Saint David's Day: The National Day Wales Still Isn't Allowed to Take Off

The man behind the day was, by most accounts, formidably devout rather than politically important. David — born to Saint Non near Caerfai on Wales's southwest coast and reputedly descended from the royal house of Ceredigion — spent his life founding monastic communities, the most significant of which grew up at a spot called the Vale of Roses, now the site of St Davids Cathedral. He was remembered as an ascetic and a teacher, credited with founding as many as 1,200 Christian communities before his death on 1 March 589, after which his foundation quickly became a major pilgrimage site. Sainthood came centuries later and for distinctly practical reasons: in 1120, Pope Callixtus II canonised him at the urging of Bishop Bernard, the first Norman bishop of St Davids, locking March 1st into the Catholic calendar as an official feast.

这个节日背后的这位人物，与其说是政治人物，不如说更接近一位虔诚到近乎苛刻的修士。据大多数记载，大卫出生于威尔士西南海岸的凯尔法伊附近，母亲是圣诺恩，据说出身于凯雷迪金的王室世系。他一生致力于创建修道团体，其中最重要的一处就建在一个名为“玫瑰谷”的地方——如今圣大卫主教座堂正矗立于此。他以苦行修士与导师的身份被后人铭记，据说在公元589年3月1日去世前，共创立了多达1200个基督教团体，此后他所建立的修道院很快就成为重要的朝圣地。而“封圣”则是数百年后、出于相当实际的原因才姗姗来迟：1120年，教宗卡里克斯特二世在圣大卫首位诺曼裔主教伯纳德的推动下将其封圣，3月1日由此正式被固定进天主教历法，成为官方纪念日。

It was a Tudor king who turned that feast day into something closer to a national symbol. In 1485, Henry Tudor landed at Mill Bay in Pembrokeshire and marched through Wales invoking his Welsh ancestry and Welsh emblems — the red dragon among them — to rally an army of some 5,000 to 6,000 men before defeating Richard III at Bosworth Field. As Henry VII, he kept up the association, funding Saint David's Day festivities at court and having Welsh mead and cheese shipped to London for the occasion. The reaction back in the capital wasn't always so warm: the diarist Samuel Pepys recorded 17th-century Londoners marking the day with mock lynchings of Welsh effigies, and by the 18th century that mockery had calcified into its own strange English custom — gingerbread 'taffies' baked in the shape of a Welshman riding a goat.

真正把这个纪念日变成近乎“民族象征”的，是一位都铎国王。1485年，亨利·都铎在彭布罗克郡的米尔湾登陆，随后率军穿越威尔士，沿途不断援引自己的威尔士血统与威尔士象征——包括那面红龙旗——以此凝聚人心，最终集结起约5000至6000人的军队，在博斯沃思战役中击败理查三世。登基为亨利七世后，他延续了这层联系，出资在宫廷中举办圣大卫日庆典，还特地从威尔士运来蜂蜜酒和奶酪送到伦敦。但伦敦本地的反应并非总是那么友善：日记作家塞缪尔·佩皮斯记录下17世纪伦敦人如何以“绞死”威尔士人假人的方式来庆祝这一天，到了18世纪，这种嘲弄甚至固化成了一种独特的英式习俗——把姜饼捏成骑山羊的威尔士人形状，俗称“taffy”。

What survives of all that today is considerably gentler. Leeks and daffodils — worn side by side, possibly thanks to a centuries-old mix-up between the similar-sounding Welsh words for the two plants — remain the day's defining symbols, alongside traditional dress, school eisteddfodau, and dishes like cawl, bara brith and Welsh rarebit. Cardiff hosts the largest parade, but the day travels well: Welsh choirs sing at Downing Street, Los Angeles runs the biggest Saint David's Day festival in the United States, and Disneyland Paris turns over a week to it. What Wales still doesn't have is the one thing polls consistently say the public wants — an actual bank holiday. A 2006 survey found 87 percent in favour, a 2007 petition was turned down by the government, and as of now it remains a patchwork of school half-days and, since 2022, a paid holiday for council staff in Gwynedd alone, rather than a day off written into national law.

如今留存下来的，则要温和得多。韭葱与黄水仙——两者并肩佩戴，据说是源于两个威尔士语发音相近的植物名称之间一场持续了数百年的混淆——依旧是这一天最鲜明的象征，此外还有传统服饰、学校诗歌音乐节（eisteddfod），以及卡尔浓汤、斑点面包（bara brith）、威尔士干酪吐司等传统菜肴。卡迪夫拥有规模最大的游行，但这一节日的影响力远播海外：威尔士唱诗班曾在唐宁街献唱，洛杉矶举办着全美规模最大的圣大卫日庆典，巴黎迪士尼乐园也会为此专辟一整周。然而，民调中民众持续表达的那个愿望——真正意义上的法定假日——威尔士至今仍未获得。2006年的一项调查显示87%的受访者支持放假，2007年的请愿被政府驳回，直到今天，这一天依旧只是零星学校的半天假，以及自2022年起格温内思郡议会为其员工设立的带薪假日，而非写入国家法律的正式假期。