Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Month's mind" in English language version.
see para: Drinking of Healths.—The custom of drinking "health" to the living is most probably derived from the ancient religious rite of drinking to the gods and the dead. The Greeks and Romans at meals poured out libations to their gods, and at ceremonial banquets drank to them and to the dead. The Norsemen drank the "minni" of Thor, Odin and Freya, and of their kings at their funeral feasts. With the advent of Christianity the pagan custom survived among the Scandinavian and Teutonic peoples. Such festal formulae as "God's minne!" "A bowl to God in Heaven!" occur, and Christ, the Virgin and the Saints were invoked, instead of heathen gods and heroes. The Norse "minne" was at once love, memory and thought of the absent one, and it survived in medieval and later England in the "minnying" or "mynde" days, on which the memory of the dead was celebrated by services and feasting.
