Halloween is on the horizon.And so it this time of year my mind always drifts to not only what kind of hoe I should be this year, but various party games I am likely to be subjected to. One of the most popular is bobbing for apples. It all started with the Celtic festival of Samhain where the people would worship various divine spirits, in particular the female deities of love and fertility. When the Romans took over, they adopted the festival and combined it with their own celebration of the festival of the Goddess Pomona.Apples were an integral part of these celebrations. They were associated with the feminine power of these goddesses and the pentagram that is visible when apples are cut in half gives them immense power. All this girlhood gives apple bobbing a prognostic dimension. Perhaps this is the reason the practice has been passed down through the ages.Though apple bobbing has changed some, it still retains the divine essentials:That proves one thing.No one can bob better
A Cottage by the Sea. 3 - 'The Girlhood of Anno Domini'Mr. Parsons was a grey-bearded dignified, but vague-looking ex-teacher. Nobody really knew him well. This was less than ten years after the war, and it was rumoured that he was ‘shell-shocked‘. We gathered that that meant mad - or 'screwy' as we would have said then.He lived alone in a bungalow at the southern end of the village. Mr. Parsons was a driver of sorts; the extensive greens that ran the length of Allonby - and beyond - provided him with a road-free route into the centre. His pre-war Austin bounced over the springy rough grass from his home all the way to the square, and the handful of shops. He had ‘L’ plates on the whole time; and so, for his whole life, all his shopping and any social life he had, were carried out without the need for him to suffer the trauma of a driving-test. One day, we met him as he was sitting in the shelter, a strange (usually deserted) open-sided building in the middle of the green.
A Cottage by the Sea. 3 - 'The Girlhood of Anno Domini' Mr. Parsons was a grey-bearded dignified, but vague-looking ex-teacher. Nobody really knew him well. This was less than ten years after the war, and it was rumoured that he was ‘shell-shocked‘. We gathered that that meant mad - or 'screwy' as we would have said then. He lived alone in a bungalow at the southern end of the village. Mr. Parsons was a driver of sorts; the extensive greens that ran the length of Allonby - and beyond - provided him with a road-free route into the centre. His pre-war Austin bounced over the springy rough grass from his home all the way to the square, and the handful of shops. He had ‘L’ plates on the whole time; and so, for his whole life, all his shopping and any social life he had, were carried out without the need for him to suffer the trauma of a driving-test. One day, we met him as he was sitting in the shelter, a strange (usually deserted) open-sided building in the middle of the green
