St Ninians Day

 Folklore says that  St Ninians Day is the day that the first eating apples are ready. Now there are cultivars that are ready earlier and my lovely Falstaff apples are really good but  another week or two will improve them even more.

4th Century Manuscript at Edinburgh University Library

 Ninian was the son of a Cumbrian chief who travelled to Rome after becoming a Christian. In 394AD Ninian was made a bishop by Pope Siricius. But he didn't forget his fellow Britons who didn't know the gospel and decided to return home. 

He built a stone church at Whithorn - now in Dumfries and Galloway region of Scotland which became know as the White House which he dedicated to St Martin of Tours. This is thought to be the oldest Christian foundation in Scotland dating from 397.

Sometime in the early 2,000s we had a holiday around some of the Scottish coast and spent several days at Garlieston not far from Whithorn and visited the remains of the Priory and museum. I wish I had photos but either I didn't have a camera or lost a whole photo album from those years in one of the house moves.

Sunday 25th January is St Paul's Day, Burn's Night and St Dwynwen's Day

 Tomorrow, 25th January is St Paul's day and Burn's Night and also celebrates a Welsh saint too - St Dwynwen's Day - Wales' patron saint of lovers. According to my book Everyday Folklore couples might peer into Dwynwen's Well and have a look for the fortune telling eels and if they can see them their relationship will last.

According to my Book of Saints January 25th actually commemorates The Conversion of St Paul. A man who hated and persecuted Christians. He was on his way to Damascus  to seize the Christians there and bring them to Jerusalem for punishment when the famous conversion took place.

 It's another Saint's Day with lots of weather lore attached. In the past they thought it could even affect political events.

If St. Paul's Day be fair and clear,

It doth betide a happy year;

But if by chance it then should rain,

It will make dear all kinds of grain;

And if the clouds make dark the sky,

Then neate* and fowls this year shall die;

If blustering winds do blow aloft,

Then wars shall trouble the realm full oft.

* Neate is an old word for cattle

Also                                          

St Paul fair with sunshine

Brings fertility to rye and wine

It's party night  up north of the border and in many other towns and cities here and overseas to celebrate the birthday of poet  Robert Burns in 1759. Hope everyone enjoys their Haggis, neeps and wee drams of whisky.

If things are still the same and blogger is not letting me reply to comments today or tomorrow, I'm apologising in advance! Of course it might have righted itself - who knows.

Have a good weekend, I'll be back Monday.

St. Nicholas

 Saint Nicholas, whose day is celebrated in many countries today, came from a very wealthy family. He was a pious child and eventually became bishop of the city of Myra in Asia Minor in the fourth century and tradition says he gave away all the wealth he was left but preferred to do it  secretly - legends say once throwing some money through a window and another time dropping a bag of gold down a chimney where it landed in a stocking (or a shoe). 

He died around AD 326.

A Byzantine enamel of St Nicholas from a museum in Madrid.

In the C6 the Emperor Justinian built a church in his honour in Constantinople and his shrine in Myra (now in modern day Turkey) was a centre for pilgrimage until 1087 when Italian sailors(or pirates) stole his remains and took them to Bari in Southern Italy where another church for St Nicholas was built. He had become the patron saint of sailors due to legends of him saving  seamen in a violent storm.

All through Europe in the Middle Ages December 6th was the day that churches elected a boy-bishop a custom that has carried on in many places. The boy would reign until the feast of the Holy Innocents on December 28th and Nicholas soon became the patron saint of children as well as sailors.

This story of Saint Nicholas was taken to the USA by Dutch Protestant settlers in the 19th Century and  his name - Sinterklaas - became Santa Claus. His traditional appearance is because a man called Thomas Nast whose drawing of him - with white beard, fur trimmed robe and toys appeared in Harpers Magazine in the 1860s, illustrating the poem 'A Visit From St Nicholas' by Clement C Moore published several years earlier.

Before this time, here in the UK a yuletide figure of fun and feasting had been called the' Lord of Misrule', 'Spirit of Christmas' or 'Sir Christmas', 'Prince Christmas' or 'The Christmas Lord' since the mid 17th Century. A character created by playwright Ben Johnson in the early C17 for a play performed for royalty was called Old Christmas and had a white beard and many children. Christmas was then banned in 1647 by the Puritans, brought back after the end of the Civil War.

Eventually all these different stories and legends came together to give us the Father Christmas we know now.

