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The dead near Saltpans


Illyrio Mo'Parties

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27 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

Yeah, but to be fair the salt-in-the-mouth thing is supposedly... wait, what is it?

So the idea that Lady Stoneheart's band are hanging people in revenge for Saltpans - but why do they think ex-Northmen (judging from the sigils) were responsible for that, when they already know - or believe - it was the Hound? Do they think that the Hound's band is composed of broken men from any army, and therefore any stray soldier is fair game?

And how does this all line up with the Brotherhood's actions at and around Riverrun? They have spies in the Frey camp, they have people setting nightfires in the surrounding hills, and they have enough strength on call that they can arrange a hit on the Frey train heading back to the Twins. How do they, simultaneously, have enough strength left to hold such a strong presence at that inn near Saltpans?

Brienne gets badly wounded and wakes up some time later in a cave that's apparently near Pennytree, right? Is it possible that there's a big time lapse between Brienne's wounding and Jaime's resolving the Riverrun siege? Time enough, I mean, for the Brotherhood to move its strength around. Or are they much bigger than I give them credit for?

I don't buy the BwB doing the hangings.  Seems like a mislead by Tarly to me. 

Is that cave near Pennytree?  I thought it was the one the Hound was taken to.... not sure if it is near Pennytree.  Would not make sense for them to take Jaime to the cave directly before capturing him first (like with the others they hooded them and took them from a distance to prevent them knowing it's location). 

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On 18/02/2017 at 5:50 AM, Universal Sword Donor said:

How does it help bolster the propaganda? Is Tarly trying to portray that the BWB aren't needed? If so, well Maidenpool is in the RLs. The big story from the Saltpans is that "Sandor Clegane" was there. There isn't anything to tie those guys to the BWB either. It's just a bunch of random corpses. Saying that they were members of the BWB isn't going to convince anyone.

I guess Tarly or the Frey knight could have hanged those men, but I just don't see much useful coming out of it portraying them as BWB members, unless you're going to say Sandor joined them, which I don't believe we've seen as of yet.

I assume that Tarly may be sending a message to the local smallfolk not to co-operate with the BWB, he wants to find Dondarrion and needs them to assist him.  Tarly is Lannister sided, and the BWB are for Robert and Ned.  It may be that he is just trying to send a message and treating them like outlaws and traitors to the crown, to prevent them being assisted further. Maybe.

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18 hours ago, Bonkers said:

I assume that Tarly may be sending a message to the local smallfolk not to co-operate with the BWB, he wants to find Dondarrion and needs them to assist him.  Tarly is Lannister sided, and the BWB are for Robert and Ned.  It may be that he is just trying to send a message and treating them like outlaws and traitors to the crown, to prevent them being assisted further. Maybe.

I get why he would want that, I just don't find it even remotely convincing. To each their own but unless he can definitvely tie Sandor to Saltapans he is SOL

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On 03/03/2017 at 9:43 AM, The Bastards Giant Friend said:

Submitted for your approval; the dead were hanged by the same people why hanged Ryman Frey. There are suspects, some more credible than others, but we simply do not know. Suspicion can destroy, though, so watch where you point it.

LS did Ryman Frey, but when their deaths are reported to Jaime, there is no mention of Salt in their mouths....

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  • 9 months later...
On 20.2.2017. at 3:28 AM, Walda said:

Great spot. My guess is

axes: Cerwyn, Stark allies, were in the attack on Duskendale. Could be Dustin too, but don't think they were part of Robett's force?

arrows: Sarsfield, Lannister allies, with Tarly's host. More doubtfully Norridge, of the Reach, whose sigil is burning arrows: Not Hunter of Vale, as there is no other indication any of them have strayed to the Saltpans.

salmon: Mooton, now allied with Tarly.

