No, I don’t want to put a period/full stop after “St,” because in BrE standard mechanics there isn’t one. (There’s a logic to it, but that’s another post. Stick around and I might explain someday.)
In 2015 I got a wild hair and wrote a parody of the famed “St Crispin’s Day” speech from Shakespeare’s “Henry V.” The speaker is Hereford V, rallying his troops for St Frisian’s Day. Of course, there is no “St Frisian.” I’m of Frisian heritage, and it amused me to toy with the words.
Anyway, here’s my poor effort at parodying that rousing passage. I hope you at least groan and roll your eyes.
*****
Welsh Black. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those bulls in England
That do no work to-day!
Hereford V. What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Welsh Black? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer bulls, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one bull more.
By Jersey, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my meat;
It yearns me not if bulls my pastures graze;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a bull from England.
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one bull more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Welsh Black, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; the barnyard gates shall open,
And none shall speak him ill as he departs;
We would not die in that bull’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Frisian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-hoof when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Frisian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Frisian.’
Then will he turn his flank and show his scars,
And say ‘These wounds I had on Frisian’s day.’
Old bulls forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words—
Hereford the King, Bernaise and Evolene,
Warwickshire, Shetland, Salers and Gloucestershire—
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good bull teach his son;
And Holstein Frisian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered—
We few, we happy few, we herd of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And peaceful bulls in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their stud fees cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Frisian’s day.