"Clemany! Clemany! Clemany mine!
A good red apple and a pint of wine..."
This is the song Staffordshire ironworkers would sing as they went door to door, and in many pre-Reformation English counties, they would do likewise, singing their own versions of the song, bearing an effigy of St. Clement, or "Old Clem", tricked out in wig beard and pipe. They would thus beg contributions to a meal, or at least at drink; hence this day was marked with a pot on old ‘clog almanacs’. (pictured) Originally made of a "clog", or log of wood, these were calendars of four faces, each divided by notches into three months, containing saints' days, festivals, moon phases, etc in Runic characters and so it is also called a Runic staff.
In Asatru and among the Saxons, Weyland the Smith is a metalworker whose feast day on November 23 is the same as St. Clement's Day. Clement is credited with being the first man to refine iron from ore, and to shoe a horse, and the present day English custom of blacksmiths firing their anvils by exploding gunpowder on them in honour of Old Clem may have its roots in an earlier tradition. In some areas, today marks the beginning of winter.
Children also would go 'clementing and cattering' for fruit and pennies, singing a somewhat surprising song both on St. Clement's Day and St. Catherine's day on November 25:
‘Cattern and Clemen, be here be here! Some of your apples and some of your beer!’
I guess in this case "beer" means pennies.
The symbol of St. Clement is an anchor, because one of his legends says he was thrown into the sea tied to an anchor. Besides metalworkers, he is also patron of boatmen, marble workers, mariners, sailors, sick children, stonecutters and watermen.
And hatters. Another legend says while fleeing his persecutors his feet blistered and he put wool in his sandals; the constant wear while running turned the wool into felt, which he is also credited with inventing.
Other customs associated with the late November saints days included men and women exchanging clothes with each other and inviting friends in for elderberry wine. A local winery even credits this wine with staving off the flu. Cheers!
Tarot cards of the day: 8 Pentacles, also 5 and 6 Pentlacles (because of the begging door to door); in the Romany deck, also trump #5 and the 9 Chivs (swords)