Pine tree: Tallhart, Stark allies, were in the attack on Duskendale. Mollen are another Stark ally with a pine tree sigil, but they don't appear to have gone anywhere near the Saltpans. Orkwood and Hoare also have pine trees, but no other sign that Ironborn are in the Saltpans at that time.

oak leaf: Oakheart,Reach allies, likely in Tarly's host.

beetles: Bettley, Lannister allies, Brienne identified some in Tarly's guard at Maidenpool.

bantams: Swyft, Lannister allies. This is interesting, because I would have thought Harys's forces were rather small, and that they would stick close to him, as he sticks close to the Lannisters of Casterley Rock. So I would expect to see them around Cersei at King's Landing, to have left Harrenhal with Tywin, and not to have ventured into the Saltpans.

Boars head: Crakehall, Lannister allies. Probably not the main branch of Crakehalls, but a scion, like the unknown family of red boars we see in the quarters of the Vikary shield. I think the Crakehall sigil could be more easily truncated to 'boars head' than the Vikary, and as both have strong Lannister/Westerland associations, I think it is safe to assume a 'boars head' sigil more probably originates from the Westerlands than any other part of the seven kingdoms. Still, like the tridents, it doesn't quite make sense.

tridents: This is the most puzzling. House Teauge, Kings of the Rivers and the Hills, were based at Maidenpool, but they are extinct. However, perhaps there are locals with old Teauge shields around. House Haigh of the Riverlands have crossed three-pronged pitchforks as a sigil, and they accompanied Ser Arwood Frey to respond to the Brave Companions raid on the Saltpans. Maybe Brienne misread the pitchforks as tridents? I doubt she would miss the merman holding the Manderley trident, and there are no Manderleys of White Harbour spotted in the area.

And of course, a Lion-helmed Lannister.

So, on the whole, these do not look like broken men. They look like casualties from the Lannister force. Most likely part of the force Randyll had taken to Duskendale (Hence Tallhart and Cerwyn armour, scavenged, the way Septon Meribald suggested Podrick take the lion helm).

And while it is obvious, I'm guessing they were killed in their attempts to deal with the Brotherhood Without Banners, as there doesn't seem to be any casualties from the other side. This is a clue that the smallfolk are aiding one side, so they are not taken by surprise, and their dead are collected and given a respectful burial. I can't suppose they would do that much for the Brave Companions, or the Northmen, the two other forces known to have razed the area.

As @Clegane'sPup has already said, the salt stuffed in the mouth looks a lot like the ruthlessness of LSH. (If we compare and contrast with the men at Stoney Sept, the smallfolk approve of additional nastiness, but Lord Beric demanded they hang them cleanly.)

I don't think this has anything much to do with Rorge and his Brave Companions, apart from that LSH's crew might be tracking him down as they wreak their way through the Saltpans. Randyll has done a lousy job of freeing the Riverlands from the depredations of broken men, and especially from the Brave Companions - three of the worst of them had been hiding out Maidenpool, right under his nose, and Shagwell still in his motley, for goodness sake. But they were never huge on arson, and their priority is leaving Westeros with their plunder, so why alienate the smallfolk of a port, or identify themselves when they have no backup?

None of these hanged men match the description of any Brave Companions. Most are Lannister or Tarly forces, judging by the sigils. It is possible that they have broke from Randyll's men and Randyll's justice, but I doubt it, because there are so many sigils on display. Some broken men might display their Lord's sigils, but I imagine most would either disguise or obscure them. Especially if there were enemies stringing up men wearing that sigil.

Randyll has kept his forces concentrated in defensible and strategic places (Maidenpool and Duskendale), where he can enrich himself by getting the ports open and marrying off his son, and from where he can march straight back to Kings Landing and take over if the need arises. He guards the main roads and sends out sorties that hunt down the odd outlaw, several against one.

There is no good reason for him to disperse his forces throughout the Saltpans, merely to chase broken men. It works better for him if the areas outside his protection are dangerous and lawless - as long as the areas that matter to him strategically are protected, it serves to show the smallfolk they would be better off allying with him, if given the opportunity. Given the number of people Brienne sees sliding off the main road when his men approach, it is not too hard to avoid his men if you want to.