**********

I got the bread-machine on yesterday and made a large loaf of 50/50 wholemeal /white. A couple of weeks ago I thought the machine had gone wrong. A medium loaf came out about 3 inches tall - maybe I'd got side-tracked and measured the flour wrong? So next time I double checked all the weighing and same problem. Try again with a new packet of yeast and it was a bit better.(All loaves were edible so not wasted, just needed two slices instead of one). Yesterday I started a new bag of flour and set it to large and a proper sized loaf turned out at the end, although slightly lop-sided.

I used to leave the lid open after taking the loaf out so any moisture wouldn't make it go rusty inside but realised that gradually the lid wasn't shutting tight. Now I balance a chopping board and a couple of tins on the lid to shut it properly, but sometimes the loaves don't come out as level as they should. They taste good though. 

I was beginning to think that was my fifth thing going wrong after the heating boiler glitch, the tins of tomatoes over the floor, a tooth needing a filling and the car suspension repairs! 

Yesterday, day 5 of the coffee advent, was Columbian again - I'm beginning to wonder....... where are the mocha, Irish cream, hazelnut and special Christmas blend that are mentioned on the box?.... Patience - is a virtue Susan!

St Crispin's Day

 If they existed St Crispin and Crispinian were brothers who lived devout Christian lives in Rome until they were driven out to Gaul where they became missionaries, they had given up all their possessions and became shoemakers and lived in peace until Emperor Maximian visited and some Pagans complained about the brothers preaching Christianity. They were tortured and then beheaded around AD285. 

But it was much later before they were heard about in this country where they became known as the patron saints of leatherworkers. 

It was Shakespeare, whose lines in Henry V Act IV remembered the day, as it was the day that the Battle of Agincourt was fought in 1415

This day is called the feast of St Crispian.He that outlives this day and come safe home will stand a tip-toe when the day is named. And rouse him at the name as Crispian. He that shall live this day, and see old age, will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours and say 'Tomorrow is Saint Crispian'. Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, and say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day '.

In some places customs remembering the saints carried on until the mid 1800's at least. This was recorded in 1852

 In the parishes of Cuckfield and Hurst-a-point in Sussex. It is still the custom to observe St Crispins Day and is kept with much rejoicing. The boys go round asking for money in the name of St Crispin, bonfires are lighted, and it passes off very much in the same way as the fifth of November does.

   

St Crispin's Day: Shoemakers having a holiday in honour of their patron saint. (George Cruickshank Comic Almanac 1836)

And an old saying from Herefordshire 

"The twenty-fifth of October, Cursed be the cobbler who goes to bed sober". 

A reminder to shoemakers and cobblers to celebrate appropriately!

*************

Thanks everyone for comments over the last two days, especially for all the ideas for A-Z posts for November, and to Jan, who went above and beyond with two long lists, although the AI one was a bit random! I got my lap top back with it's windows update, nothing changed really but I guess being on windows 11 updates security.

Have a good weekend, it's clocks back weekend here - not a fan, but  I'll be back Monday.

Two Saints Remembered on Their Day

 You know I'm short of ideas for blog posts if I get out the Saints Days book!

St Christopher and St James were both celebrated today 25th July.

Not much is known about St Christopher, he was probably first called Reprobus and was martyred in the third century. The  well known story is of him transporting travellers across a river and finding a child getting heavier and the river faster until the child said" I am Jesus Christ, the king who you serve in this work and on my shoulders I bear the burdens of the world" So Reprobus took the name Christopher which means 'Christ- bearer'.  He became the patron saint of  wayfarers and his image with child was often painted on the walls of churches in the middle ages.

From the book A Calendar of Saints this is part of a triptych by Dieric Bouts in a Munich museum.

Way back in history in London this would have been heard today, St James Day.............

Please to Remember the grotto,

It's only once a year.

Father's gone to sea,

Mother's gone to fetch him home,

So please remember me.

Children would make little grottoes, mainly using shells, pieces of broken glass and pottery and anything decorative they could find. Sitting by these they would chant the rhyme. The shells were used because the Scallop shell was the emblem of St James - one of the Disciples who later took Christianity to Spain.. Legend says when he was put to death by Herod Agrippa his remains were taken to Spain for burial. The site, Santiago de Compostela became the most important place of pilgrimage for Christians after Jerusalem and in the Middle Ages they would return wearing a scallop- shell emblem. 

