St. Ninian's Day Ginger Muffins

I'm fascinated by legends of the saints in a similar vein to the Greek and Norse myths of the gods and goddesses. (I'm a fan-girl of both Athena and Hera, and had I been Paris presented with the golden apple, I would have had to employ stalling tactics.) The saints I like best are the obscure and apocryphal ones. Take St. Ninian, for example. He's a 4th or 5th century saint who was supposed to have been a missionary among the Pictish people of Scotland. Not much is known about him, but there are a lot of churches dedicated to him.

St. Ninian came to my attention today when a friend on Facebook announced he was making ginger muffins to commemorate the feast day.

"What do ginger muffins have to do with St. Ninian?" you might ask. It's a fair question. I am in favor of scrutiny and the scientific method, but when it comes to ginger muffins, I get a little distracted. My answer is that I have no idea, but I'm shameless enough to use the feast-day as a catalyst for the creation of ginger muffins.

You can the muffins today to celebrate being alive, or make them in the future to celebrate being alive another day. If you don't like ginger, you may like these muffins. Then again, you might be pleasantly surprised. For example, I generally don't care for eggplant outside of its baba ganouj disguise, but there is one restaurant in Seattle that makes grilled eggplant taste so good that I order it every time I'm there.

My friend modified the recipe from Evelyn Birge Vitz's A Continual Feast (about the original recipe, he wrote, "The results [were] penitential in nature --- dry and unappetizing") and I modified it further. Here's what I came up with:

Ginger Muffins

Whisk together:

2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons dried ginger

In another bowl, whisk together:

3/4 cup milk (nondairy okay)
1/2 cup butter (ditto)
1/3 cup molasses
1/3 cup unrefined sugar
Optional: 2 teaspoons of ginger juice (because I had it on hand)

Mix wet with dry, and then stir in 1/2 cup chopped candied ginger. I used the kind that wasn't covered in sugar.

Pour into greased muffin tins and bake approx 20 minutes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit. I got 10 muffins out of this recipe, but I think I could stretch it to 12 next time.

Lydia Purpuraria, Patron of Dyers

Do you remember when I wrote about Lydia Purpuraria, the patron saint of dyers? Unless you were with me in the first couple years of this blog, you probably don't. I wrote about her here in 2007 and as part of a series of "saints as action figures" here in 2006.

In real life, Lydia Purpuraria would never have worn purple, as it would have been too expensive for a harvester of the many Murex brandaris shellfish needed to make a small amount of the Tyrian purple dye used in the clothing of royalty. However, this representation in doll form required it. Here she is:



Lydia Purpuraria doll is pictured with trees and shrubs by The Enchanted Cupboard

The Patron Saint of In-a-Hurry

I had this post in draft form from last October. I still get a kick out of all the patron saints for different challenges and afflictions. For similar reasons, I enjoyed Justine Larbalestier's How to Ditch Your Fairy.

***

Bede sent me a link to a BoingBoing article about St. St. Expedite, an apocryphal figure who is the patron of people who need help in a hurry. I had only known him as the patron saint of postal workers from a medallion I received as a prize during a production of Late Nite Catechism.

Santa Fe 2009

Greetings from Santa Fe, New Mexico! The first few days we spent in recovery mode: recovery from sickness, financial stress, the long lists of things we have to do, plus the long months of soggy coldness that have pervaded Seattle (though the last week of school was quite warm). We've gone to a birthday party and a potluck. Sunday, we went to Mass at the beautiful St. Francis Cathedral, which so far is the only Catholic church I've visited that rings bells during the Consecration of the Eucharist. (Last year, I had to ask Lucia not to sing along with the bells.) Yesterday, we visited with two of my mom's colleagues and worked with clay. I created a small fairy house with a removable roof, which I had been planning ever since I found out that we were going to have Clay Day. I'll post a photo after we return to Seattle.

