Sinte Juttemis - Breda, NL
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N 51° 35.243 E 004° 46.586
31U E 623067 N 5716643
When one speaks of 'with' or 'on' St. Juttemis, one usually means never, because this saint does not exist. For the same reason, 'waiting until Sint-Juttemis' means: endless waiting. Here in Breda is a statue of the fictional figure St-Juttemis.
Waymark Code: WM14Q7T
Location: Noord-Brabant, Netherlands
Date Posted: 08/09/2021
Views: 2
Information about St. Juttemis:
"The full expression is with St. Juttemis, when the calves dance on the ice. Jutte is said to be a form of Judith, the Biblical heroine, whose name day would fall on August 17. In August there is of course no ice, and calves cannot dance, hence the meaning never. Folk culture experts believe this story is fake and point out that the feast days of Saint Judith fall on March 24 and September 7. The Meertens Institute points out that Judith is a character in the Hebrew Bible and not a Roman Catholic saint and therefore does not have a name day.
On August 17, the name day of Guda, or Guida or Jutta, of Arnstein is celebrated. There is also a holy Jutta of Sangerhausen (May 5). She came from a noble family in Thuringia and died in 1260 on her way to the Holy Land. However, it is impossible to explain how a local German saint ends up in a Dutch saying.
According to another variant, the name would be a corruption of "Jewish Mass"; that is never, because Jews do not know mass.
The expression is first mentioned in 1577 in the Chronicle of Roermond. The expression also appears in the Dictionaire français-hollandais from 1738 by Pieter Marin."
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Information about the statue:
"Carnival was banned by the Catholic Church in the early 1900s. When residents of Breda asked the Church when their beloved feast would return, they always got the same answer: “With Saint Juttemis.” Saint Jutte does not exist, which is why there is no public holiday or mass with this name. In the past, a mass was always held on the name day of a Saint, hence the name Sint Juttemis. When the Catholic Church told the Kielegatters (Name of People from Breda during Carnaval) that the next carnival celebration would be with Saint Juttemis, they actually meant that the celebration would never take place.
Fortunately, the sorrow of the Kielegatters did not last indefinitely and the carnival was reintroduced in 1936. In 1991, in honor of the 55th anniversary of the Breda carnival, the statue of Sinte – with an 'e', because it is a woman – Juttemis was donated to the inhabitants of Breda."
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