Pages

Tuesday 31 October 2017

This is Halloween… Old Halloween Superstitions and Beliefs



This is Halloween…

Old Halloween Superstitions and Beliefs

Burning nuts on an open fire place is an old Scottish All Hallows Eve tradition. It is used as a divination tool to discover if another person will fall in love with you.
the nuts are placed on the fire, and given names, one for the person asking the question, the other for the person they wish to be with, or have fall in love with them.
 If the two nuts burn nicely together, it is supposedly an indication of true love, but if the two nuts jump away from each, crack, explode or bounce of the fire, it is seen as a bad omen. These two people are not made for each other!
 The Irish once had a similar custom, but three nuts were used, instead of two. The three nuts (usually Hazel Nuts) were put into the fire grate, with two being named as the potential lovers (or a couple already together).
If the nuts popped, jumped or cracked, an infidelity would occur, if they stayed much the same, a mutual respect would be in place, but if they burned together, or burned brightly, a marriage would occur.
Another odd act of potential love divination was for a girl to find a pea pod with 9 perfect peas inside. The young lady would take the pod home and secretly place it above the doorway of the house. The first unmarried man to walk through the doorway would be her future suitor!

 The Irish seemed to have many All Hallows Eve traditional “love spells”, another involved a young lady pealing an entire apple in one strand, she would then throw this long peel over her left shoulder, and when it landed, it would spell out the initials of her future husband!
Another custom, which is thought to have originated in Ireland, was the sewing of hemp seeds to divine a future lover.

On Halloween night, a male or female would secretly make their way to the local cemetery, and at midnight they would sow a handful of hemp seeds, whilst saying the following rhyme;

Hemp seed, I sow Thee; Hemp seed, I sow thee
And him (or her) that’s my true love
Come after me and pou’ thee
Another variation of the poem is:
Hemp seed I sow, hemp seed must grow;
Whomever my true love, come after and mow.

After saying the rhyme a few times whilst sowing the seeds, the asker would look back over their left shoulder, and see an apparition of the person who loves them, cutting the grown hemp with a scythe!
 Another traditional love spell for Halloween, was for a young lady to carry two lemon peels, one in each pocket. Before going to bed that night, she would rub the four posts of her bed with the peel, and then slip them under her pillow. In her dreams that night, her future husband would appear.

One final Halloween love spell – The Three Dishes, which comes out of England. 

Three dishes are to be placed next to each other on a table, one contains dirty water, one contains clean water and the last contains nothing.
The person wanting to know their future, is blinded folded, then led towards the dishes. Whichever dish the person puts their hand in first, decides their future lover.
 The clean water, the person will marry a maiden or master, whichever the case may be.
The dirty water, the person will marry a widow or widower.
The bowl with nothing in it, the person will remain a bachelor or bachelorette…

…and you thought Halloween was all about ghosts, goblins and trick or treating!
Happy Halloween!

Tuesday 24 October 2017

Five Years of the Haunts of Adelaide: History, Mystery and the Paranormal



Five Years of the Haunts of Adelaide: History, Mystery and the Paranormal

 

The Haunts of Adelaide: History, Mystery and the Paranormal turns 5 years old this week!

When I first started writing this blog back in 2012, I never foresaw myself writing it for 5 years! 

At the end of 2016, I had a little hiatus from writing, due to a number of other project taking up my time, but I returned at the beginning of 2017, and despite paranormal investigation, writing for MEGAscene, writing for the Kapunda History and Eidolon Paranormal blogs, working on the Developing the Ghosts & Ghouls Tour with Adelaide City Libraries, and studying two diplomas, I somehow found the time to keep this blog running…I’m not sure how I did it...passion, dedication, sheer determination, a love of history and writing? 
I’m not really sure myself, but here I am 5 years later still writing!
 So, I hope someone is still reading! (actually, I know exactly how many people read each story, Blogger tells me, and so far the most read story is this one: http://hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com.au/2016/07/muzyk-murder.html with just under 20, 000 reads).
On average the blog gets about 4000 reads a month, which isn’t bad I guess for a collection of South Australian based stories.
The audience is made of predominately readers in Australia. Outside of Australia, the top 10 list of reading countries where readers live, is as follows:  United States, Russia, Ukraine, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Canada, Poland and lastly India and China.

