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Episode 33: Spooktober Superstitions
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Welcome back Witches! It's officially Spooktober, which means we're bringing the spooky ALL month long!!! In this week's episode we're throwing all the Halloween superstitions your way, and let me tell you... there are some crazy ones in the mix! So get in losers, and lets learn what not to do on Halloween with Spooktober Superstitions!!
We would be forever thankful if you left our podcast a 5-Star review. If you really loved the show and want more Get in Loser content, check out our Supercast & Buy Me a Coffee links below. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @GetinWitches, on TikTok @weredoingwitchcraft or email us at weredoingwitchcraft@gmail.com. You can support our show through our
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Music by Darren Curtis- My Dark Passenger
- Lovejoy, Bess. 12 (Mostly) Spooky Halloween Superstitions. (2017, updated 2020). Mental Floss. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/511071/spooky-halloween-superstitions?fbclid=IwAR2CUCLXZfJOMmRb6c_EIoqhHWC4A7SauBPKqUq2snL5f56Awvh2akqpYL8
- Melina, Remy. 13 Halloween Superstitions & Traditions Explained. (2011). Live Science. https://www.livescience.com/16677-halloween-superstitions-traditions/2.html
- Ward, Jason. Did Pope Gregory IX’s Hatred of Cats Lead to the Black Death. (2021). Medium. https://medium.com/illumination-curated/did-pope-gregory-ixs-hatred-of-cats-lead-to-the-black-death-327d163adfb2
- Harte, Jeremy. (October 2019). Michaelmas: The Day the Devil Spits on the Blackberries? Folklore Thursday. https://folklorethursday.com/folklife/michaelmas-the-devils-blackberry-day/
- Monaghan (1 November). The Puca, and Blackberries after Halloween. The Fading Year. https://thefadingyear.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/the-puca-and-blackberries-after-halloween/
- Spooky Wales- Noson Calan Gaeaf. (n.d.). BBC- Bitesize. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zbkdcqt
- History.com Editors. (2020). How Jack O’Lanterns Originated in Irish Myth. History.Com. https://www.history.com/news/history-of-the-jack-o-lantern-irish-origins
- Smith, Ashley. (2016). Spiders- A Web of Superstitions on Halloween. Ehrlich. https://www.jcehrlich.com/blog/spiders-a-web-of-superstitions-on-halloween/
- Buzz Staff. (2021). Where did Dressing up in Halloween Costumes Originate From? News 18. https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/where-did-dressing-up-in-halloween-costumes-originate-from-4244666.html
- Fabry, Merrill. (2015). A Brief History of Mischief Night. TIME. https://time.com/4093505/mischief-night-history/
- Youtube:Brittney Crabb
Strange in Maine
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Transcript
Introduction to Witchcraft and the Occult
00:00:00
Speaker
Do you feel drawn to learn more about witchcraft and the occult, but feel lost on where to start? Then welcome to Get In, Loser, We're Doing Witchcraft, a podcast all about what it means to be a witch and where to get started on your journey. Join us as we navigate through various witchy topics and share what we have learned about the craft. So get in, witches, and welcome to a second episode in our Spooktober series, all about Halloween superstitions.
Review of 'The Good Nurse' and 'Malevolent'
00:00:44
Speaker
Did I send you that trailer for that show, The Good Nurse? Yes! I'm excited about that. Okay, so this is probably kind of gross, but I, not gross, but like not very many people think he's attractive, but I really think Eddie Redmayne's attractive. He's pretty precious. He is, and I just...
00:01:05
Speaker
i think he's so genuine and nice and i think that's what makes him so attractive to me so i'm just like as soon as i saw him like obviously he doesn't look attractive in the show because they made him not look attractive but i will be watching this a thousand percent because he is such a good actor yeah and it looks like a good like
00:01:22
Speaker
thriller kind of show for a spooky season. I'm excited for it. When does it premiere? I can't remember. I don't remember. It comes out soon. I think so. Yeah. This episode releases. Maybe it'll be already out on Netflix, but hopefully definitely check it out.
00:01:39
Speaker
For sure. Add it to your queue. All the spooky shows and movies. It's time. It's our time. We've watched Malevolent. Have you seen that it has Florence Pugh in it? It's on Netflix. I saw it. So, and it could be like a British Netflix thing or something, but I've been seeing on Netflix a lot and I added it to our queue.
00:02:01
Speaker
And I'm just like, oh, I'll watch it just cause she's in it. And then like last night we were looking for something to watch and I kept trying to go back to like stuff we'd already watched. And Mike was like, let's watch something we've never watched before. I'm like, okay. So I picked that movie and like the best part of that movie is just her, like the movie in general, it just kind of sucks. And they could have done so much more with it, but it's supposed to be like, like, I really liked the premise of it. Like it's essentially.
00:02:30
Speaker
her and her brother and a couple of friends are, um, have this like scammy business where they market her as a, um, meet like a psychic medium and they will go to like haunted houses and like help the spirits move on. And then they actually go somewhere that's haunted and like, so that's kind of the premise of it. Okay. And I'm just like, there's so much.
00:02:54
Speaker
they could have done with it that I thought it would have been a lot better because like just the breakdown of like what it's about sounds really good.
Subscriber Acknowledgment and Language Barriers
00:03:04
Speaker
And then it wasn't really good at all, but yeah. All right. So before we start the episode, we wanted to give a huge shout out to our new Supercast subscriber, Anna.
Halloween Superstitions and Origins
00:03:17
Speaker
We've actually been talking with Anna via email.
00:03:22
Speaker
And she's really cool and she has an amazing podcast that we haven't been able to check out because we don't speak Hungarian, unfortunately. Yeah. Unfortunately, I wish we did, but, um, yeah, so.
00:03:38
Speaker
Thank you, Anna, for subscribing to our podcast. What were her little cat's name? Shout out to Cabbage and Roxy and Cabbage. Shout out to our cat fans, Roxy and Cabbage. Aw. Our cutest little fans. I love it.
00:03:55
Speaker
Yeah, and then if you are in Hungary and you are interested in a podcast to check out, definitely check out Anna's podcast. In English, it's called 20 minutes into the future. We don't know how to pronounce it in her native language, so I'm sorry, but 20 minutes into the future. So if you speak Hungarian, I'm sure you know how to translate that, but yeah.
00:04:21
Speaker
Thank you, Anna. Thank you, Anna. We loved your emails. Yes. So moving on. What are we talking about today? Superstition. Yes. Yeah, we thought this would be like a great, like a great episode to kind of get us back into a Halloween mindset. Yes. For Spooktober. My favorite. Yes. So with that,
00:04:50
Speaker
I feel like everybody knows what a superstition is. But just in case, superstitions are a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation, or an irrational abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural nature or God resulting from superstition. And that's from Marian Webster's dictionary.
