The Silent Feast- Charm of the Empty Chair

A Dark Folk Tale for the People-Pleaser’s Heart

In a village by the marsh, there was a long hall where people gathered each month for a feast. The tables were always heavy with bread and stew, but there was one strange custom: at every gathering, a single chair was left empty. No one spoke of it. No one sat there.

A young woman named Elin had been raised to notice every gap, every shadow, every unsmiling face. The empty chair gnawed at her. Each feast she would glance at it, heart tightening: Surely someone must sit there. Surely I must do something.

One night, as the torches smoked and the fiddlers played, Elin could bear it no longer. She rose, carried her bowl of stew, and slid into the vacant place.

The hall went silent. The fire sputtered. One by one, the villagers tensed and turned away from her, fearfully. It was as if she sat in a place reserved for an honored guest.

A chill passed through Elin’s fiery heart. She stood with a shiver and looked behind her. She found the empty chair was not empty at all. A figure sat there, cloaked in cobwebs, its hands thin as birch twigs. It looked at her without eyes and whispered, “This was not your place.”

Elin froze. She had thought the gap, the unspoken rule, towards the chair in the hall was a command. She had thought the empty chair was a problem to be solved. But in that moment she understood: some stories are being written that aren't about you.

She rose quietly, bowed to the ghost who had been dining there all along, and returned to her own place.

The feast resumed, warmer than before and Elin felt at peace. Content in the knowledge that sometimes she could rest rather than looking for gaps and cracks in the story of her own life let alone everyone else's.

🕯 Reflection: Not All Spaces are Yours to Fill

People-pleasers often hear silence as accusation, feel tension as a demand, or see a gap and assume it is their duty to fill it. But like the empty chair in the hall, some spaces are not ours to occupy. Some stories are not asking us to step in. Some storms will pass without our hands in them.

This truth is echoed in old laws of hospitality across Europe: a guest was expected to accept what was offered, not to rearrange the household or fix what was not theirs.

To overstep was to risk offending both host and spirits (see: Parker, The Making of Roman India, 2008;

Herman, Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City, 1987).

To witness without rushing in can itself be a sacred act.

✨ Charm of the Empty Chair

You will need:

• A chair (any kind, set apart from where you sit)

• A candle or small light

• A piece of paper + pen

Steps:

1. Set the space. Place the chair near you but do not sit in it. Light your candle beside it.

2. Name the absence. On your paper, write a situation you feel you must fix, but which is not truly yours to carry.

3. Offer it to the chair. Fold the paper and place it on the empty chair. Say:“This is not my seat. This is not my burden.”

4. Witness. Sit in your own chair. Breathe. Notice the difference between your place and the empty place. Let the space simply exist.

5. Close. Snuff the candle. Leave the paper on the chair overnight, then in the morning, burn or bury it, sealing the lesson.

🕯 Journal Prompts

• What “empty chairs” have I tried to sit in recently—places or problems that weren’t mine to take on?
  

• How do I feel when I allow silence or tension to exist without fixing it?
  

• What does “holding my own seat” mean for me in daily life?
  

• How might my ancestors have honored the wisdom of stepping back and witnessing instead of rushing in? Please feel free to take this free printable and put it into your own Grimoire!