A Dublin girl divining for her future husband, according to one of the practices outlined in ‘A View of Society and Manners in the North of Ireland’, John Gamble, 1812.
Which sez:
“It is an article of popular belief in Ireland… that if certain ceremonies are performed at midnight on All-Hallows Eve, the person who performs them will see the figure of their future wife or husband…Two girls went out at the dark of the moon, and washed their shifts in running water, in the devil’s name. They hung them before the fire in the room which they lay, keeping awake and silent, as the charm requires. Towards morning, two apparitions came in, and turned them. The one was that of a man with a rope around his neck, the other was that of a man in a coffin. Shortly afterwards, the two girls were married to men bearing the forms in question. One of them was hanged for horse-stealing, and the other died the day after his marriage.”
Alternatively, try Psychics Live.
The pic above was among those taken by the Irish Folklore Commission in the 1950s and 60s and housed in the Folklore Photograph Collection, UCD.
Thanks Sibling of Daedalus
