Indo-European Poetry and Myth

But better is it, that ye fly heavenwards.

Shoo! Shoo!^63

In Latvia and Lithuania the occasion could be at the time of a burial, or
after a set period, or in autumn, especially All Souls Day. Meals were left out
overnight for the souls, who were invited with prayers to come and partake.
They might also be reproached for neglecting the protection of the family’s
crops and flocks. Afterwards they were turned away or requested to leave the
house:

Vltimo scopant hypocaustum et expellunt animas ex hypocausto, alter arripit
securim et parietes secat per quatuor angulos, easdem expellens, ne haereant in
quodam loco.

Wann er nu gemeynet, daß sie wol gegessen, hat er den Pergel, wie man es hie zu
Lande heisset, damit er das Fewr gehalten, auff der Thürschwellen mit einem Beil
zerhawen und den Seelen geboten, daß sie jhres Weges gehen solten, sie hätten nu
gegessen und getruncken, solten sich derwegen wieder an jhren Ort finden.^64

We still have a relic of such old rituals in the modern celebration of
Hallowe’en, to which various traditional pagan practices adhere, and the
associated Christian feasts of All Saints and All Souls (1 and 2 November).

TRANSCENDING MORTALITY THROUGH FAME

Wyrce se ̄ þe mo ̄te

do ̄mes æ ̄ ̄r de ̄aþe: þæt bið drihtguman

unlifgendum æfter se ̄lest.

Let him strive, who can,

for glory ere death –– that’s for the liegeman

no longer living the best thing hereafter. (Beowulf 1387–9)

Deyr fé, deyja frændr, deyr sjálfr it sama:

ek veit einn, at aldri deyr: dómr um dauþan hvern.

(^63) Schrader (1909), 26, after P. V. Sˇejn’s account in a St Petersburg Academy publication of
1890; cf. J. Maletius, Epistola de sacrificiis et idolatria veterum Borussorum Livonum aliarumque
vicinarum gentium (1551) in Mannhardt (1936), 298, with the annotation p. 306; Unbegaun
(1948), 440; Vánˇa (1992), 226.
(^64) Jesuit Relatio for 1606, Mannhardt (1936), 444 = Clemen (1936), 114; Paul Einhorn,
Historia Lettica (1649), Mannhardt 487. Cf. Statuta provincialia concilii Rigensis (1428), § 19 in
Mannhardt 156 = Clemen 101; J. Lasicius, De diis Samagitarum 48, 50 in Usener (1896), 104, 90
= Mannhardt 357, 359; other documents in Mannhardt 435 f. (= Clemen 109), 458, 467, 477 f.,
501, 502, 504, 505, 507; Biezais–Balys (1973), 410, 441 f.; Greimas (1992), 38 f.
396 10. Mortality and Fame