This page is big! If it fails to load fully, please click Refresh on your browser menu.
It's fully loaded when you see the purple menu bar at the foot of the page.

reetings from Australia. 

Welcome to this Red-Letter Day. Below you will find today's global celebrations, birthdays and events.

First time here?  See the Index for How it works

Celebrate each and every day with a free subscription to the daily ezine. You can apply by form or send a blank email. Read what the 'Almaniacs' (members) say about Wilson's Almanac.

I request your support if this website pleases and informs you, as this is my livelihood. Thank you, from the bottom of my fridge. 

Inquiries from publishers are welcome, but, dear reader, please don't use my work without my written permission. If I've inadvertently used something of yours that you consider not to fall under the fair use doctrine, please tell me and I'll remove it.

Carpe diem! (Seize the day!)

Pip Wilson

Our news on your homepage (that is, if you use My Yahoo, which we recommend for your start-up page)

Carpe diem! 14 Yesterday | Tomorrow | Search Open links in a New Window

Today is

The passion flower blossomed about this time. The flower is said to present a resemblance to the cross or rood, the nails, and the crown of thorns, used at the Crucifixion.
Circle of the Seasons

If dry be the buck's horn
On Holyrood morn,
'Tis worth a kist of gold;
But if wet it be seen
Ere Holyrood e'en,
Bad harvest is foretold.
Traditional Yorkshire proverb 

Holy-Rood, come forth and shield 
Us i' th' city and the field; 
Safely guard us, now and aye, 
From the blast that burns by day; 
And those sounds that us affright 
In the dead of dampish night; 
Drive all hurtful fiends us fro, 
By the time the cocks first crow.
Robert Herrick; 'The Old Wives' Prayer'

If the hart and the hind meet dry and part dry on Rood day fair,
For sax weeks, of rain there'll be nae mair.
Traditional Scotch proverb 

On Holy-Cross Day
Vineyards are gay.
Traditional Spanish proverb 

This day, they say, is called Holy-rood day,
And all the youth are now a nutting gone.
From the old play of Grim, the Collier of Croydon', cited by John Brand (1744 - 1806)

Glory to God for all things. Amen.
Last words of St John Chrysostom, who died on September 14, 407

Recent historical investigation ... assigns him a central place in the history of ideas of the Middle Ages; he is seen as characterizing the main line of intellectual development from Nicholas of Cusa to Sebastian Franck. Modern opinion evaluates him on the basis of his Platonic, Neoplatonic, and Hermetic influences – primarily in the De occulta philosophia ...
On Cornelius Agrippa, born on September 14, 1486 or 1487; Dictionary of Scientific Biography, American Council of Learned Societies, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1970, Vol. I, pp 79-81

In his influential work De occulta philosophia libri tres (1531), Agrippa combined magic, astrology, Qabbalah, theurgy, medecine, and the occult properties of plants, rocks, and metals. This work was an important factor in the spread of the idea of occult sciences … The magical interpretation of Qabbalah reached its peak in Henri Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim's De occulta philosophia.
On Cornelius Agrippa; Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade ed. in chief, MacMillan Publishing Company, New York 1987, article on occultism by Antoine Faivre

How grand these rays! They seem to beckon earth to heaven.
Last words of Baron von Humboldt, who was born on September 14, 1769

O, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed
At the twilight's last gleaming?
From the first verse of 'The Star-Spangled Banner', America's national anthem, written by Francis Scott Key on September 14, 1814

To Anacreon in heaven where he sat in full glee,
A few sons of harmony sent a petition,
That he their inspirer and patron would be,
When this answer arrived from the jolly old Grecian:
Voice, fiddle aud flute, no longer be mute,
I'll lend you my name and inspire you to boot!
And besides I'll instruct you like me to entwine
The myrtle of Venus and Bacchus's vine.
First verse of 'To Anacreon in Heaven', the tune of which is used for 'The Star Spangled Banner'

Do you know where the apothecary lives? Then send and let him know that I should like to see him. I don't feel quite well and I will lie still till he comes.
Last words of the Iron Duke, the Duke of Wellington, who died on September 14, 1852

Goodbye my friends, I go to glory!
Words called out by Isadora Duncan to her friends as she sped off for a drive near Nice. Seconds later she was dead, her shawl tangled in the wheel of her Bugatti sports car, September 14, 1927

I adored it from the first moment. The excitement, the thrill, the smell of the theatre went right down to one's toes.
Jack Hawkins, British actor, born on September 14, 1910

