St. Urho doesn't exist, never existed. He is, in a way, fake news, more St. Ersatz.
St. Urho is a joke created here in Minnesota. There is some disagreement as to where in Minnesota the joke started. Minnesota has a good sized Irish population. We also have a large Finnish population in this region.
St. Urho is the Finn answer to St. Patrick, stealing just a little of the thunder of the man who was reputed to have driven the snakes out of Ireland, by having a holiday the day before the better known St Paddy.
St. Urho's holiday celebrates the driving out of grasshoppers from Finland where they were destroying the grape crop which was the foundation for the Finland wine industry.
WHAT Finland wine industry? Now you get the joke. It is very much in the low key what you might call Prairie Home Companion-esque variety of humor.
Although.... with enough global warming there might be a real need for a modern Urho to save the day, and to reinvent the culture of saunas and rolling in snow with growing grapes and stomping them into juice for wine making that far north.
After all, we have a burgeoning wine industry right here in Minnesots where we used to be known as the icebox of the lower 48 contiguous states of the USA.
Happy St. Urho's Day, hug a Finn and have a chuckle. And watch out for drunken grasshoppers.
