Lanterne des Morts
Cemetery Day • Feast of Saint Polycarp
A Cold Cemetery Walk Heightens Spiritual Senses
About Lanterne des Morts
Throughout parts of medieval France and Central Europe, lanternes des morts were built near cemeteries and hospitals. These stone towers, pierced with small windows, held an “eternal” flame. They served as both warning and witness, marking sacred ground and hinting at danger: contagion, death, the occasional criminal lurking. But look again, and those same lights become guides, a literal beacon back to the living from the edge of the unknown. Few lanternes des morts survive today, so a true pilgrimage is unlikely. But nothing prevents us from visiting a graveyard and sharing a convivial moment with our friends, both dead and alive. Bring your coat, your scarf, and a few close companions, and gather for a small picnic in a cemetery or memorial garden. Keep the food simple: a thermos of soup, a bit of bread, a bottle of wine, maybe a poem or two. No literal lantern will guide you, but the tallest monuments can serve as graveyard vanes, catching the last light while it’s still dusk.
Ways to observe
(A) Low effort
Take a solo walk through a cemetery or memorial site. Bring a hot drink. Read the names. Say one out loud and thank them for the life they lived.
(B) Recommended
Construct your own temporary lanterne des morts—a lantern, a candle, or a beacon of some kind—and place it at the edge of a cemetery, window, or porch. Let it burn through the evening. Keep it company.
(C) High effort
Host a small cemetery picnic with a few close friends. Keep it simple: warm drinks, snacks, easy conversation. Dress warmly. Feel the presence of something old and kind.
Inspiration
The original plan for today was to spend the night in a castle and hunt for ghosts, which in my opinion remains an unassailably good idea. Then someone gently pointed out that America is short on rentable castles, and that was only the first of many problems. Still, I’m drawn to the romance of old stonework, ruined gardens, and bleak weather; my Scottish heritage demands it. In the absence of a suitable castle, we turn to the lanternes des morts—not the towers them- selves, but the sacred grounds they mark. Castles may be scarce, but dilapidated cemeteries are abundant. There’s a thread that began on All Hallows’ Day, and it ends here, with Lanterne des Morts: a full-circle moment of honoring the dead with respectful companionship. The air is sharp, and perhaps there’s a flicker of something uncanny just beyond the edges, but it only deepens the pleasure of shared warmth. Think your friends will find it too theatrical? Try it anyway. The dark walk back to the car will unnerve and delight you in equal measure.
Adornments
Watch
Winter Light (1963)
Ingmar Bergman’s spare, spiritual drama unfolds in a snowbound Swedish village, where a pastor wrestles with doubt, despair, and divine silence. Devastating.
Let the Right One In (2008)
A Swedish horror-romance set beneath heavy snowfall, this film unfolds like a poetic ghost story. Its bleak housing estate backdrop and muted palette create an atmosphere of dread, but at its core is a fragile bond between a lonely boy and an ageless girl.
Listen
Requiem by Gabriel Fauré
Fauré’s Requiem offers a complete arc of sacred reflection, gentler and more consoling than many traditional settings of the Mass for the Dead.
Symphony No. 1: A Sea Symphony by Vaughan Williams
This expansive choral symphony sets selections from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, including the haunting line “On the beach at night alone...” from the poem of the same name.
Read
The Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking
This cultural guide explores the Danish art of coziness or hygge. If Lanterne des Morts invites us to walk through shadow in convivial remembrance of the dead, hygge shows us how to keep that flame alive in our ordinary spaces.