Today is St David's Day!
And if you're from the country of Wales, if you're Welsh, or part-Welsh (as I am) this is an important day.
On March 1st every year the people of Wales, and those of Welsh heritage wherever they are in the world, celebrate their patron saint.
My Mum is Welsh so in our family we've always known about St David's Day. But it was when I spent my final two years of schooling in Wales that I realised how passionate people are about their saint, their history, their culture and their language.
On this day, people wear the traditional symbols of Wales - daffodils or leeks - and in fact at school I remember one girl coming to class with a leek ... a huge vegetable ... pinned to her chest.
It WAS, of course, very funny ... and wow did it smell by the end of the day ... but it also impressed me as being a great show of 'nationality'.
On this day we may also enjoy traditional Welsh food ... my favourites are Welsh cakes which are like little griddle pancakes. Yum!
Today - St David's Day 2022 - also happens to be Shrove Tuesday, the start of the season of Lent, 40 days during which Christians prepare for Easter.
Shrove Tuesday is also known as 'Pancake Day' ... if you want to find out more about that maybe you'd like to read my blog post from 2021 when I wrote a blog every day of the year ... 'One Day at a time'.
But let's get back to St David, and you might be asking this question ... who was he?
Well in the 6th century, he was a Bishop of a place called 'Mynyw', which is the modern day St Davids, a city in the county of Pembrokeshire in the southwest of the country.
David (Dewi) was born in Wales, although there's no clear evidence as to the year that happened. It is known that he was a celebrated teacher and preacher and that he founded monasteries and churches in Wales - St David's Cathedral is situated on the site of a monastery he founded in the Glyn Rhosyn valley of Pembrokeshire - in 'Dumnonia' (a kingdom in the southwest of England) and even Brittany in France. David is even believed to have visited the ancient religious site of Glastonbury.
David established his own Monastic Rule, a system of religious and daily living for monks, and one of David's main rules was that when his followers were tilling the soil, THEY had to pull the plough themselves, rather than animals. Monks living by the Monastic Rule of David drank only water and ate only bread with salt and herbs - no meat, and certainly no beer. They were allowed no personal possessions and while David's monks worked in the day, they spent the evenings reading, writing and praying.
So, why is David's feast day March 1st?
That's the day when it's thought he died. As with his birth, there's a question mark over what year that was. Some say 601AD, others 589AD.
David was buried in St David's Cathedral and his shrine was a popular place of pilgrimage throughout the Middle Ages. Invading Vikings removed the shrine during the 10th and 11th centuries but in 1275 a new shrine was constructed, the ruined base of which remains to this day.
Although St David had been a popular saint in Wales since the 12th century, his religious feast day didn't become a national festival until the 18th century. And it's on March 1st every year that Welsh heritage people celebrate the man who now is their patron saint. Children especially are encouraged to celebrate as they learn about their history, and they often head to school for the day dressed as coal miners or in the traditional Welsh woman costume, with the girls often wearing a leek in their lapel. I remember at school one girl wearing such a BIG leek, a huge green vegetable, that it covered her whole chest and ... boy did it smell (like onion).
But why daffodils, and why leeks ?
Well the leek became a symbol of the Welsh spirit because one legend says that St David advised his people to wear leeks in a battle against the Saxons. It was the days of hand-to-hand combat and wearing the leek meant that they would be recognised as Welsh by their compatriots in the heat of the battle - so no chance of someone killing a fellow Welshman! That's just one of the stories, but leeks were a popular food for many centuries and were also used for medicinal purposes, and the link with St David's Day is thought to be especially through the Tudors, who had strong Welsh roots and heritage.
And the daffodil?
This lovely yellow blooms appears in early Spring, around the time of St David's Day and it's just a joyful flower, isn't it?
But the floral link with Wales is fairly recent really and is thought to have been adopted as an alternative to the leek in the early 20th century, by which time the wearing of vegetables on your coat on March 1st had become a bit of a joke. Welsh politician and elder statesman David Lloyd George, who was British Prime Minister from 1916 to 1922, was said to be an advocate of the daffodil being used as a symbol of his Homeland.
The Welsh are a proud people and on St David's Day that pride is more obvious than ever.
If you're not aware, the country (now called the Principality) has its own ancient language. Welsh is a Celtic language - with links to the ancient Celtic Britons - and although for centuries Welsh was the common language of the people, it did fall into decline in the early 20th century as English became dominant. However in the 1990's the value of the native language was formerly recognised for its importance to the Welsh culture, heritage and future, with The Welsh Language Act 1993 and the Government of Wales Act 1998 regulating that the Welsh and English languages should be treated equally in the public sector, where sensible and possible.
These days there's Welsh speaking media, the language is taught in schools, as well as there being educational establishments where Welsh is the predominant language for conversation and teaching. I read recently that as of September 2020, it was reckoned that about a third of the population of Wales could speak the language and more than 15% spoke Welsh every day. It's been a real success story for the reinvigoration of a mother language that could easily have died out. And if you visit Wales, you'll see signs everywhere in Welsh and English.
I know just a few words of Welsh ... passed down through my Welsh heritage ... but I'm no expert.
So, finally, today I could say 'Happy St. David’s Day!
But I instead will sign off by wishing you ... 'Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant Hapus!'