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Until St James Day be come and gone
You may have hops or you may have none.
Traditional English proverb

July 25 | Feast of St James the Great

This Apostle (not to be confused with St 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 St 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 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, 841, 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).  

‘A stupendous metamorphosis was performed in the 9th century when from a peaceful fisherman of the Lake of Gennesareth, the apostle James was transformed into a valorous knight, who charged at the head of Spanish chivalry in battles against the Moors. The gravest historians have celebrated his exploits; the miraculous shrine of Compostela displayed his power; and the sword of a military order, assisted by the terrors of the inquisition, was sufficient to remove every objection of profane criticism.’ 
Edward Gibbon

For centuries, the Spanish army rode to battle with the cry "Santiago!" ("Saint James!"). An example of this was at the Battle of Cajamarca, Peru on November 16, 1532, when only 168 conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro (1471 - 1541) defeated 80,000 Incan warriors led by their emperor, Atahualpa. Tradition has it that over the centuries, James has appeared, and been seen fighting at Flanders, Italy, India and America. Charles V (1500 - 1558) conquered Tunis on St James's Day. 

The Pilgrimage of Compostela, Spain

Europe'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, 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.

Pilgrimages: Pagan origins

The Catholic Encyclopedia acknowledges the pre-Christian origins of pilgrimages:

"The idea of a pilgrimage has been traced back by some (Littledale in "Encycl. Brit.", 1885, XIX, 90; "New Internat. Encyc.", New York, 1910, XVI, 20, etc.) to the primitive notion of local deities, that is, that the divine beings who controlled the movements of men and nature could exercise that control only over certain definite forces or within set boundaries. Thus the river gods had no power over those who kept away from the river, nor could the wind deities exercise any influence over those who lived in deserts or clearings or on the bare mountain-side. Similarly there were gods of the hills and gods of the plains who could only work out their designs, could only favour or destroy men within their own locality (III Kings, xx, 23). Hence, when some man belonging to a mountain tribe found himself in the plain and was in need of divine help, he made a pilgrimage back again to the hills to petition it from his gods. It is therefore the broken tribesmen who originate pilgrimages."

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), France, procession, Grenoble
At the Church of St Andrew, Grenoble, the statue of St Jacques (St James the Great), 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 and to ensure a bountiful harvest. When these ceremonies are completed, red eggs are offered up in church.

Representations of St James the Great: A scallop shell; a gourd bottle, because he is the patron saint of pilgrims; a cockle shell; a dark-bearded man holding a book; dark-bearded man holding a scroll; dark-bearded man holding a sword; dark-bearded man with a floppy pilgrim's hat, long staff, water bottle, and scallop shell; elderly, bearded man wearing a hat with a scallop shell; key; man with shells around him; mounted on horseback, trampling a Moor; pilgrim with wallet and staff; pilgrim's hat; pilgrim's staff; sword.  

 

James a psychopomp?

October 27, 1206 Thurkill’s strange journey (‘Thurkill’s Vision’)

The vision of Thurkill is one of a number of precedents to the Purgatory of The Divine Comedy by the Florentine poet, Dante (1265 - 1321).

We know from the medieval chronicle by Roger of Wendover (d. May 6, 1236), that on Friday, October 27, 1206 the English peasant Thurkill was digging ditches to drain his Essex farm (possibly at the village of Twinstead, Sudbury) when a stranger, who identified himself as Saint James (patron saint of pilgrims), came up to him and said he would take the laborer on a journey. Thurkill lay down, going into a coma. In his vision, Thurkill passed through a “large purgatorial fire” and was immersed in a lake “incomparably salty and cold”.

His family awakened him on the Sunday by pouring water down his throat. He was indignant because he had been about to enter Heaven with the psychopomp saint (many sets of religious beliefs have a particular spirit, god, demon or angel whose responsibility is to escort newly-deceased souls to the afterlife, such as Heaven or Hell. These creatures are called psychopomps – Wikipedia) ...

 (Read on at 'Thurkill’s Vision' in the Book of Days, October 27)

Jekaupa Diena (Jekaba Diena), ancient Latvia

In ancient Latvia, Jekaupa Diena (‘Jacob’s day’) was a festival held on July 24 – the eve of St James (July 25), also known as Jacob. At the start of the harvesting season the townsfolk held feasts from their freshly harvested grain and gave neighbours gifts of bread.

Weddings held on this day were judged to be lucky. A bright sun was also lucky; a cloudy day was a portent of snow; rain caused a low harvest yield. Unless it was a new moon, old seeds had to be sown. It was unlucky to walk through cabbage fields; if the cabbage heads hadn’t appeared yet, they would not.

Hay could not be brought into a barn today, or the person who did so would risk the wrath of Perkons. In Latvian mythology, Perkons was the god of thunder, rain, mountains, oak trees and the sky, one of the most important deities in the Latvian pantheon.  

Quotes

St James's Day, 25 July, falls during what is now the close season [legal close season; may not obtain 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

Omnis homo velox est.
[Let every man be swift (to hear).]
In art, the motto of St James the Greater

Until St James Day be come and gone
You may have hops or you may have none.
Traditional English proverb

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

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

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

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