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…that I didn’t recognise St. Martin.

(Wikidedia says that he’s “one of the most familiar and recognizable Roman Catholic saints. Aaah! I’m not Catholic, so that’s OK then..)

The fact that the sculpture is bang in front of the Martinus School in the Weissliliengasse (White Lily Alley) should have triggered some brain cells.

Didn’t though.

Didn’t even twig the rending of the cloak for the beggar.

(Sir Walter Raleigh saved Queen Elizabeth I’s having to walk across muddy ground with his and I had a vague recollection of King Wencelas doing something along the same lines. But St. Martin didn’t put in an appearance, brain-wise)

For all I knew, it could have been the historical equivalent of a mugging, with the cloak being the object of craving, rather than the new Air Jordans. Whatever.

The lady at the information office (before shunting me off in the direction of St. Stephan) knew, though.

So good luck to her.

But I do know that there’s a St. Martin’s procession in November for the kiddies. Lanterns courtesy of Uncle Johnny, in the non-so-distant past.

And that goose is the traditional meal of the season. Which is good reason not to fly Business Class out of Germany in that month.

Closer to my heart is the legend that he introduced grapes to the Touraine region.

Good man.

Besides being the patron saint of soldiers.

And God knows they need someone these days.

01 Mar This entry was published on 1 March, 2007 at 06:18. It’s filed under Uncategorized and tagged Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.