Today Google and the Scottish are celebrating St. Andrew’s Day. If you visit the Google United Kingdom search engine today you will be greeted by the St. Andrew’s Day Google Doodle. In the Google there is a lion smelling a flower, and the Google Doodle itself is build out of bricks which looks like it is part of a castle wall. The holiday is celebrated by Scottish people all around the world on the 30th of November each year.
The St. Andrew’s Day celebrations is about St Andrew who was a fisherman and one of the disciples of Jesus Christ and responsible for spreading the new faith throughout mainly Greece, Europe and Asia. The 30th November is a bank holiday in Scotland and have been since 2006 when the Scottish Parliament officially declared the day a holiday.
Saint Andrew is also the patron saint of Greece, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. However at the time of writing the this article it seems as if Google only decided to make the St. Andrew’s Day Google Doodle available via there United Kingdom search engines.
Interesting information about St. Andrew’s Day on Wikipedia
While doing research about St. Andrew’s Day I discovered this interesting information about superstitious believes that accompanies St. Andrew’s Day and how other countries around the world celebrate St. Andrew’s Day.
In Countries like Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Poland, Russia and Romania many people believe that the night before St. Andrew’s Day is especially suitable for magic. It is believe that on the night before St. Andrew’s Day a woman can find her husband, or that he will be revealed to her. It is also the ideal day to cast a magic spell to bind a man to a woman. Many related customs exist: for example, the pouring of hot lead into water (in Poland, one usually pours hot wax from a candle through a key hole into cold water), divining the future husband’s profession from the shape of the resulting piece (related divinations using molten metal’s are still popular in Germany on Hogmanay).
In some areas in Austria, young women would drink wine and then perform a spell, called Andreasgebet (Saint Andrew’s prayer), while nude and kicking a straw bed. This was supposed to magically attract the future husband. Yet another custom is to throw a clog over one’s shoulder: if it lands pointing to the door, the woman will get married in the same year.
In some parts of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, young women would write down the names of potential husbands on little pieces of paper and stick these into little pieces of dough, called Halusky. When cooked, the first one to float to the surface of the water would reveal the name of their future husband.
In Poland, some women put pieces of paper (on which they have written potential husbands) under the pillow and first thing in the morning they take one out, which allegedly reveals their future husband.
In Romania, it is customary for young women to put 41 grains of wheat beneath their pillow before they go to sleep, and if they dream that someone is coming to steal their grains that means that they are going to get married next year. Also in some other parts of the country the young women light a candle from the Easter and bring it, at midnight, to a fountain. They ask St. Andrew to let them glimpse their future husband. St. Andrew is also the patron saint of Romania and the Romanian Orthodox Church. St Andrew is also the patron saint of fishmongers, singers, spinsters, maidens, old maids and women wishing to become mothers.
Now looking at the Google Doodle of St. Andrew’s Day I am wondering what the flowers represents in the Google Doodle, and my thought are that it may be part of the magic and spells other cultures have connected to St. Andrew’s Day. It looks almost if the lion in the doodle are in a trans from the magic, flower he is smelling.
