Yes, quite often, legendary figures do differ from their historical prototypes. Dick Turpin was a nasty little horse thief who somehow got remembered as an heroic outlaw. Saint George the figure in the Mummers plays and the Fairy Queen is an English knight who rescues ladies from dragons, and fights duels with Turks. He may possibly have been based on a Cappadocian Christian martyr. This is absolutely fine.
The Church of England is historically kind of a big deal in England. The Church of England is sort of kind of mostly Protestant. Protestants mostly think that the veneration of humans, even very holy humans, borders on the idolatrous and even pagan. Some Anglicans are okay with saying “and so, with Mary, Francis and Augustine we pray…” but Saints Days haven't been that big a deal in this country since the reformation.
Go round some older English churches and you'll see statues of saints with their heads knocked off by puritans.
My first name is Andrew. I happen to know that Saint Andrew's day is on 30th November because Scotland. But I bet if you are named James or Phillip or for that matter Polycarp or Dysmas you have no idea when your name-day falls.
Not that St Andrew is a very big deal in Scotland: the big day for tartan and bagpipes and disgusting meat products is Burns Night.
Wales is different again: they celebrate being Welsh with leeks because the English spent so long telling them they ought not to be.
While we are here: the English have a King and a national church and also a national health service and a national broadcasting corporation and a famous playwright and the Archers. Which is why the Union Jack has never been such a big deal for us as the Stars and Stripes is for Americans: we have other symbols. English people who put flag poles in their own gardens are adopting an American tradition, on the same level as kids who go trick or treating instead of pennying for the guy. Not that a thing is wrong because it's foreign and new, but you shouldn't pretend its traditional.
The thing about it only being the Union Jack if it’s flying from a boat is a myth.
Yes, indeed the Union Jack is the British flag, not the English, and God Save the Queen I Mean King is the British national anthem, not the English one and the fact that everyone including me gets confused over that is a big part of the problem.
While we are here: the English have a King and a national church and also a national health service and a national broadcasting corporation and a famous playwright and the Archers. Which is why the Union Jack has never been such a big deal for us as the Stars and Stripes is for Americans: we have other symbols. English people who put flag poles in their own gardens are adopting an American tradition, on the same level as kids who go trick or treating instead of pennying for the guy. Not that a thing is wrong because it's foreign and new, but you shouldn't pretend its traditional.
The thing about it only being the Union Jack if it’s flying from a boat is a myth.
Yes, indeed the Union Jack is the British flag, not the English, and God Save the Queen I Mean King is the British national anthem, not the English one and the fact that everyone including me gets confused over that is a big part of the problem.
When I was a kid I was quite churchy and went to a quite churchy school, and no-one talked about St George's Day, ever. I think it was an extra holiday celebrated by Boy Scouts, in the same way that one or two children did a thing called Bah Mitzvah which the rest of us didn't. Individual teachers had different opinions about whether they could wear their Scout uniforms to school on Baden-Powell's birthday.
I think that in some parts of the country there were genuine traditions of Morris and May-Pole dancing and maybe daft things like Yorkshire Pudding Rolling and Pork Pie Hurling in some areas. They have died out or are kept up by revivalists because in the cold light of day they were in fact a little bit silly.
I think that in some parts of the country there were genuine traditions of Morris and May-Pole dancing and maybe daft things like Yorkshire Pudding Rolling and Pork Pie Hurling in some areas. They have died out or are kept up by revivalists because in the cold light of day they were in fact a little bit silly.
It is fun to sing Fields of Athernry and Dublin In the Rare Old Times and drink far too much Guinness even if the closest you have been to Ireland is Staffordshire. I like the way King Street turns into a good natured festival on March 17th. Although if I were Irish, I might find some of the blarney and leprechauns a bit annoying. I mean, why aren't mobs of people sitting in pubs reading Yeats and Joyce?
But if some landlords want to sell people too much real ale while singing the British Grenadiers....er....Rule Britannia....er....England Swings Like a Pendulum Do....then I see no problem at all.
To summarise
To summarise
-- Literally no-one is telling you you can't celebrate St George's Day, but historically, it hasn't really been that big a thing.
— It is irrelevant and not at all a gotcha that St George came from what is now called Turkey, probably. (And it is not a witty riposte to say "ha-ha but Turkey didn't exist back then" either.)
— Although I do think it a shame that Alban, who was a: English and b: real never gets a look in. Or Edmund, come to that.
— I’d go with Jerusalem if I had to make a choice. Land of Hope and Glory is too jingoistic and associated with a particular party, and Rule Britannia requires too much contextualisation, although it’s actually a good tune. I mean, I joke about Place Called England but no-one outside the folk world has heard of it.
— But if you try to make “having a beer on April 23rd” an Act of Resistance to Forces of Oppression that only exist in your head, then I will call you a racist twat and decline.
Also: Shakespeare's birthday.
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