On the old Toman Calendar August 24th was the time of the festival of the Manes, which were the ghosts of the ancestors. The word may be translated as ‘kindly’ or ‘the good ones’. This term may have been used to help pacify the ancestral souls and keep them from turning into vindictive ghosts who wreck a mean revenge on their descendants. If not kept happy these ghosts could be wrathful like their angry counterparts the Lemures. With time the Manes become the term for all spiritual guardians of cemeteries and the dead, as well as the ghosts of ancestors. On August 24th the doorway to the Underworld was thrown open and the mane could crossover into the realm of the living. With such angry spirits were often left offerings of beans, eggs, hone, bread, milk, oil, wine and roses. The mother goddess of the Manes was Mania. This goddess was said to supervise these ghosts and was a goddess of both life and death. Like her children the manes, Mania was not necessarily a good soul and when the moon came near November 1st it was a pretty good idea to shutter windows, seal up houses, and turn mirrors to face the wall. As with many folk beliefs mirrors could be passageways for spirits to break through into the world to. Make mischief. Woolen dolls were created and were placed over doorways. And good old garlic with poppies was also a bane against this goddess and her wild troop of ghost that might bring havoc. She was also believed to snatch children in era, became a very evil demonic character who brought about nightmares and madness. Her very name Mania has become the word for extreme mood swings. But she has the dual nature of driving away evil ghosts if called upon. To ward her off one must make a fig like gesture similar to the more common horn god gesture associated with Italian folk magic. Amulets of the fig had gesture were often created and used to scare away these angry spirits. And so, it goes.