For every Sunday leading up to Allantide I'm going to make every effort in the world to post a blog entry detailing some specific part of Cornish folk customs around the event! Today is the function of Allan Apples in divination, along with other fun divination methods!
An Allan Apple is any highly shined, big red apple. There's no requirements beyond that! They're easy to get hold of and their use is central to Allantide! Traditionally there were Allan Apple markets where people could go and buy their apples for the festival.
Before the discussions of apples and divination it's important to confirm what Allantide is!
Allantide, also translated to Kalan Gwav (first day of winter), Nos Kalan Gwav (first eve of winter) or Dy' Halan Gwav (day of the first day of winter), is analogous to Hallowe'en or Hollantide of England and Cymru, or Samhain from Éire. As a result it's in-keeping with the themes of death, open gateways, divination and the dark of winter. More controversially (only because it divests the day and night of it's Christian attachments) it is also a festival of magic and charms. It's a particularly rich time for the appearance of ghosts, spirits and the Pobel Vean. Along with most Cornish festivals, fire and beacons are also very important.
Back to the apples - how to they factor into Allantide aside from the name? Divination...of course! The most important function of an Allan Apple was fortelling the users true love. They were generally given as gifts, so was a fairly easy affair. Older girls and young women would simply tuck the apple under the pillow during the night and sleep on it - that was enough to induce dreams of their future lover. Another more expansive use was to tell general fortune for the rest of winter, and even young children involved themselves in that.
Gifts of Allan Apples also brought luck to the receiver even if their divinatory use wasn't fulfilled!
Along with the apples, young hopefuls would throw molten lead or other metals into cold water and divine their future lovers occupation from the shapes they took - a fish would be a fisherfolk, for example. There was also the tradition of couples throwing walnuts onto an open fire to ensure their fidelity to each other throughout the coming year.
In more modern times the gifting and use of all of these divination methods fell out of favour, largely in part to increased Christianisation of Cornwall. It's starting to resurface more and more with the resurgence of folk witches and folk traditions, with apples being used as more than just divination - some offer them as gifts to ancestors passed on or as an offering to Ankow or the newly empowered Bucca Dhu.
A song has been written by a delightful Cornishwoman called Brenda Wootten and it can be found here:
Next Sunday's post will be about magic and superstition in Cornwall!
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