Here
in the U.S., and in other places in the world such as Ireland,
tomorrow, March 17th, is a popular holiday (or feast day)
for St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. People wear green, eat
corned beef, drink green beer, and even (at times) dye rivers green.
Apparently
some Finnish Americans living in Northern Minnesota got a bit jealous
of all the fun Irish Americans had, and decided to celebrate their
patron saint the day before St. Patty's Day. Unfortunately, there
wasn't a convenient patron saint to honor, so the Minnesota folks
made one up.
And
so was born St. Urho, the legendary patron saint of Finland.
There
really was a St. Patrick, although some of the stories told about him
are surely fiction / legend. For example, the fact that there are no
snakes in Ireland has more to do with the fact that Ireland is an
island, like the snake-free islands of New Zealand and Iceland, than
from the story that St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland.
But the inventors of St. Urho were inspired by the snake-ridding
legend to create a similar story for their hero: St. Urho was said to
have saved the grape crop in Finland by chasing the grasshoppers out
of ancient Finland by saying something like, “Grasshopper,
grasshopper, get out of here.”
(Note
that, although Ireland really does lack snakes, Finland still has
grasshoppers. So St. Patrick drove away the snakes for all eternity,
but St. Urho presumably just saved the one crop. It was a one-off
miracle, I guess!)
St.
Urho and his day have traditional colors, too—purple and green.
Purple stands for the grapes, and green stands for the grasshoppers
that were driven away and also for the vines. Oh, sorry, I should be
more exact: today's colors are royal purple and Nile
green.
St.
Urho Day was created, not in ancient or medieval times, but in the
1950s. I'm not positive it's true that Finns and Finnish Americans
celebrate the day by chanting St. Urho's anti-grasshopper charm while
walking in procession, kicking and waving pitchforks to scare off
grasshoppers. But I definitely believe that people celebrate by
singing, dancing polkas, and drinking wine and grape juice. A
traditional food for St. Urho Day is fish soup.
Also
on this date:
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