All Hallows, and no entry for the Dance of Death.

I had other plans for a Halloween post, though Jack o'Lanterns did quite nicely really.

The danse macabre at Kermaria an Iskuit is one of the most famous and intact frescos of the subject in existence; it's 15th century, internationally famous, and was the inspration behind the Saint-Saens' piece of the same name. It's been waiting for me to go and visit it for about eleven years now, and is less than an hour's drive away.



However, the photo of it above is from Wikimedia commons. Because, although I finally made a plan to go, Tom happily complied (bribed with a possibility of lunch out at Binic), we got in the car and drove, when we got there, although it was a pretty place indeed,


leafy and peaceful,


the light lovely on the old stones

and through the turning leaves

it was closed.


We were shut out,

barred from entry.

It seemed the gardien, the person who had the key,

was absent.

I was really rather cross.

I had thought, you see, that the week leading up to All Souls, the time when the spirits and souls walk abroad, would be a good time to go to such a place. What I had forgotten was, it is also the time when good French secular citizens make pilgrimages home to their families and elders, and perform their own ritual processions to the cemeteries, armed with votive chrysanthemums for the dead (never give chrysanths here as an offering to the living, it is bad form and bad luck), for the feast of Toussaint, All Saints, All Hallows, the day after All Hallows' Evening - Halloween.

Hence, presumably, the absence of the caretakers, who had left a soulfully howling dog at their house and a message on the answering machine.

So, I wandered around the outside of the building,

(while Tom stayed in the car with a book)

and looked for any interesting details I could find.

and acquainted myself with other guardians of the place,

some of whom had wings.

In the porch, which was a remarkably grand structure, with an upper storey from which, from the 15th century, justice and decrees would be announced to the populace below,

I encountered the Twelve Apostles, of which here are some.

In their faded, later, chalky polychrome, their distant, rough-carved stares seem to say: we are an afterthought to the Dance of Death, a softening of its message, or maybe a denial.

So for this year, I'll content myself with Saints not Souls. Perhaps in another eleven years I'll go back to see inside.

~~~

There was far too much soup from Jack for us to eat alone (I've never had much luck with the roasted seeds, so threw them away, but he has some brothers coming along, and perhaps I'll try again), so I proposed sharing it with friends. It's been cold and wet and miserable all day today, so I've had the oven on most of the day and found things to cook and bake to keep cosy. In honour of the festival, I've listened to Emma Kirkby and Gothic Voices singing Hildegard of Bingen's music, and Loreena singing St John of the Cross' Dark Night, among other things. I'd love to know where the translation she uses comes from, it's not the Roy Campbell one she actually cites on the notes, but a very lovely one. (Sorry, not time for links now.)

~~~

Today is also the first day of Nablopomo, when one has an excuse to blog everyday without seeming to be a crashing bore or a sad obsessive. I'll see how I get on...