Reading Room · Fortune-Telling Methods · Method
Why do Finns melt tin on New Year's Eve?
Molybdomancy is divination by melted metal dropped into water and read as shapes. In Finland, the tin-pouring custom at New Year's is said to have arrived through Finnish officers who had served the Swedish king, and people read the cast shapes for money, change and stability.
Facts checked on against 11 sources, 3 of them museum, university, archive, library, government or primary texts.
Key facts
Every line comes from a source listed at the bottom of the page. The small numbers point to it.
| Ancient Greece | Greek writers used the word for lead, mólubdos, in the name of the art of divining from thrown metal.12 |
|---|---|
| 1727 | Bailey's dictionary defined molybdomancy as divining by observing the motions and figures of melted lead.1 |
| 1810 | Peter Durand patented the first tinplate food container in England.34 |
| Early 19th century | Sweden's rule over Finland ended, and the custom is said to have reached Finland through Finnish officers who had served the Swedish king.2 |
| 1895 | The earliest OED evidence for the word molybdomancy appears in the writing of Frederick Elworthy.5 |
| 1931 | De Givry described molybdomancy as divination by drops of melted lead falling into water, with the noises and hissings listened to.1 |
| 2009 | Volunteer firemen in Loviisa set a world record by dumping a 90-pound lump of tin into 2,000 liters of cold water.2 |
| 2018 | The European Union banned lead use, causing a last-minute run on leaded horseshoes and melting kits in Finland.2 |
What the method is
Molybdomancy is a system of divination based on the shapes produced by dropping melted lead or tin into water. Interpretation depended on the diviner's psychic ability, much as in tasseography, or tea-leaf reading.6
A related system, ceroscopy or ceromancy, dripped molten wax into water and read the forms in a similar way.6
Raymond Buckland wrote in 2003 that the Etruscans occasionally dropped hot lead or tin into water in a version of the method, much like ceromancy.1
The Finnish custom
In Finland the custom is linked to New Year's Eve. Reijo Pentikainen, a Helsinki resident, says the best-known reading of the cast shapes concerns money and wealth, with a wave signifying coming change and an anchor signifying stability.2
The Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency recommended melting sugar or beeswax instead of lead-containing tin, and it still permits tin that does not contain lead.2
What the tradition holds
How practitioners describe it, in their terms. Described, not endorsed.
Zuzeum describes molybdomancy as one of the oldest and most fascinating traditions for ringing in the New Year, in which molten tin is poured into water to reveal shapes and symbols, and presents it as a whimsical practice in which mystery and chance shape hopes for the year ahead.8
Peter Tokofsky, who teaches German culture and folklore at UCLA, said the thrust of the German tradition is people joking about the shapes and debating what they might represent, and that the common themes read from them are love, death and economy.7
What the evidence shows
What historians, scientists and controlled tests have found.
Tokofsky said the lead-pouring practice likely goes back only a few hundred years, and that it is not known whether people in the past took it seriously.7
In industry, tin is used in tinplate production. Until the middle of the 20th century, tinplate was made by dipping individual sheets into a bath of molten tin, and the same dipping process coated base metals.91011
Worked out from the evidence
Not stated outright by any one source. It is worked out from the sources cited.
- The Finnish tin custom is best understood as a New Year's Eve pastime built around reading playful shapes, rather than as a documented divinatory rite with a long recorded history.72
- The Finnish version of the practice appears to have spread from the Swedish-era officer class, and it has been shaped by later safety rules on lead content.2
Not yet confirmed
- When did melting metal for New Year's readings first become a settled custom in Finland?
- How did the lead-based Finnish tradition change once lead-free tin and substitute materials came into common use?
Sources
Museums, universities, archives and primary texts first. Every fact is paraphrased and nothing is copied; Wikipedia is never cited.
- en.wiktionary.org: Contents. Read on · Reference
- matadornetwork.com: In Finland on New Year’s Eve, Tiny Horseshoes Are Melted to Predict the Future. Read on · Reference
- ga.gov.au: Tin. Read on · Government
- Los Alamos National Laboratory: Tin. Read on · Government
- oed.com: molybdomancynoun. Read on · Reference
- encyclopedia.com: Molybdomancy. Read on · Reference
- npr.org: As The Lead Cools, Some See Their New Year Take Shape. Read on · Reference
- zuzeum.com: Festive Guide. December at Zuzeum. Read on · Reference
- britannica.com: The metal and its alloys. Read on · Reference
- encyclopedia.com: Tin (revised). Read on · Reference
- Royal Society of Chemistry: Tin. Read on · Peer-reviewed journal