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April 5th. When the next Dawn shall have shone in the sky, and the stars have vanished, and the Moon shall have unyoked her snow white steeds, he who shall say, "On this day of old the temple of Public Fortune was dedicated on the hill of Quirinus", will tell the truth.
Ovid, Fasti, IV. 373   Roman calendar

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First Monday in April is unlucky

Although today was a day of good fortune in ancient Rome, not so in Elizabethan England, when the first Monday in April was considered particularly unlucky – the day that Cain slew Abel, as depicted at right in this painting by Titian.

We note too, that on Qing Ming Day in China (see below), it's considered unlucky to conduct important business, or to have an operation. Unhappy spirits, especially those with unfinished business, wander the earth at this time. Or, so it is said.

Cain

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

In stories common to the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions, Cain (Hebrew קין Kayin or Qayin) is the eldest son of Adam and Eve, and the first man born in creation according to the Genesis. In the Hebrew language, Cain means "acquisition."

He was a tiller of the land while his younger brother Abel was a shepherd. God's rejection of Cain's sacrifice of fruit and grain in preference to Abel's blood sacrifice of a lamb drove Cain to murder his brother in a jealous rage. When God later questioned Cain as to his brother's whereabouts, Cain answered, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

In punishment, God condemned Cain to wander the earth forever, giving him the mark of Cain that turned the earth and all its living creatures against him. Cain protested that his punishment was too harsh, and God relented, allowing Cain to settle at last in the Land of Nod, where he founded the city of Enoch.

In popular mythology, although it is unspecified in the Bible, Cain's mark is red hair. He is also thought to have fathered the Biblical races of giants and monsters – the so-called children of Cain.

Cain and Abel: Scriptures and Folktales

Medieval Unlucky Days ('dies Ægyptiacus; Egyptian Days')

"That peculiar phase of superstition which has regard to lucky or unlucky, good or evil days, is to be found in all ages and climes, wherever the mystery-man of a tribe, or the sacerdotal caste of a nation, has acquired rule or authority over the minds of the people.

"All over the East, among the populations of antiquity, are to be found traces of this almost universal worship of luck. It is one form of that culture of the beneficent and the maleficent principles, which marks the belief in good and evil, as an antagonistic duality of gods. From ancient Egypt the evil or unlucky days have received the name of 'Egyptian days.' Nor is it only in pagan, but in Christian times, that this superstition has held its potent sway. No season of year, no month, no week, is free from those untoward days on which it is dangerous, if not fatal, to begin any enterprise, work, or travel. They begin with New-Year's Day, and they only end with the last day of December. Passing over the heathen augurs, who predicted fortunate days for sacrifice or trade, wedding or war, let us see what our Anglo-Saxon forefathers believed in this matter of days. A Saxon MS. (Cott. MS. Vitell, C. viii. fo. 20) gives the following account of these Dies Mali - "Three days there are in the year, which we call Egyptian days; that is, in our language, dangerous days, on any occasion whatever, to the blood of man or beast. In the month which we call April, the last Monday; and then is the second, at the coming in of the month we call August; then is the third, which is the first Monday of the going out of the month of December. He who on these three days reduces blood, be it of man, be it of beast, this we have heard say, that speedily on the first or seventh day, his life he will end. Or if his life be longer, so that he come not to the seventh day, or if he drink some time in these three days, he will end his life; and he that tastes of goose-flesh, within forty days' space his life he will end.'

"In the ancient Exeter Kalendar, a MS. [manuscript] said to be of the age of Henry II, the first or Kalends of January is set down as 'Dies Mala.'

"These Saxon Kalendars give us a total of about 24 evil days in the 365; or about one such in every fifteen. But the superstition 'lengthened its cords and strengthened its stakes'; it seems to have been felt or feared that the black days had but too small a hold on their regarders; so they were multiplied.

"'Astronomers say that six days of the year are perilous of death; and therefore they forbid men to let blood on them, or take any drink; that is to say, January 3^rd, July 1^st, October 2^nd, the last of April, August 1^st, the last day going out of December. These six days with great diligence ought to be kept, but namely [mainly?] the latter three, for all the veins are then full. For then, whether man or beast be knit in them within 7 days, or certainly within 14 days, he shall die. And if they take any drinks within 15 days, they shall die; and if they eat any goose in these 3 days, within 40 days they shall die; and if any child be born in these 3 latter days, they shall die a wicked death. Astronomers and astrologers say that in the beginning of March, the seventh night, or the fourteenth day, let the blood of the right arm; and in the beginning of April, the 11^th day, of the left arm; and in the end of May, 3^rd or 5^th (lay, 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.

