also see his sith or apparition:  they dip for apples in a tub of water, and endeavour to bring one up in the mouth:  they suspend a cord with a cross-stick, with apples at one point, and candles lighted at the other, and endeavour to catch the apple, while it is in a circular motion, in the mouth.  These, and many other superstitious ceremonies, the remains of Druidism, are observed on this holiday, which will never be eradicated, while the name of Saman is permitted to remain."[620]

[Divination at Hallow-e’en in Queen’s County; divination at Hallow-e’en in County Leitrim; divination at Hallowe’en in County Roscommon.]

In Queen’s County, Ireland, down to the latter part of the nineteenth century children practised various of these rites of divination on Hallowe’en.  Girls went out into the garden blindfold and pulled up cabbages:  if the cabbage was well grown, the girl would have a handsome husband, but if it had a crooked stalk, the future spouse would be a stingy old man.  Nuts, again, were placed in pairs on the bar of the fire, and from their behaviour omens were drawn of the fate in love and marriage of the couple whom they represented.  Lead, also, was melted and allowed to drop into a tub of cold water, and from the shapes which it assumed in the water predictions were made to the children of their future destiny.  Again, apples were bobbed for in a tub of water and brought up with the teeth; or a stick was hung from a hook with an apple at one end and a candle at the other, and the stick being made to revolve you made a bite at the apple and sometimes got a mouthful of candle instead.[621] In County Leitrim, also, down to near the end of the nineteenth century various forms of divination were practised at Hallowe’en.  Girls ascertained the character of their future husbands by the help of cabbages just as in Queen’s County.  Again, if a girl found a branch of a briar-thorn which had bent over and grown into the ground so as to form a loop, she would creep through the loop thrice late in the evening in the devil’s name, then cut the briar and put it under her pillow, all without speaking a word.  Then she would lay her head on the pillow and dream of the man she was to marry.  Boys, also, would dream in like manner of love and marriage at Hallowe’en, if only they would gather ten leaves of ivy without speaking, throw away one, and put the other nine under their pillow.  Again, divination was practised by means of a cake called barm-breac, in which a nut and a ring were baked.  Whoever got the ring would be married first; whoever got the nut would marry a widow or a widower; but if the nut were an empty shell, he or she would remain unwed.  Again, a girl would take a clue of worsted, go to a lime kiln in the gloaming, and throw the clew into the kiln in the devil’s name, while she held fast the other end of the thread.  Then she would rewind the thread and ask, “Who holds my clue?” and the name of her future husband would