Tonight is a special night for children in our region. Tomorrow is the day of the Saint Martin. Saint Martin of Tours lived in the fourth century so this is a quite early saint. He was a Roman citizen born what today is Hungary but grew up in Italy. As a child he became Christian and as a young boy a soldier. Legend has it that in 334 he was a soldier in the cavalry in Amiens. One day, it was winter and bitterly cold, he met a poor man who was only wearing thin rags in front of the city gates. The saint didn’t have anything with him but his cloak so with his sword he cut his cloak and gave the poor man half of it. In the following night Christ appeared to him in his sleep, wearing the half of the cloak he had given to the poor man.
There are different traditions surrounding this day. In a lot of cities there are processions after sunset with people carrying lights and singing songs and often there is a person dressed up as the saint, with a red cloak and on a horse in the procession as well.
Another tradition is that children will go from house to house once its dark with little lanterns and lampions. Often these are self-made in school or kindergarten. They ring at doors and then they sing one or two songs and then they get sweets. At least around here they do. We used to do it too of course as children so I looked through our old photos and indeed found one of my sister and me, from 1995 with our lanterns.
I’m on the left 
I remember that my favourite lantern was the one I made in kindergarten one year. It was a fish, the rainbow-fish, from the picture book, which I loved =) Later I also took the old lantern, made of wood that we had in the basement. It was heavy, but beautiful, especially since I put a real candle inside I loved it retro already back then ^^
Children singing “Sankt Martin, Sankt Martin” which retells the legend in song.
This day always challenges me as to how live as a Pagan with Christian traditions. As a teenager (and a while later as well) I absolutely boycotted it. Not going downstairs to give out sweets, or listen to the children sing. I’m more relaxed today and the kids are usually so sweet with their singing and their lanterns so I no longer oppose it. Also, the thing it commemorates, a rather wealthy man sharing his cloak with a poor man is nothing to object at all. So I acknowledge the day and the saint and give out sweets and chocolate, hoping the kids have also learned why they get them and that there was this man all those centuries ago who helped the poor and that it is a noble thing to do.
