Men Free Blog

An excellent fortuneteller part game for Halloween, it uses candles for divination. ‘Blowing out candles’ is a game that has to be played by an individual at a time and any number of guests can be kept entertained as they wait for their turn to know about their future and can eavesdrop on what others have in store for the next year. All you need is a silk cloth blindfold, a table, and three candles in pink, green and orange colors. A matchbox or more full of matches will also be needed to light the candles for all the guests interested in knowing their fate. Light three candles in a row on the table. Keep the candles about a foot apart from each other.

The guests are invited one by one to know their future. They are blindfolded and then, they are turned around and moved around the room until they lose the sense of direction and where a particular candle on the table is. Then bring them near the table and the player has to blow one of the candles. If the guest blows out pink candle, it means there is romance for him or her in the coming year. Green candle is for green currency notes that will be raining in for the guest. Blowing orange candle out means that they are about to go on a trip. You may add more colored candles to the row, each having their own meaning. Candles can be kept inside carved pumpkins so it looks more Halloween-like. It will also make blowing out candles difficult, so make sure that the flame is near the hole for the mouth, nose or one of the eyes.

There is a proverb which states that ‘You may count the number of seeds in an apple but it is not easy to count the number of apples that come out from a seed.’ This apple seed test is a popular and easy fortune game that keeps girls and women amused as they prepare delicacies for the Halloween party. To predict the fortune, dice an apple into half and cut out its core. Count the seeds. The number of seeds are said to indicate the future for the coming year or what is destined to happen within a year. Here are the predictions:
One seed foretells loneliness of the person,
Two seeds foretell early marriage,
Three seeds foretell legacy,
Four seeds foretell great wealth,
Five seeds predict a sea voyage,
Six seeds predict great fame as an orator or singer, and
Seven seeds indicate possession of the most desired gift.
It is a popular game among young unmarried girls on Halloween.

Apple Peel is an old practice among young girls and women on Halloween to know the initials of their lover or future spouse. It also keeps them interested in their work while preparing Halloween feast as they play along and look for their fortunes and share their secret desires or chuckles. It is an easy game and an interesting one to play and get your guests to share some of your work. Give each of the guests an apple and a paring knife. The guests have to work diligently and peel the apple from top to bottom in a continuous circle.

The guests have to make sure that peel does not break in between for the charm to work. Once they have an entire apple peel, which now looks like a spiral, they can start tossing it for predictions. All the guests have to do is to throw the peel over their shoulder while stating that ‘Peel, peel, please reveal, the initial letter, of my true love.’ Do not look back, until it falls on the floor. It is said that if done in the right manner, the peel will fall in the shape of an alphabet, which is supposed to be the initial letter of the true lover of the individual. This game is more popular among teenagers and boys and girls of marriageable age.

Carved pumpkins begin to decay very quickly and do not last a day or two after Halloween. These dying, rotting corpses of our very own Jack-o-lanterns that have a foul smell and attract flies need to be discarded soon. But it seems so cruel to just let our hard-worked faces be thrown into trash without giving them a dignified burial. Many of us hold Jack-o-lantern parties and pumpkin-carving contests on Halloween and to throw away all the fun moments we share with them seems difficult. So, we suggest you to extend the Halloween season for one more day and start a new family tradition of giving a proper burial to Jack O’ Lanterns after Halloween night.

It is especially fun for family gatherings and keeps the children interested for one more day as they dig a grave for burying the pumpkins. This tradition is certain to please the Great Pumpkin. You may even write a special eulogy for these pumpkins. The other fun ideas for pumpkin burial may include putting other Halloween trivia in for the pumpkins to enjoy Halloween in the other world too just like the pharaohs of the Egypt, who used to be buried with all the treasure and the best things to be used by them in the other world. Halloween confetti, cobwebs and even some candies can join the pumpkins in their graves as a gift for the departed. May your Jack-o-lanterns rest in peace.

In some regions of Scotland and Ireland, Halloween celebrations start by kindling fire on top of hills and on plains by young people, which is known as ‘Halloween Bleeze’, as a part of the holiday ritual. In the past, a circular trench to symbolize sun surrounded these sacred bonfires. Then, youths kindle faggot’ made up of heath, broom and dressings of flax tied to the end of a pole from this bonfire and carry on the shoulders to the village to rekindle old hearths with new ceremonial fire. If the faggot gets burnt out in the way, a second one is ties to the pole, before the fire dies. Thus, several blazing faggots being carried through the villages look quite beautiful.

The natives of Hebrides used to pour ale into sea for a marine God called Shony on Celtic Samhain or Halloween, so that he sends seaweed to the shore, which is a good fertilizer. The sacred bonfires of Samhain are similar to Solar fire festivals of Solstices and Equinoxes, except that it was timed with the lunar calendar and were called ‘Samhanagan’. Each household used to compete each other to have the ‘Biggest one. Later these traditions moved on to Nwe Year Celebrations but still a traditional Scottish Halloween song called ‘Hogmanay’ mentions these rituals. Fire rituals of Halloween also include the Nutcracker ritual, predominant in the north of England.

One of the Halloween rituals related to these fire rituals indicate that when the fire dies down, its ashes are used to form a circle and one stone for each member of the household is kept inside this circle near the circumference. If any stone is displaced or seems broken by next morning, then the person to whom that stone belongs is believed to die within a year. A similar rite in north Wales includes a great bonfire called ‘Coel Coeth’ being built for each family on Halloween. Later, the members of the household throw a white stone in the ashes marked in their name. Next morning, all the stones are searched for and if any stone is missing, then the person who threw that stone, is believed to die before next Halloween.

