CAN'T HOLD A CANDLE

A modern Halloween offers something for all age ranges: costumes and candy for the small kids; pranks and candy for the bigger ones; drinks, costumes and candy for the grownups. In the late 19th century, though, it was much less of a thing, and there wasn’t a lot to do if you weren’t trick-or-treating, supervising kids who were – or of course, handing out candy.
Unless you happened to be a single girl.
Then you might get a sight of your future husband.
Well, if you believed in the tradition, anyway.
Let’s back up a little, and remember that Halloween is also associated with a lot of serious stuff that the original Colonists didn’t like, starting with witches. And, just for the record, that it is still marked as a high holy day by people who practice some ancient religions. So while Halloween is a play night for most folks, there are people for whom it’s solemn and important.
Just taking a moment to show some respect for a few thousand years of history.
One of the things that came out of that history and got watered down into parlor games was a mild form of magic. It’s not magic in the serious sense of those who practice it, or even in the “Bewitched” nose-wrinkling sense, but more in the sense of young women dabbling in old wives’ tales. (In hopes of becoming old wives one day!)
Which brings us to the mirror and candle.
By the late 19th century, it was a big thing. Young women would go into a darkened room, maybe with a candle, maybe precisely at midnight, and look into a mirror. If you believe the legend, the face you’d see in the mirror would be that of your future spouse.
That’s putting an awful lot of faith in refraction, if you ask me!
Some versions of the tradition were even more elaborate, and incorporated other favorite fall things: in one particularly specific telling, you must stand in front of the mirror at midnight, eating an apple, and the face of your partner will appear over your shoulder.
Specific or not, it was a very fun game, and enough of a tradition that there were tons of Halloween cards riffing on the theme. Some of them were very pretty and serious…but others were funny – or even downright mean, featuring our hopeful young maidens peering into the unpleasant visage of some rich old coot.
Of course, just as the magic part of the legend points to some darker things in the origin, so does the purpose. Young women spent all that time on Halloween trying to divine who they might marry because marriage was still a woman’s main job, and her choice (hopefully choice!) of husband determined the course of her life.
So there’s a lot of serious stuff going on in the middle of all that mild magic and mystery.
That’s also why Miss Ella Shane wouldn’t be caught dead staring into a mirror at midnight on Halloween…unless of course it’s in her dressing room after a show. And, in that case, her future husband might indeed turn up. Which is a story for another day…

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