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reetings from Australia. 

Welcome to this Red-Letter Day. Below you will find today's global celebrations, birthdays and events.

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Pip Wilson

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Today is

If it be fair three Sundays before St James's day, corn will be good; but wet corn will wither.
Traditional English proverb 

Till St James's Day is past and gone,
There may be hops or they may be none.
Herefordshire, UK traditional proverb 

Whoever eats oysters on St James's Day will never want money.
Traditional English proverb

I think oysters are more beautiful than any religion.
Saki; The Chronicles of Clovis

In omnibus requiem quaesivi
Et non inveni
Nisi seorsim sedans
In angulo cum libello.
(Everywhere I have sought rest and found it not except sitting apart in a nook with a little book.)
Thomas a Kempis, died on July 25, 1471; De Imitatione Christi

KING JAMIE hath made a vow,
  Keepe it well if he may:
That he will be at lovely London
  Upon Saint James his day.

Upon Saint James his day at noone,
  At faire London will I be,
And all the lords in merrie Scotland,
  They shall dine there with me.
From 'Flodden Field', Old English ballad

The full moon rose over Malaita and shone down on Berande. Nothing stirred in the windless air. From the hospital still proceeded the moaning of the sick. In the grass-thatched barracks nearly two hundred woolly-headed man-eaters slept off the weariness of the day's toil, though several lifted their heads to listen to the curses of one who cursed the white man who never slept. On the four verandas of the house the lanterns burned. Inside, between rifle and revolver, the man himself moaned and tossed in intervals of troubled sleep.
Jack London (1876 - 1916), American writer who sailed to the Klondike goldfields on July 25, 1897  Full Text

I always wanted to be a children's book illustrator, but I took some LSD and took a left turn graphically.
S Clay Wilson, American comix artist, born on July 25, 1941

It was disturbing to the Old Guard ... Bob is no longer a Neo-Woody Guthrie ... The highway he travels now is unfamiliar to those who bummed around ... during the Depression. He travels by plane ... the mountains and valleys he knows are those of the mind---a mind extremely aware of the violence of the inner and outer world. 'The people' so loved by Pete Seeger are 'the mob' so hated by Dylan ... They seemed to understand that night for the first time what Dylan has been trying to say for over a year – that he is not theirs or anyone else's and they didn't like what they heard and booed ... Can there be no songs as violent as the age? Must a folk song be of mountains, valleys, and love between my brother and my sister all over this land? Do we allow for despair only in the blues?... The only one in the entire festival who questioned our position was Bob Dylan. Maybe he didn't put it in the best way. Maybe he was rude. But he shook us. And that is why we have poets and artists.
Jim Rooney on Bob Dylan's 'shocking' use of an electric backing band at the Newport Folk Festival, July 25, 1965; Sing Out magazine, 1965   Source

We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America. (Saddam smiles)
April Glaspie, US Ambassador to Iraq, giving Saddam Hussein America's go-ahead to invade Kuwait, July 25, 1990

July 25 is the 206^th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (207^th in leap years), with 159 days remaining.
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Feast day of St James the Great

This Apostle (not to be confused with James the Less [James the Lesser] the brother of Jesus whose ossuary was allegedly found and announced on October 21, 2002) was a son of Zebedee, a fisherman of Galilee, and Salome (cf. Matthew 27:56; Mark 15:40; 16:1), and brother of John the Evangelist. He is sometimes called 'James the Greater', and sometimes 'Jacob'. 

James was apparently a disciple of Saint John the Baptist and left everything when Jesus called him to be a fisher of men. James was among the circle of people closest to Jesus, was present with Peter and John at the Transfiguration, and again at the Agony in the Garden, sleeping while Christ prayed. He was tried and executed in Jerusalem in the year 44 CE by Herod Agrippa I, son of Aristobulus and grandson of Herod the Great. There is a tradition that James founded an Apostolic see in Spain; this tradition was current as early as 700, but no certain mention of such tradition is to be found earlier.

