Apple Bobbing

One of the most well known Halloween games is apple bobbing or ducking where people try to grab apples with their teeth. Sometimes the apples are in a bucket of water, sometimes they're hanging from the ceiling. It's fun, but have you ever stope to ask yourself why we bob for apples?

Origin

Unfortunately the origin of apple bobbing is unclear, we don't even know when it began. However there are a couple of interesting speculative ideas.

Witches

One of the most appealing suggestions is that bobbing for apples in water is somehow repesentative of the witch duckings. Those accused of witchcraft would be tied up and thrown into a deep pond. If they sank and drowned then they were innocent and their souls went to heaven. If they rose - "bobbed" to the surface - then it was proof of their demonic powers and they were burnt at the stake.

Apple bobbing could hence represent capturing and destroying those bobbing witches. It's an interesting theory but unfortunately there seems to be no real evidence to support it.

Pomona

Another popular theory is a link with the Roman goddess Pomona. Pomona was a fertility goddess associated with fruit and the apple was a symbol of hers. Her festival day was in the autumn, some even place it as being November the 1st. Much of Halloween is based on the Celtic Samhain festival and the fertility aspect of Pomona would fit in well with concepts of rebirth.

Pomona could also be linked with apple bobbing through the way it was once played as a "see you future partner" game. Successfully bobbing an apple was believed to bring visions of your future husband or wife (a variation says that the first person to catch an apple will be the next to marry). This connection with marriage would combine both Pomona's fertility aspect and the idea of divination due to the thinness of the veil with the spirit world at Halloween.