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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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Be merry, be merry ... ... as fit as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday. St Matthew get candlestick new, |
"Saint Matthias breaks the ice ...". Picture: NOAA |
St Matthie sends sap into the tree.
English traditional expression
St Mattho take thy hopper [basket] and sow.
English traditional expression
"Silly goose:, said the old woman. "The door is big enough; just look, I can get in myself!" and she crept up and thrust her head into the oven. Then Gretel gave her a push that drove her far into it, and shut the iron door, and fastened the bolt. Oh! then she began to howl quite horribly, but Gretel ran away and the godless witch was miserably burnt to death.
The Brothers Grimm, Hansel and Gretel
Since the day a man had the criminal ability to profit by another man's labor, since that very same day the exploited toiler has instinctively tried to give to his master less than was demanded from him. In this wise the worker was unconsciously doing sabotage, demonstrating in an indirect way the irrepressible antagonism that arrays Capital and Labor one against the other.
Emile Pouget, Sabotage
As we go marching, marching
In the beauty of the day
A million darkened kitchens
A thousand mill lofts grey
Are touched with all the radiance
That a sudden sun discloses
For the people hear us singing
Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses …
James Oppenheim (1912) [See Bread and Roses strike, 1912]
I didn't plan a music career. People around me knew what was going to happen. I didn't have a clue.
Michelle Shocked, American singer/songwriter, born on February 24, 1963
I don't feel alienated. I'm interested in seeing how things connect.
Michelle Shocked
I walked along that slippery slope where if you fail through lack of faith, you sell your soul to the Devil.
Michelle Shocked
I describe myself as a knee-jerk anarchist, if that helps.
Michelle Shocked
February 24 is the 55th
day of the year in the Gregorian
calendar, with 310
days remaining (311 in leap years).
By Roman custom February 24 is the day
added to a leap year, and the
occurrence of February 29 (Leap
Year Day) is a consequence.
Calendar converter Almanacs,
calendars, time, dedicated weeks, etc
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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.
Shrove
Tuesday (Pancake Day) (moveable feast,
February 24 in 2004)
Tomorrow
(Ash Wednesday is February
25 in 2004) begins the 6-week period of fasting in the Christian
world, known as Lent,
the forty days' fast preceding Easter. Today is
known to the French as Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), as it is the day that all
foods may be eaten. Pancakes were popular as families ate the last of the
eggs and butter that they were allowed before Lent.
The name
'Shrove' comes from the archaic English word 'to shrive',
which means to confess or hear confessions of sin, a practice that was
customary in the church on this day.
People traditionally ate bacon, meat and black
puddings as well as pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. There was dice and card
playing, mumming and revelry. Wagons were drawn by horses today, all
decorated with hundreds of bells. Today was apprentices' holiday in old
England. They also presented their petitions to parliament on this day.
The folklorist Brand says Pancake Day came from
the pagan Fornacalia,
in commemoration of making bread, before ovens were invented, by the
goddess Fornax. The
medieval Roman writer, Polydore Virgil,
explains how the feasts of Bacchus were celebrated in Rome at the same
time of year.
In the parish of
Inverness,
Scotland, a football
match used to be held between the married and unmarried women.
In parts of Scotland, today is called Fasten's E'en, or
Bannocky Day, but these days is not celebrated much, though cockfighting
used to be common. A crowdie, or dinner was
traditionally held on this day. A ring was put in the basin or porringer
of the unmarried people, and whoever found it had an omen of marriage.
Then the Bannich Junit, or
'sauty bannocks' were brought out. They were made of eggs and meal
mixed with salt to make them 'sauty', then baked on a gridiron. Some
article was mixed with the dough, and whoever got it in his bannock
would be married within a year. Bannich
brauders were dreaming bannocks and contained a little soot; the baker
had to bake these in silence. Each person would take one, slip off
silently to bed, lay his or her head on the bannock, and be assured of
dreaming about his or her sweetheart.
A famous pancake race at Olney in Buckinghamshire (pictured at right) has been held since 1445.
In Finland, the Shrove Tuesday specialty is a bun filled with almond paste and whipped cream: recipe. Mmmmm .....
In Brazil, today is Carnival; in Louisiana, USA, it is Mardi Gras.
Shrove Tuesday: when?
