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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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Here lies DuVall: Reder, if male thou art,
Look to thy purse; if female, to thy heart.
Much havoc has he made of both; for all
Men he made to stand, and women he made to fall
The second Conqueror of the Norman race,
Knights to his arm did yield, and ladies to his face.
Old Tyburn's glory; England's illustrious Thief,
Du Vall, the ladies' joy; Du Vall, the ladies' grief.
Memorial inscription in St Paul's Church, Covent Garden, to Claude Duval, British highwayman who was executed on January 21, 1670

We ... had the satisfaction of finding the finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail-of-the-line may ride in the most perfect security.
Captain Arthur Phillip, January 21, 1788, from his log after entering Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour)

Frenchmen, I die guiltless of the crimes imputed to me. Pray God my blood fall not on France!
Last words, on the scaffold, of King Louis XVI of France, January 21, 1793

I like liquor – its taste and its effects – and that is just the reason why I never drink it.
Thomas Jonathan 'Stonewall' Jackson, American Confederate general, born on January 21, 1824

Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
Thomas Jonathan 'Stonewall' Jackson

A lie told often enough becomes the truth. 
VI Lenin, who died on January 21, 1924

One man with a gun can control a hundred without one.
VI Lenin

One of the basic conditions for the victory of socialism is the arming of the workers and the disarming of the bourgeoisie.
VI Lenin

There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.
VI Lenin

It would be the greatest mistake, certainly, to think that concessions mean peace. Nothing of the kind. Concessions are nothing but a new form of war.
VI Lenin

The organisation must consist chiefly of people professionally engaged in revolutionary activity.
VI Lenin

The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is rule won and maintained by the use of force by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie.
VI Lenin

Lenin is not comparable to any revolutionary figure in history. Revolutionaries have had ideals. Lenin has none.
Peter Kropotkin; Lenin died on January 21, 1924

The high note is not the only thing.
Placido Domingo, Spanish tenor, born on January 21, 1941

I was appalled when I heard a prominent American suggest that in certain circumstances the limited use of torture might be justified. That is a dreadful statement to come from a civilised nation.
Terry Waite: The Guantanamo Prisoners, Justice or Revenge?

January 21 is the 21^st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 344 days remaining (345 in leap years).
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Celtic tree month of Luis (Rowan) commences (Jan 21 - Feb 17)

Like other Iron Age Europeans, the Celts were a polytheistic people prior to their conversion to (Celtic) Christianity. The Celts divided the year into 13 lunar cycles (months or moons). These were linked to specific sacred trees which gave each moon its name. Today commences the Celtic tree month of Rowan.

"The Rowan has long enjoyed its reputation to protect against enchantment. It name is linked with the Norse 'runa', a charm, and the Sanskrit 'runa', meaning a magician. Rune staves, sticks upon which runes were inscribed, were cut from the Rowan tree. Rowan played a central role in Druid ceremonies. Even in more recent times, these beliefs have been upheld in practices from different parts of Britain. In the North, for example, sprays of Rowan were fixed to cattle sheds to protect the animals from harm, and in Strathspey farmers drove their goats through hoops framed from branches of Rowan. Sprigs were also placed over the main door of the house and also worn on the person to ward off false enchantment – the 'evil eye'. In Wales or Cymru, Rowans used to be planted in churchyards to watch over the spirits of the dead, as Yew is elsewhere. Magical Associations: Healing, personal empowerment, divination."
Source: Earth, Moon and Sky

"In Ireland, in the county called Sligo, there is a story that is said the Rowan first came from a mythical fairy land. This was the home of the Fairy folk of Eire called DeDannan living on the land called 'The Land of Promise.'  A berry fell to the ground in the Wood of Dubhros, to which grew a tree with all the virtues of the Rowan. The fruit tasted like honey and made one feel cheerful and young."
Source: Tree Totems and Birchfire's Herbs

Feast day of St Agnes of Rome, virgin martyr

gnes was a girl who was martyred for her Christian faith in about 304 (traditionally January 21 of that year). She was martyred in Rome and was buried in the cemetery on the Via Nomentana, where a church was built in her honour, c. 350.

She was little more than a child of twelve or thirteen when she refused to consider marriage, and consecrated her virginity to God. When persecution broke out on the orders of the Emperor Diocletian, she left home and offered herself for martyrdom; she resisted all threats, and was executed by being stabbed in the throat, a common form of Roman execution, though some accounts have her burnt at the stake or beheaded.

Eight days after her death she came in a vision to her parents, dressed in white, attended by virgins with garlands of pearls and a lamb whiter than snow. Her emblem in Church art is a lamb and she is patron saint of young virgins. Her other patronage includes: affianced couples, betrothed couples, bodily purity, chastity, crops, engaged couples, gardeners, Girl Scouts and rape victims.

