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reetings from Australia.
Welcome to
this Red-Letter Day. Below you will find today's global celebrations,
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There is an old tale goes that Herne the Hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,
Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;
And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,
And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner.
You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know
The superstitious idle-headed eld
Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age,
This tale of Herne the Hunter for a truth.
William Shakespeare; The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1.iv
I remember being there upon Horn Fair Day, I was dressed in my landlady's best gown and other women's attire, and to Horn Fair we went, and as we were coming back by water, all the cloaths were spoiled by dirty water, &c., that was flung on us in an inundation, for which I was obliged to present her with two guineas to make atonement for the damage sustained, &c.
William Fuller; Whole Life, 1703
It consists of a riotous mob, who, after a printed summons dispersed through the adjacent towns, meet at
Cuckold's Point, near Deptford, and march from thence in procession through that town and Greenwich to Charlton, with horns of different kinds on their heads; and at the fair there are sold ram's horns, and every sort of toy made of horn; even the gingerbread figures have horns.
Capt. Francis Grose et al, Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar
Tongue, 1811 [At Amazon]
It provoketh Urine and womens Courses, helpeth the biting of a Mad Dog and of other Venemous Creatures, killeth Worms in Children, cutteth and avoydeth tough flegm purgeth the head, helpeth the Lethargie, is a good preservative against, a remedy for any Plague sore, or foul Ulcer: taketh away spots and blemishes in the Skin, easeth pains of the eares ripeneth and breaketh Impostumes or other swellings: And for all these diseases the Onyons are also effectual …
Nicholas Culpeper, English herbalist, born on October 18, 1616
Many a times I find my patients disturbed by trouble of conscience and sorrow and I have to act a divine before I can be a physician. In fact our greatest skils lies in the infusion of hopes, to induce confidence and peace of mind.
Nicholas Culpeper
You are all bound to bless God for raising up that famous man Mr. WILLIAM LILLY, who has through God's assistance made the Art of Astrology so plain to you that you not only see your former ignorance but be in a capacity to do yourselves good.
Nicholas Culpeper; astrologer William Lilly
taught him some of his craft
St Luke
The liberty of our Commonwealth is most impaired by three sorts of men, priests, physicians, lawyers.
Nicholas Culpeper
Culpeper, the man that first ranged the woods and climbed the mountains in search of medical and salutary herbs, undoubtedly merited the gratitude of posterity.
Dr Samuel Johnson
Die, my dear doctor? That's the last thing I shall do.
Last words of Lord Palmerston, British PM, October 18, 1865
On St Luke's Day
The oxen had leave to play.
English traditional proverb
Swing low chariot, come down easy
Taxi to the terminal dome
Cut your engines and cool your wings
And let me make it to the telephone.
Los Angeles give me Norwalk, Virginia,
Tidewater four ten oh nine
Tell the folks back home this is the promised land calling
And the poor boy is on the line.
Chuck Berry, American rock and roll musician, born on October 18, 1926
It is very beautiful over there. Thomas Alva Edison,
American inventor who died on October 18, 1931; his last words. (There is debate
over if he meant an afterlife, or the view from his window as he lay in bed.)
While I'm still kickin'
I'm gonna keep pickin' my tunes
I love what I'm doing
I hope it don't end too soon.
Chuck Berry, July 2001
It's your money. You paid for it.
George W Bush; LaCrosse, Wisconsin, USA, October 18, 2000
The Bible (Colossians 4, 14) says he was a physician, so he is the patron saint of
physicians and
surgeons. Another Christian tradition states that he was the first
iconographer, and painted pictures of the Virgin
Mary and of
Peter and Paul, so he is also patron of
artists.
St Luke is represented in art as seated with a (usually winged) ox behind him, the ox being a sign of sacrifice. He may be shown as a
bishop; with a book or an artist's brush and/or
palette; painting an icon of Mary; as a physician; as a winged calf.
