Today in the Zone: Eisheiligen

[bulb]

Am from Rocket-Town Antwerp and have been living in the Netherlands for the last 15 years – too long a story to tell.

 

The “Eisheiligen” refers to the fact that these days are (theoretically) the last ones where the soil can get frozen and some plants cannot survive. My father refused to plant leeks, beans, tomatoes for sure, and some others before the Eisheiligen were over. I think this is more or less common knowledge in the North of France, the BeNeLux and parts of Germany (on these days you will hear the national weather forecast regularly  mention it).

 

Pynchon Notes had an article on the Eisheiligen: Bohm, Arnd. "The 'Cold Sophie' of  <http://doi.org/10.16995/pn.75> Gravity's Rainbow". Pynchon Notes # 50-51 p. 118-121 (2002), available at https://pynchonnotes.openlibhums.org/articles/abstract/10.16995/pn.75/. Interestingly enough I only learned through Gravity’s Rainbow that the Cold Sophie existed.

 

The inverse happens I believe in US East Coast Fall: Indian Summer, an unexpected raise in temperature that can disappear from one day to the other. However this phenomenon is way more arbitrary (no ‘fixed’dates).

 

I always have the feeling after the Eisheiligen that Summer can kick off. Weather was excellent today and no frost is expected tonight.

 

Michel.

 

 

 

From: Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> 
Sent: maandag 13 mei 2019 18:01
To: bulb <bulb at vheissu.net>
Cc: Pynchon List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subject: Re: Today in the Zone: Eisheiligen

 

Thanks, Michel! You're living in France, I reckon. Is there such a phenomenon in the US as well? 

 

Am Mo., 13. Mai 2019 um 17:10 Uhr schrieb bulb <bulb at vheissu.net <mailto:bulb at vheissu.net> >:

GR, 281
"We are safely past the days of the Eis-Heiligen-St. Pancratius, St.
Ser-vatius, St. Bonifacius, die kalte Sophie . . . they hover in clouds
above the vineyards, holy beings of ice, ready with a breath, an intention,
to ruin the year with frost and cold. In certain years, especially War
years, they are short on charity, peevish, smug in their power: not quite
saintly or even Christian. The prayers of growers, pickers and wine
enthusiasts must reach them, but there's no telling how the ice-saints
feel-coarse laughter, pagan annoyance, who understands this rear-guard who
pre-serve winter against the revolutionaries of May?

They found the countryside, this year, at peace by a scant few days. Already
vines are beginning to grow back over dragon's teeth, fallen Stukas, burned
tanks. The sun warms the hillsides, the rivers fall bright as wine. The
saints have refrained. Nights have been mild. The frost didn't come. It is
the spring of peace. The vintage, God granting at least a hundred days of
sun, will be fine.

>From Weisenburger's Companion:
V281.1-2, B327.1-2, P285.1-2 the Eis-Heiligen-St. Pancratius, St. Servatius,
St. Bonifacius, die Kalte Sophie  These "Ice Saints" are, in order:
Pancratius and Servatius, whose feast days occur on May 12 and 13,
respectively; Boniface of Ferentino, a Pope (608-15), whose feast day is May
14; and "Cold Sophie," for Saint Sophia, on May 15, a figure added to the
pantheon of die Eisheiligen by German unification in the modern period, for
her feast was originally honored by residents in southern Germany, Austria,
and Switzerland. All four are known as the "Ice Saints" because their feast
days coincide with a final cold spell that often arrives in mid-May (farmers
and wine growers used to burn wet wood, green twigs, and soil, raising a
thick smoky fog over the valleys to help protect new growth and blossoms
from frost). The Ice Saints' days are a threshold, as gardeners wait until
mid-May has passed before planting many seedlings.

Michel.

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