Some say that the legend of Agnes sprang from the cult of the Danish goddess Yngona. Indeed, some sources have it that the feast day of Yngona is also January 21.

At Rome on this day there is an annual procession in her honour when a lamb (Latin agnus, lamb, is a  homophone) is led through the city.

Saint Agnes's bones rest in the church of her name outside the old walls of Rome – hence, Sant' Agnese fuori le mura, 'Saint Agnes outside the walls'. It was customary on this day at Rome for two lambs to be specially blessed by the pope after a pontifical high Mass, and their wool was later woven into palls (pallia), ceremonial neck-stoles sent by the popes to newly-elevated archbishops to symbolise their union with the papacy. 

This ceremony was adopted by the Romish church from certain customs of the ancient Romans, in their worship of Pales, the goddess of sheepfolds and pastures. They prayed her to bless the sheep, and sprinkled them with water.
William Hone, The Every-Day Book, or a Guide to the Year, William Tegg and Co., London, 1878; 1825-26 edition online

A popular local legend says that every lord mayor of Rome secretly comes to pray in this church, on the third night after his election; effectively, there is not much evidence that new 'sindaci' really do so.

In the English Roman Catholic church, sheep were brought into the sanctuary and blessed. First the priest blessed some salt and water, then the sheep. At the conclusion, fourpence was paid the priest, and 3d for the poor. This ceremony was adopted by the Roman Catholic church from certain customs of the ancient Romans. In their worship of Pales, the goddess of sheepfolds and pastures, the Romans prayed to her to bless the sheep, and sprinkled them with water. Keats's poem mentioned yesterday, 'The Eve of St Agnes', refers to the holy loom that was used by a secret sisterhood to weave the wool of St Agnes rites. In Britain and Ireland, this is the start of the lambing season, and other British and Irish saints with feast days around this time are also associated with sheep and lambs, such as St Brigid, February 2 and St Blaise, February 3.

The feast of St Agnes was formerly a special holiday for women.

Black Annis, or Agnes, Goddess of Northern Britain

The 'Blue Hag' (similar to Cailleach Bheur), was said to live in a cave in the Dane Hills in Leicestershire where she would catch and devour stray children and lambs. The cave, called Black Annis Bower Close, or Black Annis's Bower, was supposed to have been dug out of the rock with her iron claws. She supposedly goes out onto the glens at night looking for unsuspecting children and lambs to eat, then hangs their skins around her waist. She would reach inside houses to snatch people, which was the professed reason why houses in that area had small windows. Identified with Danish Yngona, Northern Europe. Alternative names: Agnes, Agness, Annis.

More

Love prognostications

John Keats in his poem, 'The Eve of St Agnes', refers to certain love prognostications, but these are not for the eve (January 20), rather for tonight, the night of St Agnes. English antiquary John Aubrey wrote in his Miscellanies of 1696 that on the night of St Agnes you take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after another. While saying a paternoster ('Our Father', or 'The Lord's Prayer'), stick one of these pins in your sleeve, and you will dream of the person you will marry.

But kids, don't try this at home if you're already married.

Otherwise, "passing into a different country from that of her ordinary residence, and taking her right-leg stocking, she [the maiden looking for a lover - PW] might knit the left garter around it, repeating the rhyme:

"I knit this knot, this knot I knit,
To know the thing I know not yet,
That I may see
The man that shall my husband be,
Not in his best or worst array,
But what he weareth every day;
That I tomorrow may him ken
From among all other men."

Lying down on her back that night, with her hands under her head, the anxious maiden would supposedly see her future husband, who would greet her with a kiss.  

Pennick (Pennick, Nigel, The Pagan Book of Days, Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, USA, 1992) says that this is a night for divination by fire.  

Here's Aubrey's text:

"The women have several magical secrets handed down to them by tradition, for this purpose, as, on St. Agnes' night, 21st day of Jannary [sic], take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after another, saying a Pater Noster, or (Our Father) sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you will dream of him, or her, you shall marry. Ben Jonson in one of his Masques make [sic] some mention of this.

"And on sweet Saint Agnes night
Please you with the promis'd sight,
Some of husbands, some of lovers,
Which an empty dream discovers,

"Another. *To know whom one shall marry.

"You must lie in another county, and knit the left garter about the right legged stocking (let the other garter and stocking alone) and as you rehearse these following verses, at every comma, knit a knot.

"This knot I knit,
To know the thing, I know not yet,
That I may see,
The man (woman) that shall my husband (wife) be,
How he goes, and what he wears,
And what he does, all days, and years.

