Feast of the Dead Moon

The Feast of the Dead Moon is a celebration shared by all Abian peoples, both Dumylan and Túlok. This festival is not annual, as it only happens when the last day of the year, Dach 32 on their calendar, is a new moon. As this day is also the festival of Rhyfelnid, the day holds great value already. However, when it falls on a new moon - something that only happens every 94 years, give or take - it takes on a whole new form. On this night, the realm of the gods is said to be opened - hence the blackened moon. However, with the watchful eye of the moon closed, evil is said to also run amok.
It is for these reasons that the Feast of the Dead Moon is different from other celebrations of Rhyfelnid. While those are in recognition of the fact that the world didn't end, celebrating with food and drink, the Feast of the Dead Moon is to keep it from ending. According to the myth of Rhyfel, when the end of days comes, the moon and sun will fall from the sky; the sun shall scorch the earth and the moon shall cover it in endless winter. So, with the sun set and the moon gone, the stage is set on such a night for Rhyfel to actually occur. As such, the festivities must honor the gods and beat back the darkness in order to ensure that the next day comes. The festivities involved are still heavily focused on food and drink, to be sure - it may be their last night alive - but there are other traditions as well.
The first of these is the ritual sacrifice of the bones of those that died in the past year. Rumor has it that they will burn a living person, but there is no tangible evidence of this. However, in the burning of the bones, there is a hope that the gods will be honored and return to the heavens when the night is done. The symbolic meaning of this is to give praise to Morrigan as a representation of her role as goddess of death. Though the Lách Doire are not intrinsically the same as the Dumyla in their practices and worship, they are known for their exultation and acceptance of all the greater beings, and thus also revere Morrigan.
The second practice is also aimed at Morrigan, that being a practice of ritual combat. As the goddess of war, Morrigan is believed to watch over these fights, taking the loser's Soul to the afterlife personally. The practice for these fights is to have them be a one-on-one fight to the death. The combatants are given no armor or shields, only a single weapon of choice. This is because the warriors are not meant to shy away from death in these fights. Survival is not inherently the objective as it would be in normal warfare - they want to stand before the gods ready to lose their lives. It should be remembered that, while the Dumyla behave this way in the vast majority of martial engagements, this is a broadly Abian festival, so this is a larger point for the Túlok celebrants.
The third tradition of the Feast is to make a wooden effigy of Skadi and set it on fire. To many outsiders, this looks like a dishonor to the gods, but it is meant to symbolize the passing from the cold light of the moon and into the warm radiance of the sun. Skadi, as the goddess of rebirth, is believed to be the one that decides whether the world continues into the next year, so honoring her with the effigy and representing her dual nature are supposed to ensure that the sun rises. There is also the matter of the moon - even colloquially - being said to have died and gone dark, still falling until the next morning; thus, by exulting the goddess of rebirth, the celebrants are imploring that Skadi give new life to the moon.

History

This is a Feast the predates the split of the Abian people into Dumylan and Túlok, making it one of the oldest celebrations still in practice. The first recorded Feast of the Dead Moon was held in 33 AL, but it's likely that it was in practice well before then, as the document that mentions it speaks of others that came before. Given various surrounding accounts and context found in other writings, it has been theorized that the first Feast may have actually been held in 4443 AI, or over five-thousand years ago.

Primary Related Location

Ymrak

Related Ethnicities

• Abian
• Dumylan