It’s an ugly Saturday – wet, cold, early dark, the sort of day that’s ideal to watch Harry meet Sally or Andrew Lincoln kill zombies and everyone else he meets. However, we have been invited by friends to Czanksgiving. This is a Thanksgiving feast created by a friend of ours that blends Czech and American. So, alongside our turkey and mashed sweet potatoes we have Czech dumplings and cabbage. The booze is of international variety, the conversation is warm, and we soon forget about the rainy day and lean our shoulders full force into merriment and mirth.
When our friend’s brother arrives, everyone wishes him a happy name day (Martin) and, having completely forgotten, I of course jump on board so as not to look like a schmuck. As I stand in the corner drinking pear brandy and listening to the different stories being told, I review what I remember about Saint Martin’s Day.
There’s a lot going on with November 11, Saint Martin’s Day – or, if you prefer, Martinmas, Martinmesse, Martlemas, Old Halloween or Old Hallowmas Eve. As you may have guessed from the list of names, St. Martin’s Day is an ancient holiday. Sort of like a Halloween in the Roman world, like Halloween (or Samhain) it too marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter. Harvests were collected, animals slaughtered. It was the end of the economic year, workers were paid, and it was time to wish farewell to travelling ploughmen. Work was done, and so it was the beginning of the winter revelry season, marked by storytelling and mumming.
Helping them in their revelry was the first wine of the season. Saint Martin’s Day is traditionally linked to the pouring of the first young, fruity wine of the season. Combining this with the first animal slaughter makes it a pretty big day historically. But in many European cultures, the wine was poured for people outside the city gates. In Prague, the first pour takes place at 11:11 am on 11.11. So, as you can imagine, by the time we were running across the city to visit our friends, the people we encountered were pretty red-faced and cheery.
If something taking place at 11:11 on 11.11 sounds significant, it should. The Great War was ended at those exact coordinates and this is why in Europe this day is Armistice Day and in the U.S. Veterans Day. But the Great War was not the first conflict ended nor the first treaty signed on this day. The Treaty of Granada in 1500 divided the Kingdom of Naples between Louis XII and Ferdinand II of Aragaon. The Treaty of Zstiva-Torok (1606) was a peace treaty which ended the 15-year Long Turkish War between the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy. The Canandaigua Treaty in 1794, the Treaty of Sinchula in 1865 – Bhutan ceded lands east of the Teesta River to the British East India Company.
Perhaps this goes back to St. Martin who is the hero of St. Martin’s Day, well, after the church takes things over from the pagans. It’s within Saint Martin that we see lots of themes associated with this day. He was a soldier until he threw down his arms and refused to fight. He was a bishop, gave half of his cloak to a beggar that ended up being Jesus (good guess!), and spent a night sleeping in a goose den.
Nevertheless, and no matter the motivation, merriment was had by all. Then some more. Then some more. I didn’t eat goose, but I did eat two birds (turkey and duck). And I didn’t drink any wine, but I drank enough beer and pear brandy and gather that St. Martin and the itinerant ploughmen would have been proud. It was a lovely night and the bad weather stayed at the door.