00:05:17
Speaker
Just in case you didn't know. In case you didn't know. It's not the Oxford, it's Merriam-Webster. So we're gonna have a whole episode on Samhain soon, but just to build a little of the foundation for this episode, October 31st is the Celtic New Year's Eve, and this is where pagans celebrate Samhain on the Wheel of the Year. Christians basically took Samhain and created Halloween, as they tend to do with everything else. So that's essentially where Halloween comes from.
00:05:46
Speaker
Samhain welcomed in the harvest of the season. It ushered in the darker half of the year and it honored the dead. It's also when the veil is considered to be the thinnest between the two worlds and it allows us to interact with ghosts and spirits easier. Not going to go much farther into that just because we are going to do a whole Samhain episode but
00:06:04
Speaker
I thought it was kind of important to give a little bit of a foundation before we just jump into, here's all these crazy superstitions that we found. So the first one I'm gonna talk about is Crossroads and specifically Crossroads on Halloween. Like we all know Crossroads have all kinds of lore about them. If you watch the show Supernatural, Crossroads are in like every other episode. And essentially this is where you go like meet demons to sell your soul and gain something from it.
00:06:31
Speaker
So in Wales, they believed that disembodied spirits sat on crossroad on all hallows eve. So if you went there, you were going to like encounter spirits, but wearing your clothes and side out and walking backwards to a crossroads can make you see a witch apparently.
00:06:50
Speaker
random, but also like, like you wonder, like I read superstitions and they crack me up because it's like, you wonder how they got to this, like how, how. Walk with their clothes inside out backwards and then somebody like that they thought was a witch. They were like, Oh yeah. Well, if you don't ever do that, you know, that sounds like a lot of work. If you are ever like in the Suffolk area within the next like
00:07:16
Speaker
couple of weeks and you want to see a witch, just stop by my house. You don't have to do any of that. You're like, you don't have to work that hard. Hello. Hi, I'm here, so nice to meet you. Yeah. Standing at a crossroads on Halloween night attracts spirits to you and it's said that they will whisper to you about your future. In Scotland, it's believed that if you bring a
00:07:40
Speaker
three-legged stool to a crossroad on Halloween, you'll be told who you know, who in your acquaintances will die within the upcoming year. But if you bring a piece of their clothing to the crossroads and then throw it into the air, you can stop their death from occurring that year.
Crossroads and Celtic Rituals
00:07:56
Speaker
So basically, you have to collect clothes from everyone you know. And you also have to have a three-legged stool.
00:08:02
Speaker
Not four. Not four. Has to be three. Has to be three. So random. Crossroads are also a place where you can sell your soul to the devil for one wish. That is like the main lore. I think that if you know about crossroads, that's usually what you know about them.
00:08:19
Speaker
And then in medieval times, they would bury the bodies of thieves or people that committed suicide at a crossroad because when the ghost would come out, it would make them not know which road to take to go home so they couldn't haunt their home. But only thieves and people who committed suicide.
00:08:38
Speaker
Wow, that's really sad. Yeah. Look, medieval times were wild. They really were. They really were. So another one that or another superstition that we have is the nose calling gay. Basically, this is the Welsh Winters Eve.
00:08:58
Speaker
And I got that pronunciation from YouTube. So if I'm saying it wrong, you already know. We try. We try our best. So there are many traditions that Welsh families did to celebrate Welsh winter's Eve. However, one of the most macabre involves the bonfire or coelacanth. And with this, what you would do is the whole thing that we get together.
00:09:22
Speaker
You would take a stone and you would write like your name or some sort of insignia on it. And you would throw the stone into the bonfire on Halloween or, you know, Welsh winter's Eve to see if you'll live another year. And isn't that not like the creepiest bonfire tradition you've ever heard? I feel like so many of these like superstition traditions, I'm like, I would never do. Exactly. I don't want to know. I was telling Mike about it and he's like, it sounds kind of cool. And I'm like, no.
00:09:52
Speaker
Hold up. I would want to know about this. Um, but you know, basically they would build this huge bonfire and basically like the next day, like after they have thrown the stone in with their insignia or their marking on it, they would just let the bonfire go. And then in the ashes, the next day you would sift through the ashes to find your stone and whoever stone they couldn't find. That was a person that was going to die within the next year.
00:10:22
Speaker
He's just like, when I told this to Mike, he's like, well, it's like, you live every day like your last. And I'm like, yeah, but I don't want to know that I'm going to die within a year. No, thank you. No, thanks. Nope. Don't want to do that. Next we have this one I thought was kind of funny. Basically it's waving a fiery stick to bring you good luck.
00:10:47
Speaker
Essentially in Scotland, you can gain good luck by, and I put this in quotes because this, it just was too funny. It's waving around the red hot end of a fiery stick in mystic figures. I tried so fucking hard to find out what are these mystic figures and like more about this and could not find anything.
00:11:13
Speaker
It's a secret. Yeah, it's a secret. Only you have to be in like the end to know these mystic figures. Apparently. Yeah, keep it secret, keep it safe like they do in most of the rings. Yeah, so like light your little stick on fire and make your little mystic shapes in the air and then you're gonna be lucky for the year.
00:11:34
Speaker
Oh, sounds like a plan. What are those figures? No one knows. Just figure it out. Yeah. This one made me laugh really hard. I was like reading through these
Mischief Night and Double Sight Tales
00:11:44
Speaker
lists and I get to this one and it's like, just don't go outside. Stay inside. Okay. Christian write this. This is weird. And it just says it's considered bad luck to leave your house on Halloween in the Western Isles. Like Halloween, stay home or you're going to have bad luck. Yeah. I think I'll take my chances.
00:12:04
Speaker
also this next one made me feel really dumb so it's called double sight and so basically i'm like reading through this and it said norman semen and i was like who is this man who is norman semen yeah norman semen for those that are like me and dumb
00:12:26
Speaker
are Norse Vikings who settled in the northern France. Oh my god. I was like googling Norman Seaman and there are Norman Seaman on Google but they were not this Norman Seaman.
00:12:43
Speaker
So not Norman Seaman the name, like a group of people that were Norman's and also Seaman. Yeah. Yeah. So I had to look this up. I spent like more time, like an embarrassingly amount of time trying to figure out who this Norman Seaman was. And then when I finally figured it out, I was like, wow, you're an idiot.
00:13:04
Speaker
So yeah, yeah. So Norman Seaman believed that venturing out to sea on the night of Halloween would give you what they called the double sight. And this meant that each one beheld a living likeness of himself seated in close contact. And if he was engaged in any work, the Phantom was also doing the same. So it's basically like you got your own ghost clone at sea on Halloween night. Pretty cool. Can he like do my work for me? Right? I know.
00:13:34
Speaker
If he's doing the work too, does it like cut down the amount of time? Right. Yeah, I can use it faster because that's the only way I would like that.
