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... in the beginning of March, the seventh night, or the fourteenth day, let [i.e. spill] the blood of the right arm; and in the beginning of April, the 11th day, of the left arm; and in the end of May, 3d or 5th day, on whether arm thou wilt; and thus, of all the year, thou shalt orderly be kept from the fever, the falling gout, the sister gout, and loss of thy sight.
Book of Knowledge b. 1, p 19; quoted in Robert Chambers, (Ed.), The Book of Days: A miscellany of popular antiquities in connection with the calendar, etc, W & R Chambers, London, 1881 (1879 Edition is online and 1869 edition here with CD-ROM available; See also The English Year: A Personal Selection from Chambers' Book of Days)

We had heard that a monster had been born at Ravenna, of which a drawing was sent here; it had a horn on its head, straight up like a sword, and instead of arms it had two wings like a bat's, and the height of its breasts it had a fio [Y-shaped mark] on one side and a cross on the other, and lower down at the waist, two serpents, and it was a hermaphrodite, and on the right knee it had an eye, and its left foot was like an eagle. I saw it painted, and anyone who wished could see this painting in Florence.
Lucca Landucc, Florentine apothecary, on the Monster of Ravenna, March, 1512

The Monster of Ravenna, 1512

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See the sun dance                   

In Ireland, the farmers would go to bed early on Easter Saturday night and rise at about four in the morning in order to see the sun rise. They believed that the Easter sun danced at dawn in honour of the Resurrection. In some parts of England, too, this was believed, and was called the lamb playing. 

People looked at the sun's reflection in a well and convinced themselves that the sun danced. Even now in northern Friesland, it is said that if an Easter egg peels easily the owner will see the sun dance on Easter morning.

Egyptian day (dies egypticus, dies ægypticus or dies mala), unlucky day in Medieval Europe. ("But, notwithstanding, I will trust the Lord" was the associated saying.)

Feast day of St Aid, abbot in Ireland

Feast day of St Antipas, martyr

Feast day of St Barsanuphius of Gaza

Feast day of St Domnio

Feast day of St Gemma Galgani

Feast day of St George Gervase

Feast day of St Godeberta

Feast day of St Guthlac, hermit
Born in 673, Guthlac became a Benedictine monk at Repton, England, under abbess Elfrida, and a hermit on Croyland Isle. Guthlac was the son of Penwald, a noble of the English kingdom of Mercia, and his wife Tette. His sister is also venerated as St Pega. He wore skins, and ate one meal only a day, of barley-bread and water. It is said that he always appeared happy and was kind to strangers. The island was in the fen country, and is no more, due to land reclamation, but the district is today known as Crowland. Where once there was water but is now dry, still stands Trinity Bridge (Croyland Bridge), a strange triangular construction.

The image at right, from the British Library, shows St Guthlac with his sister, St Pega. The spectacles on Guthlac have been added at a later date by some graffitist.

He gave sanctuary to Ethelbald (Æthelbald), future king of Mercia, who was fleeing from his cousin Ceolred. Guthlac predicted that Ethelbald would become king, and so Ethelbald promised to build Guthlac an abbey if his prophesy became true. Ethelbald did become king and, even though Guthlac had died previously, kept his word and started construction of Croyland Abbey on St Bartholomew's Day, 716. St Guthlac died of natural causes on April 4, probably in 714.

"There is in Britain a fen of immense size which begins from the river Granta, not far from the city, which is named Grantchester ... a man named Tatwine said that he knew an island especially obscure, which ofttimes many men had attempted to inhabit, but no man could do it on account of manifold horrors and fears, and the loneliness of the wild wilderness.... No man ever could inhabit it before the holy man Guthlac came thither on account of the dwelling of the accursed spirits there.... There was on the island a great mound raised upon the earth, which same of yore men had dug and broken up in hopes of treasure.... Then in the stillness of the night it happened suddenly that there came great hosts of the accursed spirits, and they filled the house with their coming, and they poured in on every side from above and beneath and everywhere. They were in countenance horrible, and they had great heads and a long neck and lean visage; they were filthy and squalid in their beards, and they had rough ears and distorted face, and fierce eyes and foul mouths: and their teeth were like horses' tusks, and their throats were filled with flame, and they were grating in their voice: they had crooked shanks and knees, big and great behind, and distorted toes, and shrieked hoarsely with their voices, and they came with such immoderate noises and immense horror that it seemed to him that all between heaven and earth resounded with their dreadful cries. Without delay, when they were come into the house, they soon bound the holy man in all his limbs, and they pulled and led him out of the cottage and brought him to the black fen and threw and sunk him in the muddy waters. After that they brought him to the wild places of the wilderness, among the dense thickets of brambles that all his body was torn. After they had a long time thus tormented him in darkness they let him abide and stand awhile, then commanded him to depart from the wilderness, or if he would not do so they would torment and try him with greater plagues."
The Anglo-Saxon Version of the Life of St. Guthlac, Hermit of Crowland, by Felix of Crowland, edited by CW Goodwin, London, 1848   Source

