How Scotland celebrated Halloween in 7 pictures

Dookin' for apples was key to any Halloween night in Scotland, including this 1956 bash at the Tweedie Memorial Boys Club in West Port, Edinburgh.
Celtic lore alludes to the prophetic powers of apples, with some dookin' games ending with the fruit being peeled and the skin thrown over the shoulder. The shape of the peel on the floor could dictate the initial of a future love.
Some say the dookin' tradition may have evolved from the Roman celebration of Pomona, the goddess of fruit 'Pomona' but others are sceptical of these origins.

Some people preferred to use a fork to stab the fruit, which would usually floated in a bath of water.
In 2008, some schools in Glasgow decided to only allow the game if forks were used due to 'hygiene reasons'.
These boys are also pictured in 1956.

A traditional game on a Scottish halloween - and much harder than it sounds. It was fair play to get as messy as possible trying to catch the dripping scone in your mouth.

Not trick or treating but guising.
Costumes would cost as little as possible and usually involve raiding your mum' wardrobe - or turning a couple of cardboard boxes into your outfit for the night (see no. 5).
The tradition of guising - short for disguise - can be traced back to Samhain, the Gaelic festival to mark the end of harvest.
Then, people would use masks and decorations to disguise themselves and scare away evil spirits.
These guisers were photographed in Falkirk, possibly in the late 1970s. Pierrot the clown (end right) was a popular costume for many years.

Little Michael Haughian of Clermiston, Edinburgh, gets to work on his robot costume for Halloween 1951.

It was usual to 'do a turn' when out guising and sing a song or tell a joke at the houses that you called at.
Some took the guy for the November 5 bonfire round in a wheelbarrow, asking for a penny.
These children in Leith count their guising money back in 1951.

Long before pumpkins, there were neep or tumshie lanterns.
The lanterns are said to represent the spirits of the dead with the neep version arguably more sinister than its American cousin.