It is just as popular today

The Camino de Santiago (Latin: Peregrinatio Compostellana, lit. 'Pilgrimage of Compostela'; Galician: O Camiño de Santiago),^[1] or the Way of St. James in English, is a network of pilgrims' ways or pilgrimages leading to the shrine of the apostle James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition holds that the remains of the apostle are buried. Pilgrims follow its routes as a form of spiritual path or retreat for their spiritual growth. It is also popular with hikers, cyclists, and organized tour groups.

On the latest series, which has just finished,  of the  Radio 4 programme Clare Balding presents, called "Ramblings" , she has been  walking and talking to people with connections to the pilgrimage walk. There is a link HERE if you are in this country. I'm not sure if it works elsewhere. I often listen if I'm awake early on Saturday mornings.

Back Soon

St Swithin's Day

A well known weather saying that has - thankfully - never  proved correct.

St Swithin's Day, if thou dost rain

For forty days it will remain.

St Swithin's Day, if thou be fair

For forty days, twill rain no more.

It was especially wrong in 1976 when there were lots of violent thunderstorms with rain over night on the 15th and then for the next 40 days there was virtually no rain, leading to the hottest summer and worst drought in living memory.

[I was working on the mobile library which was before any sort of air conditioning, so we sweltered in a 'tin box' - day after day].

St Swithin was an English  monk who became Bishop of Winchester in 852 and died 10 years later. At his request he was buried in the churchyard rather than inside. On 15th July 971 his remains were moved to an appropriate resting place inside the Cathedral. This coincided with a period of heavy rain that lasted for 40 days - and that's how the prediction started. 

Another old rhyme, found in one of my folklore books - written in the 18th century

Now if on St Swithin's Feast the welkin lours,

And every pent house streams with hasty showers.

Twice twenty day shall clouds their fleeces drain,

And wash the pavements with incessant rain.

('welkin' is the sky and 'lours' means glowers or  threatens)

The picture comes from The Farmers Almanac website

Back soon.

PS Hooray to the BBC for Quizzy Mondays being ⅔ back - a small crumb after the weeks of tennis watching! and I promise no more mentions of tennis until next year!

St John's Eve and Midsummer's Day

If the first of June marks the first day of meteorological Summer, and astronomical summer starts on the Solstice on the 21st June how is it that Mid-summer was traditionally celebrated with festivals on the 24th?

It was connected to St John's Day, when to protect future crops and livestock  bonfires were lit to banish evil spirits and bring good weather. Midsummer fairs and midsummer markets were held with celebrations in many places. 

Today, St Johns Eve, it was thought that plants gathered for medicinal purposes had special powers. St John's Wort being very important. Other protective herbs including yarrow, mugwort - which protected against witches and thunder,  and chamomile, were also gathered and hung in the home and cowshed. 

 So tomorrow is St Johns Day with many associated weather sayings

 

Before St John's Day we pray for rain, after that we get it anyway

Cut your thistles before St John,

You will have two instead of one. 

Never rued the man who laid in his fuel before St John.

Here is what Thomas Tusser wrote in his Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry in 1557.

At Midsummer, downe with the brambles and brakes

and after, abrode with they forks and their rakes:

Set mowers a mowing, where meadow is grown,

the longer now standing the worse to be mowne.

(brakes are ferns or bracken)

Another old saying from history 

If Midsummer Day be never so little rainy, the hazel and walnut will be scarce, corn smitten in many places; but apples, pears and plums will not be hurt.

"Never so little rainy"? 

Back Soon

A Book Find, The Mystery of St. Servatius Day and other unknown Saints

At the Bank Holiday Sunday car boot sale, just as it started to rain and everyone covered their stuff  I found the first book of the year, with a very apt cover.  

Another book about weather sayings and folklore to add to my collection for £1............

The author has also put together collections of sayings in books  on Gardening, Cooking and House and Home.

 I thought the book would have many of the weather lore sayings that are in my other books, and it has but also some lore and stories that I'd not come across before.

This is  one...........

Who shears his sheep before St Servatius' day

Love more his wool than his sheep.

St Servatius?? No mention in my book of Saints but this book above says he was a fourth century bishop of Tongeren in Belgium, with his Feast day being today the 13th. He is one of the so called Ice Saints, whose feast days fell between 11-14th May, traditionally a spell of cold weather - but not here this year!

I'd not heard of the Ice Saints either but apparently the others are .......