Above all, I was taught to love and respect words. Each word had to be the right word; and each had to be spoken in a way that its weight and importance demanded.
Jack Hawkins

What about the rich Jews? The IRS is full of Jews, Bob ... Go after 'em like a son-of-a-bitch!
USA President Richard M Nixon to HR Haldeman, September 14, 1971

What is the future of the woman's movement? How in the hell do I know – I don't run it ... The whole thing is sordid, embarrassing, a fraud.
Kate Millett, American feminist author, born on September 14, 1934

Because of our social circumstances, male and female are really two cultures and their life experiences are utterly different.
Kate Millett

The care of children. . . is infinitely better left to the best-trained practitioners of both sexes who have chosen it as a vocation, rather than to harried and all too frequently unhappy persons with little time or taste for the work of educating minds.
Kate Millett

If only no one had told them I was mad. Then I wouldn't be.
Kate Millett

Many women do not recognize themselves as discriminated against; no better proof could be found of the totality of their conditioning.
Kate Millett

Housewives, not men, were the prey in feminism's sights when Kate Millett decreed in 1969 that the family must go. Feminists do not speak for traditional women. Men cannot know this, however, unless we tell them how we feel about them, our children, and our role in the home. Men must understand that our feelings towards them and our children are derided by feminists and have earned us their enmity. Whether or not this understanding garners men's support, traditional women must defend ourselves because the feminist offensive is, most essentially, a breach of solidarity with us, a disavowal of the obligation to honor the Women's Pact [that religious celibates, professional women, and homemakers respect each other] that women in the movement owed to us.
F Carolyn Graglia, Domestic Tranquility, A Brief Against Feminism, Spence Publishing Company, Dallas, 1998, p. 97

I've been dead for a long time.
Words spoken by Jimi Hendrix on September 14, 1970, four days before his death, as he walked off stage half-way through a concert in Denmark

September 14 is the 257^th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (258^th in leap years), with 108 days remaining.
On the dating of items in the Almanac  Translate this page  Birthday star  Your birth day  Daily Everything  NNDB  Time/Date  Google
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.

Feast of the Holy Cross; Holy Rood Day - Exaltation of the Cross (Elevation of the Cross; Triumph of the Cross), Roman Catholicism

(Passion flower, Passiflora coerulea, is today's plant, dedicated to the feast of the Holy Cross.)

"Several plants in the Passiflora family have traditionally been used to combat anxiety. Passiflora coerulea (blue passionflower) and Passiflora edulis originated in South America. A related plant found as far north as Virginia [USA] is Passiflora incarnata. All of these are sold as herbal remedies under the name 'passionflower' or 'passion flower.'"   Source

"Chrysin (Passiflora coerulea) - is a a naturally occurring bioflavinoid that is extracted from the plant Passiflora coerulea. The herb grows in Oceania, Africa, Asia, Central America and the Caribbean. Spanish explorers were introduced to the sedative effects of the herb via the Indians of Peru and Brazil.

Traditional uses:
"... These explorers brought the herb back to Spain were the leaves were used widely as a sedative and sleep inducing agent. Chysin extracted from the leaves of the passion flower have also been used for centuries for the treatment of anxiety, cardiovascular difficulties, female complications."   Source

(cf May 3, Finding of the Holy Cross)

Officially known as the Feast of the Cross or Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, today used also to be called Holy Rood Day, or Roodmas. Some authorities say the Catholic Church feast commemorates the restoration of the 'True Cross' to Calvary in 629, after the victory of Emperor Heraclius over the Persians. Others say it commemorates the raising of the 'true' Christian cross in the church at Jerusalem in 335 (some sources say 326) by the Empress Helena (Flavia Iulia Helena, also known as St Helena and Helena of Constantinople, c. 248 - c. 329 CE), mother of Constantine the Great. Today may be considered a christianization of the ancient Eleusis feast of Demeter (see Greater Eleusinian Mysteries).

