St. Martin's Lantern Parade

St. Martin's Day

St. Martin’s Day (also known as Martinstag) is celebrated on November 11th. It is celebrated on the 11th day of the 11th month at 11:11 am (this also begins Karnival/Fasching season).

On the Eve of St. Martin’s Day, November 10, bonfires are built and the children carry lanterns after dark and sing about St. Martin, walking through their neighborhood. The bonfires and lanterns symbolize the light that holiness brings to darkness, just as St. Martin bought hope to the poor. They are rewarded with candy for their songs. It is a feast day and is celebrated in November because that is the best time for the butchering of the beef, geese or other livestock and is the end of the wheat sowing season. It can compare with America’s Thanksgiving.

Saint Martin of Tours was a Roman soldier who was baptized as an adult and became a bishop in a French town. The most notable of his saintly acts was he had cut his cloak in half to share with a beggar during a snowstorm, to save him from the cold. Saint Martin died on November 8, 397, and was buried three days later.

The event often includes a goose dinner. It was a goose that revealed Martin when he hid in a geese pen in an attempt to hide from the people that wanted to make him their bishop. Today the children return home to a goose dinner. They often are treated to baked Weckmänner, a doughy pastry shaped like a man.

Saint Martin was known as friend of the children and patron of the poor.

Zion German Language School in Baltimore has a St. Martin’s procession each year.  The photos from that event are those used on this page.