Halloween by Robert Burns (1786)
On Halloween, when fairies are believed to dance and roam by Cassilis Downans, Colean, and the banks of Doon, merry country people gather to test charms that promise knowledge of love, marriage, and fortune. Lads and lasses pull kail-stocks with their eyes shut, judging future spouses by the roots’ size, shape, earth, and taste, then place the stems above the door to learn names from those who enter. Poor Will finds only a crooked, sow-tail-like runt. The young women pull corn-stalks, while Rab slips behind the thorn and catches Nelly in the fause-house, alarming the others and threatening the top-pickle of her stalk. Nuts are set in the fire as tokens of courting pairs: some burn quietly together, while others leap apart. Jean secretly names a nut for Jock and one for herself; though they blaze together at first, Jock’s nut jumps up the chimney, saddening her. Willie’s nut burns with Mallie’s, despite Mary’s displeasure, and Mallie’s leaping nut burns her foot. Nell’s and Rob’s nuts burn lovingly together, and Rob steals a kiss from Nell while they watch. Merran, thinking of Andrew Bell, secretly goes to the kiln with blue yarn and winds it until something holds the thread. Terrified, she does not wait to ask whether the unseen holder is the deil, a bauk-en’, or Andrew Bell. Wee Jenny asks her graunie to accompany her while she eats an apple before a glass to see her future mate, but her graunie angrily warns that such fortune-seeking can bring fright and delirium. She recalls a Halloween when a man sowed hemp-seed and was badly frightened. Jamie Fleck boasts that sowing hemp-seed is nonsense and accepts the challenge. He goes among the stacks with a graip as a harrow, repeating the charm that calls his future lass to draw after him. Though frightened, he whistles to keep up his courage, until a squeak, groan, and grunt make him look back and tumble down. He cries murder and claims to have seen Hilchin Jean or Merran Humphie, but the supposed apparition proves to be a grumphie. Meg hopes to try the barn charm and see Tam Kipples, bribing the herd to watch while she goes. She cautiously enters, calls on Sawnie, and is instantly terrified by a rat rattling up the wall. She flees through the midden-hole, praying fervently. Will is urged to fathom a stack three times to discover a bride, but mistakes a twisted old moss-oak for a dreadful carlin and injures his hands striking it. Widow Leezie goes alone to dip her left sleeve where three lairds’ lands meet at a burn, intending to dry it by the fire and await a vision. By the moonlit stream, something that may be the deil or an outler quey rises and bellows; she leaps in terror, misses her footing, and plunges into the water. At the hearth, three luggies containing clean water, foul water, and emptiness are repeatedly rearranged for another marriage charm. Uncle John, long desirous of wedlock, receives the toom dish three times and angrily throws the dishes on the fire. The company continue with songs, friendly cracks, strange tales, and jokes, then eat buttered sowens and share a social glass before departing in high spirits.
By Robert Burns · First published 1786 · Genre: Narrative Poetry, Scottish Vernacular Poetry, Folklore Poetry · 4,153 words
First lines
Is thought to be a night when witches, devils, and other mischief-making beings are abroad on their baneful midnight errands; particularly those aerial people, the fairies, are said on that night to hold a grand anniversary,. -R. B.
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Genres
- Narrative Poetry — The work tells a sequential story of a Halloween gathering, following villagers through games, courtship rituals, divination spells, comic scares, and a communal supper.
- Scottish Vernacular Poetry — Burns writes predominantly in Scots dialect, using regional vocabulary, idioms, rhythms, and speech to portray rural Ayrshire life.
- Folklore Poetry — The poem centers on traditional Scottish Halloween customs, charms, superstitions, and marriage-divination practices, extensively explained in authorial notes.
- Pastoral Poetry — Its setting among farms, barns, fields, streams, village households, and rural laboring people idealizes and vividly observes communal country life.
Tags
Scottish folk customs · Halloween traditions · rural Scotland · eighteenth-century Scotland · Scottish dialect poetry · narrative poem · vernacular verse · peasant community · courtship · marriage divination · fortune-telling · folk magic
What this Textopian page supports
Halloween is listed on Textopian as a poem by Robert Burns, dated 1786 CE.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Robert Burns
- Date: 1786 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Narrative Poetry, Scottish Vernacular Poetry, Folklore Poetry, Pastoral Poetry, Comic Poetry
- Length: 4,153 words
- Structure: 1 section, 48 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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- Work identity for Halloween by Robert Burns
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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