St Luke's little Summer
A period of mild weather in England around mid-October, St Luke's Day being October 18.
An old bit of lore has it that in days past, St Luke's Day did not receive as much attention in the secular world as
St John's Day (June
24) and Michaelmas
(September 29).
So, in order that he would not be forgotten, Luke gave the world (the
Northern Hemisphere, at any rate) some golden days before the coming of Winter. Sometimes this period is mistakenly called Indian Summer, but that
traditionally occurs between Martinmas (St
Martin's Day, November 11) and
November 20.
(However, Almaniac and Book of Days honorary checker, Diana
Schuetz, writes: "Pip, Indian Summer in the US is warm days after about the 1st of October, depending, of course, on region. With the south, it's about
October 15, and in the north, it's about
September 15. The dictionary describes it as being
'a period of warm, dry weather in late autumn, especially in North
America.' November in the US is definitely considered winter everywhere.")
Dog Whipping Day, England
(St Luke's Day) It is said that a dog ate a consecrated wafer on this day, so in some places, such as York, dogs were whipped.
Love divination
In olde Britain, to prognosticate future husbands, young women today concocted an herbal ointment made of dried
marigold flowers, marjoram, thyme and wormwood, simmered in virgin honey and white vinegar. They anointed themselves with this mixture, chanting this charm thrice:
St Luke, St Luke, be kind to me
In dreams let me my true love see.
If the proposed lover smiles, he will be a loving partner but if he is rude, beware.
In Venice, the saying goes: San Luca, El ton va te la zuca ('Pumpkins go stale on St Luke's').
The Horn Fair was held for three days annually from
today, St Luke's Day,
and was named after the custom of carrying horns and wearing them. A
foreign traveller in 1598 wrote that there was at
Ratcliffe, nearby,
a long pole with ram's horns upon it, representing "wilful and
contented cuckolds".The
horned man, or Green
Man, was a representation of the ancient horned god Herne
(who derived from the Celtic horned god,
Cernunnos),
and it is interesting to note that the fair, now held at Hornfair
Park, was formerly held at
Cuckold's Point, East London.
At the fair
there was a procession, which went three times around the church, of
people wearing horns. There were many wild practices, such as
whipping females with sprigs of furze, giving rise to the expression
"all is fair at Horn Fair". Men would often wear women's
clothes.
Toys
made of horns were sold; even the gingerbread on sale had horns. There used
to be a sermon preached on the day at Charlton Church, but it had
been discontinued by Victorian times. "The practice was created
by a bequest of twenty shillings a year to the minister of the
parish for preaching it." (William
Hone, The
Every-Day Book, or a Guide to the Year, William Tegg and
Co., London, 1878; 1825-'26
edition online
)
In 1973, the
Horn Fair was revived, but the new Horn Fair
is a pale shadow of the once great fair of Charlton.
The
Christian symbol for
St Luke is an ox, or the saint writing with an ox or cow beside him,
so it is likely the ancient Herne/Horned God cult was transmuted
into a cult of the physician apostle. St Luke's
Church at Charlton had stained glass windows, though largely
destroyed in time of the troubles in the reign (1625 - '49) of Charles I,
showing St Luke's ox with wings on its back and horns on its head.
"Herne
was the favourite huntsman of Richard the Second. Mortally
wounded while saving his master from a stag at bay, he was
miraculously cured by a stranger, who tied the antlers of
a dead stag to the dying man's brow. He claimed in payment
all Herne's skill in venery. Crazed by the loss of that
skill in the craft he loved, Herne fled to the forest,
where a pedlar found his horned corpse hanging from an
oak. But every night he returned at the head of a spectral
hunt to harry the Windsor game as of old." Source
"It is widely thought that Carnival first
came to London when the Notting Hill Carnival was started
back in the 1960's. However, there is evidence that Carnival
in London has much older roots going back to the days when
the Celtic population of London and the surrounding areas in
pre-Saxon London (circa. 5th century AD), worshipped the
Horned God or Green Man - the Pagan fertility God …"Source
The Mask of Herne
"In 1487 the last Keeper of Windsor Great Park (and therefore a successor of Herne himself), one William Evingdon donated a building to the parish of Windsor,
"for the good of his soul". This property was opposite the parish church on Windsor High Street, and it became the vicarage. About 450 years later in the early 1930s the vicarage was moved to Park Street, and during the move workmen dug up a strange object.