Today, we walked two miles in a nature conservancy and tomorrow we're going to Canyon Road to look at art galleries and visit the Tea House. For Canyon Road, Bede and I are planning to leave Lucia with her grandma while we explore.

I've worked on some dolls while I'm here. I finished the Night Queen with her Star Child, and made a Cloud Child for the Day King. I've also stitched my first saint doll: St. Rose of Lima, patron of embroiderers, needleworkers and gardeners. In the St. Francis Cathedral, I noted that Rose of Lima was depicted holding a guitar. It turns out that in addition to her other talents, she was noted for composing mystical poetry and playing it on her guitar. Take a look at this photo, and you'll see the icon. It's second from the left on the top row.

Feast Day of St. Alkelda

March 28 is the feast day of St. Alkelda. According to legend, Alkelda was an Anglo-Saxon princess in 800 A.D. who was strangled to death by pagan Danish women. According to my research, there is no documentation of this saint until the late Middle-Ages, and her name may simply be derived from the Saxon word haligkelda, which can be translated to "holy well" or "healing spring." Alkelda has two churches dedicated to her: one in Middleham, and one in Giggleswick.

March 28 is also my birthday. Today I am 37, and while birthdays aren't quite the big deal that they were when I was a little girl, I'm still self-centered enough to think of it as the real first day of spring. On March 20, the daffodils were still closed, but now they are in bloom, as are the violets. The trillium in my garden have just begun to unfurl their petals. Speaking of trillium, I am currently at work stitching up a trillium boy doll (nature table action figure!) for the Etsy shop opening May 1. I've already stitched up a red sunflower and a borage doll. I feel a bit wistful about selling them, as it's different from making dolls for friends on commission or as presents. When I told my mom about my ambivalence, she said, "Your grandfather always felt that way about his paintings."

Love Song: Green is the Color of My Merman's Hair

Happy Valentine's Day! As I said in last year's post, I try to use this month to catch up on correspondence, as St. Valentine was a deliverer of letters. I've managed to do that once this month. I'd also meant to have a recorded version of my revised song "Green is the Color of My Merman's Hair" (to the tune of "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair). I'll post the lyrics and chords now and the recorded version at a later time. Hold me to it!

This song is dedicated to Bede, of course.

Winter Nature Table and Santa Lucia Day

As promised, here is the view of our winter nature table at the House of Glee. The winter nature table had to be combined with the nativity set, so the Earth Angel, Santa Lucia and King Winter are watching over the Wise Men and their camels as they make their way across the hutch:



The Earth Angel, King Winter and the felted angel hovering above the nativity set are all made by Nushkie and Santa Lucia was made by Haddy2dogs. Etsy has been a den of temptation, I tell you....

December 13 is Santa Lucia's feast day, but today was the day the school celebrated the festival. At my daughter's request, my mom made a Santa Lucia crown from silk ivy leaves complete with candle-holder clips from Germany:



Despite several requests from our own Lucia, Bede and I refuse to light the candles. Call us spoilsports, but we are not interested in winning any Darwin Awards.

Tomorrow, I have my last gig in my fall series with Pierce County Library System at the Eatonville branch, and then Sunday is the Winter Spiral. See you next week!

Saint Zita and her crew, plus the 'Three Explosive Virgin Martyrs'

A few days ago, Lucia drew a picture of St. Zita, finder of lost keys, St. Anthony, finder of lost objects, and God:



Bede said, "I wonder how God feels about being smaller than Zita and Anthony."

I replied, "God likes to keep a low profile."

Bede sent me an interesting blog post from Making Light about St. Barbara, whose feast day was December 4. Teresa, the author of the blog, writes,

Barbara is the most volatile of the Three Explosive Virgin Martyrs,* who form the core lineup of the Fourteen Holy Helpers.* She’s most often shown as a beautiful young woman holding a tower that has three windows. The other two EVMs are Saint Catherine of Alexandria, as in Catherine-wheel fireworks, and Saint Margaret of Antioch, who defeated a dragon that had swallowed her by blowing it up from the inside,* which is why Margaret is the patron saint of women in labor. They hang out being ahistorical and irrepressible together.

