By Chris Friend-Autumn, 2020

For the Halloween issue of Mars I decided to do an article
on the old practice of the ‘sin eater’. Many moons ago a classic episode of Rod
Serling’s Night Gallery featured The
Waltons’ Richard Thomas as the son
who had to stand in for his dying father as the village sin eater. He ends up
having to eat his father’s many sins after his death.
The practice seems to have originated in Wales, but can be
found in many other places, even here in my native West Virginia. This custom
can be viewed as a Christian as well as a sympathetic form of folk magic. The
sin eater is hired to come into a dying person’s home or the home of somebody
who has already died to have some food or a crust of bread laid out on the
person’s chest. By ingesting the food item the sin eater absorbs the misdeeds
of the dead or dying person. Sometimes one of the mourners would give the sin
eater a cup of ale to wash down the sins. This would complete the ritual. At
other times the ritual of sin eating would be held outside of the house in the
family’s flower garden. This time a whole loaf of bread was given to the sin
eater and, once finished, the ritual would be done, absolving the deceased of
any sins. The sin eater would then be paid a wage and sent on their way. In
some cases the sin eater was seen as a pariah in small rural communities and
even believed to be possessed by devils. I should mention that a good
friend of mine told me that she once went to a funeral where a sin eater was
present. She said that the sin eater stayed over in a corner hidden in the
shadows.
Recently
I caught the cult classic horror “The Beyond.” Even though I find copious
amounts of blood and gore usually too much to take, I give this particular
Italian splatter film a reasonably good rating. For one thing, this was well
photographed and produced for a typical zombies-from-hell flick. The story
starts out with the execution of a suspected warlock, which opens up a gateway
to hell. Years later the same antebellum museum is being fixed and refurbished,
which angers the house’s assorted demons. Even the murdered warlock shows up as
a zombie. We get plenty of nasty murders, such as large spiders eating a
man. Again, there is some gory stuff in “The Beyond,” but still not nearly
as much as the ugly “Saw” or “Hostel” films. Recommended, but not for the
squeamish, it is directed by cult favorite Lucia Fulci. Happy Halloween,
Earthlings.

Chris
Friend, mars_art_13@yahoo.com, of Parkersberg, W.Va ,
who wrote BP #91 Poems, “Land of Big Teeth” & “Possessed” (+ BP’s
fall 2018 poems, “Demons Play Flutes” & “Purdy Picture”; BP #84’s
poems, “The Sentinel” and “Psalm of Mithra”; the BP #81 poem set, “Angel
of the Bereft, “Beauty’s Sleep,” & “Dark Trinity”; the BP #80
poem, “The Temple of Colors”; BP #79 poems, “The Marquis” and “My
Bloody Valentine”; the BP #78 poem, “The Old Yule Goat”; BP #77’s 4-poem
set: “At 50,” “Owls,” “Vintage Halloween,” & “Xmas
in the Doll Asylum”; BP #76’s 4-poem set: “Hag Fairy Communion,” “Love’s
Sepulcher,” “Night Wanderer,” & “St. Andrew’s Feast”; 2
poems for BP #75, “Angel of the Pagan Dead” and “Churchyard Watcher”; BP
#72’s 2-poem set, “Ed Gein” & “Sour Puss”; and the 2008 poem “All
Hallows’ Eve”), writes and illustrates our “MARS News” column. He did a
cover for Black Petals back in 2000 for the fall issue, and has been around ever since. BP keeps
up two websites for him and prints his column in the issue quarterly. Chris
has a gallery at http://chris.michaelherring.net/ and was featured artist in Kurt Newton’s Ultimate PerVersities (Naked Snake) [Jan. 2011].
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