"Those who may be inclined to pursue this subject more fully, will find an essay on 'Day-Fatality,' in John Aubrey's Miscellanies, in which he notes the days lucky and unlucky, of the Jews, Greeks, Romans, and of various distinguished individuals of later times.

"In a comparatively modern MS. Kalendar, of the time of Henry VI, in the writer's possession, one page of vellum is filled with the following, of which we modernise the spelling:

"These underwritten be the perilous day's, for to take any sickness in, or to be hurt in, or to be wedded in, or to take any journey upon, or to begin any work on, that he would well speed. The number of these days be in the year 32; they be these:

• In January there be 7: 1^st, 2^nd, 4^th, 5^th, 7^th, 10^th, and 15^th.
• In February be 3: 6^th, 7^th, and 18^th.
• In March be 3: 1^st, 6^th, and 8^th.
• In April be 2: 6^th and 11^th.
• In May be 3: 5^th, 6th, and 7^th.
• In June be 2: 7^th and 15^th.
• In July be 2: 5^th and 19^th.
• In August be 2: 15^th and 19^th.
• In September be 2: 6^th and 7^th.
• In October is 1: 6^th.
• In November be 2: 15^th and 16^th.
• in December be 3: 15^th, 16^th, and 17^th

"The copyist of this dread list of evil days, while apparently giving the superstition a qualified credence, manifests a higher and nobler faith, lifting his aspiration above days and seasons; for he has appended to the catalogue, in a bold firm hand of the time 'Sed tamen in Domino confide.' (But, notwithstanding, I will trust in the Lord.) Neither in this Kalendar, nor in another of the same owner, prefixed to a small MS. volume containing a copy of Magna Charta, &c., is there inserted in the body of the Kalendar anything to denote a 'Dies Mala.' After the Reformation, the old evil days appear to have abated much of the ancient malevolent influences, and to have left behind them only a general superstition against fishermen setting out to fish, or seamen to take a voyage, or landsmen a journey, or domestic servants to enter on a new place--on a Friday. In many country districts, especially in the north of England, no weddings take place on Friday, from this cause. According to a rhyming proverb, 'Friday's moon, come when it will, comes too soon.' Sir Thomas Overbury, in his charming sketch of a milkmaid, says. 'Her dreams are so chaste, that she dare tell them; only a Friday's dream is all her superstition; and she consents for fear of anger.' Erasmus dwells on the 'extraordinary inconsistency' of the English of his day, in eating flesh in Lent, yet holding it a heinous offence to eat any on a Friday out of Lent.

"The Friday superstitions cannot be wholly explained by the fact that it was ordained to be held as a fast by the Christians of Rome. Some portion of its maleficent character is probably due to the character of the Scandinavian Venus Freya, the wife of Odin, and goddess of fecundity. But we are met on the other hand by the fact that amongst the Brahmins of India a like superstitious aversion to Friday prevails. They say that 'on this day no business must be commenced.' And herein is the fate foreshadowed of any antiquary who seeks to trace one of our still lingering superstitions to its source. Like the bewildered traveller at the cross roads, he knows not which to take. One leads him into the ancient Teuton forests; a second amongst the wilds of Scandinavia; a third to papal, and thence to pagan Rome; and a fourth carries him to the far east, and there he is left with the conviction that much of what is old and quaint and strange among us, of the superstitious relics of our fore-elders, has its root deep in the soil of one of the ancient homes of the race."

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)

"THE belief in lucky and unlucky days appears to have been first taught by the magicians of ancient Chaldea, and we learn from history that similar notions affected every detail of primitive Babylonian life, thousands of years before Christ. Reference to an 'unlucky month' is to be found in a list of deprecatory incantations contained in a document from the library of the royal palace at Nineveh. This document is written in the Accadian dialect of the Turanian language, which was akin to that spoken in the region of the lower Euphrates; a language already obsolete and unintelligible to the Assyrians of the seventh century B. C. Certain days were called Dies Egyptiaci, because they were thought to have been pronounced unlucky by the astrologers of ancient Egypt.

"In that country the unlucky days were, however, fewer in number than the fortunate ones, and they also differed in the degree of their ill-luck. Thus, while some were markedly ominous, others merely threatened misfortune, and still others were of mixed augury, partly good and partly evil. There were certain days upon which absolute idleness was enjoined upon the people, when they were expected to sit quietly at home, indulging in dolce far niente.

