Posted 8 years ago
GeodeJem
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In Wales March 1st is St David's day. Saint David's Day (Welsh: Dydd G?yl Dewi, Welsh pronunciation: [d??ð ???l ?d?ui]) is the feast day of Saint David, the patron saint of Wales, and falls on the first day of March, chosen in remembrance of the death of Saint David. Tradition holds that he died on that day in 601.[1] The date was declared a national day of celebration within Wales in the 18th century.
To celebrate that we wear a daffodil or the more popular leak, because you can eat it after! We also bake bara brith thats cake made with tea and also small Welsh cakes the best ones have some orange peel or lemon in them.
This is us in our Shell Petrol station offering bara brith, Welsh cakes with traditional balloon blowing and my boss pretending to be a daffodil!
St Davids is the smallest city in Wales smaller than the city of London which is a one mile square. St Davids Catherdra; can be visited.
LOL - a blow-up leek! I love cockie leekie soup! (I know it's Cock-a-leekie but that's what we always called it!) And Potato Leek soup. Mmm- - now I'm hungry! The cakes look delicious, too! Happy St. David's Day!
Happy St. David's Day, but why is he the saint and not another man or woman?
Because Spiritbear then it would be Saint No name day!
But there are lots of saint-like people in the World. I doubt Wales was any different. :P
What did he do?
Saint David (Welsh: Dewi Sant) was born towards the end of the 5th century. He was a scion of the royal house of Ceredigion, and founded a Celtic monastic community at Glyn Rhosyn (The Vale of Roses) on the western headland of Pembrokeshire (Welsh: Sir Benfro) at the spot where St David's Cathedral stands today.
David's fame as a teacher and his asceticism spread among Celtic Christians. His foundation at Glyn Rhosin became an important Christian shrine, and the most important centre in Wales. The date of Saint David's death is recorded as 1 March, but the year is uncertain – possibly 601. As his tearful monks prepared for his death Saint David uttered these words: "Brothers be ye constant. The yoke which with single mind ye have taken, bear ye to the end; and whatsoever ye have seen with me and heard, keep and fulfil."
For centuries, 1 March has been a national festival. Saint David was recognised as a national patron saint at the height of Welsh resistance to the Normans. Saint David's Day was celebrated by Welsh diaspora from the late Middle Ages. Indeed, the 17th-century diarist Samuel Pepys noted how Welsh celebrations in London for Saint David's Day would spark wider countercelebrations amongst their English neighbours: life-sized effigies of Welshmen were symbolically lynched,[4] and by the 18th century the custom had arisen of confectioners producing "taffies"—gingerbread figures baked in the shape of a Welshman riding a goat—on Saint David's Day.[5]
Saint David's Day is not a national holiday in the United Kingdom. Similarly in the United States, it has regularly been celebrated, although it is not an official holiday. It is invariably celebrated by Welsh societies throughout the world with dinners, parties, and eisteddfodau (recitals and concerts).
In the poem Armes Prydein, composed in the early to mid-tenth century, the anonymous author prophesies that the Cymry (the Welsh people) will unite and join an alliance of fellow-Celts to repel the Anglo-Saxons, under the banner of Saint David: A lluman glân Dewi a ddyrchafant (And they will raise the pure banner of Dewi).[6] Although there were periodic Welsh uprisings in the Middle Ages, the country was briefly united by various Welsh princes before its conquest[7] at different times and it arguably had a very short period of independence during the rising of Owain Glyndwr,[8] but it never experienced a long period as an independent kingdom. In 1485, Henry VII of England, whose ancestry was partly Welsh, became King of England after victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field; his green and white banner, with a red dragon, was adapted in 1959 to become the new Flag of Wales. Henry was the first monarch of the House of Tudor: during this dynasty the royal coat of arms included the Welsh Dragon, a reference to the monarch's origins. The flag of Saint David, though, is a golden cross on a black background: this was not originally part of the symbolism of Henry VII of England.
Much better. :P
So some people here in the US also celebrated today and ate leaks, huh?
No idea what the Amercians do. In Argentina they'd celebrate mostly in Patagonia lots of Welsh speaking Welsh there.
Happy Saint David day GeodeJem!
Nice feast you have, I'm hungry too, now :-P
Great tradition. Thanks for the post!
This is great. Hope you had a wonderful St. David's Day!!