St Martin In Spain

About the time that the Pedro Jiménez vintage was coming into growth,
a favourite old vintage of Spain was just becoming exhausted, or
for some reason going out of fashion,--the white wine of San Martin,
so called from the locality of its production in Castilla la Vieja,
not far from Toledo.

Now it happens that in Spain--where Christianity has woven itself
more familiarly perhaps than any where else into the home traditions
of the people, and every class and state of man has assigned to it
a special patron--that St. Martin is counted the patron Saint of
drunkards. "Patron Saint of drunkards!" you will perhaps exclaim;
"what have Saints got to do with drunkards?" But think a little,
and remember how mercifully our Lord associated "with publicans
and sinners," that He might reclaim them, and then you will say
it is not so strange after all. Drunkards are very few in Spain,
so few that there is no idiomatic word to call them by--nothing but
the popular mocking expression borracho, which is simply formed by
putting a masculine termination to the word borracha, a wine-skin;
for you know it is the common practice in Spain, to store all the wine
that is intended for use within a short period, in skins instead of
barrels. And very curious it is, I assure you, when you are travelling
in Spain, to see great skins of pigs and goats, sometimes with the
hair still on, hanging up in the wine-shops, swelled out to their
utmost extent with wine.

I was curious to find out how St. Martin came to be reckoned the
male-wineskin's patron; and in course of my inquiries, came upon two
or three little traditions which may amuse you.

One was, that in a church much frequented by large numbers of the
poorer peasantry, there was, among other pictures, one representing
St. Martin dividing his cloak with the beggar, according to the legend
you have all heard. But it happened that the painter, in the plenitude
of his idealism, had made a slight alteration in the usual treatment of
the figures. Instead of putting a beggar kneeling by the wayside and
sturdily asking alms, he had drawn one lying down in the extremity of
exhaustion, and with scarcely a rag to cover him. St. Martin, instead
of being in the act of cutting his cloak in halves with his sword, as
you usually see him, was tenderly placing the already severed portion
of his garment over the shivering form of the beggar. But the execution
of the picture was not equal to the conception: the livid face, with
its red and purple lines, by which the painter had thought to depict
the effect of cold and want, was taken by the people to show forth
the swollen features of a drunkard, and the attitude of exhaustion,
for one of helpless intoxication. St. Martin's part in the picture was
reckoned to be the saving him from the ridicule of the passengers,
by covering him up. This act of patronage, so assumed, was reckoned
to extend to all victims of drunkenness.

Another story told me, was, that it arose from a waggish remark
made by an Andalusian on another and more normal picture of
St. Martin. Andalusians are famous for their wit. It is said that
the soil of Spain is adapted to produce every thing required for both
the necessity and luxurious enjoyment of human life, except spices;
but that this is supplied by the spice of Andalusian wit, for an
Andalusian hardly opens his mouth but to say something witty.

An Andalusian, then, being asked what he thought of a certain picture
of the legend of St. Martin replied, it represented such a piece
of folly that none but a drunken man could have committed it. And
the connexion thus once set up between a Saint and the condition
of inebriety, though in jest, was sufficient to fasten on him the
patronage of the inebriate.

But for my own part, I am inclined to think that the vintage of San
Martin, though now seldom spoken of, having at one time been regarded
all over Spain as the first vintage of the world, popular tradition
naturally ascribed the care of those who partook of it to the Saint
whose name it fortuitously bore.

In inquiring thus about St. Martin, I found that Spaniards have
a jesting way of calling one San Rorro also, patron of drunkards;
and this puzzled me, as I could find nothing like San Rorro in the
Calendar. Then I learnt that rorro means a child just beginning to
walk. Now a drunken man staggers much in the same way as an infant
first learning to support its own weight; and thus "San Rorro" is
merely a punning allusion to this similarity. But the Spaniard, who,
as I have said, weaves his Christianity and--I may add--his innocent
jest into every thing, remembering that the Divine Infant must have
tottered too in His first early efforts to walk, sees a connexion here
which may suggest an occasion for Divine pity and patronage. Certainly
the common immunity from bad consequences of their falls, has led
all countries to fable about a "special Providence for drunkards."