ALL SOULS DAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 December 1938, Page 2

ALL SOULS DAY

CELEBRATION IN FRANCE. CROWDS VISIT CEMETERIES. All Souls Day in France is the day when the living visit the dead, when every cemetery throughout the land is crowded and every tomb covered with flowers. So great are the numbers of visitors to the cemeteries of Paris that police are stationed at the entrance to keep the crowds moving, and wooden barriers are erected.

Figures of entrances are eloquent. On Monday. November 1. All Souls Day, 88,990 people visited Pere La Chaise cemetery, 23,000 Montparnasse, anS 16,250 Montmartre, the three principal cemeteries of Paris.

Once again tradition was proved correct, for All Souls Day was this year dull and wet. A foreigner who has not visited a Paris cemetery on this day can have little idea of the scene. Every part of the cemetery is filled, people walking along the paths and between the graves, and all carrying flowers to place on the last resting place of loved ones. Some of the tombs are even decorated with flowers, and in addition to large bunches set in vases, they have strings of little flowers all round the tomb, picking out its shape. All Souls Day has its legends, the most curious of them being found in Brittany, essentially the land of legends. One of these is that on All Souls Day the spirits of the dead return to earth, visit the homes where they lived, listen to the conversation of the living, and go with them to the church to evening service and, it is said, pray for those left behind. The spirits of the departed who have not yet reached paradise and inhabit the moon, according to another legend, return to earth and are tossed in the wind until they can touch a roadside cross, which enable them at once to ascend to heaven. Another legend, this time of Auvergne, is that on the eve of All Souls Day beasts find the power of speech with one another and predict the events, happy and sad, which will take place during the year. On the coasts of Normandy, fishermen take good care not to cast their nets into the sea on All Souls Day, for they will And human bones in them, and the day when homage is paid to the dead is not a day for labour. In some parts of the country, horses are carefully locked in their stables on All Souls eve. If not, they will be found next day tired out and covered with sweat, for the dead will have ridden them and driven them during the night.