Also those with sore throats and people from Scotland, Greece, Russia and Amalfi in Italy. [size=24:bbaa7a0af1][color=darkblue:bbaa7a0af1][b:bbaa7a0af1]Happy St Andrew's Day!![/b:bbaa7a0af1][/color:bbaa7a0af1][/size:bbaa7a0af1] [b:bbaa7a0af1]The saint we share with spinsters and singers[/b:bbaa7a0af1] • St Andrew was a fisherman in Capernaum, Israel. He became an apostle of Christ and was crucified in 60AD. • The cross on which he was bound (not nailed) was x-shaped - hence the x-shaped cross on Scotland's flag. • Around the eighth century, the Church conceived of patron saints as a way of easing converts to the notion of a single god. Saintly relics held in Rome were dispersed. • Tradition has it that in 733 a monk was warned in a dream to take St Andrew's bones to the ends of the earth. He landed in what would later be called St Andrews, Fife, with a tooth, an arm bone, a kneecap, and some fingers of the saint. • St Andrew's Day is popular among Scots abroad. This year the Royal Gurkha Rifles will entertain Scots in Kuala Lumpur, whisky will be shared at the Renaissance Hotel in Moscow and there will be skiing plus haggis in Aspen, Colorado. • St Andrew is also patron saint of Greece, Russia, Amalfi in Italy, fishermen, gout, singers, spinsters and sore throats. • In Russia, St Andrew's Day was popular before the 1917 revolution and is mentioned in Dr Zhivago. It was banned as a religious holiday but parties with borsch and vodka are making a comeback.
Go maire tu an la (have a good day) Sorry, it's Donegal Irish Gaelic I don't know any Scottish Gaelic or any Scots I'm afraid!
Szentendre is one of my favourite places in the world, a little town on the Danube north of Budapest that looks a little like vampires might live there, especially when it starts getting dark and everyone closes their shutters.
A custom for St Andrew's day is frying up pancakes, otherwise the Saint will drill holes in the pans. Because it's an ease from the Christmas Lent, I suspect the obligation for frying pancakes comes from heavy lobbying on the part of milk, flour and egg sellers
[quote:452546788a="Trollmother"]I have a very sore throat so I better take a whisky for S:t Andrew, or S:t Andreas as we call him.[/quote:452546788a] Saint Andreas? As in, San Andreas? Tell him to stop sending earthquakes.
I'll do that as soon as I can talk again I drank all whisky in the house and now I'm trying Fernet Branca and Underberg if any of them will help.
Whoo! I'll ask the Russian Orthodox part of my family what they do on St. Andrey's day (although we still go by the old calendar, so it's probably not due for another week or so) And the old Russian Navy flag was white with a blue St. Andrey cross
[quote:cac8e24753="mowgli"]Whoo! I'll ask the Russian Orthodox part of my family what they do on St. Andrey's day (although we still go by the old calendar, so it's probably not due for another week or so) And the old Russian Navy flag was white with a blue St. Andrey cross [/quote:cac8e24753] And this goes to show, that the Scots are Commies. England, expel the caber tossing, skirt wearing Red Menace!