In 1561, John Calvin wrote a tract that said that if all the pieces of the True Cross were gathered together, they would load a large ship, and would take 300 men, not one, to carry it. However, on this score, the Catholic Encyclopedia notes:

"The work of Rohault de Fleury, 'Mémoire sur les instruments de la Passion' (Paris, 1870), deserves more prolonged attention; its author has sought out with great care and learning all the relics of the True Cross, drawn up a catalogue of them, and, thanks to this labour, he has succeeded in showing that, in spite of what various Protestant or Rationalistic authors have pretended, the fragments of the Cross brought together again would not only not 'be comparable in bulk to a battleship', but would not reach one-third that of a cross which has been supposed to have been three or four metres in height, with transverse branch of two metres ... proportions not at all abnormal ... Here is the calculation of this savant: Supposing the Cross to have been of pine-wood, as is believed by the savants who have made a special study of the subject, and giving it a weight of about seventy-five kilograms, we find that the volume of this cross was 178,000,000 cubic millimetres. Now the total known volume of the True Cross, according to the finding of M. Rohault de Fleury, amounts to above 4,000 000 cubic millimetres, allowing the missing part to be as big as we will, the lost parts or the parts the existence of which has been overlooked, we still find ourselves far short of 178,000,000 cubic millimetres, which should make up the True Cross."

A piece of the True Cross was the most important relic venerated by the Crusaders. It was kept in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre under the protection of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, who raised it as a standard of the army before every battle. It was captured from the Europeans by the Arab freedom fighter Saladin (1137 - 1193) during the Battle of Hattin in 1187.

According to one legend, the True Cross was built from the Tree of Knowledge.

"The September date is often referred to in the West as Holy Cross Day; the May date was dropped from the liturgical calendar by the Second Vatican Council in 1970. (See also Roodmas.) The Orthodox still commemorate both events on September 14, one of the twelve Great Feasts of the liturgical year, and the 'Procession of the Venerable Wood of the Cross' on August 1st, the day on which the relics of the True Cross would be carried through the streets of Constantinople to bless the city.

"In addition to celebrations on fixed days, there are certain days of the variable cycle when the Cross is celebrated. The Roman Catholic Church has a formal 'Adoration of the Cross' (the term is inaccurate, but sanctioned by long use) during the services for Good Friday, while the Orthodox celebrate an additional Veneration of the Cross on the third Sunday of Great Lent. In Greek Orthodox churches everywhere, a replica of the cross is brought out in procession on Holy Thursday for the people to venerate."   Source

"Many churches in Britain were dedicated to the Holy Rood or Cross. One at Edinburgh 'became the nucleus of the palace of the Scottish kings. Holyrood Day was one of much sacred observance all through the middle ages. The same feeling led to a custom of framing, between the nave and choir of churches, what was called a rood-screen or rood-loft, presenting centrally a large crucifix, with images of the Holy Virgin and St. John on each side. A winding stair led up to it, and the epistle and gospel were often read from it. Some of these screens still remain, models of architectural beauty; but numbers were destroyed with reckless fanaticism at the Reformation, the people not distinguishing between the objects which had caused what they deemed idolatry and the beautifully carved work which was free from such a charge.

"One of the most famous of these roods or crucifixes was that at the abbey of Boxley, in Kent, which was entitled the Rood of Grace. The legend is, that an English carpenter, having been taken prisoner in the French wars, and wishing to employ his leisure as well as obtain his ransom, made a very skilful piece of workmanship of wood, wire, paste, and paper, in the form of a cross of exquisite proportion, on which hung the figure of our Saviour, which, by means of springs, could bow down, lift itself up, shake its hands and feet, nod the head, roll its eyes, and smile or frown. The carpenter, getting permission to return and sell his work, put it on a horse, and drove it before him; but stopping near Rochester at an alehouse for refreshment, the animal passed on, and missing the straight road, galloped south to Boxley, and being driven by some 'divine furie,' never stopped until it reached the church-door, when it kicked so loudly with its heels, that the monks ran out to see the wonder. No sooner was the door opened, than the horse rushed in, and stood still by a pillar. The monks were proceeding to unload, when the owner appeared, and claimed his property; but in vain did he try to lead the horse from the sanctuary; it seemed nailed to the spot. He next attempted to remove the rood, but was equally unsuccessful; so that in the end, through sheer weariness and the entreaties of the monks to have the image left with them, he consented to sell it to them for a piece of money.

"The accounts transmitted to us by the Reformers —although to be taken as one-sided—leave us little room to doubt that, in the corrupt age preceding the great change in the sixteenth century, many deceptions practices had come to be connected with the images on the rood-galleries.'

"'If you were to benefit by the Rood of Grace, the first visit to be paid was to one of the priests, who would hear your confession and give you shrift, in return for a piece of money. You must next do honour to another image of St. Rumwald or Grunnbald, a little picture of a boy-saint, which, by means of a pin of wood put through a pillar behind, made certain contortions, by which the monks could tell whether all sins had been atoned for in the previous confession. Those who stretched their purse-strings, and made liberal offerings, gained St. Rumwald to their side, and were pronounced to he living a pure life. If the poor pilgrim had done all this with sufficient honour to himself and the saints, he was prepared to go to the holy rood and gain plenary absolution.'

