St. Martin's Day takes place on November 11, the feast day of Martin of Tours, who started out as a Roman soldier. He was baptized as an adult and became a monk. According to legend he once cut his cloak in half to share with a beggar during a snowstorm and saved the beggar from certain death. That night he dreamed that Jesus was wearing the half-cloak he had given away and he heard Jesus say to the angels: "Here is Martin, the Roman soldier who is not baptised; he has clothed me." (Sulpicius, ch 2).
Being a good Catholic state, NRW celebrates St. Martins with all the bells and whistles. It starts off with a blessing in the church and then children from the ages of about three to ten take part in a parade with their beautifully made lanterns. They follow a child dressed up as St. Martin seated on a horse or pony which is led through the streets and usually through a nearby park (the route can be quite long if you're unlucky, as it's always cold and quite often raining). Along the way the children sing the St. Martins song, "Laterne, Laterne, Sonne, Mond und Sterne, brenne auf mein Licht aber nur meine liebe laterne nicht", (Lantern, Lantern, Sun, Moon and Stars, burn my light, but not my lovely lantern). There are often a few mucians walking with the parade to give everyone a little moral support.
At the end of the parade the horse, children and accompanying adults, return to the church (or school/Kindergarten), for a fire, mulled wine and a Weckmän. The Weckmänner are made from sweet tasting bread (milk bread or Milchbrot), shaped in the form of a man with a pipe (which is not edible and really hurts your teeth if you bite it by accident). It's delicious, the kids love them and they go down really well standing in-front of a bonfire with a glass of mulled wine, after a walk in the cold wet rain!
I've attended two St. Martin's so far, the fist at my nephews primary school in Nippes. They had a full sized horse and Fackeln (burning torches), hundreds of kids, a brass band and hoards of accompanying parents. The parade lasted two hours, it was about 6 degrees and raining. It was magical and the kids loved it - but was perhaps a little too long.
Last year I went with my daughters Kindergarten and it was great - the parade lasted about half an hour and we were back in the courtyard supping Glühwine and warming up our faces on the bonfire just as the rain started to fall.
If you can catch a lantern parade join in for a while, it really is a lovely event. The longer you live in Germany the more songs you'll learn, the more lanterns you'll add to your collection, and the more you'll look forward to this pre-Christmas night of magic.
