Saint Patrick v. Saint Ur-who?

As we gear up for this weekend's St. Patrick's Day celebrations, let's not forget to toast St. Urho of Finland today. Who is St. Urho, you ask?

According to The Prosthetic Impulse, edited by Marquard Smith and Joanne Morra, “St. Urho’s Day is celebrated each year on March 16 in certain northern Minnesotan and northwestern Ontario towns with significant Finnish populations… Since the mid-1950s, St. Urho’s Day has parodied St. Patrick’s Day, which is celebrated the following day. St. Urho’s apocryphal feat was to have, like St. Patrick, rid his country of a certain kind of creature. Instead of snakes, St. Urho expelled the grasshoppers from Finland, thus saving the vineyards and wine production. In a reversal worthy of postmodern slippage, the Irish are said to have stolen the idea from the Finns.”

We wish happy days to both Patrick and Urho.