St. Andrew's Day Countdown

St. Andrew's Day on November 30 is Scotland's national day, honouring the country's patron saint with ceilidhs, traditional food and celebrations of Scottish culture at home and across the worldwide Scottish diaspora.

History

Andrew was a fisherman from Galilee and one of the twelve apostles, the brother of Simon Peter and, according to the Gospels, among the first to follow Jesus. Tradition holds that he preached around the Black Sea and in Greece, and that he was martyred at Patras on an X-shaped cross — the diagonal 'saltire' that would one day become the flag of Scotland. November 30, kept as the anniversary of his death, has been his feast day since the early centuries of the Church. Scotland's bond with the saint rests on two much-loved legends. One tells that in the fourth century a monk named Regulus, or Rule, was guided by a vision to carry relics of Andrew to the eastern coast of Fife, where the town and cathedral of St Andrews later rose around them and became a great medieval pilgrimage destination. Another tells that in 832 King Óengus II, before a battle near Athelstaneford, saw a white saltire of cloud blaze against the blue sky and vowed to make Andrew his people's patron. By the fourteenth century Andrew was firmly established as Scotland's patron saint, and the white-on-blue saltire as its emblem. Curiously, the modern festive celebration of St. Andrew's Day owes much to the Scottish diaspora: the St Andrew's Society of Charleston, South Carolina, founded in 1729, is among the oldest Scottish societies in the world, and emigrant Scots kept the day with dinners and dances long before it was widely feted at home. In 2007 the Scottish Parliament made November 30 a voluntary bank holiday in Scotland, and the day now opens a winter season of Scottish celebration that runs through Hogmanay to Burns Night.

Meaning

St. Andrew's Day is above all a celebration of Scottish identity — a day when the saltire flies from homes and public buildings and Scots everywhere take pride in their music, dance, language and landscape. Because Andrew was an ordinary working fisherman remembered for bringing people together, the day has come to stand for the qualities Scots most like to claim as their own: hospitality, friendship, generosity and a warm welcome for strangers. It also marks the doorway into Scotland's festive winter. Torchlight processions, ceilidh dances and community suppers on November 30 begin a season that continues through Christmas and Hogmanay to Burns Night in January, making St. Andrew's Day the first great gathering of the Scottish winter both at home and across the global diaspora.