St. Martin's Day

In some German and Dutch-speaking towns, there are processions of children with lanterns (Laternelaufen), sometimes led by a horseman representing St Martin.

The old Greek tale that Aristaeus discovered the advantage of pruning vines after watching a goat, has been appropriated to St Martin.

[10] In the nineteenth century it was recorded that young people danced around the fire and leapt through the flames, and that the ashes were strewn on the fields to make them fertile.

In parts of Flanders and the Rhineland, processions are led by a man on horseback representing St Martin, who may give out apples, nuts, cakes or other sweets for children.

[10] Historically, in Ypres, children hung up stockings filled with hay on Martinmas Eve, and awoke the next morning to find gifts in them.

With a black face and wearing a cow bell, he ran about frightening children, and he dealt out blows as well as nuts and apples.

In Scotland, Martinmas became one of the legal ‘term and quarter days’ when rent had to be paid and farm leases were commonly terminated.

[8] According to Walsh, Martinmas eventually died out in England as a result of the English Reformation, the emergence of Guy Fawkes Night (5 November), as well as changes in farming and the Industrial Revolution.

[22] The nights before and on the eve itself, children walk in processions called Laternelaufen, carrying lanterns, which they made in school, and sing St. Martin's songs.

It formerly symbolized the light that holiness brings to the darkness, just as St Martin brought hope to the poor through his good deeds.

[24] The traditional sweet of Martinmas in the Rhineland is Martinshörnchen, a pastry shaped in the form of a croissant, which recalls both the hooves of St. Martin's horse and, by being the half of a pretzel, the parting of his mantle.

In early November, geese are ready for slaughter, and on St Martin's Eve it is tradition to have a roast goose dinner.

The custom is particularly popular in Scania in southern Sweden, where goose farming has long been practised, but it has gradually spread northwards.

A proper goose dinner also includes svartsoppa (a heavily spiced soup made from geese blood) and apple charlotte.

"Martin is coming on a white horse") – signifies that the first half of November in the Czech Republic is the time when it often starts to snow.

[31] Many people bake special St. Martin rolls in a shape of a horseshoe filled with nuts or poppy seeds (Svatomartinské rohlíčky).

Legend has it that this centuries-old tradition commemorates a Poznań baker's dream which had the saint entering the city on a white horse that lost its golden horseshoe.

The next morning, the baker whipped up horseshoe-shaped croissants filled with almonds, white poppy seeds and nuts, and gave them to the poor.

The product is registered under the European Union Protected Designation of Origin and only a limited number of bakers hold an official certificate.

[32] The biggest event in Slovenia is the St. Martin's Day celebration in Maribor which marks the symbolic winding up of all the wine growers' endeavours.

[33] In some parts[34] of Ireland, on the eve of St. Martin's Day (Lá Fhéile Mártain in Irish), it was tradition to sacrifice a cockerel by bleeding it.

St Martin's Day was one of the few nights the hounds would engage in a Wild Hunt, stalking the land for criminals and villains.

Marie Trevelyan recorded that if the hooting of an owl was heard on St Martin's Day it was seen as a bad omen for that district.

[38] Mārtiņi (Martin's) is traditionally celebrated by Latvians on 10 November, marking the end of the preparations for winter, such as salting meat and fish, storing the harvest and making preserves.

[42] There is a traditional rhyme associated with this custom: A feast is celebrated in the village of Baħrija on the outskirts of Rabat, including a procession led by the statue of Saint Martin.

It is celebrated, traditionally around a bonfire, eating the magusto, chestnuts roasted under the embers of the bonfire[43] (sometimes dry figs and walnuts), and drinking a local light alcoholic beverage called água-pé (literally "foot water", made by adding water to the pomace left after the juice is pressed out of the grapes for wine – traditionally by stomping on them in vats with bare feet, and letting it ferment for several days), or the stronger jeropiga (a sweet liquor obtained in a very similar fashion, with aguardente added to the water).

[citation needed] Leite de Vasconcelos regarded the magusto as the vestige of an ancient sacrifice to honor the dead and stated that it was tradition in Barqueiros to prepare, at midnight, a table with chestnuts for the deceased family members to eat.

[44] A typical Portuguese saying related to Saint Martin's Day: É dia de São Martinho;comem-se castanhas, prova-se o vinho.

l'Estate di San Martino (Saint Martin's Summer) is the traditional reference to a period of unseasonably warm weather in early to mid November, possibly shared with the Normans (who founded the Kingdom of Sicily) as common in at least late English folklore.

The day is celebrated in a special way in a village near Messina and at a monastery dedicated to Saint Martin overlooking Palermo beyond Monreale.