May is a strange weather month in Northern Europe. The past few Aprils in Frankfurt have had a high number of quite warm and sunny days, even if they start out with cool temperatures in the mornings. As May began, however, the temperatures have headed south, er, gone down. We have the heat running, and the wind and rain have had an extra cold bite whenever I leave the house. This has a long tradition in Europe, and it has a name. The "Eisheiligen" refers to a period in May when, according to popular farmers' lore, the weather is still too unstable to plant crops because of the danger of frost. There are five saints (Mamertus, Pancras, Servatius, Bonifatius, and Sophie) whose feast days fall from the 11th to the 15th of May. Under the Julian calendar, that period was associated with late frosts. If adjusted to the Gregorian calendar, the period would be later in May, but global warming probably would have pushed the date forward. Scientists have been unable to determine that there really is a higher chance of frost in May, but anytime the weather dips from warm to cool in May, Germans start talking about the Ice Saints. The last of the Ice Saints is Sophia of Rome, who is thought to have lived sometime in the 2nd or 3rd Century, and who was referred to by farmers invoking her protection as "Cold Sophie".
St. Sophia of Rome with her Three
Daughters: Faith, Hope and Love
5 comments:
I don't know about the saints but here we say that the long weekend the third weekend in May is the safety threshold for planting frost sensitive plants.
Yes, same here in Southern France. Just as well that I take note of these age-old sayings, because this last week, we've had snow, deep snow - very near to here, 30 cm. of the stuff. Trees have fallen because the snow was too much for young blossom-laden branches to bear, electricity has been down, farmers have had to trudge miles across snow-deep fields to get some kind of feed to their animals, and snow ploughs couldn't get through because of fallen trees. May 4th that was...
I was amazed at the pictures of snow in SW France at your and your friend's blogs, Margaret. That was a real blast.
I think the saints have to update their "doings" with the global warming croud and factor in some disaster times on the side!! ?
STAGG
Do as I do - just bung them in and hope for the best. You can always bung a few more in later.
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