Don’t plant on this day or your horse will die… so says the Old Farmer’s Almanac… I don’t have a horse, so maybe it’s safe to plant my carrots today.
A Red-Letter Day
April 25th is a complicated date. It is St Mark’s Day, which is honored with a wide variety of celebrations; and it is Robigalia, an ancient Roman festival intended to propitiate the god — or demon — of wheat rust and thus ensure a good harvest. These disparate themes may actually be related.
Mark the Evangelist, the writer of one of the narratives of the life of Christ, is an important early Church figure. Of course he wrote the book, but he also founded the church in Alexandria which is the ancestor of the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Greek Orthodox Church and the Coptic Catholic Church, all major branches of Christianity.
However, the thrust of ritual activity on 25 April is difficult to tie to Mark, or indeed to Christianity. In English tradition, St Mark’s Eve is a night for divination, mostly with regard to marriage partners. One custom is to spread ashes, sometimes near the hearth, sometimes near the door. In the morning, whoever’s shoe fits the inevitable footprints in the ash will be your betrothed. Folklore says that this is also a night of magic. Animals can talk with human voices; and fern-seed, a faerie plant, will ripen and disperse and grow lushly all overnight, particularly when this is a full moon. (Sadly, it is not this year…)
In Lithuania, it is a festival that opens the grain-growing season. There is a ban on eating meat and on touching earth. No digging or plowing on this date, as that is seen as disrespectful of the hard work the earth will be doing in bringing forth the harvest. More recently, Italy grafted on a celebration of liberation to this date. The country was officially rid of Nazi-Fascists on 25 April 1945. Today, this date is a national holiday. In Mexico, St Mark’s day gives its name to a month-long fair that has international appeal, the Saint Mark National Fair. In Sardinia, this is a shepherd’s holiday in which bread is offered as a sacrifice and there is a good deal of drinking.
In Venice, which takes Mark as its patron saint, this is the Rosebud Festival. Men give a single red rosebud to the woman they love. This tradition can be traced back to the wars of the 8th century. A commoner fell hopelessly in love with a woman from the nobility. He went off to war and was mortally wounded, but before dying he managed to pluck a budding rose and send it with a companion back to his love. The rose was covered in his blood.
This strange tale actually comes fairly close to the day’s Roman roots, at least symbolically. Robigalia was a festival of propitiation in which the color red is paramount. There was a bloody sacrifice of a red-furred, unweaned puppy. The name of the festival is tied to the Latin ruber, meaning red. And the deity invoked, Robigus (though sometimes in feminine, Robigo) is likely a variation of Mars, the god of both agriculture and war, a bloody deity.
The color literally “stems” from the blight that Robigus both caused and therefore prevented — if in the right mood. It is wheat leaf rust, a nasty fungus that can overwinter in mild climates and destroy large swaths of an infected field. It can kill not only wheat, but oats, rye and many other grasses, reducing yields to a pittance where it sets in. It is endemic throughout the world, and there is no cure once it takes hold. This wee beastie has the particularly foul habit of using the dying plant tissues to fertilize itself; so it eats the plant, kills it and then propagates itself in the plant’s decomposition. Fortunately, there are hybrids that are resistant to this menace, but the main defense these days is genetic engineering.
It is likely that climate change will exacerbate the spread of this fungus and other grain rusts since the cold temperatures needed to kill them may no longer happen in many parts of the world. Perhaps it is time to pray to Robigus… though without the blood, please…
imprecation
and it is given
that we gather
this day
gather to guarantee
gathering
in the face of fungal effrontery
we are given
this day
together
that we may
harvest future days
red ways
notwithstanding
we gather
to grant
days
despite spiteful time
and so we gather
not in supplication
but imprecation
against infringed fortune
days of bloody dearth
and barren bellies
together
to gather
we are given
this day
to ward
days
of stolen harvest
never to come
Today is also Cuckoo Day in the UK, a day to go hunt the grock… that is, go try to hear the cuckoo’s, or grock’s, call. This is not actually a day but more of a season. For many weeks from the equinox on, people will fan out into the countryside hoping to be the first to hear the distinctive call of the cuckoo, who is named after his voice. This tradition is quite a lovely excuse for spring hiking and picnics. Or it was…
For a broad range of reasons — from drought in Africa where they overwinter to light pollution that confuses navigation for these nocturnally migrating bids to precipitous drops in insect populations — cuckoos have declined by over 30% in the UK since 1995. The cuckoo is now listed as a Bird of Conservation Concern in the UK. The main problem is that the traditional timing of migration, one that would have birds arrive around the end of April, is proving fatal in our new climate.
There are two main migration paths: one that follows the outline of the western African coast and crosses the Sahara at an oblique angle, and one that heads more or less straight north. On average, those birds that follow the more eastern path over the Sahara Desert leave about eight days earlier than those who are still tracking west. Those that are still heading west and around are traveling a longer route in warmer weather. The later departure and the longer route mean that birds are trying to cross the desert and the Mediterranean when spring has given way to summer’s heat. Many don’t make it. And then with insect declines, birds weakened from their trip often die of hunger when they arrive up north.
These days, if you hear a cuckoo, it will probably be those that are starting to follow the earlier eastern migration route. And it will probably be long before April. The early birds are arriving in March. So, if you’re just going out now to hunt the grock, you are probably too late.
Though it is still probably a good day for picnics…
cuckoo time
cuckoo sings out spring
changeling in contented nest
songs of troth betrayed
Central Vermont is on the northern edge of the breeding territory for western hemisphere cuckoos. We don’t get to hear them often. However, American species are far more elusive, and they do not sing the usual cuckoo song. The black-billed cuckoo sounds more like a muted digital alarm clock than a cuckoo clock. So it’s unlikely you’re going to hear it even in the South where the cuckoos are more common.
Still for those of you down South, if you have grock-hunting weather, go find yourself an abandoned field or riparian area that has been furred with dense thickets. You’re sure to hear one softly calling in the early morning. If you’re up North, go find an ephemeral pond or stream near a woodland and you’ll hear a whole chorus of the northern harbinger of spring — the spring peeper. These adorable wood frogs congregate in any available spring puddle to mate and lay eggs, belting out their songs day and night — but mostly night.
Traditionally, the frog chorus marks the end of maple sugar season, because once the frogs come out of hibernation it’s too warm for reliably sweet sap. The last boil is known as the “frog run”. This year the frogs are just now coming out, but the sugar shacks have been done boiling for a while now. I don’t know if this is more climate muddling or just a freak year… though… maybe freak years of any flavor are the climate muddling…
In any case, the frogs are singing now. If you’re heading out to the woods in New England, you probably want earplugs. They’re that loud. But it’s a good time to go out. Delicate spring ephemerals are blooming. New leaves are limning limbs in pale green and burgundy . And it’s been far too cold for ticks…
So far…
Give that a week…
©Elizabeth Anker 2026
By My Solitary Hearth 