Cyber Cauldron

Originally a game with apples hung from string or floating in water, which was played by unmarried persons during annual celebrations. It was believed that the first person to bite the apple would be the next to marry. These celebrations would involve the local community due to the fact that people lived in much more rural communities the local community could extend for many miles.

These celebrations where important to these communities and probably included feasting and dancing as well as trading. These celebrations where a time when people caught up with old friends and family and new romantic relationships where made. You have to understand that living in these times where hard and the cycles of life and death where much apart of the everyday life. Many would not survive the oncoming winter especially the young and the old.

During this time marriage and fertility where extremely important. Children would continue your heritage assist with running the farm so it was common to insure that you had a large stock of children due to fact that many at that time did not survive childhood.

It was important to have large amounts of children not only because the help they brought to your own farm but also through marriage your family would grow and your labour force would grow increase the chance of survive.

This idea of marriage and survival helped link bobbing for apples with fertility and death.

Apples where originally brought to Britton and the Celts from the Romans. For the Romans the apple was representative of the goddess Pomona, the goddess of fruit trees. The apple was accepted by the Celts as symbol of fertility and marriage. Pomona her self is more associated with the blooming of the apple tree than it harvests and has a festival on the 13^th August.

The bobbing for apples game became linked with Samhain and marriage and was played by both girls and boys it would be traditional for the girls to keep the apple they won and place it under their pillow to bring on dreams of their future husband.

Although the reason for playing the game has lost it reason in our modern times it is a fun Samhain game and can be played in two ways.

Bobbing for apples version one

Tie string or ribbon to the stalk of the apple and suspend from ceiling or branches of tree players then place hands behind back and attempt to bite an apple. To make this version more fun you can score the game different ribbon can be worth different point or you can you pink and blue ribbon and do races boys against girls or you can even make up your own games.

Bobbing for apples version two

This version is the most common version a container is filled with water and apples are floated on the surface players attempt to bite and remove an apple from the water the tub you use should be large enough for at least two players. If space or container is difficult why not fill a bathtub with water and use that if having a indoor party (paddling pool if out side) – reasons there will be a lot of water and people are going to get wet so instead of having loads of towels over your house you can keep all the water safely contained in a space that designed for getting wet and it make it very easy to empty at the end and you can get a few people along the side of bath or pool which make it a bit of a competition.

The world record for apple bobbing

On the 25^th September 2010 two world records for apple bobbing where created- Guinness World Record titles;

One for the most people apple bobbing

The Number was 277

Most apples bobbed in 3 minutes by a team of six

The number for this was 361

The record for most apples Bobbed in one minute

By New Yorker, Ashrita Furman, bobbed 33 apples in one minute to establish a world On 19 February, 2008.

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