If you’ve been following the Convivio Book of Days for any length of time, you know how much we love a good old obscure holiday. Well, it’s mid May and here comes another one: it’s the feast day of St. Sophia. Chances are good you’ve never heard of her. She was an early Christian martyr in Rome, other than dying for her faith, not much else, after all these centuries, is known about her life. Her feast day, however, is known to bring the last of winter’s cold breath to Northern Europe, and the day there, especially in Germany, is known as Kalte Sophie, Cold Sophie.
Sophia is one of the Ice Saints, die eisheiligen. They arrive in May, a troupe of them, one for each day beginning on the 11th: Saints Mamertus, Pancras, Servatius, Boniface, and finally Sophia, today on the 15th. She is the last of them, but she is the grand dame of them, and no wise farmer or gardener will plant cold sensitive crops until after Cold Sophie has passed.
So if you should wake on this mid May morning and find a chill in the air, now you know why. It is the work of Cold Sophie and her Ice Saints, offering winter’s last hurrah before the gentler months of summer firmly stand their ground. Until of course the planet’s constant rearrange allows their return once again. The only thing that stays the same is change.
Image: Windy Night by Reene. Scratchboard, 2005, [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.
After some all too soon days of summery heat, we had a cold snap in New England these last couple of days. Now I know who to thank.
Actually, I think Cold Sophie lives in New England, somewhere in the Maine woods.
we had a chilly day here in southeast Virginia yesterday. must thank sophie and the ice demons. it was very refreshing.
I’m afraid ice in our drinks is the closest we’ll get to “refreshing” here in Lake Worth until October, at least. Summer has pulled up to the table and isn’t going anywhere for a long while.