There are several games traditionally associated with Halloween parties. The most common is dunking or bobbing for apples, in which apples float in a tub or a large basin of water; the participants must use their teeth to remove an apple from the basin. A variant of dunking involves kneeling on a chair, holding a fork between the teeth and trying to drop the fork into an apple. Another common game involves hanging up treacle or syrup-coated scones by strings; these must be eaten without using hands while they remain attached to the string, an activity which inevitably leads to a very sticky face.
If the nuts curled together when they warmed up then this was deemed to be a good omen, but if they jumped apart then it was time to look for another sweetheart. Islanders from Lewis traditionally poured ale into the sea in libation to a marine God called âSeonaidhâ or âShoneyâon Celtic Samhain or Halloween, so that he would send seaweed to the shore to fertilise the fields for the coming year. Seonadh in Scottish Gaelic means, sorcery, augury, or Druidism, and it is possible that the custom of Shonaidh is the direct link to an ancient form of Celtic god worship that has been Christianised. As "Seonaidh", which is Gaelic "Johnny", it may also be a reference to one of St John, and an invocation of him.
