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