October is so called from being the eighth month in the old Latin
calendar.
_ALL HALLOW E'EN._--Hallow E'en, the vigil of All Saints' Day, was wont
to be a season of merry gathering and quaint observances, especially
where lovers were concerned. It is still kept up with great success
in Scotland. Propitious omens were sought. Nuts, for instance, were
burnt in pairs. If they lay still and burned together, it meant a happy
marriage, but if they flew apart, the lovers would not live in harmony.
All sorts of charms were practised. Girls pared apples and sought to
discern an initial in the shape the peel assumed. The apple had to be
peeled in one strip without any break, and the whole strip was then
thrown over the left shoulder. Also, they stuck an apple pip on each
cheek, and that which fell off first indicated that the love of him
whose name it bore was unsound.
The customs varied with the locality, but many of them were not unlike
the rites of St. Valentine's Day. Burns's poem enshrined most of the
Scottish practices, such as throwing a ball of blue yarn into a kiln,
winding it in a new one off the old, and, as the end was approached,
the maiden enquired, "Who holds?" and a voice from the kiln-pot gave
her the name of her future spouse.
Some girls took a candle into a dark room and peered into a looking
glass while they ate an apple or combed their hair, and saw the face
of their true love looking over their shoulder. Others went out into
the garden in couples, hand in hand, with eyes shut, and pulled the
first kail-runt or plant they came to. According to its being big or
little, straight or crooked, it was regarded as prophetic of the kind
of man they would marry. If the heart of the stem was soft or hard, so
would be the man's nature, and, if any earth adhered to the root, it
signified "tocher" or fortune.