This year — as, in fact, in many years — the Eisheiligen (“Ice Saints”) arrived pretty much on schedule, bringing a real drop in temperatures and, this year, some rain.. They haven’t quite left us yet so are a bit tardy in that respect, but the rain is desperately needed so I, for one, am not complaining.
Who are the Eisheiligen? This year I decided to look into the matter a little bit and turned to the German-language Wikipedia (see link below).
The first thing I noticed was that Wikipedia listed Mamertus on May 11th as the first “ice saint”. I had never heard of Mamertus, even though he was Archbishop of Vienna in the 5th century. Then I noticed that Mamertus apparently only counts in northern Germany. Bavaria and Austria consider the first “ice saint” to be Pankratius on May 12th. Here I am on familiar territory.
The other “ice saint” I always remember is the last one, die Kalte Sophie, on May 15th. From Wikipedia I learned that she was tacked on later, perhaps to accommodate the fact that Bavaria and Austria usually get the weather from northern Germany a day later. This explains why “our” ice saints start a day later and end a day later.
Anyway here they are with their dates: Mamertus (May 11), Pankratius (May 12), Servatius (May 13), Bonifatius (May 14), and, as stated above, Sophia (May 15).
Why are these saints special? It’s complicated, partly because the dates that have been handed down come from the Julian calendar and don’t align with the Gregorian calendar. In any case, it’s a little bit like the weather forecasts in the Farmers’ Almanac in the USA — there to help farmers plan their planting times but predicted on the basis of recognizable patterns far before any forecast can hope to be accurate. And, yet, the forecasts are right quite a bit of the time.
Here is the link to the article for the German speakers: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisheilige
Tags: holidays, religion, tradition, weather
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