Page:Book Of Halloween(1919).djvu/168

144 In Malta bells are rung, prayers said, and mourning worn on All Souls' Day. Graves are decorated, and the inscriptions on tombs read and reread. For the poor is prepared an All Souls' dinner, as cakes are given to the poor in England and Wales. The custom of decorating graves with flowers and offering flowers to the dead comes from the crowning of the dead by the ancients with short-lived blooms, to signify the brevity of life.

In Spain at dark on Hallowe'en cakes and nuts are laid on graves to bribe the spirits not to disturb the vigils of the saints.

In Germany the graves of the dead are decorated with flowers and lights, on the first and second of November. To drive away ghosts from a church a key or a wand must be struck three times against a bier. An All Souls' divination in Germany is a girl's going out and asking the first young man she meets his name. Her husband's will be like it. If she walks thrice about a church and makes a wish, she will see it fulfilled. Belgian children build shrines in front of