The Book of Hallowe'en/XI.
CHAPTER XI
IN BRITTANY AND FRANCE
The Celts had been taught by their priests that the soul is
immortal. When the body died the spirit passed instantly into
another existence in a country close at hand. We remember that the
Otherworld of the British Isles, peopled by the banished Tuatha and
all superhuman beings, was either in caves in the earth, as in
Ireland, or in an island like the English Avalon. By giving a
mortal one of their magic apples to eat, fairies could entice him
whither they would, and at last away into their country.
In the Irish story of Nera (q. v.), the corpse of the criminal is
the cause of Nera's being lured into the cave. So the dead have the
same power as fairies, and live in the same place. On May Eve and
November Eve the dead and the fairies hold their revels together
and make excursions together. If a young person died, he was said
to be called away by the fairies. The Tuatha may not have been a
race of gods, but merely the early Celts, who grew to godlike
proportions as the years raised a mound of lore and legends for
their pedestal. So they might really be only the dead, and not of
superhuman nature.
In the fourth century A. D., the men of England were hard pressed
by the Picts and Scots from the northern border, and were helped in
their need by the Teutons. When this tribe saw the fair country of
the Britons they decided to hold it for themselves. After they had
driven out the northern tribes, in the fifth century, when King
Arthur was reigning in Cornwall, they drove out those whose cause
they had fought. So the Britons were scattered to the mountains of
Wales, to Cornwall, and across the Channel to Armorica, a part of
France, which they named Brittany after their home-land. In lower
Brittany, out of the zone of French influence, a language something
like Welsh or old British is still spoken, and many of the Celtic
beliefs were retained more untouched than in Britain, not clear of
paganism till the seventeenth century. Here especially did
Christianity have to adapt the old belief to her own ends.
Gaul, as we have seen from Caesar's account, had been one of the
chief seats of Druidical belief. The religious center was Carnutes,
now Chartrain. The rites of sacrifice survived in the same forms as
in the British Isles. In the fields of Deux-Sevres fires were built
of stubble, ferns, leaves, and thorns, and the people danced about
them and burned nuts in them. On St. John's Day animals were burned
in the fires to secure the cattle from disease. This was continued
down into the seventeenth century.
The pagan belief that lasted the longest in Brittany, and is by no
means dead yet, was the cult of the dead. Caesar said that the Celts
of Gaul traced their ancestry from the god of death, whom he called
Dispater. Now figures of l'Ankou, a skeleton armed with a spear,
can be seen in most villages of Brittany. This mindfulness of
death was strengthened by the sight of the prehistoric cairns of
stones on hilltops, the ancient altars of the Druids, and dolmens,
formed of one flat rock resting like a roof on two others set up on
end with a space between them, ancient tombs; and by the Bretons
being cut off from the rest of France by the nature of the country,
and shut in among the uplands, black and misty in November, and
blown over by chill Atlantic winds. Under a seeming dull
indifference and melancholy the Bretons conceal a lively
imagination, and no place has a greater wealth of legendary
literature.
What fairies, dwarfs, pixies, and the like are to the Celts of
other places, the spirits of the dead are to the Celts of Brittany.
They possess the earth on Christmas, St. John's Day, and All
Saints'. In Finistere, that western point of France, there is a
saying that on the Eve of All Souls' "there are more dead in every
house than sands on the shore." The dead have the power to charm
mortals and take them away, and to foretell the future. They must
not be spoken of directly, any more than the fairies of the
Scottish border, or met with, for fear of evil results.
By the Bretons of the sixth century the near-by island of Britain,
which they could just see on clear days, was called the Otherworld.
An historian, Procopius, tells how the people nearest Britain were
exempted from paying tribute to the Franks, because they were
subject to nightly summons to ferry the souls of the dead across in
their boats, and deliver them into the hands of the keeper of
souls. Farther inland a black bog seemed to be the entrance to an
otherworld underground. One location which combined the ideas of an
island and a cave was a city buried in the sea. The people imagined
they could hear the bells of Ker-Is ringing, and joyous music
sounding, for though this was a city of the dead, it resembled the
fairy palaces of Ireland, and was ruled by King Grallon and his
fair daughter Dahut, who could lure mortals away by her beauty and
enchantments.
The approach of winter is believed to drive like the flocks, the
souls of the dead from their cold cheerless graves to the food and
warmth of home. This is why November Eve, the night before the
first day of winter, was made sacred to them.
"When comes the harvest of the year
Before the scythe the wheat will fall."
BOTREL: Songs of Brittany.
The harvest-time reminded the Bretons of the garnering by that
reaper, Death. On November Eve milk is poured on graves, feasts and
candles set out on the tables, and fires lighted on the hearths to
welcome the spirits of departed kinsfolk and friends.