00:13:43
Speaker
Yeah, seeing ghosts you. Yeah. Are you going to do my dishes? Because I go do this over here. Exactly. And let's just carry on. And then apparently on Halloween night, bowls are also weatherman. So there's an old practice or belief that whatever direction the bowl is laying on Halloween night is the direction from which that wind will blow all winter long.
00:14:07
Speaker
So like if the, if it's facing, like, if it's laying on the ground and facing East, then the wind's going to come from the East is what they believed. Wow. Yeah. I wonder how true that is. I don't know. Right. I found like a bunch of stuff that like confirmed that this was a thing, but not like the accuracy. I would like to make accuracy. I know. Yeah. That should be in the almanac. Thank you. Look, I'm going to go hunt down a bull and every Halloween I'm going to do a little study. I'm not going to do that.
00:14:37
Speaker
20 years. 20 years later. And then this one is also kind of funny. And I was trying to find songs. And there are a lot of really funny Irish, what they call like dog rule verses.
00:14:52
Speaker
So basically this was like practiced up until the late 17th century. Scottish farmers would light a torch and then walk their fields while singing and chanting pieces of what they called dog roll verses. And basically that just means that it's a comical verse that's composed in an irregular rhythm. And this was believed to protect their fields from any harm. So if you look like, if you get bored and feel like looking this up, just look up Irish dog roll verses. And there's some pretty funny stuff out there.
00:15:23
Speaker
That's really cute. Yeah, but they would just walk on Halloween night. They would walk their fields with a lit torch and they either sing or chant these silly comical verses. And it was supposed to drive away evil spirits, protect their land, and bring them prosperous good luck in the future. Cute. That's really cute. I like that tradition. I just picture these
Halloween Costumes and Animal Superstitions
00:15:46
Speaker
old farmer dudes walking around singing silly songs in their field.
00:15:50
Speaker
So the next superstition or folklore that we're going to be talking about is trick-or-treat costumes. So dressing up on Halloween is a tradition seen all over the United States and throughout the world, but it has a lot of its ties back in Celtic folklore and the actual tradition of dressing up is said to have originated from the Celts.
00:16:10
Speaker
So it was believed that during Samhain, you know, like, as we've discussed, Tiffany's already mentioned that the veil between our world and the spirit world is at its thinnest and the ghosts of the deceased could mingle with the living by disguising themselves as humans. So if they knock on your door during Samhain asking for money or food, it's bad luck. And you risk being cursed or haunted if you don't actually give them money or food, if they knock.
00:16:36
Speaker
So, um, that's where the whole giving somebody a treat at your door comes from. Yeah. And so another Celtic lore was that dressing up as a ghoul would fool evil spirits into thinking that you were one of them, so they wouldn't take your soul. And I don't know how true this is because, you know, we don't have any written reports from Druids. All we have is what people have written about them.
00:16:59
Speaker
but druids were said to create enormous bonfires for animal sacrifices during this time to appease mischievous spirits and it was important to disguise themselves from the spirits so the ancient druids would wear masks out of animal skins or heads which the masks with the animal skins okay and get behind the head situation just reminds me of midsummer and the bear and i just gross that maybe is so weird it is so weird
00:17:28
Speaker
It is weird. I remember like when it first came out, they were calling it like the scariest movie of the year. And Anthony, I were like, Ooh, let's watch this spooky movie. And by the end of it, we were like, what the fuck did we just watch? Like it wasn't scary to me. It was just kind of like, remind me never to go. Yeah. I don't want to go with these cold people. Also they did that with it follows. And so we were like, watched it. And I'm like, by the end, I was like, so this whole movie was about a ghost STD.
00:17:58
Speaker
Right. You just had to pass it on. It's not even that good. No, it was terrible. Yeah. Anyways, back to...
00:18:09
Speaker
back to costumes. So in medieval times, Christianity, of course, reinterpreted Samhain. And we'll delve into this more on our Samhain episode, but along with other things that they stole, they reimagined costumes to fit their new rituals for all Hallows Eve. So instead of hiding from spirits, they wanted to pray for them.
00:18:35
Speaker
So their costumes reflected that and like in the 11th century, choir boys dressed as female virgins for rituals, which is so gross considering what we know about like the Catholic church.
00:18:50
Speaker
um and then over time it evolved into like dressing as saints or other divine beings and the practice would evolve too so they would now go to door to door to perform religious songs or recite poems and this is known as souling and basically they would do this in exchange for treats and i'm just here to say
00:19:12
Speaker
If somebody comes to my door dressed as a saint or another divine being and starts singing to me in some sort of Christian, I don't know, lyrical verse, you're not getting candy. I'm sorry. I'm just going to close my door. No, thanks. Shut the blinds. Turn the lights off. We're not home. Please go. Nobody asked for this. No.
00:19:36
Speaker
But also like the whole like praying, what did you say? It was like praying for the spirit. Stop praying for people if they don't, even if it's a spirit, if they don't ask you to pray for them, don't do that. Exactly. It's rude. It's fucking rude. It's so gross. I don't like it.
00:19:54
Speaker
Halloween practices and lore were brought to America by the Irish. And during the 18th century, early Americans really embraced the holiday, donning sheets, makeup, and masks. And then in the 1920s and 30s, Halloween masquerades became a thing for adults and children. And over time, of course, pop culture costumes began to become more popular. And this is where we saw the rise of like manufactured costumes and the evolution of what we have today with trick or treating.
00:20:24
Speaker
dressing up and Halloween parties. So next is black cats and the fact that black cats are supposed to equal bad luck. We actually have talked about this a little bit in one of our other episodes, but basically black cats have long been a symbol of bad luck and they're seen on all sorts of Halloween decor this time of year. Essentially, this comes from a medieval belief that black cats were a witch's familiar and that they were gifted to them by the devil himself.
00:20:53
Speaker
In 1233 Pope Gregory IX issued a public decree called Vox in Rama that basically declared cats as instruments of Satan. This set medieval Europe on a great cat purge and they paid special attention to black cats who were considered particularly Luciferian and basically what they would do is just burn them all. They burned all these cats alive.
00:21:15
Speaker
And especially if it was a black cat. Yeah. Yeah. They would like gather in the town center and set a bonfire and just throw these fucking cats in. So Pope Gregory the ninth, I hope is suffering in hell somewhere.
00:21:31
Speaker
Because rude. If a black cat crosses your path on Halloween night, it's said that you need to go home because you've crossed a demon. And some beliefs say that Satan himself transforms into a black cat on Halloween. It's also believed that killing a black cat on Halloween can bring you seven years of bad luck. And in Ireland, black cats are considered good luck and white cats are considered bad luck. So they just kind of flip the script there.
00:21:56
Speaker
Yeah, nice. So another creature that is often associated with Halloween are spiders. Spiders have been a staple of Halloween decor just in general for a while, but there are some actual superstitions tied to these creepy little dudes.
