Foraging through Folkore

In praise of lazy

Ella Leith

This is a sleepy time of year for me. In Malta, in the tiny city where I live, the 10th August marks the celebration of the local patron saint, St. Lawrence. The ten weeks preceding the festa are filled with preparations and precelebrations. Trucks, cherry-pickers and bands of festa committee members trundle the narrow streets, carrying flagpoles, festoons, and richly embroidered pavaljuni with which to decorate the town. From first light, the city is filled with the sound of revving engines, beeping horns, busy hammers, and bellowing voices. As the festa falls on a Wednesday this year, the eves and mornings of the Ten Wednesdays of St. Lawrence can be particularly raucous, with the clamour of church bells, brass and pipe bands, fireworks, confetti canons, and shouts of "Viva, San Lawrenz!" I don't expect to get much sleep between 24th May and 11th August this year.

For the festa proper, the pjazza will host a vast and chaotic street party from dawn 'til midnight, and a huge statue of the saint will be carried shoulder high from the parish church and through the town. The statue depicts St. Lawrence standing with the symbol of his martyrdom— a huge gridiron, upon which it is claimed he was burnt alive in 261 CE. "This half of my body is already roasted," Lawrence is reputed to have called out to his executioner, the Emperor Valerian (no relation to this issue's Herb of the Month). "Order them to turn me over, and you will be able to eat!" (Bennett, 2002:101). In a darkly humorous (or perhaps just tasteless) twist, St. Lawrence is now the patron saint of barbeques (thecatholiccommentator.org)— and also of comedians (Kosloski, 2019). I read his last words as a moment of defiant mockery of his executioners; for churchmen, it is evidence of a religious fervour for sanctification through extended suffering (Bennett, 2002). In the folk tradition, however, it has been attributed to the saint's lethargy— 'evidence of his being too lazy to turn himself' (Smith, 1996:102).

It seems harsh to accuse someone of sloth while they're being tortured to death. However, the name Lawrence has been associated with laziness in several folk traditions. Variations of the phrase 'as lazy as Lawrence' appear across England, including 'to have Lawrence on one's back', 'to be plagued with Lawrence', and 'to have a fit of Lawrence' (Smith, 1996:102). In the late nineteenth century, an Oxfordshire man reported that, during the harvest, workers would say of a man "as wouldn't work...[that] 'the Lawrence got 'im'" (in Gomme et al, 1902:179), and in Dorset:

When one feels a loathing of work he sometimes cries: "Leazy Larrence, let me goo! Don't hold me zummer an' winter too" (in Barnes, 1970:77).

Perhaps the association of the name Lawrence with laziness was retrospectively linked to the saint. There is alliterative resonance in English, and wordplay in the German version, 'der faule Lenz', which 'modified faulenzen, "to be lazy," and der Faulenz, "lazybones," to derfaule Lenz, "lazy Lenz"' (Smith, 1996:103). Smith continues:

To idle about was "to serve lazy Lenz" (demfaulen Lenze dieneri), and from this sprang the fiction of a Captain Lenz, who commanded the ranks of idlers and on a hot day could prevail upon even the most wide-awake fellow to lie down in the shade and take a nap.

Lawrence, then, is the 'patron or personification of laziness' (Barnes, 1970:77), who seeks to keep you sleepy and slothful. It is said that 'Lawrence bids high wages' for your work— 'with the ironic implication that in this instance the "work" is sleep' (Smith, 1996:102). A collection of early chapbooks contains the tale The History of Lawrence Lazy, in which the eponymous hero is the son of the 'Governor of Lubberland Castle in the country of Sloth' (Smith, 1996:101-2). From birth, Lawrence is bone idle: 'he cannot even open his mouth to be fed' and 'spends most of his time sleeping in the chimney corner, so that the servants secretly call him "Lob-lie-bythe-fire"'. Eventually he is sent to school, but:

he falls asleep amidst some haycocks. He awakens to find himself abandoned by his comrades, but in the company of an old man, who gives him a red ring. Whenever Lawrence puts this on his finger, everyone on whom he gazes will fall into a deep sleep that can only be broken through the removal of the ring (ibid.).

