Page:Book Of Halloween(1919).djvu/169

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BELIEFS AND CUSTOMS
145

their homes with figures of the Madonna and candles, and beg for money to buy cakes. As many cakes as one eats, so many souls he frees from Purgatory.

The races of northern Europe believed that the dead returned, and were grieved at the lamentations of their living relatives. The same belief was found in Brittany, and among the American Indians.

"Think of this, O Hiawatha 1
Speak of it to all the people,
That henceforward and forever
They no more with lamentations
Sadden souls of the departed

In the Islands of the Blessed."
Longfellow : Hiawatha.

The Chinese fear the dead and the dragons of the air. They devote the first three weeks in April to visiting the graves of their ancestors, and laying baskets of offerings on them. The great dragon, Feng-Shin, flies scattering blessings upon the houses. His path is straight, unless he meets with some building. Then he turns aside, and the