the Ice Kings

[Benjamin Fortson]

This is sort of an old German thing. The German equivalent is
Eisheilige, which doesn't mean "ice kings" but "ice saints", referring to
five saints whose days are May 11-15.

Ben

On Tue, 21 May 2002, Mark A Mandel wrote:

> from a correspondent:
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 11:30:37 +0100
>
> By the by, I thought I'd mention an expression my mother used this
> weekend that I only hear from her at this time of year.
>
> She says that her grandmother used to say that you shouldn't plant
> before May 15, because May 13/14/15 were the Ice Kings. After them,
> it doesn't frost. (Well, except this year, which is why she was
> talking about the rule being broken. It frosted last night, even!)
>
> Now, my mother says this is an old German thing. A lot of times, that
> seems to mean it's an "old Germans who live in Dayton" thing, and is
> long forgotten in Germany. Obviously the climate differences would
> mean that the Ice Kings would have to be different days in Germany,
> too.
>
> But has anybody else ever heard of this? Googling various keywords on
> the Web and Usenet produced only hockey references....
>