Once, he resurrected a boy who had been wrongly executed, and had been dead for five weeks. The boy's father, notified of the miracle while he sat at his dinner table, pronounced the story nonsense, saying his son was no more alive than the roasted fowl on the table. The cooked bird promptly sat up, sprouted feathers, and flew away. Or, so it is said.

St James the Great is the patron saint of, among other things, apothecaries, arthritis sufferers, blacksmiths, Chile, druggists, equestrians, furriers, Guatemala, horsemen, knights, labourers, pharmacists, pilgrims, soldiers, Spanish conquistadors, tanners, and veterinarians

He is also the patron of Spain, where he is said to have preached, and it was in Spain that a remarkable transformation came over the legend of this fisherman. At the Battle of Clavijo, 844, between Ramiro, King of Leon, and the Moors, when the Christians were losing, St James appeared in the field, on a charger decorated with scallop shells, and armed, he slew 60,000 of the Moors. In his honour, the Spaniards founded the Order of St James of the Sword (Santiago de Espada) ... 

Read on at the Saint James page in the Scriptorium

Saint James was (and sometimes, still is) celebrated in the Christian Church as a great killer of African Muslims. 

Pictured above is 'Saint James the Great in the Battle of Clavijo', by Juan Carreño de Miranda, 1660, oil on canvas, 231 x 168 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

The Pilgrimage of Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain

Europe's, and probably the world's, greatest pilgrimage

The city of Santiago de Compostela became the seat of the saint, from the legend of his body having been miraculously translated there.

When his relics were being conveyed from Jerusalem, where he died, to Spain, in a ship of marble, the horse of a Portuguese knight plunged into the sea with its rider. When rescued, the knight's clothes were found to be covered with scallop shells. 

It might be that the use of the scallop device derives from the pilgrims' using shells as primitive cups and spoons, or it might derive from the earlier Roman festival of the sea god and goddess, Neptune and Salacia (July 23, qv). Pilgrims to the shrine wore, and often still wear, a scallop shell on cloak or hat (and carry a mobile phone, if this photo is anything to go by). Medieval Galicians (from Galicia, Spain 'the land of the Gaelic, or Celtic/Gallic people' – first cousins to the Irish, Welsh, Scots, Cornish and Bretons; living in northwest Spain around Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain) who were willing to accept passing pilgrims into their homes also hung scallop shells over their doors. In French, 'une coquille Saint-Jacques' – literally, a 'St James shell' – is the term for 'scallop'.

The remains of the Apostle lay forgotten until the year 813, when a hermit named Pelayo was led to their hidden site by a shining star (compostela). The local bishop had the cathedral erected at this location where the bones of the saint lie in a chapel located in the basement of the church. Or, so it is said.

The pilgrimage to Compostela became almost as popular and important in medieval Europe as that to Jerusalem. Because of this, seventeen English peers and eight baronets have scallop shells in their arms as heraldic charges. Note that it is not only in Europe that scallops and pilgrimages go together. In 19^th-Century Japan, too, certain pilgrims adorned themselves with scallop shells.

The pilgrimage, known as the Camino (Camino de Santiago or Way of St James), is as popular today as it was in the Middle Ages. Tens of thousands of pilgrims from all over the world, not all of them Roman Catholic, make the journey on foot. The pilgrimage, probably the most famous on the planet, goes for about 900 kilometres, from France to Spain, and takes about a month.

Wikipedia says:

• In Spanish it is usually called El Camino de Santiago
• In Galego it is often called Ruta Xacobea
• In German it is called Der Jakobsweg
• In French le chemin de Saint Jacques
• In Italian Cammino di Santiago
• In Portuguese Caminho de Santiago

Prior to its existence as a Catholic pilgrimage, the route had significance with Romans and Celts who lived in northern Spain. The site is thought to have previously been a Roman shrine. To this day, many pilgrims continue the route to the coast of Galicia and Cape Finisterre (Fisterra in Galician), the westernmost point of Europe. To the Romans, Finisterra represented a sacred location as the end of the world. These pagan influences can still be seen along the way and amongst the pilgrims themselves.

