"Another common amusement at this season of the year is to make a turnip lantern, and in connection with this, I would warn my young folks that as a first step to do this successfully, they should procure a turnip righteously and honestly... first, procure as large a turnip as possible, and then proceed with your pocket knife to scrape out all the substance of the turnip, leaving only the rind or skin... Having scraped all the substance out of your turnip, and made a hole in the lid to let out the smoke, proceed to cut on the outside a man's face, as you see has been done by the little fellow in our picture. Do not cut the shell of the turnip quite through but cut as thin as possible, so that as much light and as little wind may get through as possible... You must make a hole in the bottom of the lantern to receive the candle. When this is lighted all is complete, and you may now call on some of your friends and show your lantern."
~ The Dew-Drop
And there's this bit of weirdness from the excellent 1869 Chambers' Book of Days (online version here):
There is a remarkable uniformity in the fireside customs of this night all over the United Kingdom. Nuts and apples are everywhere in requisition, and consumed in immense numbers. Indeed the name of Nutcrack Night, by which Halloween is known in the north of England, indicates the predominance of the former of these articles in making up the entertainments of the evening. They are not only cracked and eaten, but made the means of vaticination in love affairs. And here we quote from Burns's poem of Halloween:
The auld guidwife's well hoordit nits
Are round and round divided,
And mony lads' and lasses' fates
Are there that night decided:
Some kindle, couthie, side by side,
And burn thegither trimly;
Some start awa wi' saucy pride,
And jump out owre the chimly
Fu' high that night.
Jean slips in twa wi' tentie e'e;
Wha 'twas, she wadna tell;
But this is Jock, and this is me,
She says in to hersel':
He bleezed owre her, and she owre him,
As they wad never mair part;
Till, fuff! he started up the lum,
And Jean had e'en a sair heart
To see 't that night.'
Brand, in his Popular Antiquities, is more explicit:Explicit, indeed. There's a LOT more on the holiday on their October 31 page, here.'It is a custom in Ireland, when the young women would. know if their lovers are faithful, to put three nuts upon the bars of the grate, naming the nuts after the lovers. If a nut cracks or jumps, the lover will prove unfaithful; if it begins to blaze or burn, he has a regard for the person making the trial. If the nuts named after the girl and her lover burn together, they will be married.'
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Apparently Halloween was also know in some parts of Scotland as Nutcrack Night:
This is an old Scots and Northern English name for Halloween, the night of 31 October, otherwise called The Oracle of the Nuts. As the chill of autumn pervaded their homes, people would sit around their fires, eating newly harvested hazelnuts or chestnuts. Several fortune-telling customs grew up that involved throwing nuts into the fire, hence these names for the night.Turnip quote via Ask the Past.
