Ringing in the new

Whether it's eating lentils in Brazil, wearing flowers in India, or exchanging eggs in ancient Persia, for millennia people have performed rituals in their hope for a fresh start on New Year's Day - regardless of which calendar they use. They've also used different methods to get an inkling of what the future will bring.

In Germany, people regularly began Bleigiessen, or "pouring lead," to divine their futures around 1900, according to Alois Doering, an expert in regional traditions at the Institute for Applied Geography and Regional History (LVR) in Bonn. Records of the custom in Germany, however, date as far back as the Middle Ages.

It goes something like this: After a festive dinner on New Year's Eve, or Silvester, as it's called in German, people sit in a circle and alternately melt lead (or sometimes wax) on a spoon held above a candle. The molten lead is then poured into a vessel of cold water, where it immediately hardens.

The future in various shapes

The group then interprets the shape of the hardened lead, which becomes an indicator of what the future has in store for the lead pourer.

A ring or heart could mean marriage, an egg could herald an addition to the family,a tree could imply growth in one's capabilities, an angel could signify that the person will experience goodwill. And a boat or car could indicate an upcoming trip. There are also far-fetched interpretations, like the shape of a pineapple pointing to unrequited love.

Pouring lead is a custom that was practiced thousands of years ago in Ancient Greece. It was done throughout the year to understand not just what path one's personal life could take, but also to help forecast the political future, Doering noted.

Over the centuries and across continents, people have read everything from tea leaves, to coffee grounds, to crystal balls. Hundreds of years ago, as young women sat around peeling potatoes for dinner, they would try to "read" the letters of their future husbands' names from the peels on the floor, Doering said.

"But pouring lead is special because it's festive, which is why people like doing it as a group on New Year's Eve," Doering told Deutsche Welle.

Making sense of it all

He also noted that rituals in general - drinking champagne and kissing at midnight on New Year's Eve, baptizing babies, or remembering loved ones with a funeral service - are fundamental for communication between human beings and mark passages through life. Also, the more isolated people become, the more significant rituals are in re-establishing personal ties.

"As we progress in this world of high-tech or try to grapple with this financial crisis, fears among people begin to mount," Doering said. "And then people take an increased interest in superstitions, the irrational and the mystical."

Even if the lead predictions don't come true in the new year, at the very least they make for an entertaining New Year's Eve.

Author: Louisa Schaefer
Editor: Kate Bowen