00:22:12
Speaker
So the main reason they're tied to Halloween in particular is their supposed link to witches. Along with bats and black cats and rats, spiders were believed to be a companion to witches in the middle ages. And it doesn't help that many of the spooky Halloween locations like cemeteries, haunted houses, dungeons, caves, and forests are usually home to spiders. So I mean, you're bound to see them if you go to any of these places.
00:22:39
Speaker
spiders themselves have long been believed through many different customs throughout the world to have ties to the mystical or magical world due to their web weaving abilities. And we've seen this come up in a lot of things we've talked on this podcast, just in relation to folklore, you know, of people weaving death or fate as oracles, et cetera. And it's all kind of tied back to spiders and then leaving their, um, webs. So.
00:23:07
Speaker
In relation to luck, spiders have been associated with luck a lot. White spider lore dictates that if a white spider makes its home above your bed, you will bring in good luck. If a black spider, however, seen in your home, it could indicate that you have bad luck. However, some cultures believe that finding any spider, no matter the color in your home, is said to bring luck and money. And the bigger the spider, the bigger the reward.
00:23:36
Speaker
Look, I grew up in the desert and like out in California desert, there are black widows just in abundance. So every home has a black widow. Yeah, it's going to be a no for me, a big fat nerd. Yeah. But I did read that black widows are said to bring bad luck. And I probably can correlate this back to the fact that if you get bit by one of those bitches, you're going to die.
00:24:02
Speaker
So yeah, definitely just think about all the spiders in your home, especially if it's like a fiddleback or what are they called? Brown recluse. Yeah. Those are the ones that like rot your flesh. Yes. Those are terrifying and black widows. I would imagine those do not bring good luck to anybody. So get rid of those if they're in your home, but also if you live in California, like
00:24:25
Speaker
They like dark, hot places. So like 99.9% of people have black widows in their garage in California. Gross. Oh my god. They're like so common. They're the creepiest looking spider too. They are. I hate them. They're giant or body and they're like gangly long legs. Yes. They just look like they're gonna fuck you up. Yeah.
00:24:44
Speaker
And also I found this lore as well on spiders. It says stepping on a spider can indicate bad luck or a sudden downpour of rain. So one or the other, hopefully rain, like I will take rain over the bad luck any day because I have been known to step on a spider or two. I'm just going to say.
00:25:02
Speaker
Look, I used to be like, kill them all. I've gotten a lot better. Anthony was always like so good about just picking them up and taking them outside. He would like catch them on a little paper. Yeah, that's a lot better now. Like, especially if they're in the garage, because I work out in my garage and we, you know, we live in the Midwest, so we have spiders.
00:25:20
Speaker
I'll just like catch them on a little stick and like put them back out in the yard. Right? Yeah. I, if it's like the little, like they have little house spiders here in England, I'm just like, eh, it's whatever. Cause they'll usually be in the corner. I don't care about them. Like not a big deal.
00:25:37
Speaker
So I just leave them be. I ignore daddy long legs. And then we have this, it's actually really cute. We have a baby jumping spider in our house. And we first found him, he, so I have a lot of plants in the house, you know, so he's been in my window seal in my kitchen next to, I have like.
00:25:53
Speaker
I think two, three plants there. And so like, he's like living in these. And he was just this tiny little like speck of a spider. And now he's like, he's growing. He's so cute. And Anthony was like, Oh, look at our little spood. He's so cute. I just leave him here. He can hang out in my plants.
00:26:11
Speaker
It's not going to harm you like that one. Definitely. It's definitely not going to harm you. They're just cute. They are super cute. Yeah. So, um, and as it relates to witches in particular, if you see a spider on Halloween, it said that a witch will knock on your door. And if a spider falls into a candle flame on Halloween, which is incredibly specific, it said that a witch is supposed to be nearby. So interesting.
00:26:40
Speaker
Yeah. Sticking with creatures. Let's talk about some bats. I love bats. That is like one of the few things I love about the Midwest is there's so many bats out here, like out in Illinois specifically.
Witches, Broomsticks, and Halloween Symbols
00:26:54
Speaker
And they'll just be like flocks of bats at like dusk flying around. It's so cute.
00:26:59
Speaker
So in medieval times, it was believed that if you saw a bat on Halloween, that it was a bad omen. One belief was that if a bat was seen flying around a person's house three times, that someone within the household would die soon. Which, terrifying. Because bats do just fly in little circles. They do, yeah. So it's very likely that they're gonna fly over your house like three times.
00:27:22
Speaker
And then another was that if a bat flew into your house on Halloween, that a ghost had opened the door or window or whatever to let it in, meaning that your house was haunted. So if you have a bat in your house, then you also have a ghost. And then bats like cats were also considered to be a witch's familiar. So precious. I'll take a look at that. I love bats. I actually had like a bat. It didn't last very long.
00:27:51
Speaker
His bat was probably too young to be away from his mom, but the mom, I think was flying with the bat and dropped it on our porch. And I found it when I was in high school and I adopted this sweet little bat and I had him for like a week. And I, like, I, you know, researched how to take care of them. And like, I fed him like warm milk out of a, uh,
00:28:13
Speaker
like a medicine dropper thing. And then I created this little habitat for him out of like toilet paper rolls and stuff so he could hang upside down in the dark. He passed away, but I named him Flappy Von Batty. He was so cute.
00:28:32
Speaker
They're so cute. They have such a bad reputation for such a cute little animal. Yeah. And they, like, if you just pay attention to the little faces, they had the cutest little faces I've ever seen. Yeah. We had a friend that worked at, she worked at like a, I don't know if it was just a bat sanctuary, but she worked with bats at the sanctuary. And so she always posted these videos and pictures and stuff. And I like lived for it when she worked there. I was like, I'm here for this.
00:29:02
Speaker
So, um, moving on to something that everybody knows about when it comes to Halloween is jack-o'-lanterns. And I love the lore behind this. I didn't know anything about this until we were researching it. And I was just like, I love this. This is so cool. So, um, it comes from Celtic lore and essentially the story behind it is there was this drunken farmer named Stingy Jack.
00:29:26
Speaker
And he was at like a bar pub or whatever. And he invited the devil to have a drink with him. And after the drink, he didn't want to pay for the drink. So he convinced the devil to turn himself into a coin. So that like, basically, since you Jack would give it to the barkeep and then the devil could turn back into himself and then, you know, whatever.
00:29:49
Speaker
So, but he tricked the devil because the devil, he's an idiot, obviously. Clearly. He turned into a coin and instead of paying for the drink though, Cindy Jack just pocketed the coin and he put the coin next to a silver cross. So this kept the devil from turning back into his original form. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. Um, you would think he would be like a lot more powerful than that, but I guess not.
00:30:17
Speaker
Um, he eventually freed the devil on the condition that he not bothered Jack for a year. And should he die, the devil would not claim his soul. And so the devil kept his bargain and years later he ended up playing another trick on the devil. And I mean, suffice it to say the devil was over his bullshit. Um, but he didn't like kill him or claim his soul or anything. Like, I don't know if he was just like, you're annoying. I'm just going back to hell. Like, I don't know.
