You can invoke these centuries-old traditions to plan activities for your party.
On Halloween, women made a colcannon of potatoes, mashed parsnips and chopped onion, and buried in it a ring (to symbolize marriage), a thimble (spinsterhood), a doll (children), and a coin (wealth). The fate of each participant was determined by the symbol found cooked into their portion.
The practice of looking into a candlelit mirror at midnight on Halloween was found in both the British Isles and America; it was believed that the image of one’s future husband would appear over a woman’s shoulder in the reflection.
If you leave a wet blouse out to dry, your future husband will visit during the night and turn the sleeve.
-Superstition from the British Isles
Go to a spring on Halloween and take a mouthful of water, but do not swallow it. Then walk backwards home, get into bed backwards, and swallow the water. Your future husband will give you a drink in your dream.
-Superstition found in Illinois, 20th century
Leaving food for the dead on the eve of All Hallow's was both a social and a spiritual offering. Its social function was to redistribute the wealth for one night—in some areas, affluent families cooked a feast and left it for the "spirits" (the town's poor) to eat while the family was at church. The spiritual element was symbolic; food was cooked for the ancestors to make sure that the living remembered the dead. Younger people hoped against hope that the kindness would then be repaid, and the dead would pass on secrets from the mysterious otherworld.