11th May - St Mamertus, a fifth century archbishop of Vienne in France

12th May -  St Pancras - the patron saint of children who was martyred, aged just 14, in Rome in AD304. Relics of this saint were sent to England and an early Anglo-Saxon church was dedicated to him in Canterbury (and the area of London and then the station too).

CANTERBURY – ST PANCRAS CHURCH, SUGGESTED SITE OF KING AETHELBERT’S PAGAN SHRINE

14th May - St Boniface, an Anglo-Saxon Benedictine monk, baptised as Winfrid at Crediton in Devon who was martyred in Germany after becoming archbishop of Mainz in AD 754.

According to wiki and my Saints book his special day is June 5th , and even accounting for changes in calendar it doesn't explain the May 14th day.

So no idea where the author found her dates for the book, but I suppose any tales from 1400 years ago are bound to change with time!

Thanks for comments yesterday, I'm glad it made a smile for a Monday morning.

Back Soon

Sue

April, My Second Favourite Month...........

 ................except for the expenses.

It's bad planning how so many things need renewing and paying for in April. TV licence, house insurance and dentist for a start and birthdays, but then it's my birthday month and more spring-like too which makes it my favourite month except for June - due to strawberries and Wimbledon tennis on TV (although I've just googled and the dates are mainly July this year - so that's mucked that one up!) Never mind still looking forward to a good second-favourite month.

And it's no wonder I'm feeling cheerful. The weatherman said March was the sunniest ON RECORD for Norfolk and Suffolk - that means the sunniest for many, many years. Really good for mental health.

 This bit below was written in my April 1st post of  2019

There are often a few warm days at the end of March or beginning of April which brings the Blackthorn into flower then the weather will often turn colder which is called The Blackthorn Winter. According to forecasts that looks very likely for this year. 

It was the same in 2022 and much again this year, warmth at the end of March and into April, so there is bound to be some cold sometime in April.

The rest of this post is bits from 2020 and 2022 post so I apologise for repeating.

 My Illustration for April is again from the book 'A Sparrow's Life as Sweet as Ours' by Carrie Akroyd.

The male blackbird is one of our most recognisable birds, there was a decline in numbers through the latter part of the C20 but since the beginning of this century numbers have increased again.

In Shakespeare's Midsummer Nights Dream, Bottom says

 The Ousel-cock, so black of hue, with orange tawny beak.

because until the C17 blackbirds were just one of the birds of the ousel family, they didn't have their own name. 

This year...............

Easter is almost the latest it can be and falls just after my 70th - family get together planned for that which will be good. And then of course  St Georges Day on the 23rd,  but there are lots of Saints in my book who are less well known. What about St Vincent Ferrer on the 5th, St Waudru on the 9th, St Zeno of Verona on the 12th, St Soter on the 22nd and  St Zita on the 27th? Some wonderful names and stories.

Back Soon

St Distaff's Day

 Who knew there was such a thing as a 'Fake/Joke Saint'?

In some Folklore books it says January 7th is St Distaff Day but he is not in any books of Saints and he or she, didn't exist.

Way back in history 7th January was the day that women went back to work at their spinning after the 12 days of Christmas merryment  and the Distaff is the tool used to hold the unspun wool or flax.

Queen Berthe, Instructing Girls to Spin by Swiss artist Albert Ankar 1888

Men didn't go back to work in the fields until Plough Monday - the first Monday after Epiphany and often used Distaff Day to cause mayhem to the women.

There was an old saying

On St. Distaff's Day

Neither work nor play. 

And from Hesperides by Robert Herrick dating from 1648

Partly work and partly play

Ye must on St Distaffs Day:

From the plough soon free your team;

Then come home and fodder them.

If the maids a-spinning go,

Burn the flax and fire the tow:

Scorch their placket, but beware

That ye singe no maiden hair.

Bring in pails of water then,

Let the maids bewash the men.

Give St Distaff all the right:

Then bid the Christmas sport good-night

And next morrow, every one

To his own vocation.

 

Distaff later became the word for the female side of a family and  the word Spinster from the spindle used by the women.

Back Soon

Sue

Advent 2024 and St Lucy's Day

 Today is St Lucy's or St Lucia's day.

This is an illustration from the book of Saints. The details about it says Master of  The Deposition from the Cross of Figdor, The Legend of St Lucy (detail), Rijkmuseum, Amsterdam.

