Halki is a petite Lady, an isle deep in the Dodecanese group that is so enchanting, those who set foot on it don’t want to leave. The island observes the feast of Ai Yiannis at a monastery dedicated to the saint. On the eve of the feast, pilgrims are offered lamb with potatoes or pasta, while the next morning they are treated to a honey breakfast and meal of foods consumed during the Orthodox fast. Halki also has special Easter customs. After the apokathilosi or removal of the Christ effigy from the cross, the church is locked until Saturday morning when children race from house to house, knocking on doors and waking people to follow the Epitaphios as it traces the harborfront. This is followed by the bakatikiasma, a type of auctioning off of the Epitaphios. The Anastasi or resurrection is not held at midnight as in the rest of Greece but between three and four o’clock in the morning. There is a Second Anastasi beneath the cypress trees in the monastery courtyard where the “Frank”, a straw man dressed in old clothes and hat, is burned; the effigy symbolizes Judas. The panigyri of Panayia Horiani at Horio also has unique rituals. Two or three days before the August 15 feast of the Dormition of the Virgin, everyone joins to clean the church while on the feast’s eve, the villagers set off for Horio. The merriment begins with the singing or reciting of satirical couplets accompanied by the sweet sounds of the lyra; these verses elicit deep emotions as they invoke memories of the now-deserted Horio from when it was the island’s capital. Other important festivals at Halki include the panigyri at the Monastery of the Stavros on September 14, Palarniotis on November 8, Yiannis Kontas at Signi, the panigyri of Ayios Georgios at the remote Monastery of Alimnia, and the panigyri of Panayia Ettria on August 23 in the forecourt of Ai Yiannis Alarkas. During the first two weeks of September, Halki hosts a cultural festival in the framework of its international designation as an “island of peace and friendship”.