This divination is common to many countries, but the writer knows that it is resorted to on All Hallows Eve in Denbighshire by young ladies, partly, it may be in fun, and partly in earnest. The plan of proceeding is as follows:—Nuts are placed on the bars of the fire grate, equal in number to the young lady’s lovers, and the nut that cracks first, and jumps off the bar, represents her true love. She has, of course fixed in her mind the lover each nut stands for. So common is this test that in the North of England All Hallows Eve is called “Nutcrack night.”
Gay describes the ceremony:—
Two hazel nuts I throw into the flame
And to each nut I give a sweetheart’s name;
This with the loudest bounce me sore amazed,
That in a flame of brightest-colour blazed;
As blazed the nut, so may thy passions grow,
For ’twas thy nut that did so brightly glow.
Burns, in his poem of Hallowe’en also mentions the nut divination.
The auld guidwife’s weel-hoordet nits
Are round an’ round divided,
An’ monie lads’ and lasses’ fates
Are there that night decided;
Some kindle, couthie, side by side,
An’ burn thegither trimly;
Some start awa’ wi’ saucy pride,
And jump out-owre the chimlie
Fu’ high that night.
Jean slips in twa’ wi’ tentie e’e;
Wha ’twas, she wadna tell;
But this is Jock, an’ this is me,
She says in to hersel’:
He bleez’d owre her, and she owre him,
As they wad never mair part;
’Till, fuff! he started up the lum,
An’ Jean had e’en a sair heart
To see’t that night.
The Apple Pip Trial of Lovers.
The fair lady takes as many pips as she has lovers, and these she places on the point of a knife, which she inserts between the bars of the fire grate. Each pip represents a lover, and the pip that swells out and jumps into the fire indicates that he is the best lover for whom the pip stands.
SPIRITUALISM.
The next subject I shall treat of is curious, and partakes of the nature of spiritualism. I hardly know by what other word to describe it, therefore I will give particulars, so as to make the matter intelligible to the reader, and call it “Spiritualism.”
It was believed that it was possible for the spirit to leave the body, and then, after an absence of some time, to return again and re-enter it. The form the spirit assumed when it quitted the body was a bluish light like that of a candle, but somewhat longer. This light left the body through the mouth, and re-entered the same way.