The book explains that Lucy wanted to remain single to dedicate her life to Christ but her suitor wanted revenge and accused Lucy of being Christian before the pagan governor of Syracuse, Sicily. The judge ordered her to be thrown into a brothel. Then the guards were told to set fire to her but this failed to kill her. Legends say that to make herself ugly she tore out her own eyes, which were then miraculously restored. After which she became renown for healing diseases of the eyes and the patron saint for the blind.

Finally she was killed by a sword-thrust through her throat. 

An early authority for the genuineness of her story is an inscription to her discovered in the cemetery of St John in Syracuse.

Before the calendar reform of 1752 her feast day coincided with the solstice so she came to be regarded as the bringer of light as the days begin to lengthen. That is the reason she became especially celebrated in Sweden where the eldest daughter of the family puts on her head a wreath with seven lightened candles (health and safety nightmare!) then takes coffee and ginger snaps to the rest of the family.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

October 21st - St Ursula's Day

 Here's a Saint I've never heard of until I read this in the Kate Greenaway Book of Days.

In the Book of Saints there is this very strange story about Ursula

And this is the accompanying picture

Martyrdom of St Ursula. A Miniature from the Grandes Heures d'Anne De Bretagne

I only know of one person named Ursula . The daughter of a lady who I worked with in the library. Ursula later went on to manage the same library for many years until she retired recently. Definitely not a name as common as Susan!

How many Ursula's do you know?

Back Soon

Sue

St Bartholomew's Day and Honey

If August 24th be fair and clear,

Then hope for a prosperous autumn that year.

Today, August 24th, is Saint Bartholomew's Day. Bar-Tolmai (son of Tolmai) lived and died in 1st century Palestine. It is thought he was flayed alive so becoming the patron saint of butchers and tanners. He was also the patron saint of bee keepers and it was traditional for the honey to be taken from the bees on this day.

St John's Gospel records a conversation between Jesus and Bartholomew who was one of the first disciples . Jesus said Bartholomew was a man without deceit. Bartholomew asked " How do you know me?" and Jesus answered, "Before Philip called you, when you were sitting under the fig tree, I saw you". Bartholomew's early doubt disappeared and he said" Teacher you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel". Bartholomew became an apostle and was granted a vision of the Risen Lord.

Later traditions record he preached in India and Armenia, where he met his death.

This small book all about honey is one I picked up for next to nothing from a car-boot sale two years ago it turned out to be a fascinating little book, packed full of everything you ever wanted to know about honey.

There's a whole A-Z of the flavours of honey when it's been made from various plants and several pages of quotes about honey.

If you want to gather honey, don't kick over the beehive

Dale Carnegie

Tart words make no friends: a spoonful of honey

will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar.

Benjamin Franklin

Humans have been harvesting honey for at least 8,000 years, for most of those it's been taken from wild bees then came straw skeps, from which the whole combs would have been taken. Then came wooden hives with purpose made removable frames that we see today with centrifugal honey extractors- invented in 1865, honey production and harvesting became a lot safer and easier.

Illustration from the book 'An English Cottage Year' by Sally Holmes and Tracey Williamson.

In London a St Bartholomew's Day fair was held to raise funds for St Bartholomew's hospital. The fair was first held in 1133 but was banned in 1855 because of offences against public dignity and morals!

The first "toffee apples" were traditional at this fair, they were windfall apples, skewered on sticks and dipped in honey.

St. Bartholomew's mantle wipes dry all the tears St. Swithin can cry


As St. Bart's Day, so the autumn .

 (Many Thanks for comments yesterday and apologies for not replying. Had a whole day travelling home from a holiday with family which I'll write about next week - awful traffic everywhere. I didn't factor in travelling home on the Friday before a Bank Holiday weekend when I made the booking in May of 2023!)

Back Soon

Sue

St Georges Day

 The Irish celebrate like crazy on St Patrick's Day but us English have virtually forgotten about St George's Day. It's not surprising really as there is nothing much known about him or even if he ever actually existed. Yet somehow he has become the Patron Saint of many countries and organisations. Including Scouting - and I had photos of St Georges Day Parade on yesterdays post.

The picture below comes from my book 'A Calendar of Saints' by James Bentley. It's a painting by Raffaello Sanzio (1483 -1520) and is in the Louvre.

The legend seems to date from the C12, when crusaders returned from battle and historically he might have been a high ranking Roman Christian soldier martyred in Palestine in AD 303. Edward III made him our patron saint in the mid 14C when he founded the Order of the Garter.

