Feast day of Ss Crispin and Crispian, the Gemini saints

The twenty-fifth of October:
Cursed be the cobbler
That goes to bed sober.
Traditional rhyme, St Crispin's day

St Crispin and St Crispinian were supposedly nobly-born brothers at Soissons, France, who worked as shoemakers by night to support their good works. They were tortured and executed under Maximiar Herculeus in about 287, and their remains were thrown into the sea and washed up at Romney Marsh, England, or, so it is said. There is an annual cobblers' procession held at their home town. Also, until 2004, the English town of Northampton had an annual street fair named for St Crispin.

Cobblers' Feast, or Snob's Holiday
These shoemaker saints were supplied with leather by an angel. It is said that they were pricked to death with cobbler's awls in about 287. On this day, in England, it used to be customary for shoemakers to hold processions and feasts. Today is also known as Snobs' Holiday.

St Crispin's effigy
On St Crispin's Day in old Tenby, England, shoemakers used to cut down an effigy of this patron saint of shoemakers, from a steeple or other high place where it had hung overnight. The effigy was carried through the town and stopped at every shoemaker's door, where the saint's " last will and testament" was read and an item of his clothing left as a souvenir. Finally, his body was kicked round like a football, commemorating the saint's martyrdom in about 287.

Day of the Dioscuri
The Greeks called today the Day of the Dioscuri. In Greek mythology the twin brothers Castor and Pollux were called the Dioscuri by the Greeks (and the Gemini by the Romans). Castor and Pollux, or Polydeuces, are sometimes both mortal, sometimes both divine. One consistent point is that if only one of them is immortal, it is Polydeuces. They were the twin sons of Leda and the brothers of Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra ...

Categories: saint, calendar-customs, greek-mythology, deity, astrology