Walking Amongst the Dead in Belgium

"To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die."

Belgium carries its history and its dead with a peculiar intimacy. Maybe that’s why I feel so at home here.

Making my way through cobbled streets and foggy fields, I stumbled across stories that routinely blur the line between folklore and history, ritual and superstition. As a death doula, I am also struck by how Belgians view death as both solemn and inevitable.

Witches of Flanders

In the seventeenth century, Flemish women who dabbled in herbalism or midwifery were often accused of witchcraft. Take, for example, Tanneke Sconyncx. She attended the births and deaths of people all over Flanders. But when she refused the sexual advances of a local politician, he accused her of poisoning neighbors’ livestock; after torture and trial, local authorities strangled her and then burned her body.

In towns like Beselare, the collective memory of these women has morphed into something strangely celebratory. Every three years, the “Witches’ Sabbath Parade” takes over the streets: broomsticks, pointy…