Scenes from the life of St Guthlac showing the attacks of the dæmones

Fenland logic, myths with language and mysteries    More    More    More

Feast day of St Hildebrand

Feast day of St Isaac of Monteluco

Feast day of St John of Cupramontana

Feast day of St Leo the Great, Pope
(Dandelion, Taraxacum dens leonis, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)  

From Wikipedia: Leo was a Roman aristocrat and Pope from 440 to 461. He is the first widely known Pope, and even sometimes assigned the title 'first Pope'. He stopped the invasion of Italy by Attila the Hun in 452 by his moral persuasion, was a theologian, and was a leading figure in the centralization of the government of the Church.

Feast day of St Maccai (Machai), abbot

Feast day of St Maedhog

Feast day of St Philip of Gortyna

Feast day of St Raynerius Inclusus

Feast day of St Stanislaus of Cracow

Feast day of St Waltmann of Cambrai

Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints

Nagasaki Takoage, or Kite-Flying Event, Nagasaki, Japan (Apr 3 - 29)

Anniversary of the Battle of Rivas (State holiday in Costa Rica)

146 Septimius Severus (d. February 4, 211), Roman emperor from April 9, 193 to 211.

1370 Frederick the Warlike (Frederick I), Elector of Saxony

1492 Margaret of Navarre (d. 1549), Queen of Navarre and writer. She was a patron of humanities and religious reformers. As an author, her most important works were Heptameron and Les Dernieres Poesies, both published posthumously.

1723 Franz Anton Bustelli (d. 1763), porcelain moulder

1775 Dr James Parkinson, English physician who defined Parkinson's Disease

1819 Charles Hallé, (d. 1895) pianist and conductor

1825 Ferdinand Lassalle (d. 1864), politician

1866 Bernard O'Dowd (d. September 1, 1953), Australian child prodigy, radical activist, public servant, poet, journalist and editor. He co-founded the influential radical journal, Tocsin. In 1886, O'Dowd joined the Melbourne Lyceum, the educational and social arm of the Australasian Secular Association.

He was a member of the Theosophical Society, as well as Dr Charles Strong's Australian Church and, later, Frederick Sinclaire's Free Religious Fellowship. Active as a lecturer with the Victorian Socialist League c. 1900, O'Dowd was a founding member of the Victorian Socialist Party (VSP) in 1905. In 1920, he left his wife and commenced a de facto relationship with Marie Pitt (1869 - '48), Christian-anarchist poet. A few weeks before his death O'Dowd expressed his firm belief in anarcho-communism.

From 'May Day'

By Bernard O'Dowd 

Come Jack, our place is with the ruck 
On the open road today, 
Not with the tepid "footpath sneak" 
Or with the wise who stop away. 

A straggling, tame procession, perhaps, 
A butt for burgess scorn; 
Its flags are ragged sentiments, 
And its music's still unborn. 

Though none respectable are here, 
And trim officials ban, 
Our duty, Jack, is not with them, 
But here with Hope and Man. 

Nor have we cause for shame, who see, 
In the glory-lighted street, 
The Old Brigade of Liberty 
The partial ranks complete. 

There's Shelley, Byron, arm in arm, 
With Schiller, Uhland, near: 
While cheek by jowl with anarch "crank" 
See young Camille appear. 

Marat keeps line with Spartacus, 
Lone Dantes grimly stalk; 
The meagre Knights of Labour "push" 
With the Twelve Apostles walk. 

Bakunin, Marx, Lassalle are there, 
Grey Whitman's with the Greeks, 
Dutch "Beggar" chums with Ironside, 
Or to Bastille hero speaks. 

Valliant and Brutus, Vane, Kossuth, 
Find here a fitting tryst; 
That Yarra-banker far ahead 
Is keeping step with Christ ...

(In the last two lines, O'Dowd compares Melbourne anarchist Chummy Fleming with Jesus Christ. The Yarra is the river that flows upside-down through Melbourne.)

