an initial from an apple skin

Here’s another Halloween tradition involving an apple. Pare an apple in one continuous piece of skin without breaking it. Move the skin around your head three times then throw it over your left shoulder. The letter that it forms on the ground is the initial of your future husband or wife.

So, this year when the moon is full and bright, try your hand at a fortune telling delight, you might just find your true love on Halloween night.

Happy Halloween Y’all!

 

My Upcoming Release!!!

Years ago, Lily Sutton was drawn to the new orphan boy in town. Unfortunately, she soon became the unfortunate victim of Grady Walsh’s mischievous deeds in school.
Lily is back home in Harmony, Kansas for good but is she willing and able to forgive the boy who made her childhood unbearable?
Grady Walsh lost his heart to the sweet girl the day she gave him a quilt. Can this boy-turned-man make up for the reckless actions of his youth?
Or will another steal her away before they have a chance to discover a kind of love that might just heal the pain from the past?

Pre-Order Link

 

Quilting Superstitions

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Since my oldest son recently married, I intended to write a post on wedding traditions but as what happens, my plans went awry. The more I wrote, the more it sounded like a high school Home Ec report.

My son and I before his wedding

However, when researching wedding traditions, I discovered single women in the 1800s stressed over whether they would marry. To cope, they relied on parlor games or predictions such as tossing cats into new quilts. That sent me down a rabbit hole to discover how traumatizing poor cats in a quilt could predict a woman wouldn’t be an old maid or reveal her true love. That led me to an article on quilt superstitions and a topic change.

Here are some superstitions I discovered. My comment (because I couldn’t post these without saying something. 🙂 ) follow each superstition.

 

 

Luck:

  • Never make a quilt with 13 blocks
    • I assume it’s because 13 is unlucky. Okay, now I’m wondering how and why 13 was labeled as unlucky. But I’ll save that for another day.
  • If a thread breaks, it will bring misfortune.
    • There should be a warning label on thread because who hasn’t broken a thread while sewing a quilt? And does it bring major misfortune such as a car accident or a minor one like losing a shoe? Come on, be specific about how bad this will be.
  • Stitching a spider web design into a quilt will bring good luck. Because a spider web is so easy to work into every quilt design.
    • First, a four-leaf clover or horseshoe, for luck I could see. But a spider web? Second, I never remember seeing one in anything but Halloween quilts. The solution to that is to sew a small one in somewhere, but I’m not that talented. ? I guess whoever I give future quilts will have to add one or do without the extra good luck until I figure out how to sew one. Either that or I have apologies to make.
  • It’s bad luck to give away your first quilt.
    • This would’ve been nice to know before I gave my first quilt to my son. However, since that quilt stayed in my stayed in my house, maybe I didn’t get too much bad luck for that.
The first quilt I made which I gave to my oldest son.

Marriage:

  • When a new quilt is finished, the first woman it is thrown over will marry first. Wrapping her in it will ensure she marries within a year.
    • I’m wondering if throwing the quilt over is different than wrapping her up in it, or if one superstition is simply more specific.
  • Wedding quilts should have borders of continuous vines or ribbon patterns because a broken border means the marriage will be broken too.
    • I must be an awful person because my first thought here was, if someone didn’t like who their child was marrying, they could give the couple a quilt with a broken border.
  • If a single female puts the last stitch in a quilt, she will become an old maid.
    • This superstition was easy to avoid when quilting bees or circles were prevalent, but what’s a gal to do now, call a married friend or relative to put in the last stitch?
  • After taking a quilt off the frame, wrapping it around an unmarried woman will give her luck to find a husband. Throwing it at the first single man she sees, will “charmed” him into a relationship. If a young lady shakes a new quilt out the door, the first man who comes through the door will be her future husband.
    • From the little research I did, I discovered there was a lot of quilt shaking and throwing them at folks in the past, making me wonder if there are other superstitions to uncover. But apparently they had to be newly completed quilts. Which spurns me to wonder why they had to be new…

 

My bff made this beautiful quilt for me.

Miscellaneous:

  • If you sew on a Sunday, you will have to pull out those stitches with your nose when you get to heaven.
    • First, with the way heaven is described in the Bible, I find it hard to believe God would punish a quilter this way upon arrival. Second, how would I pull out stitches with my nose?! Guess I’ll learn that should I be blessed enough to get to the Pearly Gates.
  • Quilts started on Friday will never be finished.
    • Again, why would this be worse than starting on any other day, except Sunday of course. ?

And finally, Cats and quilts and the answer to the question that started this.

  • If women stand in a circle and “shake up a cat” in new quilt, the one the feline runs toward will be the first to marry.

Giveaway:

To be entered in my random drawing for an ebook version of my Pink Pistol Sisterhood novel, Aiming for His Heart, leave a comment about quilting, superstitions, or whatever’s on your mind.

 

Happy Cabbage Night!

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I knew Halloween evolved from the Celtic festival of Samhain and All Hallow’s Eve, but that was about all I knew. This year I decided to change that and dove into researching Halloween. First, I learned in New England the night before Halloween is Cabbage Night. Right now, I’m glad I live in Texas, because this tradition involves “pranksters” leaving rotten vegetables near a neighbor’s front door! I doubt this did much to promote good neighbor relations! Despite that, Happy Cabbage Night y’all.

Now on to Halloween…

I discovered many Halloween traditions revolved around helping women identify her potential husband or reassuring her she would indeed find a one. In 18th century Ireland, a cook would bury a ring in her mashed potatoes on Halloween. The hope was that the ring would bring the finder true love.