"At the dissolution of the abbeys, Cromwell and his associates laid their ruthless hands on Boxley; and Nicholas Partridge, suspecting some cheat in the Rood of Grace, made an examination, and soon discovered the spring which turned the mechanism. It was taken to Maidstone, and there exposed to the people; from thence to London, where the king and his court laughed at the object they had once deemed holy; and, finally, it was brought before an immense multitude at St. Paul's Cross, by Hilsey, bishop of Rochester, on Sunday, the 24th of February 1538, when it was broken to pieces and buried, the bishop preaching a sermon on the subject."
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.

"Holy Cross is in our almanacs and the church of England calendar on this day, whereon is celebrated a Romish catholic festival in honour of the holy cross, or, as our ancestors called it, the holy rood. From this denomination Holy-rood-house, Edinburgh, derives its name.

"The rood was a carved or sculptured groupe consisting of a crucifix, or image of Christ on the cross, with, commonly, the virgin Mary on one side, and John on the other; though for these were sometimes substituted the four evangelists, and frequently rows of saints were added on each side.

"The rood was always placed in a gallery across the nave, at the entrance of the chancel or choir of the church, and this gallery was called the rood-loft, signifying the rood-gallery; the old meaning of the word loft being a high, or the highest, floor, or a room higher than another room. In the rood-loft the musicians were stationed, near the rood, to play during mass.

"The holy roods or crosses being taken down at the time of the reformation, the rood-loft or gallery became the organ-loft or singing gallery, as we see it in our churches at present: the ancient rood-loft was usually supported by a crossbeam, richly carved with foliage, sometimes superbly gilt, with a screen of open tabernacle-work beneath.

"When the roods, and other images in churches were taken down throughout England, texts of scripture were written on the walls of the churches instead. The first rood taken down in London was the rood belonging to St. Paul's cathedral, and then all the other roods were removed from the churches of the metropolis."
William Hone, The Every-Day Book, or a Guide to the Year, William Tegg and Co., London, 1878; 1825-'26 edition online

The rood

The rood in a church was a carved crucifix, usually with Mary on one side and St John on the other, placed above the nave of a church, in a rood-loft. After the Reformation, this space became used for an organ-loft or choir stalls.

At Boxley, Kent, there was one in which the image of Christ used to have a moving mouth and limbs. At the Reformation it was found to be a mechanical model, but for years before the priests had tricked parishioners into believing it was miraculous, thereby obtaining money from them.

Roodmas

On this day, Jews used to be forced into churches where they suffered through sermons, until about 1840 when Pope Gregory XVI abolished the perverse custom.

The True Cross and your teeth

According to the 13^th-Century historian Rigordus, since Cosroes stole the True Cross of Christ from Jerusalem in 614, humans have had fewer teeth than previously (a reduction from 32 or 30 to 23).   Source

At Eton

At Eton College, England, it was a custom today for pupils to gather nuts and present them to the masters after writing verses on Autumn. By the eighteenth century, today the king's huntsmen hunted free deer in Richmond New Park.

Holy Nuts

Today is also traditionally known in Britain as Devil's Nutting Day (a custom which persisted in England until the First World War), or the Day of the Holy Nut, and hazel nuts gathered today are said to have magical powers. If you find two on one stalk today, they will guard against rheumatism, toothache and evil spells from witches. But you must not gather nuts early in the morning, as that is unlucky. (More on the mythology and folklore of hazel at August 5 in the Book of Days.)

"Day off for all to gather nuts (traditional and moveable since it depends on when the nuts are ripe). According to custom, young women who go nutting are in danger of premature pregnancy, nuts being associated with fertility; more likely, nutting days afford occasions for outdoor lovemaking."   Source: The Daily Bleed

Balefires

In Britain, balefires were built and burned today, with people traditionally adding the sacred wood hawthorn to the blaze. A balefire is a fire lit for magical purposes, usually outdoors.

Today is also the Exaltation of the Cross in the Eastern Orthodox Church, a fast day, not a feast. In fact, the commemoration began in Jerusalem and came to the Latin Church via the Eastern.

