Book of Days

As the feast days of saints go, there are a good many that go unnoticed these days, but St. Patrick’s Day is not one of them. Sacred to Ireland and a great cause for celebration both in Ireland and the United States, it is said that on St. Patrick’s Day everyone is at least a little Irish.

But that’s tomorrow. Today, everyone might be considered at least a little Finnish. At least the Finns of Minnesota and the Finns of Lake Worth and Lantana think so. It is St. Urho’s Day, Finland’s answer to the more popular saint that is celebrated on the 17th of March with the wearing o’ the green. For St. Urho’s Day, it is the wearing o’ the purple and green that is most important, for legend has it that St. Urho drove all the grasshoppers out of Finland, saving the precious grape crop (and therefore Finland’s vineyards) from sure destruction. The purple and the green represent that important Finnish commodity.

Heinäsirkka, heinäsirkka, mene täältä hiiteen are the words St. Urho spoke to drive the grasshoppers from Finland. In English, this translates to “Grasshopper, grasshopper, go to Hell!” And there you go. Job done.

If this all sounds too ridiculous to be true, you may be right. Then again, who knows? The Finns who gather at the Finnish bakery in Lantana to drink strong coffee and eat pulla and heavenly Nordic open face sandwiches that begin with a slice of Finnish rye bread, spread with homemade mayonnaise, topped with sliced hard boiled eggs and smoked salmon and sprigs of fresh dill… well, they are not saying for sure what is true and what is not. And perhaps they don’t even know. But they’ll see you coming and they might say Tervetuloa as you approach and today, perhaps, they are dressed in purple and green in honor of the man who drove the grasshoppers from their homeland.

Image: This statue of St. Urho stands in Menagha in central Minnesota. They have lots of Finns there, too.

Don’t be surprised if you’ve never heard of St. Urho’s Day. My first encounter with it (and with the word Tervetuloa, which is Finnish for “Welcome!”) was at the local Finlandia Days celebration many years ago, somewhere between the Wife Carrying Contest and the performance by an orchestra comprised entirely of accordions. One of the Finnish folklorists told me the tale of St. Urho, who drove the grasshoppers from Finland, and whose day is celebrated today, March 16.

If this sounds vaguely like another saint who happened to drive the snakes out of Ireland and who will be celebrated with his own special day tomorrow, well, perhaps there are connections to be made. Perhaps St. Urho is a fabrication, but who is to say in cases like this what is true and what is not? It is certainly not up to me.

Here in Lake Worth, which, together with our neighboring town of Lantana, boasts the largest concentration of Finns outside of Finland, Finnish tales are easy to come by. It just takes a visit to the Finnish bakery on East Ocean Avenue, where the old Finnish men sit out front drinking coffee and eating cardamom scented buns each morning, or to the Finnish Consulate on Lake Avenue in Downtown Lake Worth, or to the Finnish American Rest Home or the American Finnish Kerhotalo (Clubhouse), where we go to celebrate Midsummer Night with a roaring bonfire, to hear some of these tales. And while there is no big St. Urho’s Day celebration here that I know of, it certainly seems there should be.

St. Urho drove the grasshoppers from Finland with a simple proclamation: Heinäsirkka, heinäsirkka, mene täältä hiiteen, or in English, “Grasshopper, grasshopper, go to Hell!” There you go. Pretty direct. Driving out the grasshoppers saved Finland’s legendary grape harvest. His day is celebrated by wearing purple and green (that guy tomorrow only gets green), and some drinking is naturally part of the celebration, too.

Believe what you wish. Celebrate what you will. But tonight, drink a toast to St. Urho, with a wink and smile: Cheers to St. Urho and to you and me! Tervetuloa to all but the grasshoppers!