WALK DAY

We all need a bit of luck in life. Funny though, isn’t it, how some people seem to have more luck than others? It has taken me a long time to discover why – but now I can share the secret: lucky people have remembered  traditions which most of us have forgotten.

          Take, for example, November 11th – St. Martin’s day or “Martinmas”. Our antecedents in parts of Britain knew that bad luck would inevitably result if any wheels turned on that day. So it was treated as a holiday, when farm carts and millers’ wheels stood still, women wouldn’t spin and even knitting, with its circular motions, was forbidden. The reason was that St Martin was believed to have been killed by being thrown under a turning mill-wheel. I would gamble that some of the people who are lucky never get into a car or bus on November 11th.

St. Martin, the child of pagan parents, was born in AD 316 in Pannonia, a province of the Roman Empire corresponding to present-day western Hungary, parts of eastern Austria, Slovenia and northern Yugoslavia. The story goes that when in Rome, one bleak morning in early November, he saw a poor, naked man shivering from the cold and gave him half his cloak. That night Christ appeared to him in the same cloak, which effected his conversion to Christianity. If this story is true his philanthropy started at a very early age as his conversion is recorded as having taken place when he was only ten years old.

          He was forced to join the Roman army but asked to be released because he considered serving as a soldier to be incompatible with his Christianity. After a spell in prison he settled in Poitiers, from where he became a missionary on the Balkan Peninsula. Returning to Poitiers he was made Bishop of Tours in 371 and founded the first monastery in Gaul, which included all the land south and west of the River Rhine, west of the Alps and north of the Pyrenees. Known as a miracle worker during his lifetime, he was one of the first saints to be revered who was not a martyr. He died in AD 397. His day is November 11th, the day of the Roman Feast of Bacchus – which is why he is the patron saint of innkeepers and reformed alcoholics.

          For centuries Martinmas was an important day for the payment of farm rents and the beginning and end of tenancies: it is still one of the Scottish term days. When farm labourers were employed by the year or half-year it was sometimes called Pack Rag Day because on it farm workers packed up all their possessions and left to find employment elsewhere. Many Hiring Fairs were held at this time of the year.

          In medieval and Elizabethan times, Martinmas was a great time for eating and drinking in Britain and many north-European countries. It was the time of the year when the majority of cattle and other livestock were slaughtered because food resources were insufficient to maintain them through the winter. Their meat was preserved by salting, pickling and drying. In Scotland, until comparatively recently, it was customary to kill an ox, called the Mart, or some other animal at this time of the year, eat a portion of it and salt down the rest.

          There were, however, other good reasons for slaughtering and feasting on Martinmas. It was known to be essential that blood was shed on that day, otherwise the next twelve months would be unlucky. So the tradition was that an animal or bird would be ceremonially killed on St. Martin’s Eve and its flesh eaten at a subsequent feast.

          Ceremonial slaughtering is not terribly fashionable these days, and personally I can’t stand the sight of blood, so, as I need all the luck I can get, I shall be ensuring mine for the next twelve months by choosing the easier option of not going anywhere on anything that has wheels.

          On November 11th I shall be walking everywhere. Personally I think that it would be in the public interest to drop the name Martinmas and call November 11th Walk Day.

Martyn Baguely