So, I think it is more likely that these men were either sorties commissioned by Randyll to go into the saltpans after broken men, or they were a force that had been sent out from Maidenpool to secure the Saltpans. Given they are still green and hanging, except where despoiled by carrion (ie. weeks old), rather than strips of leathern black flesh and dry white bones beneath the trees (ie. months old), and given the sigils from Randyll's forces from the Reach are there, and Northern ones that might have been scavenged at Duskendale,  and most of the sigils in Clegane's forces from Harrenhal are not represented, it seems more likely they came up from Maidenpool fairly recently, rather than down from the Trident earlier, like Arya and the Brave Companions.

If LSH was assisted by the locals, it shows that even after the massacre at the Salt Pans, the locals don't identify Randyll's occupying forces as friendly to them. Or maybe Randyll's forces made that clear with their behaviour. Judging by the guards at the gates of Maidenpool, they seem an undisciplined lot, and as fond of throwing their weight around, if not as sadistic as the Brave Companions. And I suppose the ones that had reason to be furthest from Randyll would be more likely to volunteer for a march to the Saltpans.

It is interesting too, that Randyll doesn't seem to have said anything, or know anything about them. I'm wondering if he is aware of a largish contingent of his forces being wiped out in the Saltpans, but has preferred not to mention it to anyone - preferring not sully his name with news of a defeat, until he has turned it into a victory or found a proper army to blame it on, even if it means failing to alert his overlords to a threatening force. Or maybe he hasn't heard back from them yet, and isn't aware of the threat because there is no-one left to report it back to him, and he left Maidenpool before enough time had lapsed to cause him concern. Maybe you are onto something here - he wants to blame the massacre of the Saltpans on the Brave Companions, but knows his own forces were involved and dead men tell no tales?

GRRM has said something about Chekhov's giant wolf pack featuring in Winds of Winter. I'm guessing the carrion feeders that attacked the corpses here were wolves (They were clearly ground-based, no crows). LSH's version of the BwB is a metaphorical wolf pack, banding together in the winter. Maybe in the next book, Cersei (or Randyll) will become aware that quite a lot of Lannister troops have gone into the black hole between the Trident and the Saltpans and not reported back. Randyll might have trouble dismissing the threat when Cersei finds Jaime is gone.

ETA:

re:"I would also mention that Arya in her last chapter in SoS boarded the Titan’s Daughter at Saltpans. The ship was bound for Braavos. Saltpans a tiny minor little port of call what’s a Braavosi ship doing there." @Clegane'sPup

Are you sure she is at the Saltpans? She supposes so, but I think she might have overshot the Saltpans, and caught the Titan's Daughter from Maidenpool. As you say, why would they put in at the Saltpans? On the other hand, Maidenpool has just opened up, allowing traders trapped there to leave.

ETA:

Just following up on the possibility of the Haigh pitchforks being confused with tridents. Re-reading Ser Arwood's 'eye-witness' account of the Mad Dog's massacre in the Saltpans, it occurred to me that he is, after all, a Frey, and that a disciplined force of half a hundred Freys could better go about and get away with razing a town, than a couple of dozen 'mad dogs' who want to find a ship back to Essos with their plunder before Lord Tywin catches up with them.

Arwood claims the hound killed twenty men, and then goes on to claim he killed the entire townsfolk of Saltpans: "The rest is bones and ashes. A whole town. The Hound put the buildings to the torch and the people to the sword and rode off laughing."(AFfC, Ch.30 Jaime IV)

Both versions are delivered as if by eye-witness, although he only set out from the Twins after reports arrived, and came upon the town after it was razed, after "the mad dog" had left. Sandor doing anything with fire is a typically implausible Frey lie (like Sansa turning into a bat and flying out a window, or Robb warging into a wolf) Perhaps the Freys had something to cover up at the Saltpans. They are at Darry when this tale is told, and there are a lot of sparrows, as well as a lot of Freys hanging around Darry. Of course, we think because of Lancel, but maybe because the monks of the Saltpans intend to keep a watchful eye on the Freys at Darry.

Darry has strong associations with razings that are known to have occured, but that might have not been the work of the accused. For example, Darry castle, where the Tallhart and Glover forces razed the castle, put their Lannister captives, to the sword, and marched to Duskendale, believing they were acting on Robb's command, but really on the orders of Frey's son-in-law Roose Bolton (ACoK, Ch.64 Arya X).

