St Agnes Eve

It is the Eve of St Agnes. There are many traditions associated with both this night and tomorrow night, all intended to bring dreams of the future husband. Here are some of them.

• Walking thrice backwards around a churchyard in silence at midnight, scattering hemp seed over the left shoulder.
• Boiling an egg, removing the yolk and filling the center with salt and then eating the whole, shell included!
• Sticking 9 pins into a red onion, taking it backwares to the bedroom and sleeping with it under the pillow.

But the most often repeated one is that of making a Dumb Cake. Here are the instructions:

Three, five or seven maidens should gather together on St Agnes Eve and make a cake from flour, salt, eggs and water. While they are mixing and baking the cake all the girls should stand on something different and which they have never stood on before. Each girl should take a hand in adding each of the ingredients and each girl should turn the cake once. When the cake is baked they should eat it all between them. Then, walking backwards, they should all retire to bed where they will dream of their future husbands. The whole process from start to finish should take place in complete silence and should be completed just before midnight.

It is interesting that all these methods include the elements of silence, walking backward, and retiring to bed at midnight.

Source: The Real Witches' Year