Also called Snap-Apple Night, apple bobbing, ducking for apples, duck-apple night, Allan apple
The Halloween apple games of Ireland, Scotland and England: biting at an apple hung on a string, or ducking for apples in a tub of water, with the winner promised luck or an early marriage. Daniel Maclise painted the scene at a Blarney party in 1832.
TraditionIrish and British Halloween games
RegionIreland, Scotland, northern England
Era18th century to present
Moon◐ Any moon
DayVenus
ElementWater
Difficulty●○○ Simple
TimeAn hour of play
Tonight's moon is read when the page loads.
The working
Tie each apple by its stalk to a length of string and hang them from a doorframe or beam at mouth height.
Players keep their hands behind their backs and try to bite the swinging apple. The first to take a bite is said to be first to marry, or to have luck in the year ahead.
For ducking, float apples in a tub of water. Each player kneels, hands behind back, and tries to lift an apple out with their teeth.
In the old divination form, mark or name each apple for a sweetheart before it goes in; the one you catch is the one fate gives you.
Keep the apple you won. Some Irish families placed it under the pillow to dream of a future spouse.
Peel it in one long strip afterward and throw the peel over your shoulder to read an initial, a game often played the same night.
Take care: Supervise children at the water tub, use clean water and a fresh tub for each group, and let anyone with braces or loose teeth skip the biting.
Versions across time and place
i
Maclise's Blarney party
County Cork, Ireland · 1832 party, painted 1833
Daniel Maclise, visiting home to Cork in autumn 1832, was invited by the parish priest Fr Mat Horgan to a Halloween party in Blarney. His painting Snap-Apple Night, shown at the Royal Academy in 1833, packs the room with games: a man biting at a hung apple, boys ducking in a tub, a couple burning nuts on the grate, and girls pouring molten lead into water.
Recorded in: Blarney & District Historical Society, 'The Painter, The Priest and Snap Apple Night'
ii
Allan apples in Cornwall
Cornwall, England · 19th century to present
On Allantide, Cornwall's Halloween, large polished Allan apples were sold at St Just market and given to family members. Girls slept with them under the pillow to dream of the man they would marry.
Recorded in: Allantide (Wikipedia)
iii
Burns's Halloween
Ayrshire, Scotland · 1785
Burns's long poem catalogues Scottish Halloween divinations: pulling kale stalks blindfolded, burning nuts in pairs, eating an apple before a mirror to glimpse a future partner, and the three dishes of clean water, dirty water and nothing.
Recorded in: Robert Burns, 'Halloween' (1785)
History
Apples and nuts were the fruits of the season at the end of October, and in Ireland and Britain they gave Halloween several of its folk names: Snap-Apple Night, Nutcrack Night and Duck-Apple Night. Games with them were half play, half fortune telling, especially about love and marriage. Robert Burns's poem Halloween of 1785 already treats these rites as long-standing country custom.
Daniel Maclise's painting Snap-Apple Night grew from a party he attended in Blarney in 1832 at the invitation of Fr Mat Horgan. It was exhibited in London in 1833, engraved by James Scott in 1845, and copied by Currier and Ives in New York in 1853, which helped carry the image of an Irish Halloween to America. Apple bobbing is now a party game, but its roots are in this marriage divination.
