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.