Ser Raymond Darry was responsible for accusing Ser Gregor Clegane of razing of Sherrer and Wendish Town, and Mummers Ford, resulting in the formation of the BwB. Ser Gregor was in the area, but I find it difficult to believe, as Eddard did, that he was acting on Tywin's orders. He was returning from the Tourney of the Hand, and Tywin was at Casterley Rock. So I have difficulty seeing where or how Tywin could have sent him his orders. More likely, if Ser Gregor was acting on orders, or riled by some kind of intelligence, they were orders given to him in King's Landing.

Ser Raymond died at Mummers Ford, before they lost their banners, and his castle was taken by Ser Gregor, the remains of his men and his young heir slaughtered by the Mad Dog. That was very probably on Tywin's orders. Note he didn't burn the Darry area. Then Tallhart's men had taken Darry from Clegane's men, after a short siege.  At the time, Tallhart's men were the ones that Edmure, acting on Roose Bolton's advice, had directed "to join him with the garrison Robb left at the Twins"(ACoK, Ch.39 Catelyn V), after Roose had sent him news of his marriage to Lady Walda.

I can see how blaming a Clegane (Sandor, because Ser Gregor was not available) suits a treacherous Frey narrative. Darry seemed, at the time Joffrey bequeathed it on Lancel, destined to enrich his widow, his Frey widow.

The razing of the Riverlands is very much Ser Gregor's style (if we believe Ser Redmund Darry), but it is Ser Amory Lorch Arya actually witnesses razing the Riverlands (and again, there is an issue of identity, where Ser Amory refuses to accept that the holdfast is only peopled by Nights watch and non-combatants.)

Still, it is more likely that people would believe that Gregor, who burnt his own brothers face, would raze a town, than Sandor. The people these stories seem intended to convince ( Jaime, Cersei) would have to overlook all they know about Sandor's issues with fire, in order to believe he had turned to arson on leaving Kings Landing. I suppose the smallfolk of the Riverlands probably regard one Clegane as very much like another, and were more inclined to believe that the Starks were Wargs, too.

The Brave Companions are also a good force to blame, even if their reputation is more for sadism and bloodshed than fire. Like the Cleganes, they have Lannister/Westerland associations rather than Riverland associations, and so would be useful for a Frey/Bolton coverup.

Although I can't place exactly what the Freys and/or Boltons would be attempting to cover up. Most of the sigiIs could fit with former inhabitants of Darry castle (Tallhart, Cerywn, Bettley, Swyft, were all in the area: the Mooton sigil might have been dropped by one of Ser William Mooton's men when they tried to hunt the she-wolf from around the Gods Eye.) The Oakleaf sigil of Oakheart doesn't fit neatly into a Bolton/Frey conspired slaughter of Harrenhal Lannister allies. The Oakhearts seem to be pretty much completely on the Bitterbridge-Tumbler's Falls-Kings Landing-Duskendale path with Tarly, well away from Darry, the Saltpans, and the Godseye, and the Kings Road between Harrenhal and Duskendale.

The Haigh pitchfork doesn't fit into this narrative either - unless the Freys saw some merit in stringing up some of their own forces along the way. Even then, Ser Harys seems to have been very much alive and present both at the time this deed would have been done, and . He was fighting alongside Ser Hoosteen at the RW, and there is every sign that the Haighs are totally trusted partners in crime to the Freys. And Ser Donnel Haigh isn't particularly good at identifying the Hound (ASoS, Ch.50 Arya X). For what it is worth, none of Perianne's children are mentioned in the appendix of Dance of Dragons, as being categorically alive or dead. 

ETA: Just noticed, when the Freys at Castle Darry tried to tell Jaime it was Sandor's doing, he reacted with instant scepticism:

And the only problem with it being Gregor's work, is that Gregor was apparently dead from his poisoned wounds at the time. But he could be carrying the can for a lot of Riverland razing done by others. I'm pretty sure he was framed for the killing of Elia and the babes, too. Although it seems pretty clear that he did kill Lady Amerei's first husband, and being a Frey, her grandfather wasn't likely to let her forget that slight.

