The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1916-10-30
Manv Customs and superstitions
From the Old Pagan Days, Come
Down to US on This
season Of Year.
5 TIME FOR PARTIES
Event Has Come to be One For Fes-
tivities Of Social Nature and
Many Are Planned
For keokuk.

The season of Halloween in Keo-
INK has come to be a season or
social activities. There are parties
galore planned for tomorrow evening
sra at all of these the old Hal
iowe'en games and superstitions will
he revived. Since the automobile has
displaced the old family phaeton,
there is little opportunity for the bad
hoys of the neighborhood to exercise
their lust for vandalism. They will
have to be content with throwing
corn, or running around the neigh
borhood with jack-o-lanterns made of
pumpkins.
The Feast Of All Saints, otherwise
Halowmass, is every year prepared
for by the vigil of Halloween. 1t is
associated in .ae popular imagination
with the prevalence of spiritual in
thence and many time-honored ira
ditions and mystic rites are connect
ed with the eve. In England, Hal
lowe'en was known as nutcrack
night. In Scotland the ceremonies Of
the eve were formerly regarded in a
highly superstitious light and as The
evening closed in, upon every 3lst
of october, it was believed that all
the elves of fairyland were afoot,
sprites, COLLINS, brownies, witches
and what not from the borders of
the uncanny regions of the neither
world According to the order Of pre-
cedence on Halloween, the first cere-
mony appears to have been the going
out of the lad and lassie, hand-in-
hand to the kali yard, and there with
: their eyes shut. each pulling stock
or root Of kali. If the earth stuck
to it, that signif1ed fortune and ac-
cordingly as the stalk tasted sweet
or bitter the quality Of the prede-
stined wife or husband was supposed
TO be foreshadowed. Another mystic
rite was the burning Of nuts. two
together. II they roasted quietly side
by side, good was prefigured to the
courtship, but il they started apart
with a bang, evil was foreshadowed.
Again, eating an apple, candle in
hand, before looking glass, when
alone, gave the chance of seeing In
the glass the shadowy semblance OF
ones future partner, peering over
ones shoulder. But in the handing
down from one generation to an
other, the mystic rite has changed
somewhat and it is now necessary to
walk down the cellar steps back
wards, holding mirror in one hand
and lighted candle in the other.
All real superstition has, Of course,
died away, but still the spirit OF 1t
clings to all Hallow's eve. and though
no longer terrible witches ride the
skies on broomsticks, small boys
still seem to choose the evening to
go in league with the COLLINS and
elves.
Halloween is the popular name for
the Eve or Vigil of all Hallows or
the festival IF All Saints. AS the
date of that festival is November l,
Halloween or Hallows eve is OBJ
served on the evening Of October 81
Historical advices regarding Hal
lowe'en are uncertain in naming the
date of origin. It is practically GER
tain that the festival of Halloween
was observed in a heathenish form by
the Celtic races as early as the third
century when rites of fire worship
were performed and human lives
offered up in sacrifice.
Anciently, rhe most essential cere-