Cabbages are important in Scotch superstition. Children believe that if they pile cabbage-stalks round the doors and windows of the house, the fairies will bring them a new brother or sister.
"And often when in his old-fashioned way
He questioned me,...
Who made the stars? and if within his hand
He caught and held one, would his fingers burn?
If I, the gray-haired dominie, was dug
From out a cabbage-garden such as he
Was found in——"
Buchanan: Willie Baird.
Kale-pulling came first on the program in Burns's Hallowe'en. Just the single and unengaged went out hand in hand blindfolded to the cabbage-garden. They pulled the first stalk they came upon, brought it back to the house, and were unbandaged. The size and shape of the stalk indicated the appearance of the future husband or wife.
"Maybe you would rather not pull a stalk that was tall and straight and strong—that would mean Alastair? Maybe you would rather find you had got hold of a withered old stump with a lot of earth at the root—a decrepit old man with plenty of money in the bank? Or maybe you are wishing for one that is slim and supple and not so tall—for one that might mean Johnnie Semple."
Black: Hallowe'en Wraith.
A close white head meant an old husband, an open green head a young one. His disposition would be like the taste of the stem. To determine his name, the stalks were hung over the door, and the number of one's stalk in the row noted. If Jessie put hers up third from the beginning, and the third man who passed through the doorway under it was named Alan, her husband's first name would be Alan. This is practised only a little now among farmers. It has special virtue if the cabbage has been stolen from the garden of an unmarried person.
Sometimes the pith of a cabbage-stalk was pushed out, the hole filled with tow, which was set afire and blown through keyholes on Hallowe'en.
"Their runts clean through and through were bored,
And stuffed with raivelins fou,
And like a chimley when on fire
Each could the reek outspue.
"Jock through the key-hole sent a cloud
That reached across the house,
While in below the door reek rushed
Like water through a sluice."