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St Mark's Eve
On 24 April in English folk belief, those who kept watch in the church porch at midnight would see the ghosts of those who would die that year.
About St Mark's Eve
St Mark's Eve was reckoned a night of ghost watching in England, especially in Yorkshire. People kept vigil in the porch of the parish church and were said to see the phantoms of those fated to die in the year ahead file in, one by one. The watcher was held to be at risk, and some accounts claim they were later seen in the procession. Like many night-watching customs, it is recorded in antiquarian works from the seventeenth century on. It belongs with the other love and death divinations of the calendar, and is reported to have lasted into the nineteenth century in some villages.
Also part of it, and being written: St Mark's Eve (The night of the church porch.), Divination (Foretelling as a type.).
More entries linked to St Mark's Eve
Written by the EveryJaadu desk with AI assistance. Background: "St Mark's Eve" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family, and are described as belief and practice. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Spodomancy: Tim1965, CC BY-SA 3.0, source