"Bernard O'Dowd was born in Beaufort, Victoria on April 11, 1866 of Irish parents. He was educated in Victorian State school and obtained his B.A. and his law degree from Melbourne University. O'Dowd was an opponent of Federation and many of his satirical poems reflect his opposition. He was a journalist, public servant and for many years worked with the Victorian Supreme Court as a Librarian while maintaining his involvement in literature and politics. O'Dowd's collections of poetry include: Dawnward? (Sydney, 1903), reprinted in A Southern Garland (Sydney, 1904); The Silent Land, and Other Verses (Melbourne, 1906); The Poems of Bernard O'Dowd (Melbourne: Lothian. 1941). Reference sources include: Hugh Anderson, Bernard O'Dowd (New York, 1968); Hugh Anderson, The Tocsin: Contesting the Constitution; 1897-1901 (includes poetry and prose by O'Dowd); W.H. Wilde, Three Radicals: Australian Writers and Their Work 20-28 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1969) [Selected Poems] [Poem: Australia] [Poems: Love's Substitute and Our Duty]"   Source

"His poem 'Hoist the Flag' Lyceum published in the Lyceum Tutor in 1888, outlined ideas that were very similar to anarchism. O'Dowd had become a friend of the Melbourne anarcho-communist Jack Andrews, and in 1897, O'Dowd and two others set up the radical paper Tocsin. In 1898, he was co-editor of Tocsin with Jack Andrews. He continued to be an editor, contributor and financial supporter of Tocsin until Andrews died of tuberculosis in 1903. During these six years, he published numerous radical poems, and used the pages of the Tocsin to express his opposition to Federation and The Boer War. In 1902, he issued a pamphlet "Conscience and Democracy" which opposed the Boer War."   Source

"Also writes as: Lucian (1 work); A Faun of Thrace (3 works); Alcheringa (3 works); Delmer, F. S. (1 work); Pagan (7 works); Danton (16 works); Fenton, D.; Alcaeus; Australeros; Gavah; Gavah the Blacksmith; Clopps, Q.; D; Delmar; Delmar, F. S.; Denton; Denton, F.; Fenton; Fenton, D.; Fenton, Delmar; Hazel, Wych; P. M. (1 work); Mars; Minnesinger; Mulholland, Miranda; B. O'D.; M. I. Olnir; Pandemos; Sowton, Nothy; Tiresias; Tocsinger; Tocsynic; Ulimaroa; Warbler, Reed."   Source

"Over the years, O'Dowd's official career had remained intriguingly distinct from his poetic and political avocations. In his fiery private capacity he had joined the Theosophical Society, Dr Charles Strong's Australian Church* and, later, Frederick Sinclaire's Free Religious Fellowship. Active as a lecturer in the Victorian Socialist League from about 1900, he was a foundation member of the Victorian Socialist Party in 1905. In 1907 he founded the Essendon Socialist Group and in 1912-13 assisted in editing the Socialist. One of his colleagues in the V.S.P. was John Curtin. In 1912 he denounced the White Australia policy as 'unbrotherly, undemocratic and unscientific'. In 1913 O'Dowd was president of the Victorian Rationalist Association. On the official side, he had been appointed, 'on loan', assistant librarian in the Supreme Court, Melbourne, in 1887. From the mid-1890s he had written and edited - sometimes ghosted - several law books. In 1913 he became first assistant parliamentary draughtsman."   Source

* Rev. Charles Strong and the Australian Church

Sonnets by Bernard O'Dowd    Poems by Bernard o'Dowd    Anarchism in Australia

Lawson & Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson    More

1866 Annie Sullivan (d. 1936), teacher of Helen Keller

1883 Hozumi Shigeto, (d. 1951) Japanese author

1889 Nick LaRocca (d. 1961), jazz musician

1893 Dean Acheson (d. 1971), United States Secretary of State

1896 Wieland Herzfelde (d. 1989), publisher and author who founded the Malik publishing house in Berlin, which brought out a number of Dada publications

1906 Dale Messick, cartoonist

1908 Leo Rosten, humourist, author (d. 1997)

1908 Jane Bolin, attorney: first black woman graduate of Yale School of Law (USA); first black, female judge in USA

1913 Oleg Cassini, fashion designer

1928 Ethel Kennedy, wife of Robert F Kennedy

1930 Anton LaVey (d. 1997), founder of the Church of Satan

1932 Joel Grey, singer, actor

1938 Kurt Moll, German operatic bass

1944 John Milius, director, writer

1949 Bernd Eichinger, film producer

1951 Doris McGowen Beck Angleton (d. 1997), Houston, Texas socialite

1953 Andrew Wiles, mathematician

1953 Guy Verhofstadt, prime minister of Belgium

1955 Kevin Brady, American politician

1961 Doug Hopkins, lyricist and musician

1963 June Gibbons, author, whose life was a curious case involving psychology and language

1963 Jennifer Gibbons, author, twin sister of June Gibbons

1966 Lisa Stansfield, singer

1968 Sergey Lukyanenko, Russian science fiction author

1969 Cerys Matthews, singer

1971 Oliver Riedel, bassist for Rammstein

1987 Joss Stone, singer

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