In the film Angela’s Ashes, the movie adaptation of the award winning book, there were several scenes of children’s funeral dirges – complete with a horse drawn wagon carrying the small, white coffin of the deceased child.
My question: As the “hearse” passed women along the procession route, they would empty pails of, what I assume to be, water in the street in from of the horses. Is this some sort of an Irish or Irish-Catholic tradition? What does it signify?
Just popping this back to the top.
To deaden the noise of the horses’ hooves, perhaps?
I don’t know Chief, that’s just a WAG on my part, but I’m popping this back up where someone from the Sensible Party might see it.
Chief, I have been doing some searching about it and I have come up with nothing but some vague faery funeral ideas. I will keep looking, though. It’s personal now–I have to find it!
Bump.
http://www.toad.net/~sticker/wake.html#Wake%20basics
I’m afraid that doesn’t answer the question, but perhaps
this gives a clue?
Emulating holy water?
Good cites, mazirian!
But I don’t know whether they get me any closer to an answer. For instance:
I believe the shots in which water was dumped before the horses, the horses were on cobbled streets (IIRC) – it wouldn’t have deadened the sound of their hooves.
Holy water is sprinkled upon people or things to be blessed, not dumped into the streets (which were basically open sewers in that day).
It was just a wild guess on my part. As I understand it,
the priest leads the funeral procession whisking away
the HW with a brush, so maybe the women were cleaning the
way for the priest and others. Or maybe the bailed water
symbolizes amniotic fluid or something…
BTW, someone asked the sam question on a Catholic
messageboard, which I found with Google. The only answer
he got? Horseshit is easier to clean from wet
cobblestones… [ooops, smilie omitted]
This may not help any but have you read the excerpt from the actual novel that the scene is taken from? Possibly there is something different that when the movie was filmed they messed up on. Movies are known to do that a lot.
Yes, I’ve read Angela’s Ashes.
No, I don’t remember any specific passage which deals with this tradition (if it is one).
In fact, he basically glossed over the burials of his younger brother and sister in just a page or two. He dealt more with the preparations for the wake and the wake itself.