Comments

• Bishops Finger Shipmate

  November 11

  In the UK, it's kept by some as a sort of extension of Remembrance Sunday, as WW1 ended at 11am on 11th November 1918. A two-minute silence at 'the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month' became a widespread practice, though the principal observance has more recently been moved to the nearest Sunday.
  
  Our Place commemorated St Martin of Tours at 10am Mass this morning, after which priest and people (following a short break) went outside the church to keep the two-minute silence, and to listen to the gun being fired from a local military establishment. Intercessions at Mass were for those serving in the forces, and for those killed or wounded in wars both past and present.
  
  No doubt there are some people here who keep up the pre-Reformation Martinmas customs.
• Firenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus

  10:20AM

  It fell about the Martinmass
  When nights are lang and mirk
  The carline wife's three sons came hame
  And their hats were o'the birk.
  
  It neither grew in syke nor ditch,
  Nor yet in ony sheugh;
  But at the gates o’ Paradise,
  That birk grew fair eneugh.