"The poet Hesiod, who is believed to have flourished about one thousand years B. C., in the third book of his poem, 'Works and Days,' which is indeed a kind of metrical almanac, distinguishes lucky days from others, and gives advice to farmers regarding the most favorable days for the various operations of agriculture. Thus he recommends the eleventh of the month as excellent for reaping corn, and the twelfth for shearing sheep. But the thirteenth was an unlucky day for sowing, though favorable for planting. The fifth of each month was an especially unfortunate day, while the thirtieth was the most propitious of all.

"Some of the most intelligent and learned Greeks were very punctilious in their observance of Egyptian days. The philosopher Proclus (A.D. 412-480) was said to be even more scrupulous in this regard than the Egyptians themselves. And Plotinus (A. D. 204-270), another eminent Grecian philosopher, believed with the astrologers of a later day, that the positions of the planets in the heavens exerted an influence over human affairs.

"In an ancient calendar of the year 334, in the reign of Constantine the Great, twenty-six Egyptian days were designated. At an early period, however, the church authorities forbade the superstitious observance of these days.

"Some of the most eminent early writers of the Christian Church, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Chrysostom, were earnest in their denunciation of the prevalent custom of regulating the affairs of life by reference to the supposed omens of the calendar. The fourth council of Carthage, in 398, censured such practices; and the synod of Rouen, in the reign of Clovis, anathematized those who placed faith in such relics of paganism.

"We learn on the authority of Marco Polo that the Brahmins of the province of Laristan, in southern Persia, in the thirteenth century, were extremely punctilious in their choice of suitable days for the performance of any business matters. This famous traveler wrote that a Brahmin who contemplated making a purchase, for example, would measure the length of his own shadow in the early morning sunlight, and if the shadow were of the proper length, as officially prescribed for that day, he would proceed to make the purchase; otherwise he would wait until the shadow conformed in length to a predetermined standard for that day of the week.

"The Latin historian, Rolandino (1200-76), in the third book of his 'Chronicle,' describes an undertaking which resulted disastrously because, as was alleged, it was rashly begun on an 'Egyptian day.' There is frequent mention of these days in many ancient manuscripts in the Ambrosian Library at Milan.

"In a so-called 'Book of Precedents,' printed in 1616, fifty-three days are specified as being 'such as the Egyptians noted to be dangerous to begin or take anything in hand, or to take a journey or any such thing.' An ancient manuscript mentions twenty-eight days in the year 'which were revealed by the Angel Gabriel to good Joseph, which ever have been remarked to be very fortunayte dayes either to let blood, cure wounds, use marchandizes, sow seed, build houses, or take journees.'

"Astrologers formerly specified particular days when it was dangerous for physicians to bleed patients; and especially to be avoided were the first Monday in April, on which day Cain was born and his brother Abel slain; the first Monday in August, the alleged anniversary of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; and the last Monday in December, which was the reputed birthday of Judas Iscariot.

"In Mason's 'Anatomic of Sorcerie' (1612), the prevailing notions on this subject were characterized as vain speculations of the astrologers, having neither foundation in God's word nor yet natural reason to support them, but being grounded only upon the superstitious imagination of men. A work of 1620, entitled 'Melton's Astrologaster,' says that the Christian faith is violated when, like a pagan and apostate, any man 'doth observe those days which are called Egyptiaci, or the calends of January, or any month, day, time, or year, either to travel, marry or do anything in.' And the learned Sir Thomas Browne, in his 'Pseudodoxia Epidemica,' published in 1658, declaimed in quaint but forcible language against the frivolity of such doctrines."
Robert Means Lawrence, The Magic of the Horse-Shoe, With Other Folk-Lore Notes, 1898; 'Days Of Good And Evil Omen: 1. Egyptian Days'

Folklore of Friday the 13^th at the Scriptorium

Festival of Megalesia (Magna Mater) of Cybele (Apr 4 - 10), ancient Rome

Die nefasti, ancient Rome
"This is one of the dies nefasti ... a day on which no legal action or public voting could take place. The rex sacrorum would appear on the steps of the Capitol on this day and announce to the people what days of the months would be holidays."   Source

Orthodox : Earliest possible Orthodox Easter (3/23 OS)

Feast of St Albert of Montecorvino

Feast day of St Becan, of Ireland, abbot

Feast of St Derferl-Gadarn

Feast of St Ethelburga of Lyminge (Æthelburg of Kent; Æthelburh, Ædilburh)
She was the daughter of St Ethelbert of Kent and the Merovingian Bertha and the sister of Eadbald. Ethelburga’s marriage to Edwin of Northumbria in 625 triggered the conversion of the north of England to Christianity. Lyminge is a village in southeast Kent. Not to be confused with another St Ethelburga of Kent, nor