Spooky Halloween Fortune Telling and Divination Games

When I was young, Halloween parties always seemed to include a divination or fortune telling booth. These dark and spooky booths were always tucked away in a corner somewhere, away from the noise and commotion of the party. Sometimes the fortune tellers wore gypsy costumes, and other times they looked like female pirates, but everyone of them had a carpetbag full of divination tools to predict the future for the party guests.

Halloween divination and fortune telling is a tradition that goes back centuries. In ancient Celtic history, the end of the autumn was celebrated with the festival of Samhain from which our modern Halloween developed. Samhain was the twilight time between the supernatural and the earth, a time when the spirits could reach over to find a living body to possess for the upcoming year. To scare off these spirits, the living would leaves their homes and dress up in ghoulish costumes, and noisily stomp around town being as destructive as possible.

With the windows between earth and the afterlife opened, Druid priests used this period to divine the future. The health of next year's crops, weather, and even who would marry were all predicted during Samhain. With the invasion of the Romans, Samhain became absorbed into traditional Roman holidays, including the celebration of the goddess Pomona. Pomona's earthly symbol was an apple, which may explain why apples are so commonly used in divination games.

It was from this early tradition of predicting the future which led to our modern day divination parlour games at Halloween.

Old fashioned Apple Divination Games

Halloween divination games have been popular in the United States since Victorian times. Some are silly, some are spooky, and most seem to require lots of apples!

Bobbing for apples had is roots as a divination game. A bushel of apples were dumped into a large tub, and participants would use their teeth to grab onto an apple. The winner of the game would be the first in the group to marry. Some variations of this game took it one step further; a crunchy apple meant a happy marriage, but a rotten one meant nothing but misery.

Another apple divination game was called Bite the Apple. With this game, a coin was inserted into an apple which was hung by the stem from the ceiling. The participants would clasp their hands behind their waist and take turns trying to take a bite from the apple. The first one to sink his choppers into the apple got the apple, the coin, and a prediction of a prosperous life.

For those who wanted a little more than a vague prediction of the future, there was Peel the Apple. Boys and girls peeled their apples into one continuous paring which was then thrown over the shoulder. The letter formed by the dropped paring would be the first initial of the person they would marry.

Still yet another apple paring game involved a darkened room, a mirror, and a candle. There seems to be two variations of this spooky girl's game; both involve sitting in a mirror with a candle by one's side.

In the first variation, if a girl slowly peels the apple while looking into the mirror; the face of her husband will appear. If she's destined to die before marriage, a skull would appear instead. The second variation has no skull (whew!) but the face of the husband appearing after the apple has been peeling and sectioned, with the last section being thrown over the shoulder.

A final apple divination game was called spin the apple. Strings were tied to the stems of apples, and girls would spin the apples above a roaring fire. Whoever held the apple that snapped from the string and dropped into the fire first, would be the first of the group to marry.

Other Old-fashioned Divination Games

Most of the divination games seemed to require food and lots of it. One popular game for couples was called Fortune. A engaged couple would throw a hazelnut into the embers of a fire. If the hazelnut split apart with a loud cracking noise, this was a sign that the marriage would be a strong and happy one. If the hazelnuts only caught fire and burned, this was an indication that their love would fade away. A variation of this game was to crack a walnut in half. If the walnut cracked easily into two equal sections, the guest would be lucky in love. If the walnut broken into pieces, this would signify a shattered love.

The Irish had a number of divination games still used in modern Halloween celebrations. Predicting the future with Barmbrack cake is still a popular pastime. Barmbrack cake is a raisin & spice tea cake which has been filled with different objects. These cakes usually contain a coin to predict prosperity, a key to signify a journey, a thimble for spinsterhood, a button to indicate a man will remain a bachelor, and a scrap of cloth to predict poverty. As the cake is sliced and served, the object inside the recipient's slice would divine his future for the upcoming year. Puicini is another Irish divination game in which a blindfolded person is seated at a table which holds a number of saucers. The saucers are shifted around, and the guest choose one at random. The contents of the bowl predict his future for the coming year.

Divination games used to be highly popular forms of entertainment on Halloween, and for a bunch of young girls, were all the spooky entertainment we needed for the evening. For a slightly different theme for your Halloween party this year, why not dust off these old Victorian parlour games and entertain your guests with a few spooky fortunes instead.... apple anyone?