00:30:43
Speaker
Yeah. So when Jack eventually died, um, outside of like, I mean, he just like died a natural death or whatever. He was turned away from the gates of heaven and hell. God was like now, man, like you're crazy and the devil and the devil was like, bro, I'm tired of you. So we had no choice but to wander around in the darkness of purgatory.
00:31:08
Speaker
And just like a quick aside, when I was telling this to Mike earlier, um, I was telling him about this when we were on our walk, he was just like, but that doesn't make sense. And here's the thing. I don't know. Cause I wasn't raised Christian. I wasn't raised Catholic either. So I have no fucking clue what hell or purgatory is like, but he basically was just like hell is supposed to be like the worst place ever. So if the devil really wanted to punish him, why would he not just take him to hell and torture him? Yeah.
00:31:32
Speaker
And I'm just like, I think he was annoyed. Christianity confuses me because it's like, oh, if you go to like, they basically believe that if you sin and you don't like accept Jesus as your Lord and savior, then you go to hell and you just burn for eternity. Like you're in the fiery pits of hell burning for eternity. But at the same time, the part that really confuses me is that like the whole thing with like Satan was he was this like beautiful angel that was like,
00:32:01
Speaker
tired of God being a dick all the time, you know, like he was trying to like protect the human race and all this shit. And so he gets like, loses the war, gets cast down to hell. Why would he want to torture the humans that he stuck up for? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't make sense at all. Doesn't make sense. But so I guess while in purgatory, he, the devil did give him a burning lump of coal, I guess. So
00:32:30
Speaker
It was really nice. At least he got something. God didn't give him shit. Got to get out of here, you crazy. So he made a lantern out of this burning lump of coal and a turnip, and he used this lantern to guide his lost soul. And so the belief here is that placing a jack-o-lantern outside would help guide lost spirits when they wander on Halloween, or they would even scare evil spirits away if you carved frightening faces into them.
00:32:59
Speaker
But also like if it's an evil spirit, why would they be afraid of like something you carved into a pumpkin? Like that just another thing that I just don't understand. But they were originally made from hollowed out turnips or potatoes and put like a little candle inside them. But the tradition made its way to the US during the Irish potato famine and
00:33:24
Speaker
turnips were pretty scarce in the US. So pumpkins were substituted as the turnip and that's how we get jack-o'-lanterns, which I love. So I have heard the whole turnip thing. I had never heard the stingy jack part, which is hilarious. But I did know about the turnip, like how they used to use turnips and did you look up what those looked like?
00:33:46
Speaker
Yeah. Well, we have them, they sell them here in the UK. That is nightmare fuel. So if I was a spirit, I also would be terrified of that turnip. So if you guys want to scare yourselves and have some nightmares tonight, look up old turnip jack-o'-lanterns because gross.
00:34:11
Speaker
So just a little brief one, witches got tied to Halloween. It is believed that the evil cackling witch with the pointy hat and the warty nose was actually just Christian Puritans demonizing the pagans who were honoring the crone.
00:34:27
Speaker
on Samhain. So basically they took like the image of the crone and distorted it into being the cackling, warty nose, like old haggard woman hunched over her cauldron and tied witches to Halloween in that way. Which I hate that. Like always, it's always something from like Christians and Puritans and it's rude. They're fucking rude.
00:34:58
Speaker
And of course, I know not all Christians are that way, but it stems from that and it's rude.
00:35:05
Speaker
And then which is broomsticks. We have talked about this multiple times on this episode, but this comes from yet another medieval superstition used as a way to condemn poor elderly women who lived outside of society standards. So because these women were often too poor to afford a horse, they would walk everywhere and would often have a walking stick to help them navigate through the woods. And this got tied into the English folklore.
00:35:34
Speaker
where they believed that witches rubbed an ointment on themselves during the rituals that would make them feel as if they were flying, especially when they would close their eyes. And you guys know we've talked about flying ointment multiple times. It wasn't anything that made you fly. It was like literally poisoning you and making you hallucinate and all of these crazy
Colors and Candy of Halloween
00:35:55
Speaker
things. But they would essentially put this
00:35:58
Speaker
ointment in their vagina, vaginally, with a stick. So a witch's broomstick. And, you know, like, again, this is just the ingredients to the ointment. We're often poisonous. They cause symptoms like hallucinations, rapid heartbeat, numbness, and confusion. And we discussed this in depth in our poisonous plants episode. So go back and listen if you haven't.
00:36:21
Speaker
Speaking of witches, let's talk about cauldrons. Of course we know all about cauldrons and know what they are tied to, um, witches, AKA. So if, of course they're going to be tied to Halloween. Pagan Celts believed that after death, all souls went into the Crohn's cauldron and where
00:36:42
Speaker
while hanging out in the cauldron, they would wait for reincarnation. And when the goddess would stir the cauldron, new souls would enter and old souls would be reborn. So the cauldron itself is a mystical symbol of just life and death. And there's a lot of myths and lore of magical cauldrons all over the world, not just like with pagans or druids or anything like that. So the actual cauldrons too that they found all over the world in their
00:37:11
Speaker
um lore and mythology is crazy and it's really cool but we could have a whole episode on that and i'm not going to delve into that on this one but um of course you know a cauldron is something that has historically been used in magic so it's no wonder that it's also tied to halloween but
00:37:28
Speaker
It is definitely one of the biggest symbols. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and then like to kind of piggyback on the symbols, like the colors themselves. So orange and black were actually taken from pagan traditions surrounding the autumn equinox or Mabon.
00:37:45
Speaker
And then other colors got added over time, so some of which are yellow, green, purple, red, like all of Halloween decor is either in the Autumn Equinox or Maybond colors or it's got these like bright reds and purples and yellow.
00:38:04
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah. And whenever someone tries to tell you that, you know, paganism isn't real and witches aren't real and all hail God and Christianity or whatever they say, you can be like, OK, well, this Halloween that you're celebrating, you know, I'm not salty at all. No, no. Same with like Christmas, Christmas annual.
00:38:35
Speaker
So another symbol that we see, um, and related back to superstition when it comes to Halloween or apples, apples are viewed as a sacred fruit that could be used to predict the future.
00:38:48
Speaker
And bobbing for apples in general, um, if you Bob for apples, the first person to successfully pluck an apple without using their hands. So, you know, obviously with your mouth, if you don't know what bobbing for apples is, they would be the first to marry. And eating an apple in general is good for, is great for health. And you know, that.
00:39:09
Speaker
It goes back to that saying an apple a day keeps the doctor away. So that comes from the Celtic belief that if you eat a large apple under a tree at midnight on Halloween, wearing only a sheet, that you would never catch a cold. And, you know, it's pretty old move. Would we be wearing it like a toga or like a ghost? That's my question. I didn't think about that. I was thinking toga.
