The autumn equinox falls between 21 and 24 September, depending on the year. In the Northern Hemisphere it marks the end of summer. Just as in certain regions and periods the agricultural year began with the spring equinox, elsewhere it could begin in autumn: with the coming of the cold, the earth was prepared, the fields were ploughed and the seeds were sown. The pantry fills, the fields fall silent and the graveyards lie waiting as, on evenings that grow colder with each passing day, the murmur of the dead begins to rise beneath the reddening horizon. “They are coming…” the falling leaves seem to whisper.

Slowly, the days grow shorter and the kingdom of darkness spreads across them, bringing its shadows and ghosts, coats taken once again from their cupboards and beds that seem heavier with every passing night. It can also be a melancholy season, wrapped in a drowsy veil stained with ochre. The sun is no longer the impetuous Young King of May, nor the mighty sun of the summer solstice. His hair is beginning to turn white and, although some light remains to him, he is already travelling towards old age.