 

Official site of the city of Santiago de Compostela    Confraternity of St James

The pilgrimage route described for the modern backpacker, with photos

www.backpack45.com/camino2.html - English language based site with planning information for walking the Camino Francès

http://Groups.msn.com/ElCamino Santiago: An English language site full of resources for The Pilgimage Way to Santiago

Over 1600 high res photographs of the Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela

Remember the grotto

English children in olden days collected old shells, bits of coloured stone and pottery, leaves, flowers, and so on and built a little 'grotto'. This harked back to the old ritual of constructing shell grottoes on St James's Day for the use of those who could not afford the pilgrimage on that day to the shrine at Compostela. The English children would cry "Pray remember the grotto".

St James's wort, or ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) was named after this saint, perhaps because it was used to treat diseases of horses (and St James is known to the Spanish as a horseman) or because it blooms around this time. Other names Ragweed, Tansy ragwort, Stinking Nanny/Ninny/Willy, Staggerwort, Dog standard, Cankerwort and, in North Shropshire and Cheshire, UK, Mare's fart. One of its other names, Stammerwort, probably indicates a belief in its efficacy as a remedy for speech impediments. The name has also been applied to Shepherd's purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris). 

Oh, many a time have I, a five years' child,
In a small mill-race severed from his stream,
Made one long bathing of a summer's day; 
... leaping through flowery groves
Of yellow ragwort ...
William Wordsworth, 'The Prelude'

More folklore

Apples were blessed on this day by the priests, and at Cliff in Kent, England the rector traditionally distributed a mutton pie and a loaf to as many as ask for it.

At the Fiesta de Santiago in Loiz Aldea, Puerto Rico, villagers still act out the characters from the battle of St James against the Moors. Some wear their faces painted white, dressed as Spanish conquistadors, while others impersonate the Moors, who are represented (of course) as grotesques, with carved, horned masks. Some villagers become clowns, and others "crazy women" (men dressed in women's clothes).

There is an old English saying that "Who eats oysters on St James's Day will never want". In Britain, St James's Day falls during what also became known as the close season for oysters, meaning that by act of parliament they are prohibited to be harvested until today. We may assume that oysters obtainable so early in the season would be a luxury only eaten by the rich.   

In the USA, the so-called Pennsylvanian Dutch people say that cumulus clouds on this day mean deep snow in the winter.

Feast day of St Jacques (James), procession, Grenoble, France
At the Church of St Andrew, Grenoble, the statue of St Jacques, which normally stands at the door, is carried through streets. Then it is laid on napkins filled with morsels of bread and taken to the fountain, where the bread is distributed. All eat and drink water, in honour of St Jacques, or James the Great, and to ensure a bountiful harvest. When these ceremonies are completed, red eggs are offered up in church ...

Read on at the Saint James page in the Scriptorium

Who eats oysters on St James's Day will never want

"St James's Day, 25 July, falls during what is now the close season [legal close season – when you may not harvest them. PW]. It may be supposed that oysters obtainable so unseasonably early would be a luxury only eaten by the rich."   (Ivor H Evans, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Cassell, London, 1988)

"On this day oysters come in; by act of parliament they are prohibited until its arrival." (William Hone, The Every-Day Book, or a Guide to the Year, William Tegg and Co., London, 1878; 1825-26 edition online)

In 110 BCE, the Romans began to cultivate oysters near Baiae (now Baia), in the vicinity of modern-day Naples. The Chinese had been engaged in fish cultivation in 850 BCE, but the Roman effort with oysters was the first Western attempt to domesticate marine life. The experiment was successful, and oysterman Sergius Orata made a fortune selling his oysters to a Roman public grown fond of gourmet food.
(Encarta)

"Interestingly, in the thirteenth century poem Thurkill's vision a ploughman is taken in a trance to Santiago where he meets St James and sees the souls in Purgatory. Indeed, St James seems to have been seen as something of a psychopomp as there are legends of dying pilgrims being miraculously transported to their destination by the saint's intervention."   Source  (Thurkill's Vision in the Book of Days, October 27)

Fiesta of Santiago, Puerto Rico
Here, the cult of Sant Iago (St James) is somewhat fused with that of Yoruba thunder and lightning orisha, Shango.

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