With Christmas on its way, I’ve been reading about holiday traditions. I came upon a mention of snapdragon, which naturally reminded me of Agatha Christie’s novel, Hallowe’en Party, and I just had to look into this further.

In the novel, Christie writes:

The food had been cleared away. A green baize cloth was laid across the table and here was borne a great dish of flaming raisins. Everybody shrieked, rushing forward, snatching the blazing raisins, with cries of ‘Ow, I’m burned! Isn’t it lovely?’ Little by little the Snapdragon flickered and died down. The lights went up. The party was over.

Later, Miss Whittaker explains to Poirot:

The last event was what was really more a Christmas festivity or associated with Christmas, than it would be with Hallowe’en. The Snapdragon, a burning dish of raisins with brandy poured over them, and those round snatch at the raisins—there are squeals of laughter and excitement.

Presumably, Christie played this game some time in the past, perhaps during her Victorian childhood. Hallowe’en Party, however, wasn't published until 1969, so I wonder how many people were still playing it then. It's a very old game. Shakespeare referred to it in his play Love’s Labour’s Lost, which was written around 1590, and it was already common in his day. By the 1960s, however, people were probably less likely to encourage children to play with fire.

The Christmas season has long been a time of extravagant celebration, even before Christianity became associated with the winter solstice. The shortest days of the year make a perfect excuse for fighting off the evils of darkness with song and laughter while welcoming the arrival of longer, brighter days. Indoor games, particularly those that banished shadows by bringing light, kept people amused while hunkered down during the winter. 

Here are some other literary references to snapdragon as a yule-tide activity:

Snapdragon shows up in the 1830s when Charles Dickens writes of a Christmas Eve celebration in The Pickwick Papers:

When they all tired of blind-man’s buff, there was a great game at snap-dragon, and when fingers enough were burned with that, and all the raisins were gone, they sat down by the huge fire of blazing logs to a substantial supper, and a mighty bowl of wassail.

It shows up again, sort of, in the 1870s in Lewis Carrol’s Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There:

“Look on the branch above your head,” said the Gnat, “and there you’ll find a snap-dragon-fly. Its body is made of plum-pudding, its wings of holly-leaves, and its head is a raisin burning in brandy.”

“And what does it live on?”

“Frumenty and mince pie,” the Gnat replied; “and it makes its nest in a Christmas box.”

In case you were wondering, "plum pudding" is basically a steamed fruitcake, while "frumenty" is a porridge of wheat berries and milk, sweetened with sugar, and often enriched with spices or eggs. Kind of like a rice or tapioca pudding. "Mince" refers to "mincemeat," and it did once include meat. Lots of spices and sugar helped make old meat more palatable, but through generations, mincemeat has come to include just fruits, spices, and sugar. 

“Snapdragon” has also been referred to as “flapdragon,” although that term may specifically indicate a similar, even more unsafe game. In that one, a lighted candle is set into a tankard of ale, and players try to drink without lighting their beards and eyebrows on fire.

If you would like a peek at how playing snapdragon might actually look, take a look at this video from the 2015 cast party of the West End Players Guild. The shrieks and laughter probably sound much the same as parties hundreds of years ago!

While snapdragon may not be popular these days, people still like to get together with friends and family on winter evenings to have fun. Sometimes there’s even a little risky fire behavior. Just this past Thanksgiving, I witnessed some so-called “adults” showed a pre-teen guest how to run their finger through the candle flames on the table. Passing along a risky holiday tradition!