Category Archives: Days and Seasons

St. Martin’s Day and the Christmas Season

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A cookie for St. Martin’s Day on display in a bakery window in Venice, Italy shows St. Martin on his horse ready to cut his cloak in half.

St. Martin of Tours was a Roman soldier in 4th century Gaul. He met a beggar one cold, snowy day who begged him for a rag or two to keep himself warm. St. Martin toook his sword and cut his cloak in half, giving a portion to the beggar. That night, he had a dream in which he saw Christ enthroned in glory, wearing the half of the cloak Martin had given to the beggar. “Where did you get such a cloak?” he heard the angels ask Christ. “My friend Martin gave it to me,” Christ replied.

When he awoke, Martin abondoned his duties as a soldier and became a monk. He attracted many disciples and became a famous monk. He insisted that his disciples always care for any poor person who came to the monastery gate because the monks would be serving Christ when they served the poor. He was made the bishop of Tours. Many hospices and hostels for the poor were dedicated in his honor. The ruins of one such hospice in Oxford–at the bottom of Carfax Tower–still has his image above what’s left of the front gate.

St. Martin’s feast day is November 11 and in many European countries that is the beginning of the “holiday season.” There was a 40-day fast before Christmas and St. Martin;s Day was the last important feast day before Christmas; families would often have a fancy goose dinner on St. Martin’s Day to mark the last occasion to have a big meat dinner before Christmas. (According to legend, Martin was reluctant to become bishop, which is why he hid in a stable filled with geese. The noise made by the geese betrayed his location to the people who were looking for him.) The goose dinner on St. Martin’s Day was a “rehearsal” for the goose dinner on Christmas Day, much as the turkey dinner on Thanksgiving in the United States is now often a “rehearsal” for the family dinner on Christmas Day.

In many European towns or villages a man dressed as St. Martin rides on a horse in front of a procession to celebrate St. Martin’s Day. The children sing songs about St. Martin and greet him as Americans greet Santa Claus at the end of the Thanksgiving Day parade in New York.

Seven Sleepers

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Illuminated manuscript from the 14th century shows the seven sleepers being walled into the cave.

In Christian and Islamic tradition, the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus is the story of a group of seven youths who hid inside a cave outside the city of Ephesus around 250 AD to escape a religious persecution. The fell asleep and came out of the cave 300 years later.

The story says that during the persecutions by the Roman emperor Decius, around 250 AD, seven young men were accused of following Christianity. They were given some time to recant their faith, but chose instead to give their worldly goods to the poor and retire to a mountain cave to pray, where they fell asleep. The emperor, Decius, ordered the mouth of the cave to be sealed.

Decius died in 251, and many years passed during which Christianity went from being persecuted to being the state religion of the Roman Empire. At some later time – usually given as during the reign of Theodosius II (408–450) – the landowner decided to open up the sealed mouth of the cave, thinking to use it as a cattle pen. He opened it and found the sleepers inside. They awoke, imagining that they had slept but one day, and sent one of their number to Ephesus to buy food, with instructions to be careful lest the pagans recognize and seize him.

Upon arriving in the city, this person was astounded to find buildings with crosses attached; the townspeople for their part were astounded to find a man trying to spend old coins from the reign of Decius. The bishop was summoned to interview the sleepers; they told him their miracle story, and died praising God.

The survival of the Seven Sleepers in the cave was taken as proof of the possibility of the general resurrection of the dead, which some were denying in the fifth century. The Seven Sleepers were invoked by people suffering terrible nightmares. Their aid was also sought by people suffering insomnia or who could not sleep because of great pain or other illness.

The story appears in Christian collections of saints’ lives and in the Qur’an (Surah Al-Kahf, verse 9–26) and is thus important to Islam. The Quranic story does not state the exact number of sleepers, but gives the number of years that they slept as 300 solar years (equivalent to 309 lunar years). The Islamic version includes mention of a dog who accompanied the youths into the cave and appears to keep watch. In Islam, these youths are referred to as “The People of the Cave”.

The flag of Kelantan in the 19th century, located in present-day Malaysia, incorporated elements from the Islamic interpretation of the story. In the surah, the dog is believed to act as a guardian, looking out for the believers until they awake.

See more icons of the Seven Sleepers here.

Well-Dressed Wells

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A decorated well in Derbyshire celebrates the fresh well water that allowed communities to survive before modern plumbing.

Romans named the sixth month of the year for JUNO, the queen of the Roman gods and goddesses. But the Anglo-Saxons called it Sera Monath (“Dry Month”) which was as much a hope as a weather prediction. Juno, however, is associated with roses and weddings and that—together with graduations—is what most modern people associate with June.

If June was the Dry Month in Anglo-Saxon areas, then it was important in many places to celebrate the water that was available. People began to celebrate “well dressings” in June to honor the underground springs of fresh water that sustain rural communities and urban neighborhoods. These well dressings are mostly parties now but in ancient or medieval times before plumbing celebrated the survival of communities and neighborhoods thanks to the available water. (See photos of making well dressing decorations here.)

Wells were thought to be the homes of nixies and water sprites, most of whom were friendly but some might be mischeivous or downright nasty to people that came to draw water from the well. Children, however, that fell into the well and drowned were almost always said to have been stolen by the nixie or sprite in the well.