Scotch Fir. _Pinus Silvestris._
Dedicated to _St. Nympha_.
[384] Morning Advertiser, Nov. 15, 1824.
~November 11.~
_St. Martin_, Bp. A. D. 397. _St. Mennas_, A. D. 304.
~St. Martin.~
He is in the church of England calendar and the almanacs. By Romish
writers he is called “the Great St. Martin, the glory of Gaul.” They say
that he was born in Lower Hungary, about 316, and becoming a soldier, a
beggar requested alms, when having no money he drew his sword, and
cutting his cloak into two pieces, gave half to the beggar, and wrapped
himself up in the other; whereupon Christ appeared to him the next
night, in the half he had given away, asked him if he knew it, and said
to angels that surrounded him, “Martin has given me this garment.” This
occasioned him to leave the army and enter the church, and he was made
an exorcist by St. Hilary. Turning hermit, he lived on roots and wild
herbs, and unawares ate a quantity of hellebore sufficient to kill an
unprivileged person. After this, one of his disciples fell ill of a
fever, and died suddenly without baptism; “whereupon,” says Alban
Butler, “feeling in himself a divine impulse to work a miracle,” he
stretched himself upon the body, and prayed till the deceased came to
life. She said her soul had been before the divine tribunal, and been
sentenced to a dark dungeon;--but that on two angels representing St.
Martin was praying for her coming back, she was ordered to be restored
to the body and raised to life. “Another time the saint restored to
life, in the same manner, a slave who had hanged himself.” In 371, he
was chosen bishop of Tours, and is said to have lived in a narrow hole
in the side of a rock. Near to it was a chapel with an altar, over a
tomb, but St. Martin would not visit it, because, although the person
buried was represented to have been a martyr, he was not assured that
the relics were genuine. He went, however, one day with some of his
clergy, and prayed for information, whereupon on his left hand, “he saw
near him a pale ghost of a fierce aspect, whom he commanded to speak;
the ghost told his name, and it appeared that he had been a robber who
was executed for his crimes, whom the people honoured as a martyr; none
but St. Martin saw him, the rest only heard his voice; he thereupon
caused the altar to be removed.” After the rectification of this
trifling mistake, he went on raising the dead, casting out devils, and
receiving revelations; but as he grew older “it cost him more
difficulty, and longer prayers, to cast out devils than formerly.” He
died in 397, and his shrine worked the usual miracles. This account of
St. Martin is abstracted from the rev. Alban Butler’s life of him.
~Martinmas.~
A custom anciently prevailed, though generally confined at present to
country villages, of killing cows, oxen, swine, &c. at this season,
which were cured for the winter, when fresh provisions were seldom or
never to be had.
When Easter comes, who knows not than
That veale and bacon is the man?
And _Martilmass Beefe_ doth beare good tacke,
When countrey folke do dainties lacke.
_Tusser._
Martlemas beef was beef dried in the chimney, as bacon, and is so
called, because it was usual to kill the beef for this provision about
the feast of St. Martin.[385] There is mention of
--dried flitches of some smoked beeve,
Hang’d on a writhen wythe since Martin’s Eve.
_Hall._
Mr. Brand relates, that rustic families in Northumberland clubbed at
Martinmas to buy a cow or other animal; the union for this purchase is
called a “mart.” After the animal was killed, they filled the entrails
with a kind of pudding meat, consisting of blood, suet, groats, &c.
which being formed into little sausage links, were boiled and sent about
as presents. These are called “black-puddings” from their colour. There
is also noticed a kind of entertainment in Germany, called the “feast of
sausages,” which was wont to be celebrated with great joy and festivity.
The day is a great festival on the continent: new wines then begin to be
tasted, and the hours are spent in carousing. An old author says, that
the great doings on this occasion almost throughout Europe in his time,
are derived from an ancient Athenian festival, observed in honour of
Bacchus, upon the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth days of the month
Anthesterion, corresponding with our November. Another says, that the
eleventh month had a name from the ceremony of “tapping their barrels on
it;” when it was customary to make merry. It is likewise imagined by Dr.
Stukeley, in his “Itinerary” concerning _Martinsal-hill_, thus: “I take
the name of this hill to come from the merriments among the northern
people, called _Martinalia_, or drinking healths to the memory of St.
Martin, practised by our Saxon and Danish ancestors. I doubt not but
upon St. Martin’s day, or Martinmass, all the young people in the
neighbourhood assembled here, as they do now upon the adjacent St.
Ann’s-hill, upon St. Ann’s day.” He adds, that “St. Martin’s day, in the
Norway clogs, (or wooden almanacs) is marked with a goose: for on that
day they always feasted with a roasted goose: they say, St. Martin,
being elected to a bishoprick, hid himself, (noluit episcopari) but was
discovered by that animal. _We_ have transferred the ceremony to
Michaelmas.”[386]
Dr. Forster, so often cited, observes, that a medal has lately been
struck in France in commemoration of this laudable custom; on one side
of which is embossed a goose, and on the reverse occurs the word
Martinalia. Relative to the custom of goose-eating, it is further
noticed in the “Perennial Calendar,” that the festival of St. Martin
occurs when geese are in high season. “It is always celebrated with a
voracity the more eager, as it happens on the eve of the _petit carême_,
when fowls can no longer be presented on the tables of a religious age.
A German monk, Martin Schoock, has made it a case of conscience whether,
even on the eve of the little Lent, it be allowable to eat goose: ‘_An
liceat Martinalibus anserem comedere_?’ After having dived into the
weedy pool of the casuist’s arguments, the delighted devotee emerges
with the permission to roast his goose; and thus the goose came to be a
standing dish on Martinmas as well as Michaelmas day.”
In some of the old church calendars the celebration of this day is
called “The Martinalia, a genial feast; wines are tasted of and drawn
from the lees; Bacchus is the figure of Martin.”[387]
“Time’s Telescope,” for 1814, cites some extracts from a little ballad,
entitled “Martilmasse Day:”--
It is the day of Martilmasse,
Cuppes of ale should freelie passe;
What though Wynter has begunne
To push downe the Summer sunne,
To our fire we can betake,
And enjoye the crackling brake,
Never heedinge Wynter’s face
On the day of Martilmasse.
Some do the citie now frequent,
Where costlie shows and merriment
Do weare the vaporish eveninge out
With interlude and revellinge rout;
Such as did pleasure Englande’s queene
When here her Royal Grace was seen
Yet will they not this day let passe,
The merrie day of Martilmasse.
When the dailie sportes be done,
Round the market crosse they runne,
Prentis laddes and gallant blades
Dancing with their gamesome maids,
Till the Beadel, stout and sowre,
Shakes his bell, and calls the houre;
Then farewell ladde and farewell lasse
To the merry night of Martilmasse.
Martilmasse shall come againe,
Spite of wind, and snow, and raine;
But many a strange thing must be done,
Many a cause be lost and won,
Many a tool must leave his pelfe,
Many a worldlinge cheat himselfe,
And many a marvel come to passe,
Before return of Martilmasse.
* * * * *