St. Barbara sounds pretty cool, but I must admit I'm intrigued with St. Margaret of Antioch. When I was pregnant with Lucia, she was two weeks overdue, and we had to go to dramatic measures to bring her into this world.

Lantern Walk Songs for Martinmas

I recently started a satellite blog called A Storytelling of Crows. As of now, I plan for it to be primarily a site for me to share audio and video outside the scope of Saints and Spinners. Yesterday, I recorded Lucia's teacher singing "I Go Outside With My Candle," and "Glimmer, Lantern, Glimmer," and so that the parents of my daughter's classmates could learn the tunes in time for Martinmas, a festival that appropriately coincides with Veteran's Day on Tuesday, November 11. Since the third song, "My Lantern! My Lantern!" ended up not being a clean copy (there was screaming in the background, which I hadn't noticed at the time), Lucia sang the song for me on video this morning.

Here is the post I wrote for Martinmas last year: St. Martin and the Lantern Walk

Here is a link to all three songs: Lantern Walk songs

St. Zita: Patron of the Missing Keys

If an object goes missing and you have to get it back, St. Anthony of Padua is your guy. It’s common to hear people mutter,

“Anthony, Anthony, please come around,
Something’s lost and must be found.”

I’m on such good terms with the official finder of lost objects that I should be able to call him “Tony” by now. You can imagine how busy St. Anthony must be.* Therefore, I was glad to discover that the delegation of lost keys had gone to St. Zita. I couldn’t find a catchy rhyme for St. Zita’s intercession, but sometimes they write themselves:

Zita, Zita, if you please,
Help me find my missing keys.

Speaking of saints, I'm a little put out that I didn't go to this "Be a Saint" party. Granted, I don't live in New York anymore, but still....

*Sometimes people get him confused with St. Anthony of Egypt, patron saint of domestic animals, especially pigs, and then they get cross when their dollies don’t show up, as is what happened in Eleanor Farjeon’s "The Tantony Pig" (from Martin Pippin in the Daisy Field).

Saint Blaise and Throat Remedies

[Photo of stained glass window of St. Blaise, courtesy of Romary by a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.]

Two weeks ago, a mild cold turned to laryngitis at the 2nd Annual Kiditosphere Conference in Portland, Oregon. My husband wasn’t surprised I’d come down with laryngitis, because he’s been to a number of gaming conventions. Even though he would make sure to drink lots of water, he invariably came home with a sore throat.

The recovery process has been slow. It is one thing to speak, and another thing altogether to sing. I’ve heard of divas “babying their voices,” and thought that surely I couldn’t do the same because I’d feel silly and pretentious. I’ve since come around. I'm not going to squirt anti-bacterial soap on my palms every time I shake hands with someone, but I may have to resist kissing my daughter when she has a cold. It’s much harder to recover for singing than it is for speaking. My voice teacher said that it would be better for me to cancel my gigs than to attempt to plow through them with a sick throat. She said that a healthy throat can withstand a lot, but a sick throat, if pushed, can develop polyps.

I was determined to get better in time for the gigs. Here’s what I did over five days that helped me recover enough to tell stories and sing for a Pierce County Library program plus a private birthday party gig last weekend*:

Rest
Rest was key. I napped whenever I could, I didn’t even attempt to do vocal warm-ups, and kept speaking to a minimum.

Steam
Twice a day, I poured boiling water into a bowl, covered my head with a towel, and gently breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth with my head over the bowl. I only started doing this when I began voice lessons.

Throat Coat
This is a syrup produced by Traditional Medicinals. There’s a Throat Coat tea, which I drink too, but the syrup is good as an alternative to cough syrup. Even when I'm not dealing with throat issues, I take some of the syrup before and after gigs.

