3-034-748 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"November Night" in Ireland, 1871. '...in the south of Ireland it is usual for the country people to hold their sportive meetings not on the night before Nov. 1, or All Saints' Day, but on the eve of Nov. 2, which is All Souls' Day, the day appointed by the Roman Catholic Church for a solemn service for the repose of the dead. This night of Nov. 1 is called by the Irish "November Night," and is commonly kept in the same way as Halloween, or Allhallows Eve, in Great Britain...the Irish festive fortune-tempters have [a] method peculiar to themselves. Three or four saucers are placed on the table, in one of which is laid a ring, which denotes marriage; in the second a lump of clay, signifying death; and into the third is poured water, the meaning of which is the sea - that is, emigration across the Atlantic. There may be a fourth saucer, containing salt, which means that the person is to be preserved, during the year, from all those fates. A man or woman is blindfolded, and the saucers are then changed or shifted, after which he or she is bidden to lay hands upon one of them. The one so accidentally touched is a sure token of what will befall him or her within the next twelvemonth'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.