The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-10-27
MYSTERIES OF HALLOW-EyE
Something About Its Real Significance
and the Source Where 1t Originated,
And q Great Deal Concerning Its Mirth and
Mystery, Its lamentations and Divinations.
and Its Many Charms and Spells.
written for the sunday Journal.

All boys anu girls KNOW tuat uoAt 1nure-
day, Oct. 81, will be All-Hallow Even.
though most of them corrupt its name to
Holly Eve" They know that it is anight
OF mirth and mystery, specially devoted to
mischief. fun. incantatiOns. divinations.
charms and spells. but very few of them or
their elders understand its real signii-
canoe, or can tell whence it derives it's name.
1t is many centuries since the Roman
Church, finding it impossible, from the
great and constantly increasing multitude
of the saints, to set apart a separate day for
each one, decreed that Nov. / should
thenceforward be kept as a day in honor of
all the saints, and tina it should be known
as All Hallowmas or All Saints day, and
that the night Of Oct. 81 immediately pre-
ceeding it. should thereafter be kept as q
vigil. and be known as All Hall0w Eve,
these occasions being still observed in the
Catholic, Episcopal, and. Lutheran
churches.
From it's first ~origination Hal!ow Eve
character. Is is an almost universal super
stitiOn that supernatural inf uences then
have unusual power; that devils, witches
and fairies are abroad; that all spirits are
free to roam through space, that the
spiritual element in all living humanity
can be detached from corporal restraint
and made to read its own future. or to
reveal to others what fate may have in
store for them. AS there is nothing in the
church celebration of the ensuing day of
All Saints to Justify these singular ideas and
customs associated with Hall0w Eve. and
as none of them are of a religious charac-
ter. we may justly regard them as relics OF
pagan timeS.
In all ages and countries Hallow Eve has
been deemed, as it still is, the occasion par
excellence for divining the answer to that
momentOus question which absOrbs so large
a share OF the thoughts OF romantic young
men and maidens: "Whois to marry whomf"
The means employed to gain this much-de-
sired information are as quaint and curious
as they are numerous and varied. For this
purpose every time and every cOuntry-al-
most every district of every cOuntry-haS
had its own charms and spells, peculiar to
itself, and they la furnished an almost
IneXhaustible theme to fOlk-pOets and COM
pliers OF folklore.
ically described by that greatest of all
poets of the people. Robert Burns. In his
poem of Halloween" he has given us q
most vivid account of more than half a
score of HaIl0w Eve charms and spells pc
culIar to the Scottish peasantry..
In a very old book of folklore. called
"Ye True Arts to Reade We Future,"I
ind the following: IF a maid would
is know to ye ma na%' ist. y her man ON sna
Hallow Fen, steal out to q lime-kiln and
throw therein a clue Of blue yarn, still
holding to sc other end. Presently We end
in We kiln will be sharply pulled. Then We
maid must say Who holdsi' whereupon We
voice of her future husband will pronounce
his name-bOth We Christian and We sur
name" The only obstacle 10 the successful
performance of this spell is the difficulty of
finding an old lime-kiln. but as lime-kilns
will be in great demand among our young
wOnen when the important statementmade
in the above paragraph becomes generally
known, and as a demand for any article in
this country is speedily met by an abundant
supply. the number of lime-kilns will
doubtless soon be largely augmented. to the
great delight of anxious. matchmaking
mammas and their dutiful offspring.
Water: nuts and apples bear a prominent
Eve. A quaint old book of charms. pub
lished in Edinburgh in 1910, entitled "Old
Father Times Bundle of Faggots Newly
Bound Up" declares that an infallible
band OF wife is to go to bed OIL Hallow
Eve, with a glass of water. in which a small
silver OF wood has been placed. standing on
a table by your bedside. In the night you
n river, and of being rescued by your future
wife or husband, whom you will see as dis
tinctly as though viewed with waking eyes.
| This charm is thus alluded to by the En-
lish poet, Gay:
Last Hallow Eve 1 longed my love to see,
And tried a spell to call her up TO me;
With wood and water standing by my side,
/ dreamed q dream and saw my own sweet BRIDE"
In connection with this spell / am re-
minded of q curious circumstance which
came under my immediate observation.
While visiting my younger brother in New
| ton, Mass, some years ago. my sister-in-law
complained at the breakfast-table. on the
morning after Hallow, Eve, that she had
curing the cause she stated that she had
had q strangely vivid and most singular
dream. from which she had awakened with
a feeling of the most distressing exhaus-
ton. She dreamed that she was walking
along the bank of a river when a gentle-
man, whose face she saw as plainly and
distinctly as she had ever seen anything,
and whose features were indelibly i'm
printed upon her memory, fell from abridge
erected across the stream. without a mo-
ment's hesitation she plunged into the
water. and, after a desperate struggle. sue
ceeded in bringing him safely ashore. where
upon she awOke, feeling as much exhausted
as if she had actually passed through such
a thrilling experience.
In less than three months from that time
my brother sickened and died. HIS young
widow continued to reside in the same
place with her two children. Four years
later / again paid her a visit, and while a
guest at her house / learned that a bachelor
friend of mine would be in the neighboring
city of Boston on a certain date. and l tel
%egraphed him to visit me at Newton. 1 met
| Hill dt VIC dy btdtfOu duU ufOVe Qlm
to my sister-in-law's residence.
It was a beautiful summer evening, and,
looking from the carriage as we approached
the house, we saw her watering some
flowers on the lawn. At sight of her my
friend seemed so much agitated that / anx-
iously inquired the reason of his discom-
posture and asked if he had ever seen the
lady before. He had barely time to an
swer Yes, once. and / will tell you all
about it when | have an opportunity" be-
fore we had alighted and were in her pres
ence. To my amazement she seemed quite
as much ~dlscomposed as my friend had
been.
He subsequently told me that on the very
Hallow Eve when my sister-in-law had
dreamed the dream above mentioned, he
had tried the spell Of the glass Of water
my 'Old Father Times Bundle of Fag-
gots.n which / had loaned him. and that
he had dreamt of falling Oft of
q bridge into a river, and of
being rescued by the lady in whose house
we then were, and whom he saw i'm his Wis.,
ion as distinctly as when he beheld her that
night on the lawn. / also learned from my
sister-in-law that my friend was the very
man whom she had dreamed of rescuing on
that same Hallow Eve.
The story of this most curious coinci-
dence, which is literally trne. exactly as
stated, is made complete by the fact that
this pair of dreamers were made man and
wife before another HallOw Eve.