 The blog has led to many great discoveries, and some invitations, including it being archived by the National Library of Australia, and a recent invitation by Trove to write a guest blog – which is an amazing honour in my eyes, as Trove is probably the website I visit most outside of social media websites!
I do have future plans for the blog, which include going through and editing spelling and grammar errors from earlier posts, and adding the correct citations to photos and writings, but that will need to wait until my workload decreases just a little, as its just a little too much work right now!

Here are the top five most read blogs on the Haunts of Adelaide:




5.  Carclew House, Montefiore Hill,  “Sinister by Design” Part Two- http://hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/carclew-house-montefiore-hill-sinister.html

The least read blog surprised me a little bit, it’s a recent blog, so it’s numbers will most likely go up as its discovered, but as it sits at the moment  this is the least read blog post on the Haunts of Adelaide: http://hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com.au/2017/09/sir-arthur-conan-doyle-in-adelaide-part.html

I’d just like to say thank you to each and everyone one of you that takes the time to read my blog. I doubt I’ll still be writing it in another 5 years – but who knows!

Here’s to 5 years of The Haunts of Adelaide!

Thanks – Allen Tiller

Tuesday 17 October 2017

The Palace of Wonders – Adelaide Arcade Waxworks



The Palace of Wonders – Adelaide Arcade Waxworks

Discovering the location and any information about the waxworks that were once housed inside the Adelaide Arcade have been a labour of love for me over the past few years. I first discovered a little information about the waxworks when researching the death of Sydney Byron Kennedy, and the subsequent aftermath that followed.

 The Kennedy’s lived in the upstairs section of shop 11 (now The Manhattan Drycleaners) and worked from a shop on the ground floor, showcasing their style of psychic offerings and phrenology. The Kennedy’s were not the perfect couple, and Michael soon absconded to Tasmania, leaving Bridget Kennedy distraught.
Bridget sent a private detective to retrieve her son, who returned without him, but with the location of where to find him. Only a month later, young Sydney would be found dead inside the living room of the Arcade residence, and seven months later in August 1902, Bridget Kennedy, would also be found dead in the Adelaide Parklands (you can read about the case in greater detail here: http://hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/adelaide-arcade-part-four-madame-kennedy.html)


The first advertisements for the Arcade Waxworks (sometimes referred to in the newspapers as "Kennedy’s Waxworks”) appear in local newspapers in December 1901. In The City of Adelaide: A Thematic History, (McDougall and Vines 2006), on page 104, it states that the waxworks were positioned in the basement.
 This would make sense, as the Kennedy’s lived on the top floor and held their psychic productions on the ground floor, so most likely utilised the basement, for other purposes. It being cooler, and out of site from onlookers who didn’t want to pay, made it the prime location for it to be housed.
After his scandalous affair and the death of his wife and child, Michael Kennedy returned to the Arcade and ran the waxworks, which had become a major attraction in the city. 

In a weird coincidence of the macabre, the Adelaide Wax Works, inside the Adelaide Arcade, in 1904 featured a wax effigy of convicted murderer Thomas Horton. Thomas Horton killed his wife, Frances Horton at the Rundle Street (Mall) end of the Adelaide Arcade on February 27th, 1904.
Thomas was hung for his crime in the Adelaide Gaol on May 12th, 1904, when justice was much swifter, and brutal than today’s standards.[1]

Professor Michael Kennedy ran the Arcade Waxworks until his death in 1908. The waxworks were then taken over by a lady, also a psychic, named Madame Phyllis.
Madame Phyllis had 75 wax figures displayed in her version of the waxworks, so one would think, that possibly, the collection was now housed on the ground floor and in the basement.
When a guest would arrive at the waxworks, a tour guide would show the guest around the displays and give a detailed explanation of the real person’s life, and why they had been chosen by Madame Phyllis to be put on display.
Notable waxworks from this period included Queen Victoria, Sir Hector McDonald, Ned Kelly and his sister Kate.

