Morning journal and courier., 1891-10-31


 loween charms and games; and becoming one of them, like the old man who "cared not for the fall, in Willis Saturday Af- ternoon," soon wou place and honor
 Of all brief periods of Irish pleasure, Halloween yields the sweetest, because the most harmless and innocent, delights. It is the night of unbounded mirth, witching charm and sinless dream. It is then that the tenderest of all of superstition's eerie broods, the kindly Irish fairies, mingle with human moods and wish, and weave their friendly spell through all the warp and wool of thought, emotion, dream and desire. And his is an insensate heart that will not grow younger and tenderer under the Influence of these mirthful revels Where will one begin and end in telling them as he sees and feels them!
 Over every door to house, room or barn an apple-paring was hanging, and some maiden's eager eye was watching for him who first passed beneath, for that one the fairies had charmed as her beloved Groups of lads on all -fours ducked their heads in buckets of water and brought out small coin with their teeth. Lasses were cutting out alphabets with which the fair les were to spell, in water-basins, secretly cherished names. Stolen herrings-which must be salt; must be broiled without turning; eaten with hot tongs; and dreamed on, without drink"-now made their ap pearance. Then the "bannock- -bakinen and its wild merriment. Whoever turned the bannock on the huge griddle that hung from the crane was to wed her whose niu- ble fingers kneaded its oaten meal, salt. soda and water together.
 'Nut-burning" and 'Ssnap applen were going on merrily at the hob The hazel nut ashes in dainty packets beneath the pillows were to yield charmed dreams; the burning 'snap-apples" told whether lov- ing pairs would sputter or mellowly age during welded life. Then there was the .'dumb-cake" making for fairy aided dIeams; the "charm-pies" with their but tons for old bachelors, thimbles for old maids, and rings for the lucky ones who should wed; the ''candle- and sweets" sus- pended and whirling between grinning faces where teeth snapped for bites, and luckless frowsy fair was singed; and an hundred other innocent delights, leading to the more serious affairs of ''postman's- knock" and 'tforfeits, where genuine old fashion kissing was there for the fighting; . and the struggle for your rights" with a bouncing Irish lass from the mountains insured her hatred if you did not over come her. and a sore body or broken bones if you did!-and then, amid desfening chatter and chatter, the supper in the great AoOiAi. lliCIA upOh tabACS Ilhc IdI elhllS III d plethoric market, various, smoking, awful; but with the jolIiest, hungriest crew you ever broke bread with in all your life. And, oh, for room in which to tell the tales here told, to give the songs here sung, to reproduce with all their delicious foriture the quips and jokes here perpe- trated; while oceans of tea flowed gur- glingly, and the poteen, as clear as rock water and as guileless of excise, went on its ''winding" way.
 Shortly after wild hullabuloo arrested our attention. The ''byes" had planned a great surprise. Sallying forth when the tales and songs were at their height, they had descended upon another Halloween party few miles distant, and by main force had captured fiddler and brought him bodily away; the whole crowd of de- feated friendly rivals following after in prideful exclamation. And here they came with wild whoop and hurroo, carry ing their prize on their shoulders into the great-room, where the procession was re- ceived with ringing cheers. It was old above all hosts, countryside guests or strangers; hatless, coatless, breathless from the odd melee, but with pursed and smiling mouth and positive radiance shin ing from his white locks and beaming from his blinking, upraised and sightless old eyes.
 Was there dance this Halloween night at that farmhouse on the ancient Kilma- shivered a century's splinters and mold upon the vaulting heads and heels of this big hearted Irish pesssntry And ask the stars that looked softly down until their shining eyes went out in the brighter All Hallows' dawn which lifted flaming cones upon the peaks of fair Glendowan Everybody is familiar with Burns fa- nous poem, Halloween" in which occur the lines,
 The auld guidwife's weel -hoordet hits Are round au' round divided,
 And monie lads and laSsies faies Are there that night decided- and were a thousand papers written on Holloween in Scotland, they could not all comprise the panoramic sweep and genial | insight into the ways and witcheries of auld Scotia's night of mirth, charm and | love making. In tracing the atinities be- tween Irish and Scottish customs, how | ever, have come upon some curious eI- amples of Scottish Halloween custom and belief.
 One of these is the extraordinary and varied use to which cabbage, or kali, is put in the traditions and merrymakings of the occasion. Kail-brose or cabbage broth is | inseparable from the Scotch Halloween feast. Mischievous boys push the pith from the stalk, fill it with tow, which they set on fire, and then, through the key holes of houses of folk who have given | them offense, blow darts of flame a yard in length. If on Halloween a farmers or crofter's ksil-yard still contains ungath- cred cabbages, the boys and girls of the neighborhood descend upon its en masse, and the entire crop is harvested in five | minutes time and thumped against their owners doors, which rattle as though pounded by a thunderous tempest. In some shires at the 'pulling of the kail'' the youths of both sexes go into the kail- yard blindfolded and in pairs, holding each others hands. They each pull the first ''runt" or stalk that they find, not be ing permitted to make selection. All thus gathered are carried back to the house fol inspection. The straightness or crooked ness, leanness or fatness, and other pecu lisrities, of the stalks are indicative of tn, general appearance of their future hus
 bands or wives; while the taste of tn, pith, whether sweet, bitter or vapid, als, forecasts their disposition and character
 But the most singular of all beliefs il Scotland regarding the cabbage-stalk ii confined to the minds of very young chil dren, though it is so peculiarly a tender delusion that the guidwife holds it in re
 spect to her dying day. The idea is uni
 versal among the little folks in the land o
 cakes that where a new brother or siste appears in the household it has come
 through fairy aid, from the roots of tn cabbage stalk! So that when all the bairn of Scotland are singing,
 This is the nicht O Halloween,
 When a the witchie micht be seen;
 Some O them black, some O them green, Some O them like a turkey bean however mad and merry all their games t they never lay their joy-weary heads upol ! their pillows until with their own hand l they have laid generous piles of "kail runts" against door-sill and window-ledge 3 so that the gracious and kindly fairies O blessed Halloween night shall set free a
 least one baby-soul from the roots ant mold and the household shall not fail O