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The Hallow Eve Game
Joe Donnelly and his family are having a party to celebrate Hallow Eve. During the party, the two older girls from next door decide to play a traditional Hallow Eve game and enlist the younger Donnelly children to help them arrange a table of saucers filled with different objects. To play the game, each guest is blindfolded and led to the table where they choose a saucer at random. Some find a prayer book, others find water, and one girl finds a ring. Finally, Maria is blindfolded and led to the table. Maria touches the saucer and feels something soft and wet. The object is never explicitly stated but given the story’s title and the rules of the game, it’s implied Maria touched a mound of wet clay. Joe’s wife reproves the visiting girls for including clay as an option and the partygoers have Maria play again. This time, she touches a prayer book.
The party game is the climax of the text but it is confusing for readers who do not have an understanding of this traditional Irish Hallow Eve game or Irish Hallow Eve culture in general. Hallow Eve takes place during a period of transition as fall ends and winter begins. This means, according to the Irish folklore tradition, that the boundaries between the material world and the spiritual world are less pronounced. As a result, Hallow Eve was a popular time to play divination games as people attempted to predict what would happen to them in the coming year. The game that the Donnellys and their guests play at the party is a popular example of one of these divination games.
The rules to the game are fairly straightforward. A person is blindfolded and led to a table where a series of objects have been placed on different saucers. The exact items vary but there is generally water, a rosary or prayer book, a ring, a coin, salt, a bean, and, of course, clay or earth. Each of these items represent a different omen. Water meant that a person was going to travel, a rosary or prayer book meant that they were going to enter the church, a ring meant that they were going to be married within the year, a coin meant that they were going to come into money, and a bean meant that they would always be poor. Of all these items, the clay or earth was the worst item to draw because it represents an early death. Mrs. Donnelly scolds the girls from next door after Maria draws the saucer with the clay and the celebratory party atmosphere turns somber as they all watch an oblivious Maria draw such a dark omen.
