Don´t loose your Saint Christopher...

I embarked on Easter with a lunch at old friends in Sweden. Late in the process my friend puts on Tom Waits´ Waltzing Mathilda, a song played many times in our company all the way back to when we started to listen to music. We start discussing it.

The lyrics go like this, and my favorite part is:

Now I lost my Saint Christopher now that I've kissed her
And the one-armed bandit knows
And the maverick Chinamen, and the cold-blooded signs,
And the girls down by the strip-tease shows, go
Waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda,
You'll go waltzing Mathilda with me

According to the Wikipedia "Waltzing Matilda" is Australia's most widely known bush ballad, a country folk song, and has been referred to as "the unofficial national anthem of Australia".^[1] The title is Australian slang for travelling by foot with one's goods in a "Matilda" (bag) slung over one's back.^[2] The song narrates the story of an itinerant worker or swagman making a drink of tea at a bush camp and capturing a sheep to eat. When the sheep's ostensible owner arrives with three police officers to arrest the worker for the theft (a crime punishable by hanging), the worker drowns himself in a small watering hole and goes on to haunt the site.

The original lyrics were written in 1887 by poet and nationalist Banjo Paterson. It was first published as sheet music in 1903. Extensive folklore surrounds the song and the process of its creation, to the extent that the song has its own museum, the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton, Queensland.

"Saint Christopher" has, also according to Wikipedia, always been a widely popular saint, being especially revered by athletes, mariners, ferrymen, and travelers.^[7] He is revered as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. He holds patronage of things related to travel and travelers: against lightning; against pestilence; archers; bachelors; boatmen; bookbinders; epilepsy; floods; fruit dealers; fullers; gardeners; for a holy death; mariners; market carriers; motorists and drivers; sailors; storms; surfers^[8]; toothache; and transportation workers.

My saint. I guess.