‘Just don’t get drunk or fall asleep here!’ Dede Vargas warned menacingly. ‘We aren’t giving you drink for nothing! Tell a tale, sing, play the pipes! We want merriment!’

The beggar opened his mouth, where a single tooth stood like a white milepost in a dark steppe.

‘It, it’s Samhain, m’lord! What music? What playing? ‘Tis not allowed! Samhain’s music is the gale outside! It’s the howling of werewolves and vampires, the wailing and moaning of vengeful ghosts, and ghouls grinding their teeth! The beann’shie howls and cries and whoever hears her cry is destined to die soon. Every evil spirit leaves its hideaway, witches fly to their last coven before winter! Samhain is a night of frights, of marvels and visions! Don’t venture into the forest or a leshy will maul you to death! Don’t pass through the boneyard or a corpse will seize you! Better not to leave your house at all, and to be on the safe side stick a new iron knife into the threshold. No evil will dare to pass over it. Whereas womenfolk must closely guard their children, for on Samhain night a rusalka or weeper may steal her child and replace it with a loathsome changeling. And if any woman is with child she better not go outside, for a night spirit may enchant the foetus in her womb! Instead of a babe a striga with iron teeth will be born—’

‘Lawks!’

‘With iron teeth. First it bites its mother’s breast. Then her hands. It bites her face… Ooh, but now I have a hunger…’

‘Have a bone, there’s still meat on it. Bain’t be healthy for old people to eat too much, they might choke and peg it, ha, ha! Oh, all right, bring him more wine, wench. Well, old man, go on about those ghosts!’

‘Samhain, m’lord, is the last night for spectres to make merry. Later the frost takes their strength away, so they sink into the Chasm, beneath the earth, from where they don’t stick their noses out the whole winter. For that reason from Samhain right until February, to the holy day of Imbaelk, is the best time for an expedition to haunted places, to search for treasure. If when it’s warm someone pokes around by a wight’s barrow, for example, the wight will awake as sure as eggs is eggs, jump out annoyed and devour the rummager. But from Samhain to Imbaelk poke and dig around, as much as you’re able: the wight sleeps soundly like an old bear.’

‘What has he dreamed up, the old bugger!’