"It was a carved stone head of something not quite human. It had the face of a man, including a moustache, but the ears and antlers of a stag. The eyes were deepset and fierce.
"There were many theories as to its origin. It may have been part of a gargoyle or some other grotesque church ornament, and indeed it has been described as looking something like the carved stone Green Man faces which decorate many churches. Some suggested that it had last belonged to William Evingdon, and that it was passed on from Keeper to Keeper as some kind of tradition, or symbol of office. It became known as The Mask of Herne …
"One day in 1856 two young boys, William Fenwick and William Butterworth, were offered a lift by a stranger driving a horse and carriage. He took the two Williams to Albany Road, near Park Street, where they became drowsy and passed out for no apparent reason. They woke up several hours later in The Home Park itself by Victoria Bridge, and could not remember how they got there. The police became involved but nothing ever came of the investigation, and it was put down to an eccentric kidnapping or childish imagination. (Does this remind you at all of UFO abductions ?)
"When
the The Mask of Herne was dug up in the 1930s William
Fenwick, now an old man, was shown a photograph of the stone
head, and said that he was in no doubt that the face in the
stone was the same face as the man who had kidnapped him and
his friend nearly 80 years before."
Source
Feast day of
Pandrosos, the all-refreshing one
(the all-dewy one), ancient Greece First
priestess of Minerva
(Pallas
Athena), Pandrosos: literally 'the all-dewy one'. She
was a
daughter of Cecrops, a legendary king
of Athens. Her sisters by him were Herse,
and Aglaurus.
She was the deified first
priestess of Minerva. Pandrosus and Hermes
had a son, Ceryx.
Nearest Sunday to
October 18,Egremont
Crab-apple fair, Cumbria
"The festival was established in 1267 and involved the distribution
of crab-apples amid fun, games and traditional Cumberland
Wrestling."Source
Satu's Day, Finland This
international competition for children aged 7 to 13 has been held
since 1993, with rules translated into five languages. Satu
is a female first name in Finnish meaning 'fairy tale'.
Alaska
Day, Alaska,
USA The Territory of Alaska was formally transferred
from Russia to the United States after its purchase, on this day in
1867. A holiday on or near this date.
National Statistics Day, Japan
On which day of the week were you born? Find out here
He was the son of Nicholas Culpeper, a
clergyman. He studied in Cambridge,
and afterwards became apprenticed to an apothecary.
Culpeper ran a pharmacy in the Halfway House in Spitalfields,
London. He published A Complete Herbal and English Physician
Enlarged and The English Physician and Family Dispensary.
He was a radical republican and opposed to
the 'closed shop' of medicine. Culpeper believed that the use of
Latin
by doctors, lawyers and priests was a conspiracy to keep power and
freedom away from the general public.
"'Maharishi — what
have you done? You made a fool of everyone.'
"That was the opening line of a sarcastic song about Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi ... that John Lennon wrote in 1968, not long after
the Beatles abruptly left the maharishi’s ashram in Rishikesh,
India, and declared themselves no longer his spiritual
disciples. It wasn’t released that way. In the end the other
Beatles, particularly George Harrison, argued that whatever
disagreements they had with the maharishi, his work demanded
respect, and it was unfair (and perhaps libelous) to be so
blunt.
"Lennon retreated, changing the song’s title, and the references
to the maharishi in its lyrics, to 'Sexy Sadie,' the form in
which it can be heard on 'The Beatles,' commonly called the
White Album."
