(Missourinet) – Bobbing for apples wasn’t always a Halloween-themed kids’ game. Many centuries ago in the British Isles, it was a romantic ritual in which women tried to determine if the man she was interested in would be her future husband. Getting it on the first try meant yes, on the second try meant a courtship that would eventually fail, and a third attempt meant their love was not meant to be. Mizzou Horticulture professor Michelle Warmund (WAR-mund) says other variations of apple bobbing evolved from the original.
“A young lass would first bob for an apple and then she would peel it. And then the peel was twirled above her head three times and then tossed over her shoulder. And then when it landed, the shape would reveal the first initial of her future husband.”
Another version involved the woman placing a bobbed apple underneath her pillow and her future husband would be revealed in a dream that night. And another was more like a race, in which the first woman to bob an apple would get married first.
