Ancestor Veneration in Polish Tradition (Dziady) and Ancestor Blessing Spells

What Dziady was

Dziady means 'forefathers' or 'grandfathers'. Among the Slavs, especially in the east, these were feasts held several times a year — commonly in spring and autumn — when the souls of the dead were thought to come back to visit. Families prepared food, opened the door, lit fires and gathered to remember them by name.

The custom is best known to Poles through Adam Mickiewicz's great drama Dziady, written in the nineteenth century, which drew on rites he knew from the countryside of his youth in what is now Belarus and Lithuania.

The ancestors were not only remembered on feast days. In many Polish homes the dead were part of ordinary life: their photographs hung on the wall beside holy pictures, their names were given to new babies, their sayings were repeated at the table. Grandmothers told stories of their own grandmothers to children by the stove. In that sense, every family that remembers is already keeping a little Dziady all year round. When I cast ancestor work, I am simply doing on purpose and with ceremony what loving families have always done naturally — keeping the thread between the generations unbroken.

Old customs of the ancestors' feast

Ethnographers recorded many small customs around the feast. Food was set out for the dead, sometimes a share put aside on the table or by the window. People avoided spilling things or sweeping crumbs away carelessly, in case the visiting souls were near. Fires were lit at crossroads so that wandering souls could warm themselves and find their way.

Each region and family did things a little differently. I do not claim there was one correct rite; there was a shared feeling — that the dead are still part of the family and deserve care.

How Poland honours its dead today

On 1 November, All Saints' Day (Wszystkich Świętych), and 2 November, All Souls' Day (Zaduszki), Polish families travel, sometimes across the whole country, to visit the graves of their relatives. They clean the stones, bring chrysanthemums and light glass candles, znicze. By evening, cemeteries shimmer with light.

Christmas Eve, too, keeps an echo of the ancestors: an extra place set at the table for the unexpected traveller, which many families also think of as a place for those who are gone.

Honouring your ancestors at home

You do not need a Polish cemetery to honour your own family. Set a photograph or a name written on paper by a window. Light a candle in the evening — safely, and never left alone. Place a small piece of bread, salt or something they loved beside it. Say their names aloud and tell them what is happening in your life.

If your family history is painful, it is enough to honour the ancestors you know were good, or simply 'those who came before me who wished me well'.

What an ancestor blessing spell is

When I cast an ancestor blessing, I set a table as the old feast did: bread, salt, honey, water and candles. I speak your family names, if you have given them, and ask those who loved you to watch over you, guide your choices and keep your house. I write to you afterwards with what I did and what you might keep at home.

It is a spiritual practice — an act of remembrance and asking — not a way to speak with the dead or to know their wishes. Results vary, and nothing is guaranteed.

A word about grief

Some people come to ancestor work in fresh grief. That is natural and the old customs were made for it. But grief can be heavy, moja droga. If it is overwhelming you, please lean on the people around you and on bereavement support or a doctor. A candle and a blessing can sit beside that help; they cannot replace it.

Keeping the names alive

In the old villages, remembering the dead by name was part of the feast. Today, many Polish families still give lists of names to the priest in November, so they can be read out during prayers for the dead. The habit of saying names aloud is a simple, powerful thing, and you can keep it wherever you live.

Try writing a little family list: your grandparents, great-grandparents, any aunts, uncles or friends who mattered to you. Add a line about each — a dish they cooked, a word they always used, a place they loved. Keep the list in a drawer and bring it out on the first evening of November, or on their birthdays, and read it by candlelight.

This is not magic in any dramatic sense. It is remembrance. But remembrance is the root of ancestor work, and it keeps a family's story warm for the children who come after.