After Madame Phyllis, the next owner appears to be Mrs Brown. In a 1935 article printed in the local News, retiring caretaker of 50 years (who took over after the death of Francis Cluney), Mr Jonah Benjamin, stated of Mrs Brown:
"She was a queer old soul, some people didn't like her. She was hardy and independent, but she had a good heart and many a time I have seen her walk out of her works and give some poor fellow a couple of shillings to go on with."[2]

I believe the next owner, Mr A. Netter, either bought the waxworks or leased it from Mrs Brown in 1941, but at this stage in my research, this is hard to confirm.
In 1942, a visiting group of soldiers to the Adelaide Arcade Waxworks, stole a full-sized effigy of Adolf Hitler.[3]

In 1953, The waxworks were removed from the arcade, but they didn’t go without a fight! As Mr Yeend, a carpenter, was removing the lifelike figures, one fell forward and pinned him to the floor, in the wax effigies hand was a sharp blade, which landed on Mr Yeend’s throat – as it turned out, the effigy was one of a murderer. Mr Yeend survived, with an incredible story to tell his grandchildren![4]
Believe it or not, this is probably one the local, former Adelaide attractions I am most often asked about by news reporters, as there is so little information available about it in local history archives.

I am keen to continue researching this fascinating attraction in the Adelaide Arcade, and would love to know what became of the waxwork effigies, and if any still survive. If you have any information about the former waxworks, or a photo, please get in touch!

Researched and written by Allen Tiller ©2017



Bibiliography

1905 'Advertising', The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931), 3 March, p. 2. , viewed 18 Sep 2017, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5039998


1908 'AMUSEMENTS.', The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931), 10 September, p. 14. , viewed 28 Sep 2017, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5181306


1909 'AMUSEMENTS.', The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931), 3 March, p. 11. , viewed 18 Sep 2017, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5178688


1909, The Express and Telegraph (Adelaide, SA : 1867 - 1922), 3 March, p. 3. (4 o'clock.), viewed 18 Sep 2017, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page23039181 (Madame Phyllis photo)


1917 'WAXWORKS', Daily Herald (Adelaide, SA : 1910 - 1924), 2 January, p. 8. , viewed 18 Sep 2017, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article105384205


1935 'CARETAKER HAS WATCHED CITY ARCADE FOR 50 YEARS', News (Adelaide, SA : 1923 - 1954), 4 April, p. 11. , viewed 18 Sep 2017, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article128824259


1942 '"HITLER" VANISHES', Mirror (Perth, WA : 1921 - 1956), 23 May, p. 2. , viewed 18 Sep 2017, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article75890802


1953 'S.A. Waxworks Dismantled', The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1931 - 1954), 31 July, p. 3. , viewed 18 Sep 2017, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article48272067


Find A Grave, 2012, Thomas Horton, Find a Grave, viewed 18 Sept 2017, https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=90947852


McDougall and Vines 2006, The City of Adelaide : a thematic history, page 104, McDougall & Vines, Norwood, S. Aust
 




[1] Find A Grave, 2012, Thomas Horton, Find a Grave, viewed 18 Sept 2017, https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=90947852



[2] 1935 'CARETAKER HAS WATCHED CITY ARCADE FOR 50 YEARS', News (Adelaide, SA : 1923 - 1954), 4 April, p. 11. , viewed 18 Sep 2017, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article128824259


[3] 1942 '"HITLER" VANISHES', Mirror (Perth, WA : 1921 - 1956), 23 May, p. 2. , viewed 18 Sep 2017, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article75890802



[4] 1953 'S.A. Waxworks Dismantled', The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1931 - 1954), 31 July, p. 3. , viewed 28 Sep 2017, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article48272067