"Accordingly in your dream you will see him: if a musician, with a lute or other instrument; if a scholar, with a book or papers.

"A gentlewoman that I knew, confessed in my hearing, that she used this method, and dreamt of her husband whom she had never seen: about two or three years after, as she was on Sunday at church, (at our Lady's church in Sarum) up pops a young Oxonian in the pulpit: she cries out presently to her sister, this is the very face of the man that I saw in my dream. Sir William Soames's Lady did the like."

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Feast day of Our Lady of Altagracia An annual holiday in the Dominican Republic, with a pilgrimage to the shrine in which the Altagracia image resides. "A portrait of the Virgin Mary in a Nativity scene. It is 13 inches (33 centimeters) wide by 18 inches (45 centimeters) high, and is painted on cloth. It is a primitive work of the Spanish school, painted c.1500 ... "Legend says that the pious daughter of a rich merchant asked him to bring her a portrait of Our Lady of Altagracia from Santo Domingo, but no one had heard of that title. The merchant, staying overnight at a friend's house in Higuey, described his problem as they sat outdoors after dinner. An old man with a long beard, who just happened to be passing by, pulled a rolled up painting from his bindle, gave it to the merchant, and said, 'This is what you are looking for.' It was the Virgin of Altagracia. They gave the old man a place to stay for the night, but by dawn he was gone, not to be seen again. The merchant placed the image on their mantle, but it repeatedly disappeared only to be found outside. They finally returned it to the church."   Source Mary as goddess   Feast day of St Alban Bartholomew Roe Feast day of St Antoni Swiadek Feast day of St Augurius Feast day of St Brigid of Kilbride Feast day of St Edward Stransham Feast day of St Epiphanius of Pavia Feast day of St Eulogius Feast day of St Fructuosus Feast day of St Ines de Beniganim Feast day of St Lawdog Feast day of St Maccallin   Feast day of St Meinrad (Maynard, Meginrat), hermit martyr, celebrated at the Hermitage of Einsiedeln in Switzerland In about the year 829, Meinrad withdrew to live in prayer and contemplation as a hermit in the Black Forest. Like the Norse god Odin who had Hugin and Munin and was worshipped by the Vikings (whose colonial and cultural influence from about 800 - 1050 were felt from North America to Turkey), Meinrad was attended by two ravens. These fed him when he was hungry and, when he was murdered by robbers on January 21, 861, the birds followed the felons with such squawking that they were captured, judged, and executed. Meinrad's familiars, the ravens, are echoed in other myths and legends. For example, St Benedict of Nursia: once, the Devil came to him as a blackbird. After this, he rolled himself in briars and nettles, till he was covered with blood. St Richard de Wiche, when a student at Oxford University had a pet blackbird, a beautiful songster that gave its master great pleasure. This student refused to give it to a friend of his who was jealous of it. In a rage, the 'friend' cut out the bird's tongue while the owner was away from home. The bird-lover returned home, only to find the poor bird miserable and mute. In great sadness, he prayed to St Richard, who had so enjoyed the singing of birds and had been Chancellor of the University. Immediately the bird perked up and began to sing. Or, so it is said. Beginning early in the 10th Century with Blessed Benno, a series of hermits occupied Meinrad's hermitage (which is what 'Einsiedeln' means), and eventually, in 934 a Benedictine monastery was built there. It became a great monastery, retreat centre, and pilgrimage site – the most important in Switzerland – with an unbroken history of more than a millennium. The statue of the Virgin Mary in the huge church is said to have belonged to Meinrad himself. It is one of numerous Black Virgins venerated in the Catholic Church – another is the Virgin of the Remedies (Nuestra Senora de los Remedios), Mexico. It has been noted by Mary Lee Nolan, a leading scholar of European pilgrimages, that more than 10 per cent of the shrines in Europe where Black Virgins are visited by pilgrims are known to have been pre-Christian pagan sacred sites.   Feast day of St Patroclus of Troyes Feast day of St Publius of Malta Feast day of St Thomas Reynolds Feast day of St Vimin of Holywood Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints Anniversary of Polish Insurrection Against Tsarist Russia, 1863, Poland   Third Sunday of January, Sinulog festival, Cebu City, Cebu, the Philippines The Sinulog festival, featuring brilliant costumes, marches, feasts, horse fights, and dances, is one of the grandest and most colourful festivals in the Philippines. The main festival is held each year on the third Sunday of January in Cebu City to honor the Santo Niño, or the child Jesus. It is a dance ritual that remembers the Filipino people's pagan past and their acceptance of Christianity. Participants garbed in bright-coloured c