once a year, on the second friday of november, the village walks from one end of itself to the other without speaking. it begins at dusk. each person carries a small lantern; they meet at the church gate, fall into single file, and walk the long lane to the bridge. no order is given, no order is needed. the first record of the rite is a curate's complaint, dated 1802, that "they will not be persuaded to sing."
the walk is to remember a year — no one quite agrees which — when the village lost more people in a season than it could name at once. the original walk was held to count them by walking, one step per name. the names have since blurred. the walk has not. it now takes about forty minutes, ends at the river, and breaks up without ceremony when the lanterns are blown out at the bridge.
nobody invites the children, and nobody refuses them. they come, and they keep silent the entire way, which surprises everyone every year. afterwards there is bread in the parish hall, and the talking begins very slowly — first about the cold, and then, eventually, about anything else.
— field note: this year the line was forty-one lanterns long. one was carried by no one i could see.