00:39:36
Speaker
But maybe a ghost. You're like just sitting under this tree, under your sheet, like a little ghost, just eating your giant apple. Just eating your giant apple. I just feel like, just in general, especially considering this is the old Celtic belief and knowing how cold it gets in England on Halloween, doing this would, I feel like increase your chances of getting the sad cold that you're trying to prevent. But what do I know?
00:40:04
Speaker
build up your cold tolerance. Maybe, you know, that's the trick. And then single women would peel an apple and throw the peel over their shoulder. And the belief here is that the peel would reveal the first initial of their true love as it fell onto the ground. Like it would fall into the shape of the letter. Yeah. Huh. Interesting. Yeah.
00:40:31
Speaker
If you're single, try it out. Let us know if it works. Let us know. Piggybacking on apples, candy apples have always been like, I can't remember like a fall season without seeing candy apples in a store.
00:40:51
Speaker
in my entire life. They're always there, where people make them, they're at parties. So candy apples stem from both Roman and Celtic traditions. Samhain occurs around the same time as the Roman festival honoring Pomona, the goddess of fruit trees, who is often symbolized by an apple.
00:41:13
Speaker
And in early North America, candy apples were often handed out on Halloween over candy because, you know, things weren't as strict. And so you didn't have to have things in a wrapper. And many of like the treats given out were actually just homemade treats like brownies and cookies or candied apples. So that's how the tradition came to be in North America. And that's why we see candy apples all fall along now.
00:41:39
Speaker
They are so damn good. If you've never had one, you have to. You have to have one. They're so good. I'm not a huge fan of them. What? Yeah. Yeah. I don't, like, I don't mind them, but I feel like they're more work than they're worth. And I also just love me a good plain apple. I would rather just dip the apple piece in a little bit of caramel. Oh, see, no, I can't do it because I only like caramel if it's like,
00:42:05
Speaker
where it gets hard, you know what I mean? But I will never, yeah, I don't really like him soft. I will never make that shit myself. Like, no. Elexis made black candy apples one year. That sounds amazing. Yeah, she brought it. We had like a GGB, like Halloween thing at my old house.
00:42:25
Speaker
And everybody came over and she brought, like everybody brought something that was like spooky. So she did black candy apples. I love that. Oh my gosh. That sounds really cool. Yeah. I have a friend here that makes them and I can't wait for her to start baking again because they're so good.
00:42:43
Speaker
Um, but you gotta have them with green apples or two. Like you can't have them with any other apple except for a crisp green apple. Yeah. The only way it works. And see, I'm a weird with green apples. I like them with a little sprinkle of salt. I don't like that. I don't like like green apples with like peanut butter or caramel or anything like that. Like I either want to plain or just a little sprinkle of salt on it. So good. Now I tried it with salt. I'll have to try that, but I love green apples. So yeah.
00:43:11
Speaker
I will eat them anyway they come. So I'm sure I'll be down with the salt too. Um, another Halloween superstition is mischief night. So mischief night is basically a night where teenagers go about terrorizing their neighborhoods with pranks.
00:43:28
Speaker
And today we see this with like egging, toilet papering houses or smashing pumpkins. But historically, yeah, so rude. So fucking rude. Historically, we would see people, I think the kids switching shop signs or
00:43:45
Speaker
Wrapping people inside their houses, which, what the hell? Overturning water tubs and removing the gates off of private residences. So when does this occur? Usually in the US, this typically happens the night before Halloween or sometimes on Halloween itself. It reminds me of the Freaks and Geeks episode, the Halloween episode. I love that episode.
00:44:11
Speaker
In England, it's seen either the night before Mayday. So not even near Halloween or often the night before Guy Fox's night, which if you're not in England or know about this, that's November 4th. So usually November 3rd is whenever you would see mischief night in the UK.
00:44:30
Speaker
And it has its ties to Halloween though, because during the great depression, the vandalism and pranks on the shift night kind of started getting out of hand. So many of the homeowners started handing out treats again to the older youth or teens that were participating in the shift night to try and get them to stop being so aggressive. Please stop. Here's some candy. Don't tell everyone else again. Yeah.
00:44:57
Speaker
Stop switching my shop signs. I don't want to be stuck inside. Also, I just imagine like the next day, someone's like, oh, I need to go down to the old country store. And then they walk over to where it was. And they're like, this is the tool shed now. Right? Like what? What happened to the old country store? Yeah, it's gone. Weird.
Post-Halloween Traditions and Superstitions
00:45:19
Speaker
Candy corn is another thing that like, it comes up on a lot of superstition lists. Even though all the information about it isn't superstitious, it's more just that it's like a Halloween staple. So candy corn was invented in the late 1880s. And it started being mass produced in the 1900s. And it was like a very time consuming process. So basically each
00:45:42
Speaker
syrup was made individually at a time and it all had to be hand poured so it was like this whole very tedious process to make it and the candy of course was meant to look like a corn kernel with the colors of autumn and it quickly became a halloween staple and it continues to be like sold in during halloween and just the fall in general
00:46:05
Speaker
I am one of those people that believe that the only place candy corn belongs is in the trash. Literally. I hate candy corn. Me too. It's disgusting. My brother absolutely loves it. And he also loves circus peanuts, which are disgusting too. Those are so nasty. I'm like, what are you, 90? First of all, circus peanuts? Yes, he is. There has to be. There's no other excuse. Ugh. Well, and now it's like, have you seen the Thanksgiving flavored ones?
00:46:30
Speaker
Because fucking gross, I don't want turkey and gravy flavored candy. No, thank you. Gross. That is disgusting. I will never eat a candy corn willingly. Um, they are so nasty and that's why they're superstitious is because they're gross. They're just a little stitches, not superstitious. They're terrifying. They're so gross that it's terrifying. They honestly, like it's so.
00:47:00
Speaker
like sweet that they hurt my teeth. Yeah, it is so bad. It's so bad. Like in considering how time intensive it was, right? And it tastes like shit. I think that like every year people buy them. Yeah. I will say I have seen people that they don't eat them, but they use them in like
00:47:22
Speaker
decor, like they'll fill jars with them so that it looks pretty for like fall and Halloween. And I'm like, you spend money on this. Exactly. Like would you have to throw in the trash? Literally. Cause no one's gonna eat that shit. No, no. Unless you're my brother. That is really gross. Yeah. So while it wasn't like a superstition, it is a Halloween staple. So yeah.
