Have a Happy Shoemaker's Holiday and a Hilarius Day

Today, like every other day, is a saint’s day. In fact, today is the feast day of a number of saints. See http://members.tripod.com/~gunhouse/calendar/oct.htm#25 for a partial list. I have taken to checking what saints are associated with each day out of idle curiosity. (Note to self: come up with desk calendar idea pitch, Saint A Day Calendar). I never heard of most of the saints to be honored today, but the brothers Crispin and Crispianus rang a bell. They feature in my favorite Shakespeare speech from Henry V:

“This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:
'Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.
'Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.”

Crispin and Crispianus are the patron saints of bootmakers and shoemakers, and today is the Shoemaker’s Holiday. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to have shoes made. They were rich men from Britain who had to flee into Gaul and work as shoemakers. They evangelized by day and made shoes by night until they were arrested by the Roman authorities and ordered to recant their Christianity. The authorities put millstones around their necks and threw them into a river, but the brothers miraculously did not drown. They were thrown into a cauldron of boiling lead, and when this did not kill them, the authorities tried boiling pitch, boiling water, boiling fat and boiling oil, all to no avail. Finally, decapitation did the trick.

Saint Hilarius interested me because the name seemed funny (I will never grow up). I wish that he were the patron saint of clowns or comedians or something, but he isn’t. He seems to have gotten in on his resume as I have found no tales of miraculous happenings. He was a hermit on the River Tarn, a monk and then Bishop of Mende.

I became interested in saints' days when my friends in Poland told me that they celebrated both their birthdays and their "saint's day", i.e. the feast day of the saint for whom they were named. I hold St George in special esteem and resolve to celebrate St George's day in style from here on out. I'm not Catholic, and I really don't know what sainthood is all about, but the legends of the saints are pretty interesting and can serve as exemplars of faithfulness.