Patrañas; or, Spanish Stories, Legendary and Traditional
Page 22
ST. MARTIN IN SPAIN.
About the time that the Pedro Jimenez vintage was coming into growth,a favourite old vintage of Spain was just becoming exhausted, orfor some reason going out of fashion,--the white wine of San Martin,so called from the locality of its production in Castilla la Vieja,not far from Toledo.
Now it happens that in Spain--where Christianity has woven itselfmore familiarly perhaps than any where else into the home traditionsof the people, and every class and state of man has assigned to ita special patron--that St. Martin is counted the patron Saint ofdrunkards. "Patron Saint of drunkards!" you will perhaps exclaim;"what have Saints got to do with drunkards?" But think a little,and remember how mercifully our Lord associated "with publicansand sinners," that He might reclaim them, and then you will sayit is not so strange after all. Drunkards are very few in Spain,so few that there is no idiomatic word to call them by--nothing butthe popular mocking expression borracho, which is simply formed byputting a masculine termination to the word borracha, a wine-skin;for you know it is the common practice in Spain, to store all the winethat is intended for use within a short period, in skins instead ofbarrels. And very curious it is, I assure you, when you are travellingin Spain, to see great skins of pigs and goats, sometimes with thehair still on, hanging up in the wine-shops, swelled out to theirutmost extent with wine.
I was curious to find out how St. Martin came to be reckoned themale-wineskin's patron; and in course of my inquiries, came upon twoor three little traditions which may amuse you.
One was, that in a church much frequented by large numbers of thepoorer peasantry, there was, among other pictures, one representingSt. Martin dividing his cloak with the beggar, according to the legendyou have all heard. But it happened that the painter, in the plenitudeof his idealism, had made a slight alteration in the usual treatment ofthe figures. Instead of putting a beggar kneeling by the wayside andsturdily asking alms, he had drawn one lying down in the extremity ofexhaustion, and with scarcely a rag to cover him. St. Martin, insteadof being in the act of cutting his cloak in halves with his sword, asyou usually see him, was tenderly placing the already severed portionof his garment over the shivering form of the beggar. But the executionof the picture was not equal to the conception: the livid face, withits red and purple lines, by which the painter had thought to depictthe effect of cold and want, was taken by the people to show forththe swollen features of a drunkard, and the attitude of exhaustion,for one of helpless intoxication. St. Martin's part in the picture wasreckoned to be the saving him from the ridicule of the passengers,by covering him up. This act of patronage, so assumed, was reckonedto extend to all victims of drunkenness.
Another story told me, was, that it arose from a waggish remarkmade by an Andalusian on another and more normal picture ofSt. Martin. Andalusians are famous for their wit. It is said thatthe soil of Spain is adapted to produce every thing required for boththe necessity and luxurious enjoyment of human life, except spices;but that this is supplied by the spice of Andalusian wit, for anAndalusian hardly opens his mouth but to say something witty.
An Andalusian, then, being asked what he thought of a certain pictureof the legend of St. Martin replied, it represented such a pieceof folly that none but a drunken man could have committed it. Andthe connexion thus once set up between a Saint and the conditionof inebriety, though in jest, was sufficient to fasten on him thepatronage of the inebriate.
But for my own part, I am inclined to think that the vintage of SanMartin, though now seldom spoken of, having at one time been regardedall over Spain as the first vintage of the world, popular traditionnaturally ascribed the care of those who partook of it to the Saintwhose name it fortuitously bore.
In inquiring thus about St. Martin, I found that Spaniards havea jesting way of calling one San Rorro also, patron of drunkards;and this puzzled me, as I could find nothing like San Rorro in theCalendar. Then I learnt that rorro means a child just beginning towalk. Now a drunken man staggers much in the same way as an infantfirst learning to support its own weight; and thus "San Rorro" ismerely a punning allusion to this similarity. But the Spaniard, who,as I have said, weaves his Christianity and--I may add--his innocentjest into every thing, remembering that the Divine Infant must havetottered too in His first early efforts to walk, sees a connexion herewhich may suggest an occasion for Divine pity and patronage. Certainlythe common immunity from bad consequences of their falls, has ledall countries to fable about a "special Providence for drunkards."
MARVELLOUS STORIES.
After recording so many marvellous stories, it seems not out ofplace to give two or three instances of how marvellous stories risein popular imagination; from which it is not difficult to infer howother stories have received their marvellous dress.