Planting time hagiography
- Michael
- May 16, 2019
- 3 min read
As the plants reach 5 and 6 weeks of age it is the middle of May. As it were, we are also in the middle of the US. In my life, in this place. certain agricultural traditions borne of popular religious piety surround these days--interesting because they survive in our time and place, despite their origins that are remote in time and place (medieval and European).
"The Zmrzlis"
Pronounced something like *zhmerzhlees*, I've deduced that this was my grandmother's bowdlerized Czech shorthand for a tradition from the "Old Country."
The moral takeaway is this: you are not supposed to plant your tomatoes, peppers, or other tender plants before 15 May because a late frost will pop up and ruineverything. Modern people might say "wait until Mother's Day" but the expression "zmrzlis" belies a much older, elaborate, and fantastical explanation.
"Zmrzli" comes from "Tři zmrzlí muži [Three frozen men]. Sometimes called the "Tři ledoví muži" [Three Ice Men], they were Saints Pancras, Servatius, and Boniface (of Tarsus). Why "frozen men" or "ice men?" They "were frozen when temperatures dropped while they were fishing at sea. On May 15, St. Zofie came along with a kettle of hot water to thaw out the three frozen kings."
All of these saints were real, historical figures. However, all four did not live in the same time and place. You never hear about this Boniface--not to be confused with the patron of Germany--because he was removed from the Church calendar in 1969. Apparently the story that he traveled to Tarsus to hunt relics for his Roman mistress was a bit scandalous or "fabulous" for Rome. So, if these saints didn't go fishing together, why mid-May? Well, it's not that these figures were invented to be a proto-Farmer's Almanac. It's the other way around: their feast days--pre-existing conditions--coincidentally offer a great memory aid. Pancras (12 May), Servatius (13 May), Boniface (14 May), and Sophia (15 May). A pious medieval peasant probably couldn't read--including a calendar--but she would know the saint's day.
[Hear the carillon at the basilica in Maastricht where St. Servatius is entombed]:
Details vary, but similar stories appear beyond Bohemia. In Switzerland, eastern Germany, Slovenia, and Poland one also finds saint-based planting injunctions. This trio of saints is sometimes referred to as the "ice saints" and, in Switzerland, Sophia isn't the hero but the ice-queen capstone to mark winter's last hurrah: She's called "böse Sofie"--mean/bad/wicked Sophie. Even the Czech legend calls her "Žofie, ledová žena" [Sophia the ice-woman].
The Zmrzlis warn against a late frost in Central Europe. But we're not in central Europe! We're 5000 miles away and subject to completely different climate dynamics. Nevertheless, it was a remarkable coincidence--and probably a happy one for settlers raised on the "zmrzlis"--that the springtime weather in the Upper Midwest USA closely parallels that of Bohemia and Moravia.
Does it hold true--even in the Old World? A British meteorologist cried "bunk!" in 1902. Selective reporting was the culprit. Early 20th-century British positivism must have been at least as suffocating as all the medieval "superstition" it pretended to supplant. Kill joys! I'm glad I was born at the intersection of affordable personal automobiles and the internet. I digress.
Easter afternoon, I asked my aunt. "What do you know about the "zmrzlis?" We were standing on the edge of a park on a perfectly serene, late-April day--the very sort of day that lures eager gardeners into the "zmrzlis" frozen trap two weeks later. She took a swig of the Michelob Ultra:
"Oh yeah. I know about them "zmrzlis." Your aunt was talking about them in high school. Some years we get a cold snap in May, some years we don't. But I swear if it happens 50% time--a coin toss--it becomes a thing with these Bohemians. And you'll never hear the end of it. I would know. I'm not Bohemian but I married it."
Looks like we missed it this year!
"Mean Sophie" shares the calendar with St. Isidore the Farmer. Called San Ysidro Labrador in Spanish-speaking countries, this 11-12th century Madrid native, is the patron of farm workers. He farmed, lived simply, loved the poor, and ultimately vowed a Josephite marriage after his son was spared from drowning in a well. His cult is widely celebrated in Spain and Latin American but doesn't seem to be on the radar of Northern Europeans (and their derivative communities in the US).
This piece in Omaha's St. Cecilia Cathedral depicts San Ysidro traditionally--tall (reportedly he was 6'5" or 2m), holding a sickle, next to his wife, with oxen nearby.
Comments