Others say that he repented and died in good repute, and so cheated the evil one of his prey.' According to some versions of the story he went home to die of fright. Looking in he saw the lights and heard the voice, and his own name in the horrid list. A notorious evildoer, Jack of France, once by chance passed the church at this awful moment. Dreadful anathemas are the burden of his preaching, and the names of those who in the coming year are to render up their souls may be heard by those who have courage to listen. 'On All Hallows Eve at midnight, those who are bold enough to look through the church windows will see the interior ablaze with unearthly light, and the pulpit occupied by his Satanic Majesty clothed in a monk's habit. Typically when a local yarn-spinner gets hold of something like that they feel the need to earn their pot of ale by turning it up to eleven, as in this version related by a Mrs Powell of Dorstone in Herefordshire in the 1890s: Returning to the theme of prophecy, and because players will expect something spooky for this time of year, you could make something of the notion that anyone hiding in the church porch at midnight on Halloween will see all the people who are doomed to die in the coming year, their spirits walking around the churchyard and picking out the plot where they’ll be laid to rest. (Unless of course it was a cloven hoof-print.) Shades of a gender-swapped Cinderella there, though they’d have a devil of a job finding out which man the footprint belonged to. If in the coming year they were destined to wed, in the morning they’d see the clear footprint of the man they were to marry. The main themes of the season instead seem to have been prognostication and love, those two elements combining in various superstitions about young maids spilling ashes on the doorstep or flour on the kitchen floor. In the real Middle Ages it wasn’t all turnip lanterns and ghostly tales. Whenever possible, that's the thing Emerson's always there to remind me not to get carried away with foolish consistency. Wherever possible I aim for Legend to have an authentically medieval European flavour. You're welcome to join us over there and get all the goodies and ghosties. To get us into the Samhain mood, here's another of my occasional reposts from my Jewelspider page on Patreon.
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