Two nuts were put on the fire beside each other, representing two individuals, whose names were made known to the company. As they burned together, or flared up alone, or leaped away from each other, the future marriage of the pair, or haughty rejection of each other, was inferred.
A dish of milk and meal (fuarag, Scot. crowdie), or of beat potatoes, was made, and a ring was concealed in it. Spoons were given to the company, and a vigorous attack was made on the dish. Whoever got the ring would prove to be the first married. This was an excellent way of making the taking of food part of the evening’s merriment.
Apples and a silver sixpence were put in a tub of water. The apples floated on the top, but the coin lay close to the bottom. Whoever was able to lift either in his mouth, and without using his teeth, was counted very lucky, and got the prize to himself.
By taking an apple and going to a room alone, dividing it there into nine pieces against the name of the Father and the Son, eating eight pieces with the back to a looking glass and the face looking over the left shoulder, and then throwing the ninth piece over the same shoulder, the future husband or wife was seen in the glass coming and taking the piece of apple away.
A person, going in the devil’s name to winnow in a barn alone, will see his future partner entering the door.
An unmarried woman, taking a ball of thread and crossing a wall on her way, went to a kiln or other out-house. Here, holding one end of the thread, she threw the ball in the dark into the eye of the kiln (sùil àth), or over one of the rafters or a partition wall, in the name of a sweetheart whom she had before fixed on in her mind, and calling out “who is down there at the end of my little rope?” (co so shìos air ceann mo ròpain?), at the same time she gave the thread a gentle pull. In reply, some one or something pulled the thread at the other end, and a voice called out the name of her future husband. There is a story of a tailor having hid himself in anticipation of this mode of divination being resorted to, and when the ball was thrown he caught it and gave the thread a tug. In answer to the question “who is this at the end of my little rope?” he said, “I am the devil” (Tha mise, ’n deamhan), and the woman to whom this frightful answer was given never tried divination again.
Young women sowed hemp seed (fras lìn) over nine ridges of plough land, saying “I sow hemp seed, and he who is to be my husband, let him come and harrow it” (Tha mi cur fras lìn, ’s am fear bhios na fhear ’dhomh, thigeadh e ’s cliathadh e). On looking back they saw the figure of their future husband. Hallowe’en being the night preceding the first day of a lunar month was always dark, and this ceremony was rendered more awful by a story that a woman once saw herself coming after her, and never recovered from the effects of the vision.
By dipping his shirt sleeve in a well to the south (tobar mu dheas), and then pulling off the shirt and placing it to dry before the fire, the anxious youth, if he does not oversleep himself, will see his sweetheart entering through the night and turning the shirt.
On putting an odd number of keys in a sieve, going to a barn alone, and there riddling them well “with the wrong hand turn” (car tuaitheal), the destined one will come and put the odd key right.