I’m not superstitious, but Halloween has always drawn me in. It’s not so much the games, candy or costumes, but the spooky sense of mystery and change that seems to hang in the air as nights lengthen and turn cold.
In my native Ireland, our Celtic ancestors attached great significance to Samhain, a time when they believed the borders softened between this world and the next, and the dead could return. The living disguised themselves as ghosts and monsters for the night so malicious spirits would leave them alone.
Over time, this supernatural subterfuge became trick or treat, and 19th century Irish immigrants brought Halloween to America. But one of our oldest Samhain traditions hasn’t traveled so widely.
Bairín Brac, or Barm Brack, is a rich fruit bread which translates as “speckled loaf.” Made and sold in the run-up to Halloween, my school friends and I were more interested in being the one to find the tiny, white, greaseproof paper-wrapped package than eating our thickly buttered slices.
Barm Brack was a useful way to preserve fruits coming into winter, and also a Celtic fortune-telling game. At Halloween gatherings, people would cut into the cake, in which four “charms” were concealed. The person who bit into the penny would be rich; the cloth, poor; and the person who found the thimble (or in some areas, a piece of stick) would never marry. Finally, the finder of the ring would marry, and in many regions the belief was that they would marry within the year. In 1937 The Irish Folklore Commission asked teenagers to collect stories of Halloween from their grandparents, and Barm Brack with its concealed charms was a common theme. There was also a popular joke: “Why is a barm-brack like a rapid river? A barm-brack is full of currants and a rapid river is also full of currents.”
These days, the only charm concealed in the Brack is the ring. Barm Brack and similar tea cakes are now eaten year round, but to me, it will always taste of Halloween.
