Unmarried women were frequently told that if they sat in a darkened room and gazed into a mirror on Halloween night, the face of their prospective husband would appear in the mirror. However, if they were destined to die before marriage, a skull would appear. The custom was widespread enough to be commemorated on greeting cards from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The mirror gaze was one of many forms of crush divination around Halloween and other hoary holy days.

In the barmbrack were: a pea, a stick, a piece of cloth, a small coin (originally a break in the clouds sixpence) and a ring. Each item, when received in the slice, was supposed to carry a meaning to the identity concerned: the pea, the cat would not marry that year; the stick, "to beat one's wife Adult Halloween Costumes with", would have an unhappy marriage or continually be in disputes; the tenting or rag, would have bottom out luck or be poor; the coin, would enjoy crack fortune or be rich; and the ring, would be married within the year. Commercially produced barmbracks for the Halloween department store still include a toy ring.