I wasn't too proud to call upon the intercession of St. Blaise, patron saint of people dealing with throat issues. I try not to succumb to magical thinking, but sometimes it's handy to have a saint to whom I can grumble when everyone else is tired of my kvetching and moaning. Here's what I said:

"Saint Blaise, Saint Blaise,
please help my throat malaise."

Patron saint intercessions don't have to rhyme, but I find them easier to remember that way. I am reminded, however, that there is no patron saint of people suffering the common cold. What gives? We have a patron saint of hangovers, after all (as well as a patron saint of beer and wine, but I digress).

The Possibilities of Sainthood

I posted a little review blurb for The Possibilities of Sainthood by Donna Freitas on GoodReads. Not to toot my own horn here, but if you've enjoyed my approach to saints and their stories here on this blog, you may appreciate this YA novel about Antonia's two obsessions: saints (plus becoming the first living saint herself) and kissing. Antonia's never been kissed, which is why, at one point in the novel, she writes the Vatican repeatedly to beg for a patron saint of first kisses because it can go so wrong.

There was a point in time when I was campaigning to be the saint of ambiguous produce. The tomato, for example, tastes like a vegetable, but is classified as fruit except when dealing with the Tariff Act of 1883, which required a tax to be paid upon imported vegetables. The United States Supreme Court in essence said, "The tomato functions as a vegetable, now pay the tax."

Avocados and olives are also technically fruit, but are used more in the context of vegetables. Pumpkin, on the other hand, is definitely a vegetable has the appearance of a vegetable but is best enjoyed on this side of the pond in a sweet pie, like a fruit. Unconvinced? The next time your parents exhort you to eat your vegetables (no matter how old you are), tell them, "I am. I'm eating pumpkin pie." Let me know if it works. Update: Bluemamma has provided the correction that pumpkin is not a vegetable, but a "squash-like fruit" (see her comment with its accompanying link). According to research, "vegetable" is a culinary, not a biological term, whereas "fruit" can be either. With all that in mind, I cannot believe I forgot to include rhubarb in the group of ambiguous produce. It's a vegetable rhizome, but it totally tastes like a fruit, especially because one has to add lots of sugar to make it tasty. And so...

That's why we need a patron saint of ambiguous produce. While once I would have thought I was perfect for the title, now I think someone a little more patient, kind and prone to growing gardens that don't keel over and die would be a better choice. I was totally onboard with Antonia's petition to have a patron saint of figs and fig trees in The Possibilities of Sainthood. More patrons of produce, please!

Update: Fuse #8 went to a book release party where the guests made up their own saint specialities and dressed accordingly. Fuse took photos.

Saints: A collection

Action Figures (imagined)

Caedmon of Whitby (Father of Sacred Poetry)

Dymphna (Emotional Distress)

Fiacre (Gardeners)

Frances of Rome (Motorists)

Isidore of Seville (Internet)

Lucy of Syracuse (Light and Eyesight)

Martin of Tours (Legend with explanation of the Lantern Walk)

Mary of Magdala (The Myrrh-Bearer)

Michael, Archangel (story of Michaelmas)

Quirky Saints (Here you will find out why Vitus is the patron saint against oversleeping)

Scholastica (A story of how the law of love superceded the Rule)

Zeno of Verona (Officially the patron of fisherman, unofficially, at least on this blog, the patron of potty-training)

All posts having to do with saints may be found here.

The Expressive Napkin

Last night, we had some family and friends over for dinner. At one point, Lucia took her napkin and dipped it into my brother's girlfriend's wine. I was shocked. "That was mean and rude, "I said. "Why did you do it?"

Lucia replied, "I was being Veronica wiping the face of Jesus."

"Oh," I said. "I'm glad you weren't being mean-- you were just being... interesting." I asked her apologize to my brother's girlfriend anyway. I explained to the group that the legend of Veronica (whose name comes from the Latin for "true image") came up in conversation recently when Lucia befriended a girl of the same name.

