Forefathers Eve (Patreon)

There’s milk, cake, sweet rolls
And fruit and berries
What is it you need, soul
To enter heaven?

Dziady (pronounced: ‘JAH-dyh’) originally a pagan folk ritual that got mixed with Biblical faith after the Christianisation of the Slavs and Balts. Even though All Saints’ Day was proposed as a purely Christian equivalent, elements of the Dziady tradition were still cultivated in some places in Poland as late as the beginning of the 20th century. This ritual was strongly linked to a conviction that during seasonal changes, especially in autumn at the turn of October and November, the spirits of the dead returned to the world of the living from the afterworld, making it possible to interact with one’s ancestors. Feasting at burial grounds was seen as a form of spending time with those long-gone and honouring them. It included leaving food, often bread and honey, on their graves as gifts for their souls.

Each settlement went to its cemetery, each family to its grave. There they poured sacrificial blood into a cold fire, they put bowls with food on bark-woven seats, and on branches near the graves, new clothes for the dead were hung…

Other forms of Dziady celebrations included burning fires for the spirits to get warm by, a custom that is echoed by today’s lighting of candles on All Saint’s Day. Some fires, however, were burnt to keep certain spirits away – malicious ones belonging to people who died in a way seen as wrong, such as due to murder.

Hopefully I could teach you some interesting facts about "Polish Halloween". Second part of my witchy photoshoot is comming really soon.

Love, Erinthul.