Arwood meant that Rorge personally killled 20 men and his men killed rest. Just like we say Hitler killed billions people and why would Freys raid Saltpans

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Why would the Freys raid the Saltpans?

Well, they wouldn't claim that they raided the Saltpans. They would use the fact that the Saltpans were raided to justify their installing a military force to rebuild and restore order, taking over a port, which would give them broader military reach, and open them up to communicate discretely and trade usefully with allies the Lannisters don't have to know about.

Just as Randall Tarly has done for himself (and the Tyrells, probably) in Duskendale.

Ser Arwood is not reporting what he has seen himself, but (at best) what he was told by eye-witnesses he interrogated after the raiders had left. The false notes in this tale might therefore not be his, but they are there.

The raiders were mercenaries, and if they were desperately attempting to find a ship and escape Westeros, it makes no sense that they would violently sack the Saltpans when they found the ships had gone. More likely that they would slip off further down the bay in the hope of catching a boat incognito at the next harbour, or the one after that (the way Pygg, Shagwell, and Timeon did). Making enough bloody smoke to be seen in Oldtown, and ensuring every neighbouring town on the bay knows they are there and is on the alert for them, makes no sense at all if escape was their motive.

Pygg, Shagwell, and Timeon managed to get much further on foot than these raiders managed on horseback. Timeon also gave Brienne a run-down on their activities since they had last seen each other, at the bear pit.  

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Timeon shrugged. “We all went our own ways, after we left Harrenhal. Urswyck and his lot rode south for Oldtown. Rorge thought he might slip out at Saltpans. Me and my lads made for Maidenpool, but we couldn’t get near a ship.”

"We heard the Mountain killed him piece by piece...He was saving his cock for last, but some bird called him to King’s Landing, so he finished it and rode off.”
 

(AFfC, Ch.20 Brienne IV)

When Brienne explains she is looking for the Stark girl, Timeon has more to tell her of Rorge's doings:

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“Then it’s the Hound you want,” said Timeon. “He’s not here neither, as it happens. Just us.”
“Sandor Clegane?” said Brienne. “What do you mean?”
“He’s the one that’s got the Stark girl. The way I hear it, she was making for Riverrun, and he stole her. Damned dog.”

“Had it from one of Beric’s bunch. The lightning lord is looking for her too. He’s sent his men all up and down the Trident, sniffing after her. We chanced on three of them after Harrenhal, and winkled the tale from one before he died.”

Later on, we heard how the Hound slew three of his brother’s men at an inn by the crossroads. The girl was with him there. The innkeep swore to it before Rorge killed him

And after Brienne has killed Timeon, and returned from Crackclaw point, and spent an indefinite amount of time healing on the Quiet Isle, and visited the burnt out Saltpans herself, and killed Rorge at the Inn at the Crossroads, we hear more about Rorge (presumably) from Thoros:

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Lem should not have left the crossroads. He was told to stay close, hidden, to come at once if he saw smoke rising from the chimney … but when word reached him that the Mad Dog of Saltpans had been seen making his way north along the Green Fork, he took the bait

(AFfC, Ch.42 Brienne VIII)

It seems to me that the Mad Dog of Saltpans has been too mad, for too long, in too small an area. That he could not have evaded detection and capture (by the BwB, or one of Randyll's sorties from the south, or Freys from the north), unless one of those forces were covertly protecting and assisting these mercenaries they had hired.

Looking at who the sack of the Saltpans makes sense for, the Freys come top of my list. They have effectively taken Castle Darry as their own, while ensuring the blood spilt over its defence was Darry and Northern and will now be Lannister.  They can now control the ford and the causeway on the Kings Road. Their family business is extracting a toll on whomever attempts to cross the Trident. Controlling the fords below the Twins and blocking the causeway in the Neck removes all their competition, and Northern forces hostile to the Freys will find themselves trapped between the Freys and the Boltons,

Expanding their reach right down to the Saltpans gives them a port as well, and opens the narrow sea to them, as well as the river, which is a faster and more defensible transport system than any of the local roads.

