With the feast day of Saint Nicholas just passed, and Saint Lucia’s Day approaching – just to mention two December heavyweights – it seems an appropriate time for musing about the various European pagan festivals and their Christianised contemporary equivalent.

In France, it’s hard to turn a blind eye to Saint’s Days, as most calendars list the corresponding saint for every date.

In Italy, it seemed that I timed my visit to Venice with an alternate carnevale. Whilst I was sitting and enjoying a quiet aperitif, the dark, wood-panelled wine bar surrounds were invaded by purple hologram witches hats, face-painted ghouls and red-horned devils. They sang out “trick or treat” (well… the Italian equivalent) and hopped around in Halloween merriment.

The girl behind the bar gave them a tomato. They cracked some smoke bombs on the floor in disgust and with a whirl of colour and sound, they bustled out again.

I was also lucky enough to spend St. Martin’s Day with friends living in an Austrian village a few years ago. Also known as Martinmas, this holiday is the feast day of Martin of Tours, and its celebration is scattered through Western Europe. Typically, the festival involves a sumptuous supper of goose (with some sort of delectable orange sauce, if I recall correctly). Luckily, all traditions were not adhered to, and the following forty-day fast was conveniently cast aside!

From interesting article about French wine and the customary festivities accompanying the new wine of a season, I’ve learned that in medieval times the vineyard owners would rush to get their wine on the market first for a better price. The Fête de la Saint Martin in early November conveniently coincided with the wine releases, and this apparently coined the euphemism ‘the Saint Martin blues’ for a hangover.