GRGR(13): Eisheiligen info

[RICHARD_WILSON at udlp.com]

Jeremy advises:
> You get a lot more hits if you search for Eisheiligen.
yes, but about half of those hits are concerned with "Eishockey". 

anyways, how curious:

the url i sent enumerates the ice saints as

1 - Mamertius
2 - Pancras
3 - Servatus
4 - Bonifatius
5 - Cold Sophie

while TRP and the url's Jeremy sent only include 2 - 4 (and 5, sort of)...

the 'Catholic Online Saints' webpage ( http://www.catholic.org/saints/saints )
doesn't list Mamertius; so I guess he and Cold Sophie are not official saints
(at least not official 
Catholic online saints).

Pynchon's "coarse laughter, pagan annoyance" seems to suggest that these "holy
beings of ice"  are actually vestiges of pagan traditions (such as the
Tannenbaum, Kris Kringle, the Astara-bunny, may-poles, usw - in this case giants
perhaps) which were re-christened (so to speak) as saints whose feast days
happened to correspond with the old pagan festivals. perhaps the names Mamertius
and Sophie come from the older tradition (as does the name 'Easter'). 

A similar old-religion-cloaked-in-the-rament-of-the-new phenomenon occurred this
millenium in Africa (well, in Nigeria anyways - though probably similar
elsewhere) where the most important tribal deties were transformed into the holy
trinity (with the Holy Ghost being rather much more prominent than the Father
and Son parts from the African POV), while the lesser deities became angels,
devils and such.

--rwilson

"(i) come from the land of the ice and snow" -- led zep