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Halloween Games: Divination With Nuts

It can be fascinating to learn all the various ways fortune telling was done with nuts, fruits and other objects just a century or so ago. Halloween games that included nuts were one of the most popular forms of divination associated with the season, as were apples. Mostly, they were used to determine who you will marry or if the marriage will be good. Here are some of the interesting ways that young couples used nuts to answer these questions.

Halloween Games: Nuts - Photo: morguefile.com

Indications of Marriage

Two nuts are placed side by side on the grate of a fire. Each nut is given the name of the two people in love.

If a nut burns quietly and brightly, it indicates sincerity of affection for the other person.
If it cracks and jumps, it foretells unfaithfulness.
If the nuts burn evenly together, the two be will be happily married.

The following poem represents this interesting Halloween game of divination:

These glowing nuts are emblems true
Of what in human life we view.
The ill-matched couple fret and fume,
And thus in strife themselves consume,
Or from each other wildly start,
And with a noise forever part.
But see the happy, happy pair,
Of genuine love and truth sincere.
With natural fondness while they burn,
Still to each other kindly turn,
And as the vital sparks decay,
Together gently sink away,
Till, life's fierce ordeal being past,
Their mingled ashes rest at last.

Another version is for a young woman to throw two hazel nuts into the hot coals. She secretly gives a lover's name to each. If one of the nuts bursts, then that lover is unfaithful; but if it burns with a steady glow until it becomes ashes, she knows that her lover's faith is true. Sometimes it happens that both nuts will burn steadily, leaving the young woman's heart in indecision over which sweetheart to choose.

Two hazel nuts I threw into the flame,
And to each nut I gave a sweetheart's name;
This with the loudest bounce me sore amazed,
That in a flame of brightest color blazed;
As blazed the nut, so may thy passion grow,
For 'twas thy nut that did so brightly glow!

Walnut 'Fortune Cookies'

A game that was played in the early twentieth century at Halloween parties and get-togethers was a prelude to the fortune cookie. A large bowl of walnuts with a supply of nut crackers is set on a table. The guests are invited to help themselves to the nuts. On opening them they are discovered to be hollo,w but each holds a small, folded piece of paper on which a brief fortune is written in lemon juice so it would be invisible. Hold the paper carefully over a candle and the writing should appear.

A rhyme can be said by the host or hostess as each guest selects a walnut:

"Hold above the candle what you find within.
Careful not to scorch it that would be a sin."

Now, I'm not sure how easy it would be to get a walnut open and cleaned out so you can put a fortune into it -- and then close it up again -- but apparently it was done this way.

For more Halloween games that involve divination, see: Knowing Your Future: Fortune Teller Party Games

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