Friday 24 October 2014

25th of October is St Crispins Day

St Crispin and Crispinian's Day, and of course it is the anniversary 
of the English victory at Agincourt in 1415.

'This day is called the Feast of Crispian...
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by
From this day to the ending of the world
But we in it shall be remembered.
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.'

Henry V IV iii written in 1599 by Shakespeare.

A commonly repeated legend claims that the two fingered salute or V sign
 derives from a gesture made by the Welsh longbowmen fighting in the English
 army at the Battle of Agincort.
According to the story, the French were in the habit of cutting off the arrow 
shooting fingers of the captured archers, and the gesture was a sign of defiance
 on the part of the bowmen showing the French that they still had their fingers.
The bowmen had a devastating effect on the ranks of the French.





According to a dubious legend Saints Crispin and Crispinian were
shoemakers from either Soissons in France or Faversham in Kent. 
They were both martyred by being pricked to death with cobblers awls,
and so of course became the patron saint of shoemakers. Their feast day is
 called the cobbler's feast or snobs holiday.

The twenty fifth of October
cursed  be the cobbler
that goes to bed sober.



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