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St. Andrew’s Day: Scotland’s National Day

November 30 is St. Andrew’s Day in Scotland. St. Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland, and it is celebrated as Scotland’s National Day. St Andrew is credited with spreading the gospel to Romania, Greece and Russia, and is also the patron saint of those countries. St. Andrew is also said to look after singers, unmarried women, women who wish to become mothers and fishermen. St. Andrew’s Day is connected to Advent, which begins on the first Sunday after November 26. In Scotland, St. Andrew’s Day marks the opening of Christmas Markets.

St. Andrew was one of the Twelve Apostles, the disciples of Jesus. He was a fisherman, and the brother of St. Peter. It is said that he became a missionary to Asia Minor, Macedonia, and southern Russia, and was martyred in Greece. He died on a diagonal cross, shaped like an X, which came to be called St. Andrew’s cross and is the design on the Scottish flag.

St. Andrews bones were entombed, and then moved to Constantinople about 300 years later by Emperor Constantine. Legend suggests that a Greek Monk called St. Rule (or St. Regulus) dreamt that St. Andrew’s remains were to be moved; an angel told him to take those of the remains which he could to the “ends of the earth” for safe-keeping. St. Rule removed a tooth, an arm bone, a kneecap and some fingers from St. Andrew’s tomb carried these as far away as he could. He was shipwrecked at a Pictish settlement on the East Coast of Scotland, beginning the association between Scotland and its Patron Saint.

Folklore says that St. Andrew could help unmarried women identify their future husbands. Around midnight on November 29, unmarried girls would pray to St Andrew for a husband. The girl would then throw a shoe at a door. If the toe of the shoe pointed to the door, it was a sign that she would marry and leave her parents’ house in the next year. A girl could also peel an apple without breaking the peel and then throw the peel over the shoulder. If the peel formed a letter of the alphabet, then this was the first letter of her future husband’s name.

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