In Scotland, fortune tellers instructed marriage-minded women to name her hazelnuts after her suitors. Boy does that sound odd. 🙂 Then she was to toss them, the hazelnuts not her suitors, 🙂 into the fire. The nut that burned completely rather than exploding represented her future husband. Another legend insisted if a woman ate a sweet treat of walnuts, hazelnuts and nutmeg on Halloween, she would dream of her future husband that night.

Women would throw apple peelings over their shoulders in hopes of forming the initials of her future husband’s name. I wonder if there was strategic throwing involved with this tradition to get a desired result. Another legend told a woman to stand in front of a mirror in a dark room holding a candle. The hope was if she peered into the mirror, would see her husband’s face over her shoulder.

Halloween parties could get competitive regarding matrimony. For example, the first guest to find a burr on a chestnut hunt would be the next one to marry. The first one to successfully bob for apples was predicted to walk down the aisle soon. This tradition had visions of unmarried women practicing their bobbing for apple skills before Halloween parties to ensure a victory to pop into my head!

Because beliefs of different European countries mixed with American Indian traditions, America developed its own unique version of Halloween. At first, celebrations featured “play parties” to celebrate the harvest. Neighbors shared stories about the dead, told fortunes, danced and sang. The night also included mischief. But in the late 1800’s, people tried to shift the holiday away from ghosts, pranks and witchcraft to a more community or neighborly get together holiday. Parents were encouraged to remove anything frightening, grotesque or scary from their Halloween celebrations. Despite this community-centered focus, adding parades and town-wide parties, by the 1920’s and 30’s, vandalism became prevalent.

However, by the 1950’s communities had tampered down on the vandalism and Halloween became a more child-centered holiday. This probably was a result of all those post-war babies, too. Communities revived the tradition of trick-or-treating after it was halted due to sugar rationing during WWII. The thought was people could prevent being pranked by giving children a small treat.

Today, Halloween is America’s second largest commercial holiday, surpassed only by Christmas. We spend around 9 billion, yup with a billion with B, annually. That’s a lot of candy, costumes and yard art. It works out to an average American shelling out $86.79.

Speaking of candy…we haven’t even touched that delicious subject. But let’s do that now. Leave a comment on what’s your favorite trick-or-treat candy and why or what one makes you you want to pull a trick on someone to be entered for today’s giveaway. One random commenter will receive the pumpkin coasters and a copy of Family Ties.

Jack of the Lantern

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boo-who HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Today is Halloween, the day when children across the country dig the innards out of and carve faces into hapless pumpkins, dress in costume and roam the neighborhood begging for enough candy to rot teeth and cause bellyaches for a full year. I have many fond—and some not so fond—memories of Halloween. Like the year my brother and I dressed up as Christmas packages. Do you know how hard it is to walk to school in a water heater box covered in wrapping paper and adorned with an enormous bow?

The practice of decorating pumpkins, or jack-o-lanterns is said to have originated in an Irish folktale about a man named Stingy Jack. Seems Jack convinced the Devil to buy him a drink but didn’t want to pay for it. So he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin. Instead of paying for the drink, Jack slipped the coin into his pocket alongside a cross, candywhich kept the devil from turning back. Jack freed him in exchange for a year of freedom.

When the Devil returned in a year, Jack tricked him into climbing a tree to pick a piece of fruit, then carved a cross into the bark, trapping the dark angel until he promised Jack ten more years of freedom. When Jack died, God didn’t want the trickster in heaven and the Devil had promised not to claim Jack’s soul. According to the legend, the Devil left Jack to roam the countryside with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved out turnip and has been roaming ever since. The Irish began to refer to the ghostly wanderer as Jack of the Lantern, or Jack o’ lantern.

Villagers began to carve their own versions of Jack’s lantern intojack-o-lantern turnips or potatoes and placing them in windows or near doors to frighten away Stingy Jack and other wandering evil spirits. Irish immigrants brought the tradition to America, where the native pumpkin proved a perfect canvas, and it is now an integral part of Halloween festivities.

So, tell me: do you still carve pumpkins for your front porch on Halloween?

Horseshoes and Superstitions

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WG Logo 2015-04

Hi everyone, Winnie Griggs here. I hope everyone is having a wonderful March so far.

Did you ever wonder where the superstitions around horseshoes as a good luck charm came from? I did, so I thought I’d do a little digging.

Many people believe that the concept of a lucky horseshoe originated from a myth about a man named Dunstan and his encounter with the Devil in the tenth century AD. Dunstan was a blacksmith and when he was asked to re-shoe the Devil’s horse, he nailed a horseshoe to the Devil’s hoof instead. This caused the Devil great pain, and Dunstan only agreed to remove the shoe and release the Devil after the Devil promised never again to enter a place where a horseshoe is hung over the door. Thus, hanging a horseshoe over your door is said to ward off the Devil. As a side note here, Dunstan the blacksmith eventually became the Archbishop of Canterbury and was later canonized to become Saint Dunstan.

There are two different schools of thought among the superstitious about how to hang a horseshoe to ensure you receive the coveted good luck. Some believe that the charm should be hung in the upward or “U-shaped” position so that all of the luck can’t fall out.  Others believe just the opposite, that if it is hung in the downward position, it allows the luck to rain down on you. So take your pick. Or maybe hedge your bets and do both! 🙂

 

Did you know that, originally, horseshoes were affixed to the animal’s hoof with seven iron nails? That’s because seven was considered to be an extremely lucky number. And that’s why many of the horseshoe good-luck tokens today are made with seven “nail hole” impressions.

 

Of course, I’m not superstitious by nature and don’t set much store by good luck charms.  However, I do have a few tokens I carry with me, but these are sentimental in nature rather than based on the belief that they will bring me luck.

 

What about you? Do you have a good luck charm, a token of some sort, that you like to carry around?  Care to share?