Pau was the first of the Christian hermits. He has an association with Antoni on several counts. One was that they were both Egyptian. A second was that Antoni also committed himself to an hermitic existence in the desert. A third was that Antoni supposedly learned about Pau in a dream, went in search of him and found him, by which time Pau was 113 years old.
Maur is a rather different kettle of saintly fish. Not a great deal is known about him, other than that he was Italian and seemingly lived in the sixth century. That's the original tale. There is a totally different one that was adapted for Catalan tradition. This has it that Maur was a native of Roussillon in southern France, with all that this implied for the Occitan language and its links with Catalan. His story is thus almost certainly a total fabrication, but then fact and fiction where most saints are concerned are difficult to distinguish; Antoni and Pau are both cases in point.
It just so happens that Pau and Maur share the same feast day, i.e. 15 January. Thrown together with Antoni, where Catalan religious tradition is concerned, and you get the week of the bearded ones (or three days of the bearded ones to be more accurate). The beards of Antoni and Pau are probably not disputable, insofar as anything can be said to be fact. Living the hermit's life would have meant eschewing the luxury of a razor blade and some shaving gel. Maur, on the other hand, is normally depicted in a less hirsute style. Indeed, he looks a fairly baby-faced saint minus any facial hair, but then that's the image that the Italians have of him. Catalan tradition demands the full set.
The week of the bearded ones has a greater significance than simply not shaving. This week is considered, in traditional terms, to be the coldest one of the winter, and what better way to keep an old saint warm during those freezing nights in the desert (or in Roussillon) than a beard.
Despite this bearded celebration of the tufted triumvirate, Antoni is the only one of the three who genuinely enters the Mallorcan consciousness. There are no big gigs for Pau or Maur. But, and never let it be said that the saintly calendar isn't a packed one, there are other saints who gatecrash bearded week and either attach themselves to the fiery feast of Sant Antoni or don't. In the latter category are Sant Hilari (13 January), the so-called hammer of the Arians and thus a male Hilary, and Santa Priscil-la (18 January), of whom it can probably safely be assumed that she would fail to qualify for bearded week in any event. Then we come to Sant Honorat (Honoratus in English).
From the evidence of an icon, Honorat did have a beard, not on account of having spent cold nights in the desert but because he just did. This particular Honorat was the bishop of Arles in the fifth century. Given that Arles is in Provence, there is, as with Sant Maur, that distant Catalan linguistic and so cultural connection.
In the town of Algaida, Honorat is patron saint and as his feast day is 16 January, bingo, Honorat's day and Antoni's eve coincide, which means that Honorat must have his eve as well, resulting therefore in two successive evenings of fire-making which become three successive evenings because they move things around in Algaida. On Antoni's day, there are bonfires, barbecues and wine at the hermitage on the Randa puig; not for Antoni but for Honorat. And why? Well, Honorat did give his name to the hermitage which, for more than a hundred years, was once where the brotherhood of Sant Pau and Sant Antoni lived, so linking the town to two of the three bearded ones of beard week plus one, Honorat, who did have a beard though isn't one of the three, but not to the other, Maur, who didn't necessarily have a beard at all.
Note: There are two other saints who make it onto the bearded week roll call, Sant Fruitós (21 January) and Sant Vicenç Màrtir (22 January), which helps to explain the "week", but neither are generally referred to.
Photo: Sant Maur as he is in La Bruca, Italy. Not a lot of beard going on here it must be said.
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