Source
"In 1955 Berry made rock history
with the single "Maybellene', a version of the hillbilly
standard 'Ida Red' recorded for the blues label Chess Records.
The Top 20 tune crossed over to white audiences and pioneered the
rhyming lyrics, steady beat and guitar solo which would
characterize rock 'n' roll for years to come, influencing
countless bands. Over the next few years Berry wrote numerous
early rock standards such as 'Roll Over Beethoven' and 'Johnny B. Goode,' becoming one of the most successful,
popular musicians of any race among American youth. Berry made
frequent television and film appearances, further breaking down
color and music barriers.
"By the early '60s Berry's
music had spread to Britain, where it inspired groups like the
Beatles and the Rolling Stones, who copied his style and covered
many of his tunes. He became as big a star in the U.K. as he had
been in the U.S., touring and recording all the while."Rolling
Stone
"Ntozake Shange,
born Paulette Williams in Trenton, New Jersey (1948), author of the
play For colored girls who committed suicide/ when the rainbow is
enuf (1975). She took the name Ntozake Shange in college. It
consists of two Zulu names which mean 'she who comes with her own
things' and 'who walks like a lion.' Her parents were
middle-class supporters of the arts, and Shange enjoyed an
artistically rich childhood. Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Paul
Robeson, and W.E.B. Du Bois were all regular guests at her
family's house. Shange attended Barnard College in New York. She
got married, then divorced, and attempted suicide several times. In
1975, her most famous work, For colored girls …, was first
performed. She called it a 'choreopoem,' and it was written for
a cast of seven colorfully dressed female actors. The piece blends
poetry, acting, and dance to explore the ordeals of black women in
the mid 1970s. It was very well received, and it was moved to
Broadway before being taken on a national tour.
"Shange said she never had any
books by African-American women to read as a child. She recently
said, 'I write for young girls of color, for girls who don't
even exist yet, so that there is something there for them when they
arrive ... I want to say, "Here, look where you can live, look
what you can think."'"Source
Your family and friends will get a
kick when they hear their own name being sung in 'Happy Birthday'!!
You can schedule your singing cards in advance, and even add your
own face to funny animations. (Pay cards)
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31 CE Rome:
Lucius Aelius Sejanus, the highly popular commander of the
Praetorian Guard, was
executed for his treasonous plot against the emperor Tiberius. As many as 20,000
Romans were put to death in the bloody purge that followed.
1356 "A large earthquake devastated the city of Basel, Switzerland,
damaging large swathes of the Upper Rhine valley. As many as 40 medieval castles
close to the city were ruined, and towers and churches up to 200 kilometres away
were toppled. The post-mortem suggests that the earthquake had a magnitude of
6.0-6.5, equivalent to the most violent quakes in Greece and Italy. Within the
last year, a geological team from Strasbourg and Zurich claim to have found the
geological fault responsible for this quake, and it lies just south of Basel at
the southern end of the Rhine rift. And it didn't just move in 1356. The same
fault may have been capable of triggering between five and eight
equivalent-sized earthquakes over the past 10,000 years."Source:
The Guardian, Dec 12, 2002
1648The Boston Shoemakers, the first US labor organization, was
formed.
1685Louis XIV of France revoked the Edict
of Nantes. The edict had been issued in 1598, guaranteeing the rights
of Huguenots, the French
Protestants. As a result of the revocation, thousands fled the country and were
the refugees of their day.
"The
marquise de Maintenon, second wife of Louis XIV of France, lived to become
queen – thanks to a cat.Francoise
d'Aubigne, daughter of the French governor of the island of Marie Gallant,
was just three days old when she was pronounced dead and her body sewn up in a
sack to be thrown overboard.Her
pet kitten had crawled inside the sack and began mewing during the funeral
service.Knowing cats shun
corpses, the captain had the sack ripped open. The little girl was still
alive, went on to marry the Sun King, and died in 1719 at the ripe old age
of 84!"Source
"THE POTATO DISEASE.-- Accounts
received from different parts of Ireland show that the disease in the potato
crop is extending far and wide, and causing great alarm amongst the peasantry.
