Halloween Haunts: Do People Still Bob for Apples? by Peter Sutton

When I was a child, before the commercialisation and Americanisation of Halloween, apple bobbing was always a part of the Halloween celebration. I also remember that we used to carve turnips rather than pumpkins. Ah Britain in the 70’s , truly a different country. The increasing popularity of Halloween in the Uk from the 80’s onwards was probably mostly due to Bonfire Night celebrations becoming less family and community oriented due to safety concerns.

Bobbing for apples, for those not in the know, involves filling a bucket with water, adding floating apples, tying the arms behind the back and forcing the contestant to grab the apples with their teeth. There’s a variant where the apples are hung on string rather than in a barrel. Although this is called snap-apple–leading to an alternative name for Halloween as Snap-Apple night

A halloween scene with children bobbing for apples is printed on this Tuck postcard from early 20th century published in London, England. (Photo by Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images)

The wonders of Google and Wikipedia show that apple bobbing goes back to Roman times (although this is contested) when the Romans introduced apple trees to Britain. There is some other interesting information about the pentacle shape the pips take when you cut an apple in half and that it’s thought bobbing had something to do with telling the future, especially for girls to dream of their future husbands. Plenty of my Facebook friends mentioned trying to peel the apple in one strip and throwing that over your shoulder. The peel would form the first letter of your future lover’s name apparently. I wonder if that ever worked, mostly it’d just be a mess surely?

There are now modern urban legends about bobbing and predictably stories of “health and safety madness” like this one from the Daily Mail – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1325130/Apple-bobbing-banned-health-chiefs-children-told-use-CHOPSTICKS-instead.html

Certainly in my home town the children no longer bob for apples, as far as I know. I wonder if the tradition has faded away? If it were part of a story now, would only people of a certain age, a certain heritage understand it? Is it because I’m from an area of England with a lot of Irish immigration that’s why it was prevalent in my childhood? However a quick straw poll amongst my friends on Facebook shows that apple bobbing, or snap apple, or dunk apple-–a variety of names in different parts of the country-–was common for children in the UK in the 70’s and 80’s.

As many of my stories revolve around childhood my collection, A Tiding of Magpies, is loosely themed around a children’s song for counting magpies – ‘One for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth etc.’ I always write a story for Halloween and a couple are included in this collection.

Agatha Christie had a girl being drowned in an apple bobbing tub in her novel Halloween Party.  I’m sure there must be stories inspired by the divinatory powers of apples too.

This year, in my Halloween story, I think I’ll explore the apple bobbing of my childhood.

TODAY’S GIVEAWAY: Peter Sutton is giving away two signed copies of his short story collection, A Tiding of Magpies, published late 2016. Comment below or email membership@horror.org  with the subject title HH Contest Entry for a chance to win.

Peter Sutton has a not so secret lair in the wilds of Fishponds, Bristol, UK and dreams up stories, many of which are about magpies. He’s the author of A Tiding of Magpies (Kensington Gore Press) and his novel Sick City Syndrome will be published late 2016. You can find him all over social media or worrying about events he’s organised at the Bristol Festival of Literature. On Twitter he’s @suttope and he blogs at Bristol Book Blog  and his website is here. He’s contributing editor of Far Horizons e-magazine 

“Pete Sutton has a talent for the fantastic.” – Paul Cornell (Shadow Police series, This Damned Band, Doctor Who, Elementary)

“…there is a sweet and subtle music to Sutton’s stories. They take you to strange places.” – Mike Carey (Lucifer, The Unwritten, The Girl with all the Gifts, Fellside)

“As if Raymond Carver turned his hand to writing science fiction.” – David Gullen (Clarke Award judge)

About A Tiding of Magpies: A Tiding of Magpies is an enchanting short story collection which will give you a pleasurable shiver up the spine. Whether it is waking up to unmentionable sounds in Not Alone, or taking a trip to the land of stories in Five for Silver, the surprising use of a robot butler in I, Butler or competition winners It Falls and An Unexpected Return, these thirty one tales, ranging from tiny flash fiction to long stories of several thousand words, always entertain, even when they unnerve. These darkly fantastical tales have been published in anthologies and magazines or written especially and collected here for the first time by Kensington Gore Publishing.

Read an excerpt from A Tiding of Magpies by Peter Sutton.