Book of Days | from convivio bookworks

May 29 2014

Think Upward Thoughts

Today is the moveable feast of the Ascension of the Lord, which is of Book of Days interest mainly for one tradition in one part of the world: The dressing of water wells in England, particularly at Tissington. And by dressing we mean fancy dressing, dressing to the nines, as they say. At various times over the course of the summer, wells throughout England are decked out in flowers, moss, and other plant life in beautiful scenes… but at Tissington, it is always at Ascension Day. Clay is used to set flower petals and other items from nature into beautiful scenes. Traditionally they were biblical scenes, but nowadays the wells are decked out in all manner of interesting imagery.

The Feast of the Ascension is traditionally celebrated on the 40th day of Easter, and so it is always on a Thursday. It marks the day of the bodily ascension of the risen Christ into heaven. No particular connection to that event seems to connect to the Tissington well dressings, which some say go back to a 17th century drought in England, for throughout the fearful drought of 1615, the wells of Tissington flowed, and it is thought that the custom of Ascension Day well-dressing began then in thanksgiving for clean water. Others suggest the practice goes back much further, back to the days of Roman rule in England, suggesting more Pagan origins to the custom. As with most customs that go back a long, long ways, no one really knows how the custom began. Its origins are a watery mystery.

“In consequence of this questionable origin, whether Pagan or Popish,” wrote the Chambers Brothers in their 19th century Book of Days, “we have heard some good but straightlaced people in Derbyshire condemn the well-dressing greatly, and express their astonishment that so many should give it their countenance, by assembling at Tissington.” Straightlaced people, however, are rarely very interesting. Luckily, the dressing of wells at Tissington is, to this day, a spectacular local event that begins on the eve of Ascension Day, lasting for but a week or so. Like so many good lessons, it is a celebration of nature and the ephemeral.

Image: The Duffield Well dressed with a fitting watery theme for Ascension Day 2013 in Newborough, England. You’ll find plenty more images of traditional English well-dressing by searching the Internet for “Tissington Well Dressing Images.”

May 24 2014

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Memorial Day

The Problem with Memorial Day

It’s Memorial Day Weekend, unofficial beginning of summer here in the United States. These unofficial starts vary across nations and cultures. Up across the border in Canada, Victoria Day last week marked this cultural beginning of summer. And of course for those who follow the old traditions, we are well into summer by now, for the gentle season began with May Day at the start of the month. But here in the States, it is Memorial Day Weekend, the three day weekend, that really launches us into summer. Seasonal beach towns are changed overnight into bustling centers of activity. It’s a weekend for baseball games and boating and the firing-up of grills across this great land. Our focus shifts, rather dramatically, outward.

Memorial Day itself has an interesting history, and since the Book of Days is a blog that explores seasonal traditions, it’s one that we’ll delve into on the 30th of May, its traditional date. The problem with Memorial Day is that Congress, in its wisdom, created a three-day weekend out of the holiday back in 1968 when it passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. It sounds very bureaucratic and uninspired and the idea was that we would now celebrate certain national holidays as long weekends, as a matter of convenience. And it certainly is convenient, but it also has the unintended effect of watering down the importance of the actual holidays that are being celebrated. The result is that Memorial Day becomes a day––or a weekend––dominated by burgers and beer and traffic and commerce as we rush off to cookouts, beach homes, and appliance sales… all of which are as far removed from the day’s original intent as can be.

Memorial Day itself began as Decoration Day––a day to decorate the graves of those who had died in service to their country. As with most holidays of this nature, there is some ambiguity and uncertainty as to its true origins, with many communities claiming to originate Decoration Day practices, but all of these stories begin with the American Civil War. By the late 1860s, communities in both the South and the North began the practice of honoring those who had died in battle in the war with a Decoration Day holiday in early summer, and eventually the practice expanded to include those who had died in all American wars, rather than solely the Civil War.