Returning to school, he uses the ring to send the schoolmaster to sleep and avoid punishment for his absence. Later, he is turned away hungry from a gentleman's house, despite there being plenty of food, as the gentleman's wedding feast is being prepared. In revenge,

the cook and servants are...put to sleep by Lawrence, who, having eaten, locks the gates from outside and remains to observe the consternation of the wedding party on its return (ibid.).

Harvesters who refuse to share their lunch with him are similarly punished. Eventually caught and sent for trial 'in the townhall of Neverwork', he is defended by apprentices and students, who claim he is "one of the best friends we prentices ever had". He is found not guilty, and 'all Lawrence's well-wishers spend the evening in revelry and celebration' (ibid).

It may seem strange that Lawrence's laziness is rewarded. As Smith (1996:102) observes, 'traditional lore usually gives short shrift to lubbers, sluggards and lurdens', and, while we might expect the virtuous to be rewarded, Lawrence Lazy 'never does anything "good" in the conventional sense. Even the magic ring does not come his way because of any kindness he has shown its donor'. Yet laziness is a recurring characteristic of heroes in folktales— especially of the English and Scottish archetypal hero, Jack. Many tales start with Lazy Jack lying in the soot of the hearth while his poor mother despairs of him (Williamson, 1990). In The Green Man of Knowledge, he at least plays cards with his dog while sitting in the ashes; in other tales, he is too lazy even to raise a hand for a cup of tea. Yet he always wins the day: with his tall tales, in Lazy Jack and the King of the Liars; with his foolish antics in Lazy Jack and the King's Daughter. In The Muckle Meister Stoorworm, another hero, Assipattle, is derided for 'spending his time pattling in the ashes' before going on to save the kingdom from a princess-eating monster (Erin Farley, personal communication). Peter Leith, a great Orkney tradition bearer, 'thought one of the morals was that the quiet thinkers often end up saving the day' (ibid.). Alternatively, perhaps the world of the folktale is one where 'everything is turned on its head, justice is redefined...[and] those who did not always relish the thought of work...[come] into their own' (Smith, 1996:102).

Is it merely coincidence that St. Lawrence was martyred on a gridiron and that these lazy heroes, from Lawrence 'Lob-lie-by-the-fire' Lazy and Lazy Jack to Assipattle, are invariably associated with the ashes and soot of the hearth? It's certainly an evocative parallel. Above all, 'what the name Lorenz and its counterparts in other European languages...call to mind again and again in popular tradition...is fire and heat' (Smith, 1996:103), known for making one sleepy. St. Lawrence's Day, on 10th August, is 'at the hottest—and hence, arguably, laziest—time of year' (Smith, 1996:103). As the temperature climbs, I'm certainly less inclined to work long hours. So, too, are my neighbours— and yet the streets are buzzing night and day with voluntary festa preparations, even while paid work is put on hold. And why not? With late capitalism's insistence on ever increasing levels of productivity and side hustles, I'm enthusiastic about embracing a cult of laziness and hedonism. As the weaver's eldest apprentice testified at the trial of Lawrence Lazy, if it weren't for Lawrence distracting the master-weaver with sleep and 'temporarily releas[ing]...his fellows from drudgery, they would long since have been worked to death' (Smith, 1996:103). St. Lawrence's 'lazy' refusal to turn himself over on the gridiron could be a parable for our times. After all, isn't it bad enough that someone's got your feet to the coals? No need to put yourself out to make it easier for them.

Eve of the first Wednesday of San Lawrenz, 2022

Michael Richardson

References

Barnes, W. (1970 [1886]) A Glossary of the Dorset Dialect with a Grammar. Stevens-Cox: Mount Durand

Bennett, J. (2002) St. Laurence and the Holy Grail. Libri de Hispania: Littleton, CO

Gomme, A.B., Binney, E.H. and Jewitt, C.J. (1902) 'Harvest Customs' in Folklore, 13(2):177-180

Koloski, P. (2019) 'How St. Lawrence became the patron saint of comedians', Aletia aleteia.org/2019/08/10, accessed 31/05/22

Smith, J.B. (1996) 'Towards the Demystification of Lawrence Lazy' in Folklore, 107(1-2):101-105

thecatholiccommentator.org/pages/?p=5501 9, 'Patron Saint of BBQ', accessed 31/05/22

Williamson, D. (1990) Don't Look Back, Jack! Scottish Traveller Tales. Canongate: Edinburgh

Image by Maddy Mould