Peculiar names for days of old

For example, last Monday was Clementing Day, when the local blacksmith would tour his village while accompanied by lots of children. Sometimes the children and the blacksmith would go their separate ways, but either group would carry an effigy of Awd Clem and visit houses to solicit money by either singing or reciting verses. The money seems to have been for their personal use rather than for any charity.

This was known as Clementing, but in fact, Awd Clem represented Saint Clement, because November 23 is St Clement’s Day. Apart from those who went clementing, clem suppers and clem cakes were popular on this date but it is not clear why this custom began. St Clement seems to have little association with either England or blacksmiths, although he is the patron saint of tanners and appears to have had strong links with the sea.

There are many maritime dedications to his name, one of which is The Guild of the Holy Trinity and St Clement, now better known as Trinity House in London. Clement’s emblem is an anchor, and so his supposed links with blacksmiths remain something of a mystery.

With no known links to our country, he was one of the early Popes. St Peter was succeeded by Linus, then Cletus with Clement reigning from AD 91 until AD 100.

The day following Clementing Day is Cutting Off Day, November 24 which is the day preceding St Catherine’s Day.

Cutting Off Day is when lacemakers would cut off the pieces upon which they had been working, and then sell them. The day following was St Catherine’s Day (November 25) which was a holiday for lace-makers because Catherine was their patron saint. In some areas, farm workers also celebrated this day by staging dancing performances known as statutes.

Saint Catherine was also remembered on a wider basis by the eating of cattern cakes.

This name is a corruption of Catherine and the cakes were made from a soft dough rolled into what looked like a small swiss roll with added ingredients such as currants, cinnamon, ground almonds and caraway seeds.

According to the lore of the period, Catherine of Alexandria was one of the most intelligent and beautiful women but she angered the emperor Maxentius by accusing him of worshipping idols. He countered her arguments by producing 50 philosophers to refute her views but she demolished the theories of every one of them, and so the emperor demanded that she marry him.

She refused and so he tortured her and attempted to break her will by torture on an infamous spiked wheel that ripped flesh from human bodies. Some accounts say she was martyred on that wheel, while others suggest the wheel fell part when Catherine was fastened to it, and she survived – but not for long because she was beheaded.

It is from that story that we get the name of the Catherine wheel that is used in firework displays and her emblem in art is a wheel. Some circular stained glass windows, known as rose windows, are also called Catherine windows, but there is no record of this saint’s name in the early lists of martyrs.

However, a shrine to her memory exists on Mount Sinai where an Orthodox monastery is named in her honour.

This Monday is another day with an odd name, because it was formerly called Andermas and it is also a squirrel hunting day.

Perhaps we know it better as St Andrew’s Day, Andrew being one of the apostles and also the patron saint of Scotland.

He was a Galilean fisherman and is believed to have been the first-called of Christ’s followers who later introduced his brother Simon Peter to Christ.

Simon Peter became St Peter, the rock upon which Christ founded his Church.

In truth, very little is known about St Andrew and a claim that he was the first bishop of Byzantium (Constantinople) cannot be verified while the story that he was executed on an X-shaped cross is also doubtful. He became patron saint of Scotland because it was said that some of his relics were taken to Scotland by a monk and buried in the town that is now called St Andrews.

On this day, there was always a Mass in his honour, hence the abbreviated name of Andermas, while squirrel hunting took place in Kent and the famous Wall Game is played at Eton.

AS expected, our bird feeders are attracting some fascinating visitors among which I have regularly noted tree sparrows, house sparrows, a robin, a wren, chaffinches, greenfinches, great tits, blue tits and coal tits.

A flock of long-tailed tits paid a fleeting visit, as did a grey wagtail but none of those remained.

The coal tits appear to have a nasty habit of selecting only certain seeds from the feeder and then casting any unwanted ones into the garden below.

This means that our feeder empties rapidly but, of course, that does help ground feeding birds such as dunnocks, blackbirds, thrushes, collared doves and wood pigeons.

It doesn’t take long for that patch of ground to be paddled into a solid mass with the inevitable result in spring that we get all kinds of mysterious and unwanted plants – but some very contented bird visitors.

However, among the tinier visitors to the seed feeder, I spotted a gold crest. It seemed to be with a party of blue tits and coal tits that used our beech hedge as shelter but was easily distinguished by its bright orange crest.

In the female, the crest is more yellow than orange, but each is bordered with black lines. With dull green upper parts and paler under parts, these are the tiniest of birds, with their cousin the firecrest being even tinier – and both are fractionally smaller than the wren.

The chances of seeing a firecrest in this region are not very great, but goldcrests like our coniferous woodlands and can be seen during most of the year. Despite living in our more remote woods and forests, they do visit other places including gardens, and they can be surprisingly tame and approachable.

One of their great skills is demonstrated by the female when she constructs the family nest. Built mainly of lichens and cobwebs, it is slung below the twigs of a conifer rather like a deep rounded hammock and, despite its flimsy appearance, it manages to accommodate a family of up to a dozen chicks and two parents for several weeks without falling to the ground. It is truly a miracle of construction.

I don’t think goldcrests live very close to our garden, but we do have a large plantation of conifers at the far side of our dale, a couple of minutes’ flight away for a healthy bird, and I suspect a few of them live among those trees.

AND finally, it’s not very common these days to hear dialect words in regular use, but I was pleased to hear one recently during our local market. Two old friends met and one asked: “Noo then, hoos tha gahin on?” His pal replied: “Whey Ah’s fair mafted.”

This lovely old word is often used to indicate someone who is suffering from the heat or perhaps flustered and tired.

In some areas it is pronounced as maftered or mefted, but it is always extremely expressive.