The approach of winter is believed to drive like the flocks, the souls of the dead from their cold cheerless graves to the food and warmth of home. This is why November Eve, the night before the first day of winter, was made sacred to them.
"When comes the harvest of the year
Bortel: Songs of Brittany.
The harvest-time reminded the Bretons of the garnering by that reaper, Death. On November Eve milk is poured on graves, feasts and candles set out on the tables, and fires lighted on the hearths to welcome the spirits of departed kinsfolk and friends.
In France from the twelfth to the fourteenth century stone buildings like lighthouses were erected in cemeteries. They were twenty or thirty feet high, with lanterns on top. On Hallowe'en they were kept burning to safeguard the people from the fear of night-wandering spirits and the dead, so they were called "lanternes des morts."