Being the traditionalist that I am, I’m saving that discussion for Memorial Day’s proper date, May 30. My personal view is that it’s fine to celebrate the start of summer this weekend. Holidays do evolve and change and there’s no sense pretending this weekend is not a national welcoming of summer. So go on, enjoy the hot dogs, the burgers, the cole slaw, the s’mores. Even this is tradition, so embrace it, have a wonderful time. I think the 30th, though, is a fine time to remember the solemn beginnings of this national holiday. Congress may have given us a long weekend, but it’s up to each of us to do the memorializing.

The image above is one of my favorites: It’s the Cutrone family on a summer beach outing, probably at Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, where Grandma had a bungalow. The little boy in the shorts with the sun in his eyes is my dad, and those are all my aunts and uncles before they were aunts and uncles, and my grandparents, circa 1930s.

May 13 2014

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Cold Sophie, The Ice Saints

Die Eisheiligen: The Ice Saints

If you need that heavy sweater once more, blame it on Sophie. May 15 is the day of Cold Sophie, a bit of old weather folklore from Northern Europe and especially Germany. Cold Sophie is usually winter’s last hurrah, sending a blast of cold icy air down from the North. Summer may be a-comin’ in, but Cold Sophie will remind you of winter’s power as she says farewell for a while with a kindly reminder: “I’ll be back. Don’t get too comfortable.”

Cold Sophie is Saint Sophia, and she is but one of a group of saints known in Germany as die Eisheiligen, or the Ice Saints. The Ice Saints are Saints Mamertus, Pancras, Servatius, Boniface, and Sophia, and their feast days begin on the 11th of May with St. Mamertus and continue on to St. Sophia on the 15th. It is a time of traditionally colder weather in Northern Europe, and anyone who planted their gardens ahead of Cold Sophie was thought to be a fool indeed, for Cold Sophie’s cold damp days would quickly do in all efforts of any and all overly-ambitious gardeners with a solid reminder of who is in charge. Cold Sophie returns each mid May to gently keep us in our place and help us keep in mind that all we do is in partnership with the planet and its elements.

So, considering saints all begin as everyday joes like you and me, who were these folks? St. Mamertus (May 11) was a fifth century bishop in France. His diocese was much afflicted by catastrophes, ranging from fires to earthquakes, and his regimen of fasting and prayer is thought to have delivered the region from its ill fate. St. Pancras (May 12) was a fourth century martyr of Rome, beheaded at the very young age of only 14 and so he is a patron saint of children. St. Servatius (May 13) is the patron saint of the city of Maastricht in the Netherlands, where he died as bishop in 384. His relics are kept there in the Basilica of St. Servatius in a gilded chest that is processed through the city once every seven years. St. Boniface of Tarsus (May 14) was a fourth century Roman martyr, a slave tossed into a cauldron of boiling tar. Boniface, however, was dropped from the calendar of saints for possibly not having actually existed. But it’s tough to keep a good legend down.

And finally we have St. Sophia herself (May 15), the ring leader of all the Ice Saints. Little is known of her life, but she, too, was a martyr of the early Christian movement in Rome. One of her attributes is a book, which, as a book artist myself, I rather like. She goes by many names: Cold Sophie in Germany and Poland, but amongst the Czechs she is known as Sophia the Ice Woman, and in Slovenia, Pissing Sophie. (I have no explanation, sorry. Any Slovenians care to chime in?)

The Ice Saints do not hold much sway here in Lake Worth. Once summer makes its presence known here, it tends to stay put and that is pretty much that, and we won’t be counting on another blast of cold weather until autumn returns, which is quite all right; this is as it should be. But if we should wake up on the 15th of May and find the temperature even just a few degrees cooler than normal, we can nod to the breeze and thank Cold Sophie.

Image: Four ice crystals photographed by William “Snowflake” Bentley in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Bentley was a Vermont photographer who captured thousands of snowflakes on film. Still, he lamented missing the billions of snowflakes he never got to photograph.