I don't see the sparrows, or Mooten, prospering from this arrangement. Randyll seems to be profiting from Duskendale, and might want to be seen as the liberator of the Saltpans, a role that the BwB would also be happy to take, but nobody else seems to have as much to gain as the Freys.

I'm also suspicious because these lands around Darry Castle are very near those where the War of Five Kings (and the Brotherhood with Banners) started, due to Clegane's raids, that were equally sensless slash and burn affairs.  Those went up the Red Fork, to draw out the Tullys, and also ended well for the Freys, with their own lands intact, and their forces expanded and fortified by others who died for them.

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On 2/22/2017 at 5:49 AM, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

Yeah, but to be fair the salt-in-the-mouth thing is supposedly... wait, what is it?

I like this topic.  Thank you!  I read the salt in the mouth thing as related to the bread and salt of guest right which relates to the RW.  It's very common for hanged people to be left with some kind of sign for the crime they committed.  Like the man in the crow cage Arya saw with his genitals cut off as a sign he was a rapist.    

I have to type fast and come back to this later, but it's made me think about Randall Tarly and how he does justice when Brienne, Pod, and Hyle come back to Maidenpool:

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He was followed by a haggard grey-faced whore, accused of giving the pox to four of Tarly's soldiers. "Wash out her private parts with lye and throw her in a dungeon," Tarly commanded.

Ugh.  So... the point being is that Randall has stuffed this poor woman (for the crime of survival prostitution and having an STD) with lye as a sign of her "crime."  I think someone else brought up (and I'm sorry I missed who said it because I'm in a hurry) that salt is a pretty valuable commodity for common people as a food preservative.  That's why Meribald is carrying it with him to hand out.  I think it rings true that salt wouldn't be wasted like this by the BwB, especially after it's mentioned their food supply is dwindling by Thoros (?) when Brienne wakes up.  Tarly is supposed to be securing the area, but in Brienne's chapters he's having bakers lashed for putting sawdust in bread (probably because grain is scarce) and gruesomely punishing old women who resorted to prostitution for food.  Wow, I'm sure everyone feels safer with this display of tough justice.  I think it's evident that Tarly doesn't give one shit about the plight of the smallfolk because their "crimes" are related to starvation.  But he does seem to be interested in securing Maidenpool for himself.  With the Saltpans completely razed and empty (as EB says) that makes Maidenpool the only working port and the fisherman on the Bay of Crabs are unloading there.  Doesn't that make it in his interest that the Saltpans stay empty?  What if stringing up the corpses is meant to keep people scared of returning?  It forces all business to come to Maidenpool instead.  I still have to think on this more to explore it further, but Tarly's game here might be an interesting one.

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This is a fascinating discussion.  My alternative for the culprit responsible for hanging Freys that LSH has not hanged?  Isn't Black Walder MIA?  

We have a discussion going in another topic that forced me to take a look at time lines and maps.  If the information I had is true the LSH hide out is roughly 50 miles north of Pennytree, nestled between the Blue and Red forks of the Trident.  It's about 2 days (give or take) ride.   5 days pass between Brienne's hanging and her meeting with Jamie.  Sandor Clegane is on the Quiet Isle, maybe 350 miles south east of Pennytree.  Lem Lemoncloak is currently in possession of the Hound's Helm and another BWB member is impersonating Beric Dondarion.  

We know Brienne leads Jamie to believe The Hound has The Girl and he leaves with her, presumably alone.   When we see Cersei and Kevan early in ADWD Jamie has been MIA for about 3 weeks.   

Though Tarly is a decent guess for spreading misinformation, the brutality of the attack at the Saltpans is unlikely to be his work.   He's a little bit like Stannis meting out justice.  Elder Brother certainly does have a lot of information about the Saltpans and has access to all sorts of things that wash up on the shores of the QI.  I googled a couple of different phrases for "salt in a dead person's mouth" and got nothing.   Not true, the 3rd or 4th search results turn up this discussion.  I wonder if salt in the mouth is a sort of religious rite?  If so, EB walked the dead and did this thing to help them on their way?   

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