La Chandeleur: The day the French get superstitious and go crazy over crepes
Coins on crêpes, flipping crêpes, and crêpes on top of the wardrobe.
That’s what you can expect to see on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2021 as the French dig out their non-stick frying pans to celebrate La Chandeleur.
I’ve never heard of it before. What exactly is La Chandeleur?
It's a religious holiday in France that’s been around since Roman times that nowadays sees people eat a lot of crêpes, light candles and become very superstitious.
Why crêpes?
Well there's a lot of history to this day - more on this later - but in short, it was a good way to use up the extra wheat ahead of the new harvest. And symbolically, it looks like a sun, so it was a reason to rejoice as the days started to get longer.
Why February 2nd?
The date actually marks when Jesus was presented at the temple in Jerusalem.
Before becoming a religious holiday, Chandeleur stemmed from several pagan traditions celebrating the fertility of the earth and the beginning of the end of winter.
It's said that in the 5th century, Pope Gelasius I started the Festival des Chandelles on this date, a candlelit procession through the streets of Rome that culminated in placing the blessed candles in the churches. Gelasius linked this custom to crêpes by handing out galettes (a type of savoury crêpe) to poor pilgrims who arrived in Rome that day.
And how about the Chandeleur superstitions?
Well, in France’s Franche-Comté region, a proverb says that if someone can carry a Chandeleur candle all the way home from church without it going out, then that person will "certainly stay alive this year".
A bit of a morbid superstition for a candle, you might think, but
you've obviously not heard what the folks down in the Haute-Garonne
department thought.
There, they said that if a candle's wax only dripped on one side of the
candle during a religious procession, it announced the death of a
loved-one during the year.
They also said that "bewitched" people could only be cured by a
soothsayer using a blessed altar candle on the day of the Chandeleur.
He would then draw various symbols on the ground, then mix soil from a graveyard with holy water, only to douse the floor with it together with a mix of poppy, fennel, and wild mustard.
Unfortunately soothsaying in a group probably contravenes Covid restrictions so you might want to give that one a miss this year.
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