Today´s day is in the Czech Republic celebrated as SAINT MARTIN´S DAY. In this blog I would like to share something about this festival, which is full of the traditions. However, I think first of all it would be polite to introduce you Saint Martin. Well, he lived in the 4th century, was born in Hungary but he spent most of his life in France as a soldiar, later he became very famous bishop. There are many legends about his life but the most popular one is about his cloak, so let me tell you the story of it.It all happened at the times when Saint Martin was soldiar, he was very modest, shared everything with everybody. One day during the winter he entered the city and saw a beggar almost dying of cold on the street. He didn´t have anything to give him but all of a sudden he had great idea. He cut his cloak into two parts and covered beggar with one of them. The legend says that the very next night Saint Martin saw Jesus in his dream, telling the angels that he has the second part of Saint Martin´s cloak and that Saint Martin is on his way to become bishop.Why do we celebrate it on November 11th? Saint Martin died on November 8th 397 in France when he was on one of his missionary journyes but was burried on November 11th in TOUR – well known city in France, where is the crypt with his skeletal remains and later there was built bazilica that carries his name. If you are interested in half part of the cloak, believe it or not but you can see it in the royal palace in Paris.This day is also special as for the food we eat. For lunch we bake St. Martin´s GOOSE and we serve it with red cabbage and dumplings. Very delicious dish but just little bit heavy. Why goose? Again there is a legend which says that during the day when Sain´t Martin was about to be baptized he better hid himself in the place where geese live (sorry I didn´t find this expression in English, will be glad if Afro will look it up for us :-D). In the history this goose was the last meat people ate before Christmas.Another one important thing which is related to this day is that we drink Saint Martin´s wine – the first wine from the recent harvest. We call it young wine and it is little bit sour, in France this wine is called Beaujolais nouveau.Saint Martin´s festival is celebrated in many European countries and the traditions differ. For example in Germany people take part in something like parade, they walk with paper lanterns (especially kids) and they are accompanied by a man dressed as Saint Martin who is on the horse.Here in the Czech republic we also believe that during the Saint Martin´s day – Saint Martin will come on white horse – which means that it should start to snow but this year I hardly believe something like this will happen. Yesterday was 18°C and today the weather forecast promise the same weather, which is something very extreme here.
Hay..goose may live near the lake, park ,some of them live on the tress also. In our university after Sun down, I observed they flew away towards the nearest clumps of the trees. If you pet them, they may live in the pens. Which is called as duck/goose house. Anyway, as you mentioned an old story..so I think, they lived in their natural habitat....near of a swampy land...D
Nice introduction of St. Martin, Luci. It is the first time I have heard of him but there are so many Saints and legends of Saints. I wonder how many there are in Europe alone? I also wonder how many Soldier Saints there are? It would be interesting research to see how many of these were actual people like St. Martin and if there are some that were just legends told in certain villages, but are no longer counted officially as saints.
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Hay..goose may live near the lake, park ,some of them live on the tress also. In our university after Sun down, I observed they flew away towards the nearest clumps of the trees. If you pet them, they may live in the pens. Which is called as duck/goose house. Anyway, as you mentioned an old story..so I think, they lived in their natural habitat....near of a swampy land...D
Nice introduction of St. Martin, Luci. It is the first time I have heard of him but there are so many Saints and legends of Saints. I wonder how many there are in Europe alone? I also wonder how many Soldier Saints there are? It would be interesting research to see how many of these were actual people like St. Martin and if there are some that were just legends told in certain villages, but are no longer counted officially as saints.
Thanks for introducing Saint Martin's Day, which sounds like fun.
May I say "Happy Saint Martin's Day" to you all who celebrate it.