Last night's interchange reminded me of another curious occurence at the table a few months ago: as we sat down to eat, Lucia placed her cloth napkin over her head. Bede laughed at my incredulous expression, and said that they had been listening to a rebroadcasted program on NPR called Francois Mitterrand's Last Meal. The "last meal" was the illegal French dish of roasted ortolan, a songbird that is now on the endangered species list. Fans of the dish place a napkin over their heads while they're eating. The reason is twofold. (1) They are able to appreciate fully the aroma of the meal, but (2) they are also hiding their heads in shame because they're eating a songbird, and one that has been prepared in a cruel manner to boot.

"Please leave your napkin on your lap," I said to Lucia.

Poetry Friday: Night Walks with a Heavy Step

Here is the post I wrote last year about Santa Lucia Day. Today, Bede is dropping our own Lucia off at school, and I hope he gets to stay for the singing. The second graders visit each classroom while singing "Santa Lucia" songs, and leave sweet bread (not sweetbread!) for everyone. Last year, I cried during the singing. Lucia's teacher reassured me that this was a normal reaction to the Santa Lucia Day celebration.

Here is the translation (courtesy of Mama Lisa's World Blog) of the Santa Lucia song:

Night Walks with a Heavy Step

Night walks with a heavy step
Round yard and hearth,
As the sun departs from earth,
Shadows are brooding.
There in our dark house,
Walking with lit candles,
Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!

You will find the last two verses here, plus a MIDI, sheet music, and a video of the song in Swedish.

Zeno of Verona

Chris Doyle of Reasonably Clever has a new LEGO Mini-Mizer (updated from the original). I used the original Mini-Mizer to make my Saints as Action Figures collection. I used the new Mini-Mizer to create the action figure for Zeno of Verona, the official patron of both children learning to walk and speak and fishermen. On this blog, he is the unofficial patron of children learning to use the potty:

St. Martin and the Lantern Walk

November 5, 2008 update: You can find videos with lantern songs right here on A Storytelling of Crows.


St. Martin and the Beggar by El Greco

On the evening of Monday, November 12, Lucia's class will take part in her school's annual Lantern Walk. The children and their parents will gather outside to walk through the woods holding homemade lanterns and singing songs. Afterward, we'll gather around a bonfire, drink warm cider, and listen to a story. The Lantern Walk coincides with the feast of St. Martin of Tours on November 11. According to the most famous story of the saint, Martin was a Roman soldier who was traveling one cold winter night when he saw a begger in the streets. Even though Martin felt frozen to his toes, he was compelled to cut his cloak in two and give one of the halves to the beggar. That night, in a dream, he saw Christ clothed in the piece of the cloak he'd given the beggar. Afterward, Martin was less interested in the business of battle. When Martin finally left the service with an honorable discharge, he founded a number of monastaries and was elected Bishop of Tours in 371. According to the legend, Martin did not want to be elected, and tried to escape by hiding in a barn full of geese. However, the geese gave him away with their honking! Ergo, it's tradition to eat roast goose on St. Martin's feast day. Here's a more in-depth blog entry about St. Martin and his feast day (called Martinmas) from Mama Lisa's World Blog.

Sketch by Tony Dowler

One of the traditional songs to sing on the Lantern Walk is Ich geh mit meiner Lanterner. An English translation:

I go outside with my lantern,
my lantern goes with me.
Above us shine the stars so bright,
down here on earth shine we.
So shine my light in the still dark night,
Labimmel, Labammel, Laboom.
'Neath heaven's dome till we go home,
Labimmel, Labammel, Laboom.

We walk with our little lanterns,
our lanterns so shiny bright.
We wander through the darkness,
with winking, twinkling lights.
Like stars that swing are the lanterns we bring,
Labimmel, Labammel, Laboom.
'Neath heaven's dome till we go home,
Labimmel, Labammel, Laboom.

