Halloween, Ducking Apples

Samhain Celtic calendar Coligny calendar Gaulish 62 lunar months Halloween Nos Calan Gaeaf Druid October 31 Superstition Feralia Pope Boniface IV All-hallows Eve Trick or treat Pumpkin Ducking apples Candy Ghosts Witches Black cats

The Roman festival for remembering the dead was also in October. During this time, the Romans remembered their goddess, Pomona. She was the goddess of the trees and fruits, and when the Romans came to Britain, they began to hold these two festivals on the same day as Samhain.

Apple games probably became associated with Halloween because of this.

< Ducking Apples

Perhaps apples bobbing in a bowl of water, gave the name bobbing apples, but if you play this game, you will get a a ducking in water, and so it was called ducking apples.

The game, which originated in the British Isles, dates back to at least three hundred years and originally had something to do with fortune telling as noted by British author W.H. Davenport Adams. In Curiosities of Superstition, a book Adams wrote in 1902, he described the game in the following manner;

The apples are thrown into a tub of water, and you endeavour to catch one in your mouth as they bob round and round in provoking fashion. When you have caught one, you peel it carefully, and pass the long strip of peel thrice, sunwise, round your head; after which you throw it over your shoulder, and it falls to the ground in the shape of the initial letter of your true love's name.

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