Letters from resident landlords feelingly describe the misery and
consternation of the poor people around them, and earnestly urge the
imperative necessity of speedy intervention on the part of the Government to
ascertain the actual extent of the calamity, and provide wholesome food as a
substitute for the deficient supply of potatoes. Mr. John Chester, of
Kilscorne House, in Magshole, in the county of Louth, in a letter to the Dublin
Evening Post, states that he has a field of twenty acres of potatoes,
which, up to the 3rd instant, had been perfectly dry and sound, when they were
attacked by the blight, and three-fourths of them are so diseased and rotten
that pigs decline to eat them. This, he says, is the case all through the
county of Louth. The Belfast News Letter has a still more lamentable
account. It says, 'We have abstained from occupying our space with the
accounts of the prevalence of this calamity in various places, for this
reason, that it may be here stated, once for all, that there is hardly a
district in Ireland in which the potato crops at present are uninfected--
perhaps we might say, hardly a field.'"Source
In the closing weeks of the Second Opium War – an
effort by a British-led international coalition to crush Chinese resistance to
European colonisation – British troops in Beijing burned to the ground the
Yuanmingyuan, an imperial summer palace built by the Manchu emperors.
A few weeks after the burning of the
palace, the Chinese government surrendered, and was forced to sign a series of
treaties that weakened its autonomy and removed foreigners in China from its
jurisdiction.
In
1873, the Empress Dowager began rebuilding the Yuanmingyaun for her retirement
and renamed it Yiheyuan, meaning Garden of Peace and Harmony in Old Age.
However, in 1900, it was again burned to the ground when British, Russian and
Italian troops set it to flames in retaliation for the Boxer Rebellion, another
Chinese uprising against European rule.
1896 "Anton Chekhov's play The Seagull premiered
in St. Petersburg. The production was under-rehearsed. It was supposed to be a
benefit for a well known comic actress, but there was no part for her to play,
and the fans who had come to see her rioted. The performance was an utter
failure, and Chekhov declared he would never write another play. But before the
end of the year, he had begun work on Uncle Vanya (1897)."Source
1910 Dr Hawley Crippen went on trial for the murder of his wife whom
he poisoned and cut up into pieces, burying her body in his cellar (convicted October
22). In Britain,
it was one of the most celebrated crimes of its time.
See also July 22.
1919 USA: The Volstead
Act, officially titled the 'National Prohibition Act', was passed,
coming into effect February
1, 1920, outlawing the production and sale of alcoholic beverages unless for
religious or medical purposes.
1966 Queen Elizabeth
II granted a royal pardon to Timothy Evans who was
hanged in 1950 (by Chief Executioner Albert
Pierrepoint) for the murder of his daughter, although innocent (the murderer
was probably John
Christie).The
outcry over the Evans' case contributed to the abolition of the death penalty in
the UK.
1968 John Lennon and Yoko Ono were remanded on bail for possession
of cannabis in their London flat. It formed the basis of US Immigration's
attempts to deny Lennon citizenship.
US authorities persistently tried to have
Lennon deported on the grounds of a similar offence that had been committed by
George Harrison, who suffered no such pressure, leading to the conclusion that
Lennon's and Ono's progressive politics were at fault.
2002 US
Attorney
General,
John Ashcroft, invoked the State Secrets Privilege in order to
prevent disclosure of the nature of
FBI translator and whistleblower
Sibel Edmonds's
work on the grounds that it would endanger national security. On
July 22,
2002, Edmonds had filed suit against the Department of Justice, the
FBI, and several high-level officials, alleging that she was
wrongfully terminated from the FBI in retaliation for reporting
criminal activities committed by government officials and employees.
On March 29,
2006, Edmonds was
awarded the
PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award in recognition of her
defence of free speech as it applies to the written word.
reetings from Australia.
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