*Ø* Blogmanac November 2 | All Souls' Day

All Souls' Day (or the Solemnity of All Souls;
or the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed)

Soul, soul, for a souling cake,
I pray, good missus, a souling cake.
Apple or pear, a plum or a cherry,
Any good thing to make us all merry.
All Souls’ Day ‘soul-caking’ song, England

Celebrated much more in former days, on All Souls’ Day (the day following All Saints or All Hallows’ Day) people pray for the souls of the dead, particularly those believed to be in Purgatory.

It is celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church which has set it aside for a service for the repose of the deceased. Roman Catholic doctrine holds that after death, human spirits might spend time in a punishing place called Purgatory, which the Catholic Encyclopedia defines thus: “Purgatory (Lat., ‘purgare’, to make clean, to purify) in accordance with Catholic teaching is a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who, departing this life in God's grace, are, not entirely free from venial faults, or have not fully paid the satisfaction due to their transgressions … since our prayers and our sacrifices can help those who are still waiting in purgatory, the saints have not hesitated to warn us that we have a real duty toward those who are still in purgatorial expiation.” Apparently, purgatorial punishment can be for seemingly minor sins: a long time after his death, Saint Severin, Archbishop of Cologne, appeared to a friend and told him that he had been in purgatory for having postponed until evening a prayer that he should have said in the morning.

In England it used to be observed by the ringing of the soul bell, the eating of soul cakes (flat, round, spicy cakes), and the blessing of beans.

(A bell, the ‘passing bell’ was also rung when a person was in extremis, to scare away evil spirits. [Similarly, the ancient Athenians used to beat on kettles at the moment of one's death, to frighten away the Furies.] )

The English would distribute soul cakes to the poor who went a-souling at the church door. The poor would say:

Soul, soul, for soul cake,
Pray you, good mistress, a soul cake.

Papers called Soul-papers were given away with these cakes. They contained requests for prayers for the souls of the departed.

Before 998, All Souls was marked with celebrations from the festival of Woden (Odin) as god of the dead, “parading the Hodening wild horse and other guising including mummers’ plays enacting the mysteries of life, death and rebirth.” (Pennick, Nigel, The Pagan Book of Days, Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, USA, 1992) Hodening is a custom which used to be found in Wales, and locally in Kent, Lancashire, and other English counties, at various dates during the Christmas and new Year seasons, and seems to be a survival of the hobby-horse tradition once common during the Christmas season in the British Isles.

In Naples, Italy, charnel houses were opened up, lit with torches and decked with flowers. The skeletons were dressed in robes, and families visited loved ones.


Soul Cakes

Ingredients:

Two sticks butter
3 and 3/4 cups sifted flour
1 cup fine white sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg or mace
1 teaspoon each, cinnamon, ginger, allspice
2 eggs
2 teaspoons malt vinegar (or cider vinegar)

Oven:
350 degrees; bake 20-25 minutes
Method: Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry blender (or a large fork). Blend in the sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and spice and mix to a stiff dough with the beaten eggs and vinegar. Knead thoroughly and roll out, 1/4 inch thick. Cut into 3-inch rounds and set on greased baking sheets. Prick cakes with a fork and bake. Sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar.

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