An old custom, which was meant to be fun but was dangerous, involved hanging a stick horizontally from the ceiling using string at Halloween. On one end an apple was hung from the stick, while on the other end, a lighted candle was hung from the stick. The stick was twirled rapidly and then left to unwind the string on its own while the guests used to leap up and bite the apple, while their hands were bound behind their backs. Most of the time, while they were jumping, the candle used to scorch their faces or black soot stuck on their face and it was thought to be hilarious. Apple bobbing is an old Halloween sport too where people duck inside the tub to catch the apple as it floats away from them. While some know how to suck up the apple deftly, others force it to the bottom by plunging in. People also display their marksmanship skills by taking turns drop a fork from the height into the tub and try to make it stick in the apple.

In the old Greek and Celtic mythology, apples are often associated with sex and pagan religions. The Three Mothers of the World were said to be connected with apple tress while the apple tree was sacred to the Goddess in Romanian folklore. In Christianity, apples are well portrayed as the symbol of sex in the Garden of Eden legend. It is believed that eating an apple before a looking glass at midnight on Halloween will allow a young girl to see their future husband in the reflection peeping over her shoulder. The spell says that the girl should cut the apple into two pieces in such a way that the ‘seed part’ resembles a pentangle. She should then throw one of the pieces over her left shoulder for her lover and should walk backwards towards the mirror without looking back while she eats the rest of the apple with one hand and comb her hair with the other hand before the mirror. Then she should look back to see the face of her future spouse.

The youths of agrarian societies of Scotland and Ireland celebrated ‘All Hallow’s Eve’, the forerunner of Halloween, as the occasion to indulge into foretelling of their marital prospects using crops. Halloween basically originated in Scotland and Ireland as All Hallow’s Eve. With time, these casual games turned into customary Halloween rituals. Scottish youths used to go out in the night of Halloween blindfolded. They would pluck the first colewort (a type of cabbage) that comes their way along with the roots. The length of the stalk was used to determine the height of the future spouse and the amount of earth clinging to the roots was thought to be the indicative of the wealth and prosperity of the couple.

Some youths would even hang the stalks over the door and would try to guess the names of their future spouse from the first names of the people who enter or leave the door. Scottish women also used to place two nuts in the fireplace. They named the nuts after themselves and their boyfriends. This Nut Cracker ritual was believed to indicate the faithfulness and loyalty of the couple towards each other. The nut that jumped or cracked was thought to be indicative of unfaithfulness of the person after whom that nut was named. If both the nuts burned silently and simultaneously, the couple was said to be faithful towards each other and was indicative of their marriage.

Jack-o’lanterns have their origin in a legend of Ireland. There was an old man called Jack who had never done a good thing in life. He would just drink and play pranks upon people. Thus he was a favored servant of Satan. However, once when Satan was about to win over God, Jack tricked him into defeat. After his death, he could not enter the heaven because of his evil ways. He went to Satan for help who only threw a burning coal on him. The coal landed into the half-eaten pear (another version cites turnip) of Jack and thus it became the first lantern of Jack or Jack-o’lantern. In United States, pumpkins replaced pears/turnips as they were bigger and easier to hollow out and were readily available. Pumpkin carving and making Jack-o’lanterns are popular activities of Halloween.
 

Two-headed Snake

Items you will need:
Ice cream stick with wide ends,
Black tempura paint,
Gold glitter glue,
2″ piece of thin red ribbon,
Scissors,
Glue, and
4 Wiggle eyes.
Directions:

Paint the ice cream stick black.
Cut 2″ piece of ribbon into two 1″ pieces.
Cut out a tiny triangle at one end of both the pieces to make the forked tongue of your snake.
Glue the ribbons to underside of each end of the ice cream stick.
Make sure that the forked end of the ribbon-tongue is sticking out.
Using gold glitter glue, make 3-4 stripes down snake’s body.
Glue a pair of wiggle eyes onto each end of the ice cream stick.
 

Items you will need:

Ice cream stick,
Green tempura paint,
6 Brown chenille sticks (different lengths),
2 (12″ long) Brown chenille sticks,
Black marker, and
1 White Kleenex tissue.
Directions:

Paint the ice cream stick in green color.
Wrap 2 chenille sticks around the bottom of the stick for roots to stand on.
Create branches with remaining chenille sticks by wrapping them around the stick and then bending like tree branches.
Fold Kleenex at the seam.
Holding seam in your fingers, cut along the seam about 2” down from seam.
From this strip, cut into sections about 1” long each.
From these small pieces, create tiny ghosts by twisting into a ghost shape.
Using chenille branches, wrap each end of the branch around the ghosts’ necks.
With black marker, make eyes and eyes and mouth for each ghost and draw an oval hollow and few lines on bark of the tree.
 

Items you will need:

Ice cream stick,
Orange tempura paint,
6 (12″ long) orange chenille sticks,
Red glitter glue,
2 Wiggle eyes and
Tacky glue.
Directions:

Paint the ice cream stick in orange color.
Wrap chenille sticks around body to form legs.
Bend legs into position.
Glue two wiggle eyes on the head.
Fill in the gaps with red glitter glue.