A strange legend of angelic activity is that touching the miraculous transportation through the air (from Galilee to Dalmatia) of the “Santa Casa,” the house wherein the Virgin Mary dwelt. This event is placed in 1295, and the reverse of an Italian medallion engraved in 1508, during the pontificate of Julius II, gives a representation of the journey to Dalmatia, two angels sufficing to bear the little edifice. The sea, over which the house is being borne, is conventionally indicated by waves, but the fact that the medallist has seen fit to show a relatively large figure of the Virgin seated on the roof of the little structure and holding the Infant Jesus in her arms, scarcely adds to the realism of the effect.
Quite naturally Catholicism could not be satisfied with the pagan idea that the constellations held sway over the different parts of the human body, and the saints were substituted for the stars.
The saints of the Romanists have usurped the place of the zodiacal constellations in their government of the parts of man’s body, and so for every limbe they have a saint. Thus, St. Otilia keepes the head instead of Aries; St. Blasius is appointed to govern the necke instead of Taurus; St. Lawrence keepes the backe and shoulders instead of Gemini, Cancer and Leo; St. Erasmus rules the belly with the entrayls, in the place of Libra and Scorpius; in the stead of Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius and Pisces, the holy church of Rome hath elected St. Burgarde, St. Rochus, St. Quirinius, St. John, and many others, which govern the thighes, feet, shinnes and knees.[[505]]
When we consider how many beautiful and symbolic rites and observances have marked the celebration of saint’s days and holidays in the Old World, and how few of these have been preserved by the inhabitants of our own country, we must find this most regrettable. Of late years there has been a marked tendency to increase the number of holidays, and in a few cases to revive the celebration of old holidays, but the popular idea of the best way to celebrate these occasions seems to be confined to making them carnivals of noise and disorder. This is largely owing to a lack of intelligent guidance, for it is too much to expect that any people, above all those so practical as our American people, can spontaneously evolve, at short notice, an emblematic expression of the idea underlying the festival. If, however, a beautiful and adequate symbolism were presented in a concrete form, the masses of the people would grasp its significance quickly enough, and would thus gain a higher and better conception of the historic anniversary or the time-honored festival they were called upon to celebrate.
The saint’s days on which the summer and winter solstices fell were memorized by distichs. For instance:
St. Barnaby bright! St. Barnaby bright!
The longest day and the shortest night.
St. Thomas gray! St. Thomas gray!
The longest night and the shortest day.
The former of the verses is probably the earlier, as St. Barnabas’ Day is June 11, the day on which the summer solstice fell in England for some time before the reform of the “Old Style” calendar, in 1752, replaced this date; while St. Thomas’ Day is December 21, the date of the winter solstice in our modern calendar.[[506]]