- 2004 - February 24
- 2005 - February 8
- 2006 - February 28
- 2007 - February 20
- 2008 - February 5
- 2009 - February 24
- 2010 - February 16
- 2011 - March 8
- 2012 - February 21
- 2013 - February 12
- 2014 - March 4
Read on at the Shrove Tuesday page at the Scriptorium
Carnival
The period from Epiphany (January
6), until Shrove
Tuesday (Pancake Day, or Pancake Tuesday; Mardi Gras in French) is called Carnival. In Roman Catholic
countries it is a period for amusement and revelry, hence the fairground
meaning of the word. Thus, the famous 'carnival' celebrations of the
Christian world (such as at New Orleans, USA, Bagolino, Italy and Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil) take place at the end of the period when all foods
may be eaten, and at the beginning of the period of fasting, although the
weeks before Shrove Tuesday are in fact the period of carnival, or
"removal from meat".
The word 'carnival' doesn't, as we might presume, originate in something like 'farewell (vale in Latin) flesh', though that's a reasonable assumption. It comes from the Latin carnis, flesh, and levare, to remove. Lent, when flesh may not be eaten, immediately follows Carnival.
From
Webster's Revised Unabridged
Dictionary
(1913) [web1913]
Carnival
\Car"ni*val\,
n. [It. carnevale, prob. for older
carnelevale,
prop., the putting away of meat; fr. L. caro,
carnis, flesh + levare to take away, lift up, fr. levis
light.]
Like Christmas, the season
known as Carnival owes some of its roots to the Roman Saturnalia festival,
which influenced the early Christians at Rome. Milan, Roma and Naples were
famous for their Carnival celebrations centuries ago, but Venice had the
greatest of them all.
Folklore, customs, pre-Christian origins of:
Epiphany Candlemas/Imbolc Hall Sunday Collop Monday Shrove Tuesday/Pancake Day
Ash Wednesday & Lent Mid-Lent Care Sunday Painful Friday Lazarus Saturday
Palm Sunday Spy Wednesday Maundy Thursday Good Friday Easter Saturday Easter
Easter Monday Easter Tuesday Hocktide Ascension Rogation Days Whitsunday/Whitsuntide
Corpus Christi May Day/Beltaine Lammas/Lughnasadh Michaelmas Halloween/Samhain
Martinmas Advent Christmas Eve Christmas More at Articles Index
Hundreds of feast days of saints, gods and goddesses at Wilson's Almanac Book of Days
Maslenitsa (detail), by
Approximate date of Maslenitsa, Russia
On the dating of items in the Almanac
Maslenitsa
(Russian:
Масленица),
Maslenitsa has a dual ancestry: pagan and Christian. On the pagan side, Maslenitsa is a sun festival. It celebrates the imminent end of the winter.
On the Christian side, Maslenitsa is the last week before the onset of the Great Lent. During the Maslenitsa week meat is already forbidden to the Orthodox Christians, making it a myasopustnaya nedelya (Russian: мясопустная неделя). During the Lent itself, meat, fish, dairy products and eggs are forbidden. Furthermore, the Lent also excludes parties, secular music, dancing and other distractions from the spiritual life. Thus, Maslenitsa represents the last chance to meet with the worldly delights.
The essential element of Maslenitsa celebration are bliny (Russian pancakes). They are round and golden as the sun, and they are made from the rich foods still allowed by the Orthodox traditions: butter, eggs, and milk.
Maslenitsa also includes masquerades, snowball fights, sledding, swinging on swings and plenty of sleigh rides. In some regions, each day of Maslenitsa had its traditional activity: one day for sleigh-riding, another for the sons-in-law to visit their parents-in-law, another day for visiting the godparents, etc. The mascot of the celebration is usually a brightly-dressed straw effigy of Lady Maslenitsa, formerly known as Kostroma.
As the culmination of the celebration, on Sunday evening, Lady Maslenitsa is stripped of her finery, and put to the flames of a bonfire. Any blintzes which are left are also thrown on the fire. Once Lady Maslenitsa is reduced to ashes, the ashes are buried in the snow (to fertilize the crops), all people ask for forgiveness from each other and the Great Lent begins. This last day of Maslenitsa is also called 'Forgiveness Sunday'. To devout Orthodox Christians, it is the last day on which dairy products, fish, wine and oil may be consumed.
During the Soviet times the Maslenitsa as all the other religious holidays were suppressed. After Perestroika, the celebrations resumed, although they are seen by some as artificial restoration of a dead tradition.
Many countries with a significant number of Russian emigrants consider Maslenitsa as a suitable event in which to celebrate Russian culture, although the celebrations are usually reduced to one day and may not coincide with the exact date of the religious celebrations. Source: Wikipedia
Site devoted to Maslenitsa Margaret McKibben Maslenitsa
"Matthias breaks
the ice ..."