All Saints' Day 2007

Happy All Saints' Day! Two of my favorite resources for stories of the saints for children are Once Upon a Time Saints and More Once Upon a Time Saints, both by Ethel Pochocki. Tomie DePaola and Demi have been quite prolific in the saints picture-books department, too. A quick search online lead me to Caedmon's Song by Ruth Asby, illustrated by Bill Slavin, and published in 2006. I don't know yet if it's good, but I'll let you know when I get my hands on a copy.

November 2 is the Feast of All Souls. I really appreciate the Mexican Dia de los Muertos, and would like to participate in a festival someday.

Michaelmas: September 29

From a German manuscript, circa 1300

Next Saturday, September 29, is the feast of Michaelmas. The day commemorates the archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael and their victory in casting the dragon (that is, the Devil) out of Heaven. Some universities in the United Kingdom use Michaelmas as the name of the first school term, too.

Lucia's school holds a Michaelmas festival every year to welcome the arrival of Autumn. Grownups and older children press fresh apple cider, bake bread and cook hearty root vegetable soups. Outside, the school-yard hosts a number of different games with the theme of "defeating the dragon." Unless the weather is absolutely miserable, families and friends share picnic blankets and eat dinner together. Lucia is looking forward to wearing the new apple-print dress for Michaelmas that I made at her request.


The old apple dress (now too small in the bodice)

Lucia's teacher sent out an email this morning with a description of the Michaelmas festival in the Waldorf school tradition:

Michaelmas is an old European harvest festival that is celebrated in Waldorf schools around the Western World. The story behind the festival is, briefly, that a dragon wanders the earth, devastating life on earth. St. George, with the help of the Archangel Michael, defeats the dragon, bringing peace to the earth and its inhabitants. The dragon can be seen in the process of the earth (in most places including Seattle in most years) at this time of year when the crops are ripe and mostly harvested, the rains have not fallen for months, the earth is dried and scorched and it seems as though the rains and winter will never come again. In the past people had to wonder at this time if the crops still growing would be brought in before the rains fell, if what they harvested would last through the long winter- who would survive? Who would not? In addition to this, autumn is often the time when our own inner dragons, who have been slumbering away during the lazy and fun days of summer, rear their ugly heads again. It is with the courage and might of Michael that we conquer our own inner dragons that we may go into the solitude and slumber of the winter in tact and with a certain amount of inner peace.

I looked online for various ways in which to celebrate Michaelmas with food, and decided that while we wouldn't cook a goose this year, I could make something with blackberries (tradition has it that the Devil landed on blackberry brambles after he was kicked out of Heaven, thereby rendering the fruit inedible) and something akin to a St. Michael's bannock. I appreciate Michaelmas as the festival to mark the beginning of Autumn. I can tell that people are itching for some sort of celebration by the proliferation of Halloween candy that appeared right after Labor Day. If you are so inclined, I encourage you to create a Michaelmas party of your own. And yes, all you Oktoberfest fans, I'm sure beer as well as hard cider will be fitting beverages for the grownups.


Aster novi-belgii, a.k.a. Michaelmas daisies

This post was updated at 8:00 am.

Five Saints to Invite to Dinner

Diana of St. Fiacre's Garden tagged me to list the five saints I'd invite for dinner. I'm going to assume that the saints I invite will not be in the midst of fasting. Here are my guests:

1) St. Mary Magdalene-- I'd show off by making red-eggs, i.e. hard-boiled eggs saturated with sweet pickled beet juice, for the appetizers.

2) St. Lawrence of Rome, patron saint of chefs. I'd ask him to bless the meal, and then it would be delicious for sure.

3) St. Martha, who did all the cooking and cleaning while Mary of Bethany sat at Jesus' feet.

4) Amand of Maastricht, patron of beer-brewers and wine-makers (did I mention that this is a potluck?)

5) St. Therese of Liseux-- I know both Martha and she would help with the dishes afterward.