For centuries the day was celebrated with feasting and jousting and mumming plays on the theme of St George and the Dragon . The traditions carry on in a few places.

Where the dragon story comes from is another mystery...........

 This is something written by John Aubrey in the 1680's ( an English writer and philosopher)

"To save a mayd, St George the dragon slew,

A Pretty tale if all is told true,

Most say there are no dragons;

and this say'd there was no George;

Pray God there was a mayd." 

G.K Chesterton (1874-1936) wrote.......

St George he was for England,

And, before he killed the dragon

He drank a pint of English Ale

Out of an English flagon.

This is the traditional day for picking dandelions to make Dandelion Wine (but only if the sun is shining so the flowers are fully open)

Pick 2 quarts of flower heads, (about 1lb in weight) discarding as much of the green as possible.

Place in a food safe bucket or non metal bowl and then pour a gallon of boiling water over the flower heads and leave to steep for 2 days AND NO MORE. On the 3rd day pour everything into a big pan, add the peel of 4 oranges and boil for 10 minutes. Add 3lb of sugar and stir until dissolved. When cool add the prepared wine yeast and nutrient starter. Strain through muslin into a demi-john. Fit an air lock. Rack into bottles when clear and it should be ready to drink at Christmas.

I made Dandelion wine once......never again!....It was deadly!

There are certainly plenty of Dandelions about this year

 and they are really useful as an early food source for bees which is probably a better use for them. 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Valentine's Day

 So who was Saint Valentine? Does Valentine's Day have anything to do with Saint Valentine?

And why have I never had a Valentine card except for ones made by the children at school when they were little? And why do some people make such a big deal of it. And why do shops have so much 'stuff''? Actually I know the answer to that last question........... it's all about the money.

There was probably more than one St Valentine, possibly one was a Roman Physician another a Bishop in Italy but one of these was a 3rd century martyr, and little is known about him but there is an undisputed history of people celebrating on this day going back 600 years. Chaucer wrote, sometime between 1376 and 1382, a poem telling how birds choose their mates on St Valentines Day each year and this day was supposed to be the first day of spring in many places. 

The Greeks and Romans observed a special day at this time of the year for their goddesses Hera and Juno who represented women and marriage.

 It was the Victorians who started sending cards and for a time these became comic and rude so that the tradition fell out of favour, gradually being revived through the early 20th century and now it's hard to avoid!.

I've found a couple of weather sayings for the 14th

                                             St Valentine Breaks the Back of Winter

                                         To Saint Valentine the spring is a neighbour

Back Tomorrow

Sue

25th January is the Conversion of St Paul's Day - With Music!

 This is a strange piece of music that you may never have heard before. Unfortunately the only place I could find it on you tube it cuts out after a few bars for ads.(or it may not when uploaded)

It's by David Grant and the Community Gospel Choir with music by Mike Read and words by John Betjeman. It comes from a CD called Words/Music which has many poems of Betjeman's set to music and sung by different artists. It was intended to become a musical of the life of John Betjeman but the CD was as far as it got.

I bought the CD in 2006 because on Radio 2 Terry Wogan began playing 'Myfanwy' sung by David Essex and I was a David Essex fan. I've never come across anyone else who has ever heard of the CD/Failed Musical.

The Conversion of St Paul, poem by Sir John Betjeman

What is conversion? Not at all

For me the experience of St Paul,

No blinding light, a fitful glow

Is all the light of faith I know

Which sometimes goes completely out

And leaves me plunging into doubt

Until I will myself to go

And worship in God’s house below —

My parish church — and even there

I find distractions everywhere.

What is Conversion? Turning round

To gaze upon a love profound.

For some of us see Jesus plain

And never once look back again,

And some of us have seen and known

And turned and gone away alone,

But most of us turn slow to see

The figure hanging on a tree

And stumble on and blindly grope

Upheld by intermittent hope.

God grant before we die we all

May see the light as did St Paul

I wrote about St Paul's conversion and photographed the pages from the saints book HERE in 2021 so won't repeat myself, but this is the weather rhyme that was once well known for this day - covering all eventualities!

If St. Paul's Day be fair and clear,

It doth betide a happy year;

But if by chance it then should rain,

It will make dear all kinds of grain;

And if the clouds make dark the sky,

Then neate* and fowls this year shall die;

If blustering winds do blow aloft,

Then wars shall trouble the realm full oft.

* Neate is an old word for cattle

Back Tomorrow

Sue

January 22nd. St Vincent's Day

Still short of ideas so here's another saint for the collection!

