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 November 23
| Feast
day of St Clement
(Pope Clement I,
or Clement of Rome), martyr
(Convex wood sorrel, Oxalis convexula is today's
plant, dedicated to this saint)
St Clement, the
fourth pope of the Roman
Catholic Church, the first of the successors of the Apostle St Peter about
whom anything definite is known, and the first of the ‘Apostolic
Fathers’, is the patron saint of tanners, as, by tradition, he was
one himself. His symbol is an anchor, as he was thrown into the sea
tied to an anchor. He is also patron of boatmen, marble workers, mariners, sailors, sick children, stonecutters
and watermen.
A Clement is mentioned by St Paul in Philippians,
iv, 3, but there is no evidence to assume that he was this Clement,
who is said to have been the third or fourth pope (the Vatican's Annuario
Pontificio (2003) cites a reign
from 92 to 99). A 9th-Century tradition says he was martyred in the Crimea
in 102, but earlier sources say he died a natural
death.
After Clement, or Old Clem as he was known to
English blacksmiths, was martyred (if he was), two of his disciples
prayed to find his remains: the sea retreated for 3 miles, and they
could walk to where an angel-built chapel was, with St Clement's
remains in a chest of stone, by the anchor. Every year the sea did
so, on St Clement's day and remained dry for seven days.
Children in pre-Reformation England went in
procession on this day, and at night, adults went out to beg a
drink. Hence this day was marked with a pot on old ‘clog
almanacs’. (A clog almanac was a
primitive almanac or calendar, originally made of a 'clog', or log
of wood. The sharp edge of each of its four faces was divided by
notches into three months, every week being marked by a large notch.
The face to the left of the notched edge contained the saints’
days, festivals, phases of the moon, and so on in Runic characters,
for which reason the 'clog' was also called a Runic staff. More.)
Clog almanac (more)
Clementing
In the Midlands
of England, children used to go 'clementing' for fruit and pennies,
singing a rhyme about St Clement:
St
Clements, St Clements comes once in a year
Apples and pears are very good cheer
Got no apples, money will do
Please to give us one of the two
Father's at work and Mother's at play
Please to remember St Clement's Day.
St Clement is also patron of blacksmiths. On November
22 in the Book of Days we looked at St Clement’s Eve activities amongst that
trade. At the annual blacksmiths’ feast held at Burwash, Sussex,
St Clement was said to stand protectively above the tavern door.
Effigy
of carpenter hung, Tenby, England
In Tenby, England, followers of St Crispin (see October 24,
25) hung
up on St Clement’s Day an effigy of a carpenter, which they kicked
around. Why is uncertain to
your almanackist, but presumably due to a rivalry that still tends
to exist between metalworkers and woodworkers.
Old
Clem and Wayland the Smith
Wayland (far right)
works in his smithy, while his brother Egil fights King Nithuth of Nerike (Nidud of Nericia;
'Bitter Hater').
Detail from the lid of the Franks Casket, a chest of carved
whale-ivory from Northumbria, England c. 700 CE.
There was a king in
Sweden named Nithuth. He had two sons and one daughter; her name
was Bothvild. There were three brothers, sons of a king of the
Finns: one was called Slagfith, another Egil, the third Völund.
They went on snowshoes and hunted wild beasts. They came into
Ulfdalir and there they built themselves a house; there was a lake
there which is called Ulfsjar. Early one morning they found on the
shore of the lake three women, who were spinning flax ... read on
at Völundarkvitha,
The Lay of Völund
St Clement's Day marks the first
day of Winter in the Julian (OS) calendar.
As patron of blacksmiths and metalworkers, Clement is an aspect of
the Saxon and
Norse godling
Wayland
the Smith (Weyland; Weland; Watlende), cognate of the North-Germanic/Norse
Völundr, the smith of the gods, who was the son of the giant sailor
Wate and of a mermaid. We know from the Volundarkvida/Volundakvitha,
a chapter in the Elder Edda. He
is sometimes said to be the ruler of the dark elves (svartalfar).
Swords made by Wayland are regular
properties of medieval romance. King Rhydderich gave one to Merlin
– King Arthur’s
famous sword Excalibur.
Rimenhild made a similar gift to Child Horn. Wayland forged the
sword Balmung,
and the armour in which Beowulf
fought Grendel. In
Teutonic
legend he is also said to have forged a sword for his son Heime that
was wielded by Miming and then by
Hodur.
In the Dietrich
cycle of sagas, Völundr’s brother Egill was compelled to
prove his skill as an archer by shooting an apple off the head of
his three-year-old son; he is thus the prototype of William Tell.
The earliest known
record of the Wayland legend is the representation in carved ivory
on a casket made by Northumbrian craftsmen not later than the
beginning of the 8th Century. English local tradition has it that
Wayland Smith’s smithy (a workplace where metal is worked by heating
and hammering) is in a cave, known as Wayland's
Smithy, a long barrow and
chamber tomb
site located near the Uffington
White Horse and Uffington
Castle in the English county of
Oxfordshire.
If a horse that
needs to be shod, or any broken tool were left with sixpence (or the
smallest silver coin, a groat) on the capstone
at the entrance of the cave the repairs would quickly be done,
presumably either by the deity or his apprentice, Flibbertigibbet.
Or, so it is said. The apprentice so exasperated his master that
Wayland once lifted the boy and hurled him as far away as he could
and where Flibbertigibbet, or Snivelling as he is also known, landed
he remained, petrified. He became a stone used as a boundary marker
in a field called Snivelling Corner by Odstone Farm.
It is believed by some that Wayland might
have been associated with the Neolithic site
at Uffington for many centuries before the Saxons recognized him
as Wayland. The Ancient Britons
might have been accustomed to making votive offerings to a local
god.
In recent years, at this and other ancient
sites, such as the West
Kennet Long Barrow, offerings have been left in the form of
flowers, nuts, grain, fruit, and feathers, presumably by visiting Neo-Pagans.
The earliest extant record of the Wayland
legend is found in carved ivory on what is known as the Franks
casket (Auzon casket), made in Northumbria not later than the
beginning of the 8th
century. It only came to light in the 19th century,
in France where it was being was used as a family workbox at Auzon,
France, and was donated to The British Museum by one of its greatest
benefactors, Sir Augustus Franks, after whom the casket is named.
The carvings of images and runes depict
other characters and events from history, myths and legend,
including Romulus
and Remus, the Adoration of the Magi, and
the Fall
of Jerusalem in 70
CE to the Roman Emperor Titus.
In Celtic
mythology, a certain blacksmith was known as Cullan
of Ulster, owner of a fierce hound;
when Setanta the son of Lugh, killed
the cur, he became known as CuChulain, the
Hound of Cullan.
Sources include Pennick, Nigel, The
Pagan Book of Days, Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont,
USA, 1992, p. 129; Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 1911; Wikipedia et
al
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