dumb feast
n.— «The coven—a group of Wiccans with a high priest and a high priestess—lays out what is called a dumb feast, and invite their deceased loved ones to join them and share the meal. Although the menu is extremely varied and flexible, staples include bread, ale, wine and apples.» —“Wiccan, not wicked” by Ashley Thompson in University of Kansas University Daily Kansan (Lawrence, Kansas) Oct. 26, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
An old Irish curse goes: May the devil make a ladder of your backbones while picking apples in the garden of hell. If you’d rather offer someone a friendlier wish, try May angels bless your sleep with the smell of apple pies. This is part of a...
There are lots of colloquial phrases to explain away the cacophony of a thunderstorm: The potato wagons are rolling, The tater wagon’s going over the bridge, The potato wagon broke down, and God is dumping out potatoes and washing them off. In...
As used by regionalist folklore/fantasy writer Manly Wade Wellman in one of his “Silver John” stories (entitled, i believe, “Dumb Supper”, and last in print from Baen Books in the collestion “WhoFears the Devil”), a “dumb supper” was a tradition in the US Appalachians in which a young woman would set a table in order to summon an image of the man she was fated to marry.