About a week ago was the Feast of St. Martin in the Czech Republic. However, who exactly is St. Martin and what is his feast all about? For starters, St. Martin’s Day is a Christian Holiday feast that takes place on November 11th. The feast celebrates St. Martin of Tours, a Roman soldier who is said to have become a Christian monk when he experienced a vision of Jesus Christ after giving half of his cloak to a freezing beggar. The feast is associated with the coming of winter according to a Czech proverb, as St. Martin is said to have ridden a white horse in it.

A main feature of the feast is a roasted goose, as the goose relates to one of the stories involving St. Martin, in which he hid behind a flock of geese who proceeded to expose his hiding spot with their cackling. Young wine is also had as part of the Feast of St. Martin. The young wine is wine that is from the first wine of the season, and as a result, contains very little alcohol due to only fermenting for a few weeks. Usually, the first bottle of this wine goes on sale on November 11th at 11:11 AM in the Czech Republic. The feast is not only held in the Czech Republic though and many other European countries celebrate it too.

Written by James Travis

Sources:

Frankova, Ruth and Eliska Kubankova. “Wine and Goose on Offer as Czechs Started Celebrating St. Martin’s Day Early.” Czech Radio. 8 November 2019. https://english.radio.cz/wine-and-goose-offer-czechs-start-celebrating-st-martins-day-early-8116045.

“St Martin’s Day Celebrations in Prague 2023.” Praquest.com. 2023. https://www.praguest.com/en/st-martins-day-celebrations-in-prague.

“The Feast of St. Martin in the Czech Republic.” Prague Morning. 6 November 2019. https://praguemorning.cz/the-feast-of-st-martin-in-the-czech-republic/#.