 St  Vincent of Saragossa  was born around Huesca in Spain, ordained by the Bishop of Saragossa and ordered to minister to the people in that part of Spain. At that time the governor Dacian was trying to stamp out Christianity and killed 18 believers in AD303 and ordered Vincent to be stretched on a rack, and laid on a grid iron of heated bars. Realising he couldn't break the will of Vincent he had him thrown in prison where Christians cared for him. But  he had suffered too much and died, still praising Jesus,  in AD 304.

Dacian's hatred of Vincent continued after his death when he ordered Vincent's body to be thrown in a bog. A raven protected the body of the saint and drove away any animal that came to attack the holy relics. 

Now his day is only remembered in weather rhymes.

Remember on St Vincent's Day,

If the sun his beams display,

Be sure to mark his transient beam,

Which through the casement sheds a gleam; 
For 'tis a token bright and clear
of prosperous weather all the year

He became the patron saint of wine growers and drunkards - perhaps due to this old saying.

If Saint Vincent Day the sky is clear,

More wine than water will crown the year

(Information from A Calendar Of Saints by James Bentley, the internet and Chambers Book of Days)

Back Tomorrow

Sue

 

January 19th is St Wulfstan's Day

(I'm a bit short of ideas for blog posts so resorting to a few  saints over the next few days!)

When the Normans conquered England in 1066 King William replaced every English bishop with one of his own men. Every bishop except Wulfstan who had been educated in an English monastery,  become a monk in Worcester and made bishop there in 1062. He was known to be a very Saintly man - perhaps that was why he was spared and was the nephew of Archbishop Wulfstan who had previously been Bishop of Worcester and  Archbishop of York

Wulfstan tried to stop a slave trade based in Bristol and rebuilt Worcester cathedral. He remained Bishop for 32 years and died in 1095.After his death news spread of miraculous cures that took place at his tomb and he was canonized in 1203.

Later King John requested to be buried next to Wulfstan's tomb in Worcester after he died. And he was buried there in 1216.

From St Johns, Worcester

As a true English Saint I do think he ought to have some weather rhymes attached to his day - but nothing is mentioned anywhere.

(Info from 'A Calendar of Saints' by James Bentley and from internet)

Thanks everyone for comments about the batch cooking, sorry for not answering -  I fell into some internet rabbit holes looking for things to blog about next week! Luckily I found a good ideas. 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Boxing Day.....................

.............................................isn't a holiday in most parts of the world............so Lucky Us! 

 Boxing Day became a "thing" around the 1830's and the name comes from the custom of giving  "Christmas boxes" to servants and apprentices and the tradesmen who delivered to the house. 

December 26th is also St Stephen's day. Stephen was a Hellenistic Jew, appointed by the Apostles as Deacon in the early Christian Church. He was stoned to death around AD 35, and as he was one of the first martyrs he was given the day following Christ's birth as his feast day. Stephen is almost forgotten except for his mention in the carol "Good King Wenceslas". But Wenceslas was a prince in Bohemia in the 10th century and the story in the carol is just fiction. It was probably the practice of giving money to servants or the poor that gave John Mason Neale the idea for the Carol in 1853.

(information mainly from  the book 'The English Year 'by Steve Roud)

Thank you for all the Christmas Greetings.

Back Thursday (or Friday...... depending.......). with Books Read 2023

Sue

December 21st - St. Thomas

 Thank you to everyone for comments yesterday - things have been a bit odd here and I'll explain at the end of the week.

Today is one of the feast days of St. Thomas  and there are two old sayings for this day. Although the second doesn't quite fit for this year as the true Solstice is tomorrow early morning.

Look at the weathercock at noon on St Thomas's Day and whichever way the wind blows from it will stay that way for the next lunar quarter

St Thomas grey, St Thomas grey

Longest night and shortest day 

In the past St. Thomas's  Day was a excuse for 'gooding', which involved  begging for food in return for a small bunch of greenery. In some places this was called 'Doleing'. The dole given was usually some flour for making bread with the wheat donated by a wealthy farmer and ground without charge by the miller.

St Thomas was also known as Didymous and Doubting Thomas - one of the first apostles. Details of his life after his appearance in the gospels are uncertain . He is thought to have gone as a missionary to India and to have been martyred at Madras. His special day now is usually marked on July 3rd.

St Thomas by Rubens from around 1612

Back Tomorrow

Sue