Old Clem & the Forge of Midwinter

A sharing for Old Advent

Image: Working the wild forge, Bee Durban

This is a full and rich week in our Old Advent journey, chock-ful with festivals and feast days. The first I want to share is St Clement's Day, and Old Clem's Night, which fall on 23rd November.

The ‘Clement' in question is Pope Clement I, who was the fourth Bishop of Rome from 88 until 99CE, when he was banished by the Emperor Tarjan and forced into hard labour in a stone quarry. Against all expectations his time in the quarry was not without event. He is said to have put sheep wool into his shoes to ease his sore feet and the combination of sweat and rubbing from walking created the first felt. For that reason, St Clement is considered the patron saint of hat-makers, who subsequently declared St Clement's Eve, 22nd November, a holiday.

He was also believed during his time as a slave to have been the first person to smelt iron, and to have created the first horseshoe. This, combined with his death by being thrown into the sea with an iron anchor around his neck, led to him being adopted as the patron saint of blacksmiths, who made him much friendlier by shortening his name to 'Clem'. There is some suggestion too that he took the place, or is the thinly veiled remnant, of the blacksmiths' old Saxon god, Wayland the Smith, who was himself a memory of the Roman god of fire, Vulcan. Indeed, one of the rhymes sung by Dartmoor blacksmiths on St Clement's Day tells us;

“Come all you Vulcans stout and strong,

Unto St. Clem we do belong,

I know this house is well prepared

With plenty of money and good strong beer,

And we must drink before we part,

All for to cheer each merry heart.”

And so St Clement's Day became a blacksmiths' holiday where the smiths would go from door to door (or pub to pub!) carrying an effigy of 'Old Clem' & singing,

"St Clement’s Day comes once a year

Give us some apples or give us some beer!"

They would mark the day by 'firing the anvil'; filling a small hole in the anvil with gunpowder and then hitting it with a hammer to make it explode! This not only made a great hullabaloo but also tested the anvils to make sure that they were unlikely to shatter with use.

Later, the festivities expanded to include children in 'clementing'; visiting houses requesting apples, pears, or sweet treats in return for a rhyme, such as,

"Clementing, Clementing once a year

Apples and Pears are very good cheer!

One for Peter and one for Paul

And One for Him who made us all!"

Activities were not confined to rural areas and, in 1541, Henry VIII passed a law forbidding children to beg for fruit, nuts, and money by catterning (for St Catherine's Day on 25th November) & clementing within the London churches of Saints Clement (of 'Oranges & Lemons' fame), Catherine, and Nicholas, although as this only applied in church precincts festivities happily continued elsewhere.

Sadly, clementing and the blacksmiths' holiday have waned in modern times, but St Clement's Day is still marked in Sussex and Devon with morris dancing, mulled wine, and a Clem Feast.

It's hard to imagine that any of this has much to do with the 1st Century Pope, but it is only right to offer room to the old gods woven with the new as winter begins. We will need their good company to see us through the dark.

Here's a health to the jolly blacksmith

The best of all fellows

Who works at his anvil

While the boy blows the bellows

Which makes his bright hammer

To rise and to fall

Here's to old coal, and to young coal

And to old coal of all!

(The Blacksmiths' Anthem/Twanky Dillo)

Let's raise a glass to Old Clem on this Old Advent night!

An update! Having read this piece last year, a reader, Nic Wilkinson, Pirate Queen, on Twitter (@NicWilko) commented, "Of course midwinter needs a smith god to forge the new light, down there in the dark." And so it is! This holy tide begins with the forge of Old Clem and ends with the forge of St Brigid at Candlemas, via the wild forge of a winter star. May we all be shaped and changed by the journey.

References:

https://://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Clement_I

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Clement%27s_Day

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland_the_Smith

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(mythology)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anvil_firing

https://www.conviviobookworks.com/blog/sts-clem-cecilia/

https://sussexhistory.net/2016/11/20/how-to-celebrate-st-clements-day/

https://hoofcare.blogspot.com/2017/11/twanky-dillo-lost-hoof-history-saint-clement.html

https://traditionalcustomsandceremonies.wordpress.com/2015/11/30/custom-demised-clementing-and-catterning/

http://radicalhoneybee.blogspot.com/2020/12/reclaiming-catterntide-womens-winter.html

https://whatliesbeyond.boards.net/thread/10413/clements-day-clems-night-november

https://www.nigeltyas.co.uk/nigel-tyas-news/post/st-clements-day.html

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1252786

https://www.certainlywood.co.uk/blogs/news/old-clem-s-night

https://sussextraditions.org/sustrad/media/FBag-Old_Clem.pdf