this bowl all that I claim
Is to know my sweetheart's name."

she puts the bowl into a safe place until morning. Then she is
blindfolded and picks out the same number of letters as there are
in her own name, and spells another from them.

In New Brunswick, instead of an apple, a hard-boiled egg without
salt is eaten before a mirror, with the same result. In Canada a
thread is held over a lamp. The number that can be counted slowly
before the thread parts, is the number of years before the one who
counts will marry.

In the United States a hair is thrown to the winds with the stanza
chanted:

"I pluck this lock of hair off my head
To tell whence comes the one I shall wed.
Fly, silken hair, fly all the world around,
Until you reach the spot where my true love is found."

The direction in which the hair floats is prophetic.

The taste in Hallowe'en festivities now is to study old traditions,
and hold a Scotch party, using Burns's poem _Hallowe'en_ as a
guide; or to go a-souling as the English used. In short, no custom
that was once honored at Hallowe'en is out of fashion now.
"Cyniver" has been borrowed from Wales, and the "dumb-cake" from
the Hebrides. In the Scotch custom of cabbage-stalk pulling, if the
stalk comes up easily, the husband or wife will be easy to win. The
melted-lead test to show the occupation of the husband-to-be has
been adopted in the United States. If the metal cools in round
drops, the tester will never marry, or her husband will have no
profession. White of egg is used in the same way. Like the Welsh
test is that of filling the mouth with water, and walking round the
house until one meets one's fate. An adaptation of the Scottish
"three luggies" is the row of four dishes holding dirt, water, a
ring, and a rag. The dirt means divorce, the water, a trip across
the ocean, the ring, marriage, the rag, no marriage at all.

After the charms have been tried, fagots are passed about, and by
the eerie light of burning salt and alcohol, ghost stories are
told, each concluding his installment as his fagot withers into
ashes. Sometimes the cabbage stalks used in the omens take the
place of fagots.

To induce prophetic dreams salt, in quantities from a pinch to an
egg full, is eaten before one goes to bed.

"'Miss Jeanette, that's such a fine trick! You must swallow a
salt herring in three bites, bones and all, and not drink a drop
till the apparition of your future