Modern Halloween celebrations focus on fun frights, but superstitions associated with the holiday’s ancestor, the Celtic festival of the dead, were no laughing matter. Families left “treats” for departed loved ones to discourage nasty “tricks” from beyond the grave.
On Halloween, 18th-century Scottish villagers drove sheep through hoops of rowan branches to protect them from ghostly mischief, including sickness.
The ritual may have arisen from observing that sheep nibbling rowanberries were healthier; the berries contain sorbic acid, which has anti-fungal properties.
Dowsers believe the forked rod or pendulum they hold vibrates as they pass over underground water, but there’s no science to support the notion. In fact, as early as the 19th century, dowsing doubters such as French chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul suggested the vibrations came from intentional muscle movements.
The German government tested 500 dowsers in the 1980s. Six “showed an extraordinarily high rate of success, which can scarcely ...
