A ceremony belonging to Hallowe’en is observed in Scotland with some trepidation, and consists in eating an apple before a looking-glass, when the face of the desired one will be seen.  It is thus described by Burns: 

  “Wee Jenny to her granny says,
    ‘Will ye gae wi’ me, granny? 
  I’ll eat the apple at the glass
    I gat frae uncle Johnny.’ 
  She fuff’t her pipe wi’ sic a lunt,
    In wrath she was sae vap’rin,
  She notic’t na an aizle brunt
    Her braw new worset apron
      Out thro’ that night.

  ’Ye little skelpie limmer’s face! 
    I daur you try sic sportin’
  As seek the foul thief ony place,
    For him to spae your fortune;
  Nae doubt but ye may get a sight! 
    Great cause ye hae to fear it,
  For mony a ane has gotten a fright,
    And lived and died deleeret
      On sic a night.’”

Hallowe’en also is still a favourite anniversary for all kinds of nut-charms, and St. Thomas was long invoked when the prophetic onion named after him was placed under the pillow.  Rosemary and thyme were used on St. Agnes’ Eve with this formula: 

  “St. Agnes, that’s to lovers kind,
  Come, ease the troubles of my mind.”

In Austria, on Christmas Eve, apples are used for divination.  According to Mr. Conway, the apple must be cut in two in the dark, without being touched, the left half being placed in the bosom, and the right laid behind the door.  If this latter ceremony be carefully carried out, the desired one may be looked for at midnight near the right half.  He further tells us that in the Erzgebirge, the maiden, having slept on St. Andrew’s, or Christmas, night with an apple under her pillow, “takes her stand with it in her hand on the next festival of the Church thereafter; and the first man whom she sees, other than a relative, will become her husband.”

Again, in Bohemia, on Christmas Eve, there is a pretty practice for young people to fix coloured wax-lights in the shells of the first nuts they have opened that day, and to float them in water, after silently assigning to each the name of some fancied wooer.  He whose little barque is the first to approach the girl will be her future husband; but, on the other hand, should an unwelcome suitor seem likely to be the first, she blows against it, and so, by impeding its progress, allows the favoured barque to win.

In very early times flowers were mcuh in request as love-philtres, various allusions to which occur in the literature of most ages.  Thus, in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Oberon tells Puck to place a pansy on the eyes of Titania, in order that, on awaking, she may fall in love with the first object she encounters.  Gerarde speaks of the carrot as “serving for love matters,” and adds that the root of the wild species is more effectual than that of the garden.  Vervain has long been in repute as a love-philtre, and in Germany now-a-days endive-seed is sold for its supposed power to influence the affections.  The root of the male fern was in years gone by used in love-philtres, and hence the following allusion: