Dublin Core
Title
The Black Month
Subject
Breton folktale about Eve of All Souls (Hallowe'en) and November as month of the dead
Description
Author's Note: In parts of Brittany it is the belief that on the Eve of All Souls, the Dead are permitted to return to the world; but that, being shapeless and voiceless, they enter into the bodies of the beggars who are called by the people the ' Children of God,' and in their form go from house to house, leaving on each a blessing. In the canticle of St. Herve it is said that as a child he went out with such as these to 'Sing the song of the souls': and one or more versions of these songs yet linger. As All Souls is the day of the Dead, so November is the Black Month, the Month of the Dead: more especially upon the coasts where the fall of the year brings home the fishermen who have been away at Iceland or the Bank, and of whom, all the long Summer, there has been no news. Day after day through the early Autumn, the' goelettes' come in with every tide; but as the time passes, the waiting for those that delay grows more anxious and the home-coming less sure. And as every season there are many who do not come home, it is indeed true that' November makes more widows than all the rest of the year.
Publisher
Patrick Geddes & Colleagues
Date
Winter 1896-1897
Rights
Public Domain
Source: Ryerson University Library Archives and Special Collections
Relation
Yellow Nineties 2.0, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Ryerson University Centre for Digital Humanities
visit the Evergreen Volumes at Yellow Nineties 2.0
Language
English
Type
Image, text
Prose
Identifier
EGV4_balfour_black
EGV4_decorp_p132
EGV4o_duncan_head_p132
EGV4_decorp_p132
EGV4o_duncan_head_p132
Date Modified
27 Aug 2017, KF
13 Nov 2017, ljk
13 Nov 2017, ljk
License
Creative Commons