Venlo marks Sint-Maarten tonight with a procession and bonfire
Many Dutch towns and villages celebrate Sint-Maarten on the evening of 10 November, a day before the official date.
Sint-Maarten is being celebrated in many places across the Netherlands this evening, 10 November. The official day is 11 November, the 11th of the 11th, but a lot of communities start a day early.
In some places, such as Venlo and the area around it, the evening includes a procession with a bonfire.
In many villages and towns, children go from door to door in the evening, singing in return for sweets. A well-known line of the song runs "Elf november is de dag dat mijn lichtje branden mag", roughly "11 November is the day my little light may burn".
Who was Sint-Maarten
The feast is named after Martinus, a 4th-century bishop of Tours. The story goes that, as a Roman soldier and the son of an officer, he met a shivering beggar at the city gate of Amiens in France and gave him half of his cloak, cutting it with his sword.
That night, the story says, Christ appeared to him in a dream wearing the half cloak. The vision made such an impression that Martinus wanted to devote the rest of his life to the poor.
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