FEB 2, 2014. CANDLESMAS DAY

    Good Blessings to you on Candlemas Day

     Of all the titles for this day Candlemas is my favorite. The day of Candlemas is when the Church blesses all the candles to be used there for the coming year, as well, in times past, the candles used in peoples homes. Candles were the source of people’s illumination and were extremely important in practical use and in the symbol of Light against the Darkness. At this time of year many candles were made in the homes. And this had to do with the autumn butchering of meat. When butchering a large animal for winter stores, cured and smoked meats and more, nothing could afford to be laid to waste, and that included the fats. Suet the hard masses of fat from beef or mutton and even from pigs would be melted down (Rendered) strained, then cooked with water for a very long time until it was a white creamy grease called tallow. Pork tallow is lard. Tallow then would not go rancid and could be stored. Beef tallow was particularly valued.  Well tallow is what candles were made of mostly, sometimes bees wax was used but most often dip tapers were made by dipping wicks repeatedly in melted tallow until they coated the wicks and built up into candles. Some candles would be made for Yule or Christmas celebrations, but most of the Tallow because it could be stored would be saved for a less busy time just after Yuletide. Then at the beginning of February all would bring a portion of their candles to the Church to get them blessed and take the blessing back to their homes. In time an industry of candle making began. They were called Chandlers, they would make the candles for Church and homes and sell them in large amounts at Candlemas time. Later they also would sell soap for spring cleaning, made from the same tallow. Well they had to get the fat for the tallow somewhere so aside from butcher shops,  folks often sold their fat from there autumn butchering to the chandler.

Sell your fat to the chandler at All Hallows

Rendered down he makes the tallow.

When the new years young it comes back your way

As a peck of tapers on Candlemas day.

    Candlemas is a day of symbolic new light, when the days are growing in length. It’s a day of cleaning out all the old stuff from Yule and Christmas. Burn off the dried up evergreen decorum outdoors so the smell will hasten the call of spring.  Burn up any old candles as well, set them all around the house with new ones too.

      In fact it’s a time for cleaning out all the old food stores and root cellars as well. They may not eat up all the old food this day, but they made plans to be using them up and make room for what was to come. They would have old eggs, as hens have not been laying much through the winter, and eggs will keep a good while in the shell but not so long that they didn’t need to get used up. The meats they had were dried, smoked, cured, corned, basically anything preserved in some way. And they needed to be used up, as well they usually had some rendered fat to fry with which had to get used. So its ham and bacon and aged sausage time! Any fruit would be dried or preserved in some way bur most fruits were gone by now. Root cellars had cabbage, potatoes, carrots, turnips, beets, and manners of some greens like kale, as well as onions and garlic.

     Grain stores would need to last a bit longer but as a sacrifice and show of good faith they would use some flour and meal to make cakes and loaves, pan cakes and crepes, as an offering for the coming grain crops. And sheaves husks and straw from the grain stores of last year were woven into crosses, and baskets. And milk was plentiful again. The one new thing they had was milk. Animals which had been “dried out” over the winter by not being milked, had lambed or calved and were lactating again. They would dry out some of the animals over winter as it was best for the animal with less provisions of feed, and shelter, the females need not have an increased need for food and fresh grazing that lactation requires.

     Candlemas is plowing time, the point in the year to break open the earth and ready it for the coming growing season. It was a time to ask blessings upon the land. In the grain fields especially it was a custom to make an offering of fodder (grain, animal feed) back into the Earth. This was done with a little loaf made with both milk and holy water kneaded with grain meal or flour. The loaf was placed in the first furrow the plow made and a little song was sung while folks would walk around the loaf clockwise.

      Whole be thou Earth

         Mother of men.

            And acre full fed.

      In the lap of God,

           Filled with fodder

               For fare-need of men.

     And blessed become

         With the gifts of growing

              For fare-need of men

      And blessed become

           Acre full fed

               For the fare-need of men.

    For the fare-need of men,

        for the fare-need of men,

            for the fare-need of men.

     Well I didn’t plow or till my garden, in the sleety cold. And I was thinking of having a little fire in the pit for a celebration… but the wood was all wet anyway, even the wood I could have used in the chiminea. 

     But I did do a blessing in my garden area and in my herb garden I will tell you about later. And food and candles are figuring into my evening. The French make crepes but not to eat before eight in the evening. And if the cook can flip a crepe with one hand and hold a coin in the other then the household will enjoy prosperity for the next year. Well I have my lucky coin! So I guess we will see. Next information about the more ancient customs of this day.

Blessings mes amis.