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reetings from Australia.
Welcome to this Red-Letter Day. Below you will find today's global celebrations, birthdays and events.
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I'll speed me to the pond where the high
stool On the long plank hangs o'er the muddy pool – that stool the dread of every scolding quean. John Gay writes of the ducking-stool; Pastorals, iii. V. 105 [The cucking stool] ... was a seat of even
flagitious indelicacy upon which offending females were exposed at
their own doors or in some public place as a means of putting upon
them the last degree of ignominy. The cucking-stool, in fact, was
analogous to the Sedes Stercoraria in which a new Pope was formerly
placed during the installation ceremonies, to remind him that he was
human. The court in every county shall cause to
be set up near a Court House a Pillory, a pair of Stocks, a Whipping
Post and a Ducking-Stool in such place as they think convenient, which
not being set up within six month after the date of this act the said
Court shall be fined 5,000 lbs. of tobacco. |
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The day afore yesterday at two of ye clock in
ye afternoon I saw this punishment given to one Betsey wife of John Tucker
who by ye violence of her tongue has made his house and ye neighborhood
uncomfortable. She was taken to ye pond near where I am sojourning by ye
officer who was joined by ye Magistrate and ye Minister Mr. Cotton who had
frequently admonished her and a large number of People. They had a machine
for ye purpose yt belongs to ye Parish, and which I was so told had been
so used three times this Summer. It is a platform with 4 small rollers or
wheels and two upright posts between which works a Lever by a Rope
fastened to its shorter or heavier end. At ye end of ye longer arm is
fixed a stool upon which sd Betsey was fastened by cords, her gown tied
fast around her feete. The Machine was then moved up to ye edge of ye
pond, ye Rope was slackened by ye officer and ye woman was allowed to go
down under ye water for ye space of half a minute. Betsey had a stout
stomach, and would not yield until she had allowed herself to be ducked 5
several times. At length she cried piteously, Let me go Let me go, by
God's help I'll sin no more. Then they drew back ye Machine, untied ye
Ropes and let her walk home in her wetted clothes a hopefully penitent
woman.
Thomas Hartley, from Hungars Parish, Virginia; letter to Governor
Endicott of Massachusetts, 1634
To be
blind is not miserable; not to be able to bear blindness, that is
miserable.
John Milton, who on April 27, 1667 sold the copyright of his Paradise
Lost for £10
Better
to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
John Milton
All that is human must retrograde if it
does not advance.
Edward Gibbon, born on April 27,
1737, Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire
I do not wish them to have power over
men; but over themselves.
Mary Wollstonecraft, born on April
27, 1759; A Vindication of the
Rights of Women
April
27 is
the 117th
day of the year in the Gregorian
Calendar (118th
in leap years), with 248
days remaining.
Calendar converter Almanacs,
calendars, time, dedicated weeks, etc
Almanac screensavers
On this day
Dictionary
I
recommend
IMDB
days
IMDB years
Wikipedia days
Wiki decades
Wiki centuries
Timelines
Conversions
Calendrica
Lunabar
Birthday calculator
When 'Source'
links on this page move address or die, I might allow them to stay here, but the
Wayback Machine might help you
locate the original.
Another Cuckoo Day:
Marsden, UK
As we saw on April 14, because this is the time that some migratory birds return to England from southern climes, the first usually being the cuckoo, and due to regional differences, there are several days of the year that might be called Cuckoo Day. (The common cuckoo, Cuculus canorus, overwinters in Africa and returns to the UK in Spring, but the arrival date varies.) April 27 is another, at least at Marsden, West Yorkshire (some sources say April 26; others, the last Saturday of April).
This town has an ancient legend that says that the villagers knew that as the cuckoo arrived, so did the Spring and Summer, so they built a wall around the cuckoo late in the summer to prolong its stay in Marsden, thus forestalling the Winter. However, the wall was too low and the cuckoo flew away – the local saying being "it were nobbut just wun course too low!". A similar tale emerges from the 'Cuckoo Bush' antics of the so-called Wise Fools of Gotham as we discuss in the article at the Scriptorium.
Marsden, by the way, was the birthplace of Henrietta Thompson, the mother of General James Wolfe who took Quebec from the French in 1759."A similar legend hails from Gotham, Nottinghamshire and Wareham in Dorset. Dorset has eight locations where Cuckoo Pound or Pen has been used as a place, monument or field name – at Corfe Castle, Langton Matravers, Arne, East Lulworth, Tyneham, Bere Regis, Witchampton and Bradford Peverell." Source
Cuckoo
Day(s)
See also in the Book of Days: April 14; April 25, 'St
Mark's gowk'; April
27's Marsden, UK, Cuckoo Day, and April 28,
Towednack (UK) Cuckoo Feast.
ilson's Almanac and phenology
Nature and calendar side-by-side
Cuckoo Day is a good
time to think about how Ma
Nature's clocks are 'going cuckoo'. I like to think that Wilson's Almanac has
something to say about our place in Nature, and how 'seizing the day'
is best when we seize it with all its glorious natural wonders that
surround us.
There is now a science of studying the calendar in relation to natural phenomena that will probably interest Almaniacs. Phenology is the study of the relations between climate and periodic biological phenomena, such as the migrations and breeding of birds, the flowering and fruiting of plants, and so on.
Webster-Merriam's
Dictionary defines it thus: "a branch of science dealing with the
relations between climate and periodic biological phenomena
(as bird migration or plant flowering)". Phenology is related to biometeorology, an
interdisciplinary science studying the interactions between atmospheric
processes and living organisms – plants, animals and humans.
Wikipedia notes in its article on phenology that in Japan and China the time of blossoming of cherry and peach trees is associated with ancient festivals and some of these dates can be traced back to the eighth century. Such records form an important part of climate change research. The pinot noir grape can also be used in historical phenology. Writing in Nature, Isabelle Chuine and co-workers describe how French records of pinot noir grape-harvest dates in Burgundy can be used to reconstruct spring - summer temperatures from 1370 to 2003. Chuine found that 2003 summer temperatures were probably higher than in any other year since 1370.
Phenology UK has a good
website which puts it this way:
"Phenology is the
study of the times of recurring natural phenomena especially in relation
to climate change. It is recording when you heard the first cuckoo or
saw the blackthorn blossom. This can then be compared with other
records."
In these days of climate change, you can see how
important folklore and Nature observation can be when they work together.
Sometimes we can tell much about the damage being done by our lifestyles,
by comparing today with yesterday. The rapidly disappearing Springtime
song of "Cuck-oo! Cuck-oo", such a prominent sound in old
British calendar customs, gives just one example of how all this
ties together, and why I recommend 'amateur phenology' to Almaniacs.
For Australians, the Scribbly Gum website is an interesting place to read up on Aussie natural phenomena through the calendar, and Macquarie University (Sydney) has its Biowatch phenology project – if you know of more Southern Hemisphere links, I'd be grateful for the information, which isn't easy to obtain.
See also Climate Change Chronicles and Climate Change (news, popup)
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