Welcome to the second installment of my series on exploring Halloween history through vintage postcards!
Today we’ve got one that I’m guessing will be baffling to most…
This 1909 card shows a giant pumpkin man doing…uh…what, exactly? Petting a brain?
Nope - he’s pulling a head of cabbage from his garden on Halloween night. Why? Because he’s participating in an old fortune-telling game in which a head of cabbage was pulled on Halloween night and the stalk was examined to reveal clues about one’s future spouse. You can probably guess what things like a dirty stalk or a straight stalk foretold. The stalk was also cut and tasted in hopes of a sweet flavor.
Note also that the pumpkin man is dressed in plaid; this is a little hat-tip to the fact that this game was mainly practiced by the Scottish, and is described in the classic poem “Hallowe’en,” written by Robert Burns in 1785:
Then, first and foremost, through the kail1,
Their stocks maun a’ be sought ance;
They steek their een, and graip and wale,
For muckle anes and straught anes.
Poor hav’rel Will fell aff the drift,
And wander’d through the bow-kail,
And pou’t, for want o’ better shift,
A runt was like a sow-tail,
Sae bow’t that night.
Then, staught or crooked, yird or nane,
They roar and cry a’ throu’ther;
The very wee things, todlin’, rin,
Wi’ stocks out owre their shouther;
And gif the custoc’s sweet or sour.
Wi’ joctelegs2 they taste them;
Syne cozily, aboon the door,
Wi cannie care, they’ve placed them
To lie that night.
Yeah, I know - Burns’s Scottish is not easily parsed by modern American brains, but I think you get the general idea of how much fun this probably was.
Weird tidbit about my copy of this card: even though the card is dated 1909, my copy was mailed in 1921! I’d love to know whether someone bought this in 1909 and just waited twelve years to send it, if this just sat unbought in some dusty drugstore rack for twelve years, or if this was card was popular enough to be produced for twelve years. It’s one more Halloween mystery!
One last note about this card: I chose this one in part because of the bat that’s also prominently featured on it. Why? Because last week I recorded an episode of the podcast Framed by Fables about bats, and I had a great time! Can’t wait for that one to go live so you all can laugh along with us on the show.
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