In France from the twelfth to the fourteenth century stone
buildings like lighthouses were erected in cemeteries. They were
twenty or thirty feet high, with lanterns on top. On Hallowe'en
they were kept burning to safeguard the people from the fear of
night-wandering spirits and the dead, so they were called
"lanternes des morts."
The cemetery is the social center of the Breton village. It is at
once meeting-place, playground, park, and church. The tombs that
outline the hills make the place seem one vast cemetery. On All
Souls' Eve in the mid-nineteenth century the "procession of tombs"
was held. All formed a line and walked about the cemetery, calling
the names of those who were dead, as they approached their
resting-places. The record was carefully remembered, so that not
one should seem to be forgotten.
"We live with our dead," say the Bretons. First on the Eve of All
Souls' comes the religious service, "black vespers." The
blessedness of death is praised, the sorrows and shortness of life
dwelt upon. After a common prayer all go out to the cemetery to
pray separately, each by the graves of his kin, or to the "place of
bones," where the remains of those long dead are thrown all
together in one tomb. They can be seen behind gratings, by the
people as they pass, and rows of skulls at the sides of the
entrance can be touched. In these tombs are Latin inscriptions
meaning: "Remember thou must die," "To-day to me, and to-morrow to
thee," and others reminding the reader of his coming death.
From the cemetery the people go to a house or an inn which is the
gathering-place for the night, singing or talking loudly on the
road to warn the dead who are hastening home, lest they may meet.
Reunions of families take place on this night, in the spirit of the
Roman feast of the dead, the Feralia, of which Ovid wrote:
"After the visit to the tombs and to the ancestors who are no
longer with us, it is pleasant to turn towards the living; after
the loss of so many, it is pleasant to behold those who remain of
our blood, and to reckon up the generations of our descendants."
Fasti.
A toast is drunk to the memory of the departed. The men sit about
the fireplace smoking or weaving baskets; the women apart, knitting
or spinning by the light of the fire and one candle. The children
play with their gifts of apples and nuts. As the hour grows later,
and mysterious noises begin to be heard about the house, and a
curtain sways in a draught, the thoughts of the company already
centred upon the dead find expression in words, and each has a tale
to tell of an adventure with some friend or enemy who has died.
The dead are thought to take up existence where they left it off,
working at the same trades, remembering their old debts, likes and
dislikes, even wearing the same clothes they wore in life. Most of
them stay not in some distant, definite Otherworld, but frequent
the scenes of their former life. They never trespass upon daylight,
and it is dangerous to meet them at night, because they are very
ready to punish any slight to their memory, such as selling their
possessions or forgetting the hospitality due them. L'Ankou will
come to get a supply of shavings if the coffins are not lined with
them to make a softer resting-place for the dead bodies.
The lively Celtic imagination turns the merest coincidence into an
encounter with a spirit, and the poetic temperament of the
narrators clothes the stories with vividness and mystery. They tell
how the presence of a ghost made the midsummer air so cold that
even wood did not burn, and of groans and footsteps underground as
long as the ghost is displeased with what his relatives are doing.
Just before midnight a bell-man goes about the streets to give
warning of the hour when the spirits will arrive.
"They will sit where we sat, and will talk of us as we talked of
them: in the gray of the morning only will they go away."
LE BRAZ: Night of the Dead.
The supper for the souls is then set out. The poor who live in the
mountains have only black corn, milk, and smoked bacon to offer,
but it is given freely. Those who can afford it spread on a white
cloth dishes of clotted milk, hot pancakes, and mugs of cider.
After all have retired to lie with both eyes shut tight lest they
see one of the guests, death-singers make their rounds, chanting
under the windows:
"You are comfortably lying in your bed,
But with the poor dead it is otherwise;
You are stretched softly in your bed
While the poor souls are wandering abroad.
"A white sheet and five planks,
A bundle of straw beneath the head,
Five feet of earth above
Are all the worldly goods we own."
LE BRAZ: Night of the Dead.
The tears of their deserted friends disturb the comfort of the
dead, and sometimes they appear to tell those in sorrow that their
shrouds are always wet from the tears shed on their graves.
Wakened by the dirge of the death-singers the people rise and pray
for the souls of the departed.
Divination has little part in the annals of the evening, but one in
Finistere is recorded. Twenty-five new needles are laid in a dish,
and named, and water is poured upon them. Those who cross are
enemies.
In France is held a typical Continental celebration of All Saints'
and All Souls'. On October 31st the children go asking for flowers
to decorate the graves, and to adorn the church. At night bells
ring to usher in All Saints'. On the day itself the churches are
decorated gaily with flowers, candles, and banners, and a special
service is held. On the second day of November the light and color
give way to black drapings, funeral songs, and prayers.