Just before midnight a bell-man goes about the streets to give warning of the hour when the spirits will arrive.
"They will sit where we sat, and will talk of us as we talked of them: in the gray of the morning only will they go away."
Le Braz: Night of the Dead.
The supper for the souls is then set out. The poor who live in the mountains have only black corn, milk, and smoked bacon to offer, but it is given freely. Those who can afford it spread on a white cloth dishes of clotted milk, hot pancakes, and mugs of cider.
After all have retired to lie with both eyes shut tight lest they see one of the guests, death-singers make their rounds, chanting under the windows:
"You are comfortably lying in your bed,
But with the poor dead it is otherwise;
You are stretched softly in your bed
While the poor souls are wandering abroad.
"A white sheet and five planks,
A bundle of straw beneath the head,
Five feet of earth above
Are all the worldly goods we own."
Le Braz: Night of the Dead.
The tears of their deserted friends disturb the comfort of the dead, and sometimes they appear to tell those in sorrow that their shrouds are always wet from the tears shed on their graves.
Wakened by the dirge of the death-singers the people rise and pray for the souls of the departed.