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 Saint