00:47:51
Speaker
whether it be a gross one or not, but. Speaking of things to eat. So have you ever heard of this one before that not to eat blackberries after Halloween? No, but I eat blackberries all year long. So I never heard of this. And I even asked Mike too, cause he grew up Catholic and he's like, yeah, I don't know. I've never heard of this, but so, um,
00:48:15
Speaker
basically there's a lot of lore behind it and in Ireland the an Irish ghost or like an Irish ghost is Pooka. So it's said to like this ghost is said to have defiled the blackberries and Pooka is a shape-shifting spirit or a fairy or ghost depending on which lawyer you're reading and it often takes the form of a black horse and resembles a mixture between a mule a
00:48:44
Speaker
Bullock or a black pig. Um, yeah. So it's an ugly little creature. And the legend here is that it crawls over the blackberries and covers them with an invisible slime. Disgusting. Gross. So I think there's a Hulu horror movie called Pooka.
00:49:03
Speaker
Oh, I wonder if it was actually real. No, it wasn't. We watched it and it was really good. Like it has one of those endings where you're like, what the fuck? Yeah. But yeah, it's not about this. And then when you said it was like, that's what. It's like Irish for ghost or something. For ghost, yeah. He's like in the movie, it's almost like Furby.
00:49:29
Speaker
It's like a bear thing. It's weird. That is weird. Yeah. So, um, this also kind of this superstition relates back to Michaelness, which is falls on. Normally the 29th of September, and it's known as the feast of St. Michael and all angels. And on this day, the devil takes possession of the berries. And if you eat them, then either you will have bad luck or you will instantly die. Um, so.
00:49:58
Speaker
Not sure what, like it's a far reach between bad luck or instantly dying. So, I mean, I guess why would you take the.
00:50:07
Speaker
Why would you take the chance? But, so you might be wondering, how does he possess the fruit? Many different ways. Depending on which, which law are you reading? I will say really quick, this is interesting because, uh, Bella Donna berries are considered to be the devil's fruit, like the devil's berry, like one of its nicknames is the devil's berries. Same thing that he's like possesses the berry.
00:50:33
Speaker
Oh, so. But I didn't read how, so can't wait to learn this. It is a lot. So he could either put his paw on them, step on them, this one's my favorite, passes his cloven hoof over them, just like gently like
00:50:55
Speaker
or by dragging his tail over them. But some sources say that even just looking at them will do it. Or if he spits on them or pees on them, that this is how it happens. So, you know, who knows who like the passing the cloven hoof over them. Yeah, I just imagine I'm like stroking them with this little cloven hoof.
00:51:20
Speaker
You guys cannot see our hand motions, but they're great. But in many of the lore behind the superstition, the date changes. So one account states that you should only eat them until the end of August and not after. And in England- I'm screwed.
00:51:41
Speaker
Yeah, basically. I've already had them in September, so. Yeah, and I've had them to my children. Thankfully, they're still here and we haven't had any bad luck, but I'm in the north on wood right now, just in case. And Sussex and Hertfordshire.
00:51:56
Speaker
I'm sure that's probably Hertfordshire. I don't know. Hertfordshire. The devil will come on the 10th of October to possess the berries. And then in some areas of Hertfordshire, like the village of Ross,
00:52:13
Speaker
They just didn't like to have fun in this village, I'm assuming, because basically they believed that the devil owned blackberries and the whole village rejected them as a source of food. So nobody would eat blackberries in this village. Well, then count me as a center, right? Yeah. So in Worcestershire and Norfolk, though, the devil doesn't come until the 11th. He's a busy man going all over the country. It's like Santa, but he has over a month. Yeah.
00:52:44
Speaker
So this ties back into Mickelmas as historically Mickelmas was on the 10th of October. So depending on where you lived in England, the devil comes on a different day to possess the fruit. Or if you lived in the village of Ross, he just always possesses the fruit. So is it that he couldn't come on Mickelmas because it was St. Michael's Day?
00:53:06
Speaker
I guess so. I don't know. It is weird. Like he always comes after it. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, wait a second. I can't come yet. I have to come after. Wait, wait, wait. In this town, they're celebrating it today. I got to come tomorrow. Right? Yeah. It's like the devil is taking time from torturing souls to go poison berries. Yeah. Like, I guess I'm going to go on this little pilgrimage to poison all the berries so nobody can eat them. I cannot.
00:53:36
Speaker
And then it's like, it makes me wonder too, if like, because there's so many different ways he can possess the fruit, if like you only get bad luck, if you pass this, his cloven hoof over it, but if you tease on it, then you're going to die. Like, how do you, cause now you got his pee on the berry. Yeah. So where did this come from? Along with a lot of folklore, there's actually some like, I mean, not truth, but there is a little bit of like truth.
00:54:04
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like Harry Styles. It's a movie and it feels like a movie. It's a truth. Yeah. And it feels like a truth. It feels like a truth. There is some truth backing this. And it could just be something as simple as there's a lot of different subspecies of types of berries. And the later developing berries have more
00:54:33
Speaker
of a bitter or nastier taste to them than some of the ones that develop a little bit earlier because they've had time to sit on the vine and ripen. So it also could relate back to like the flowering pattern of the berries. So they all begin like all berries, they'll grow and flower near the tip of the plant.
00:54:51
Speaker
burst and then move gradually backwards to like the roots. So the earliest picked berries would be towards the end of the plant. And usually the berries picked closer to the stem will have ripened a lot later and have a shorter amount of time ripening because the days are shorter and this makes the fruit better and harder and smaller. Not as sweet.
00:55:15
Speaker
Yeah. And so you wouldn't want to eat it. And around this time, especially in England, you'll see a lot of the first frosts of the year and it can make the fruit mushy or like subject to mold. So while there's a lot of folklore surrounding the superstition, it is a good superstition to have. If you are somewhere where you're picking your fruit that is growing, like naturally around you, because I mean,
00:55:42
Speaker
When autumn comes, it's colder, the days grow shorter, the berries are just not that good. So just buy them at the store. Not because of the devil, but because of nature. It's just not good anymore. It tastes kind of gross. And then just some other, like, these are more one-offs that didn't have a whole lot of information. Some of them do, but for the most part, they're pretty, just a one-off like superstition or folklore.
00:56:09
Speaker
It's believed that looking at your shadow on Halloween night in the moonlight can cause like sudden death.
00:56:15
Speaker
Yeah, and you see, you actually see this in a lot of different ones that are listed in this section. Basically it's like you're not supposed to look back. So there's like one about footsteps behind you being like the devil, like not looking at your shadow under the moonlight behind you because it could cause you to die. So I don't know like what the significance of not like looking back during this time of year is, but you do see it tied into a lot of things.
00:56:44
Speaker
Mirrors have a lot of different things on Halloween. So one belief says that if you brush your hair in a mirror on Halloween night, it will either show you your future husband behind you like over, I believe it was your left shoulder, I forgot to put which one, but basically over your shoulder, it's gonna either show you an image of your future husband or an image of a skull. And if it's a skull, that means that you're destined to die before you marry.
