Tässä hieman tarkennusta St. Urho's Day -kysymykseen peistattuna asianmukaiselta saitilta. Sotkin juhlan kanadansuomalaisten omaisuudeksi, koska kuulin siitä ensimmäisen kerran nimenomaan Kanadassa asuvilta suomalaisilta - jotka olivatkin omineet sen Minnesotasta. Sori erhetiedosta. Mutta hyvä syy juhlia!
TRADITIONAL STORY
Once upon a time, many many years ago in Finland they say (they being the geologists and such) there used to be wild grapes growing all over. How do they know this? From studying the remains of bears found in that area.
Well, one season a bunch of grasshoppers (i.e. locust) with a voracious appetite for grapes happen to hop on into Finland. What to do?
Enter our great Finnish Hero, St. Urho! Waving his pitchfork and chanting "Heinasirkka, heinasirkka, menetaalta hiiten" (which in English means "Grasshopper grasshopper skoot!") he drove the grasshoppers out of the vineyards. Now, I'm sure everyone in Minnesota wished that getting rid of mosquitoes could be that easy. :)
The Finnish grape framers (viners?) were very protective of their fields because they didn't have much of a growing season. (Note: It isn't exactly like the Italian or French vineyards up there.) So, rumor has it that they injected Vodka into their grapes to give them a bigger alcohol content. I guess this is an early version of "organic farming" regarding pest control?
Feeling so happy and grateful to Urho, they declared him a saint. He did this on March 16, the day before St. Patrick's Day.
Every year since then, the Finnish people celebrate St. Urho's Day on March 16. The official colors are purple to represent the grapes and green to represent the vines (or the dead grasshoppers -- depending on whose version you hear).
The St. Urho's day ceremony begins at sunrise. Women and children go down to the lakeshore and chant "Heinasirkka, heinasirrkka, meine taatta hiiteen" just like St. Urho did thousands of years before or "Grasshopper, Grasshopper getta outta here" if you don't speak Finnish. (After all it's pretty easy to remember.) The men dress in green and gather at the top of the hill and then start a procession down to the lake kicking and waving pitchforks to scare off the imaginary grasshoppers.
No one is exactly sure when or how, but along the way the men change into purple clothes. (I assume they use a fashion technique called "the layered look.") Otherwise, use your imagination on the wardrobe change! <wink>
The celebration also includes singing, dancing polkas and drinking wine, grape juice for those underage and having Mojakkaa (fish soup pronounced like "moy-yah-kah") which is what St. Urho ate to give him his strength to fight grasshoppers.
MODERN VERSION
Irish say that the Finnish made up St. Urho to get a day's start on the beer in town. They claim that there really is no such a person at all, but just an attempt to get at the "green beer" before the Irish do. :) Although some celebrations have purple beer.
According to Minnesota tradition, St. Urho's Day began in a town called Virginia, Minnesota which is approximately 90 minutes north of Duluth and located up in an area called "The Range." This area is known for having the largest iron ore open pit in the world and for many years has been a melting pot of immigrants who worked in the iron mines.
Teasing one another about their "old country" and their traditions is a way of life. Sharing different recipes and tall tales is also common. With this in mind, it is said that St. Urho's Day began as such:
It all began around 1956, technically in another millennium. The verbal records say that it began at a St. Patrick's Day party in Virginia, Minnesota where the Irish were bragging about their St. Patrick and how he drove snakes out of Ireland. Getting sick of all this bragging, someone named Richard Mattson, who worked at a department store called Ketola's decided to blow St. Patrick's bravado off calendars by proclaiming that Finland had a wonderful saint who got rid of poisonous frogs.
As the night went on, and the booze got drunk, they decided to try to come up with a name for this great saint. Hmmm? Saint Eero or Saint Jussi didn't have any ring. Suddenly Saint Urho seemed just right!
Gene McCavic (who worked at the same dept. store) wrote a funny ode to a Finnish boy named Urho who got enormous strength from eating fish soup and sour milk. So some say that he is the originator of St. Urho. Or...
Others claim that Dr. Sulo Havumaki, a psychology teacher at Bemidji College (Bemidgi, MN) is the one who created the St. Urho who chanted and drove the huge swarm of grasshoppers into the sea. The Finnish version of a piped piper as others put it.
Coincidentally, in 1956 the President of Finland was Urho Kekkonen. Many believe that the name of St. Urho was taken from him, he even may have been the force who encouraged the spread and celebration of St. Urho's Day?