00:57:13
Speaker
So this um obviously all of our source materials will be in the show notes. This came from like a YouTube account that I was like researching superstition like tied to Halloween and she was like yeah I think I'm gonna try this this Halloween and I was like this again it's like I don't want to know like I'm already married so I don't have to worry about that but if I were single I would not be like let me go brush my hair and see if it's a
00:57:37
Speaker
a man or a skull? Am I going to die before I marry or am I going to get a husband?
00:57:45
Speaker
So weird that people would do these things. Many people cover their mirrors on Halloween night to prevent spirits from traveling through them since mirrors are believed to act as portals. But it's also said that if your dead loved ones visit you on Halloween, having an uncovered mirror could trap them, meaning that you needed to cover your mirrors to prevent them from becoming trapped and being basically damned to an eternity in that mirror. So that's awful.
00:58:12
Speaker
Yeah. And then it said that you should never stare into a mirror by candlelight alone on Halloween because you never know what you might see or what you might unleash from the mirror. So I don't know, like it says alone. So like, if you have someone else with you, does it do that? I don't know. Or like an animal. Like can I bring Gizmo into the room with me and have him look in the mirror as well? Is it going to unleash a demon or is it going to be fine? No one knows. No one knows.
00:58:42
Speaker
You're not supposed to slam a door on Halloween because you might injure a ghost and then cause him to want to haunt you. So don't go slamming ghosts indoors because then they're definitely going to haunt you on Halloween. This one I thought was kind of cute. Babies born on Halloween will be protected from evil spirits their whole lives and they'll be able to see and speak to spirits and converse with fairies.
00:59:07
Speaker
I love that. Right? Now I'm trying to think of anyone that I know. I'm trying to think of anyone I know with a Halloween birthday. I know a couple of people and one of my friends, like she moved to Seattle, but she, like, she knew, she knew that her house here in England was like haunted, but they lived in like one of those, of course it would be haunted houses, like the fricking thatched roof and shit.
00:59:32
Speaker
Like, of course it is, but yeah. I'm going to have to pay attention to Facebook on Halloween to see whose birthday is that day. So I can be like, do you talk to ghosts? Traveling out of town on Halloween is said to be bad luck, but if it cannot be avoided, you're supposed to have to make the trip before sunset and you should carry a piece of bread crossed with salt to protect you from evil spirits. So you just like put this bread in your pocket and apparently, well, bread crossed with salt.
01:00:02
Speaker
And apparently you're fine. Yeah. As long as you do it before the sun sets. I'll keep that in mind. I'm not going anywhere. Cause usually I'm like busy watching scary movies and handing out candy, but. Yes. Like I was saying earlier, if you hear footsteps behind you on Halloween, ignore it because it's likely an evil spirit. If you come across a ghost on Halloween night, it said that if you walk a circle around it nine times, you can banish it.
01:00:31
Speaker
So if you see someone just doing a nine circles, you know, they're just banishing a ghost. Yeah, no big deal. There's nothing wrong. They're just, just getting rid of that ghost for you. Marrying animal bones or a photo of an animal near your front door on Halloween is believed to keep ghosts out, but
01:00:52
Speaker
Pointing at a grave on Halloween night will cause your finger to rot off or cause you to be blamed for something that you didn't do. I don't like that one. So don't go pointing at graves because it's weird. Bringing bells on Halloween is said to drive away evil spirits. The same goes for walking around the perimeter of your home three times on Halloween night before sunrise. This will like do the same thing. So if you don't have bells, they would just like walk around the perimeter of the home three times and it would do the same thing.
01:01:22
Speaker
British tradition believes that nuts can be used as magic charms because the devil would gather and use nuts. And this dates back to ancient Egypt, Greece, and India. So I don't know what it is about the devil but he likes to like gather and possess foods and then that makes them like bad.
01:01:40
Speaker
So there was an old tradition where newly married couples basically would each place a nut in a burning fire on Halloween night. And if the nuts burned quietly, then they would have a peaceful, happy marriage. But if they hissed and crackled, then the marriage was said to be turbulent. So like, I wouldn't want to know. Like, here's my part. Like, I wouldn't want to know.
01:02:04
Speaker
Yeah. Well, because two, I feel like this comes back to like putting things out into the universe. So if you're doing this and then it comes back, like you put your nut in there and it starts hissing and cracking. And then you're like, great. This is going to be a turbulent marriage. And then that's already in your mind. So you're going to cause it to be a turbulent marriage. Exactly. And what if the nut was just dry? Yeah. Well, if it was just a bad nut, you wouldn't know. And now look what you're doing.
01:02:34
Speaker
Fire obviously has a lot of things surrounding it. So basically, open flames light the way for souls to the afterlife. So if the flame goes out suddenly on Halloween night, it means that there's an evil spirit nearby. But if the flame suddenly turns blue, it means that there's a good spirit nearby and that it may be watching over you or protecting you.
01:02:57
Speaker
Lighting an orange candle and letting it burn through Halloween night is said to bring you good fortune for the upcoming year, but using this candle at any other time during the year is thought to bring you bad luck. This candle also used to be lit using a torch that was lit from sow and celebration bonfires.
01:03:17
Speaker
Staring into a candle's flame for a long period of time between 11 PM and 1 AM on Halloween night is said to give you a glimpse into your future. Making a list of your wishes and wants and then folding it. This was kind of funny because it was like multiples, right? So it was like, fold it either three times, six times, or nine times. Like you pick however many folds you want to do of three, six, or nine.
01:03:41
Speaker
And then burning that within the candle flame is thought to bring those wishes into fruition before the next Halloween. And then some beliefs state that if you let a fire burn out naturally on Halloween night, that you're inviting bad luck to enter your home. The belief is that you need to be the one to extinguish the flame to stave off the bad luck. So you actually like blowing the candle out is blowing the bad luck away from you, but if you let like
01:04:08
Speaker
the candle burn down all the way and go out on its own, then you're letting the bad luck come in. Good to know. Right? Yeah, I like that. Because there's so many like, especially like with candle magic and stuff, it's like, let your candle burn all the way out, but don't do it on Halloween night. No, not on Halloween. The only night that you can't do that. Yeah. The rest of the time, it's fine. Yeah. I like that. That was a good episode. I love it.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
01:04:36
Speaker
I know. I love stuff like this. That's it for this episode of Get In Loser, We're Doing Witchcraft. You can find our source material for this episode linked in the show notes. If you love this episode, we would be forever thankful if you leave us a five-star review on wherever you listen to our podcasts. If you really love this show and want more Get In Loser content, check out our Supercast link provided in the show notes or search the Supercast website for Get In Loser, We're Doing Witchcraft.
01:05:05
Speaker
There you can purchase a membership to our podcast and obtain exclusives, like getting episodes early, shuttles from the show, access to our Ask Me Anything forum, our monthly newsletter, a promo code for merchandise, and more. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Get In Witches, or email us at we'redoingwitchcraft at gmail.com. Check us out next week, where we will dive into some spooky folklore. Until then, blessed be witches.