Find an error or dead link? 
Like to make a suggestion, or just say "G'day"?
Meet me at Corrigenda

Click stars for Universe today Cafe Diem! Our store Highly recommended: Folklore of World Holidays by Margaret Read MacDonald Eleusis Eleusinian & Bacchic Mysteries Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries Eleusinian Mysteries and Rites Last Sorcerers Alchemy Sorcerer's Stone Alchemy & Mysticism The Tower of Alchemy The Alchemist's Handbook John Randolph Price Alchemist's Handbook Albertus   The Da Vinci Code De-Coding Da Vinci Breaking The Da Vinci Code Reading Lolita in Tehran Internet Sacred Text Archive CD-ROM The New Book of Goddesses & Heroines The Spiral Dance By Starhawk 20th Anniversary Edition Eats, Shoots & Leaves Uluru Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations Life in a Medieval Village Medieval Celebrations Women's Activism and Globalization The Atlas of Holy Places and Sacred Sites Secrets and Lies The Clash of Civilizations Imperial Crusades Aborigine Dreaming The Medieval Cookbook The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe The Murray Bookchin Reader Environmental Activism Astro pic of the day American Folklore   To support this project Search by keywords for books, music, computers, software, home and family products and much more.     Search for posters An Inconvenient Truth Al Gore DVD and book When Corporations Rule the World The Big Buy - Tom Delay's Stolen Congress The Corporation Highly recommended DVD Shaking the Foundations: 200 Years of Investigative Journalism in America By Bruce Shapiro Remotely Controlled: How Television Is Damaging Our Lives and What We Can Do About It What Would Jefferson Do? By Thom Hartmann How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World Songs in the Key of W Pagan Christianity In Praise of Slowness The Chronicles of Narnia Boxed Set By CS Lewis Hello Laziness! By Corrine Maier For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire By James Yee Crimes Against Nature : How George W Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy By Robert F Kennedy, Jr The Skeptic's Dictionary Stolen Harvest By Vandana Shiva Permaculture Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilisation: Backstage With Barry Humphries Sun Goddess African Folklore The Divine Comedy of Dante: The Inferno/the Purgatorio/the Paradiso Daily Everything A Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend, and Folklore The Edible Asian Garden The Secret Language of Birthdays Live with Passion! Anthony Robbins More books, calendars, T-shirts, mugs, music, posters, etc at   Cafe Diem! Celtic Daily Prayer Hidden Agendas Poor Richard's Almanack By Benjamin Franklin Photo of the day Mother Earth Spirituality Wheel of the Year The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable The Survival of the Pagan Gods Click to promote  your blog or website  another excellent  way we do

The Ember Days Today is one of several ember days of the year, a custom instituted by Pope Pope Gelasius I (reigned 492 - 496) to seek God's blessing on the fruitfulness of the earth. It was the practice to put ashes on one's head, but the name might come from the Saxon emb-ren or imb-ryne , meaning a course or circuit, from the ember days' commemoration at four quarters of the year, namely: the first Wednesday, Friday and Saturday following, respectively, the first Sunday in Lent (Quadragesima Sunday); Whitsunday; September 14 or, 'Holyrood Day'; and St Lucy's Day (December 13).  Or, it comes from the practice of putting ash on the head. There is also the breaking of a fast with bread baked in embers, or ember-bread. The weeks in which they fall are called ember weeks. 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.   From Wikipedia: In the liturgical calendar of the Western Christian churches, Ember days are four separate sets of three days within the same week – specifically, the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday – roughly equidistant in the circuit of the year, that were formerly set aside for fasting and prayer. These days set apart for special prayer and fasting, were considered especially suitable for the ordination of clergy. The Ember Days were known in the medieval church as quatuor tempora (the 'four seasons'), or jejunia quatuor temporum ('fasts of the four seasons'). The Ember Weeks – the weeks in which the Ember Days occur – are the week between the third and fourth Sundays of Advent, between the first and second Sundays of Lent, the week between Pentecost and Trinity Sunday, and the calendar week after the one in which Holy Cross Day (September 14) falls (eg, if September 14 were a Sunday, September 24, 26 and 27 would be Ember Days, the latest dates possible; with September 14 as a Saturday, however, the Ember Days would occur on September 18, 20 and 21 – the earliest possible dates). These dates are given in the following mnemonic distich with a frank indifference to quantity and metre Dant Crux, Lucia, Cineres, Charismata Dia Ut sit in angariâ quarta sequens feria Or in the equally clumsy old English rhyme "Fasting days and Emberings be Lent, Whitsun, Holyrood, and Lucie." Prior to the reforms instituted by the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church mandated fasting (only one full meal per day plus two partial, meatless meals) on all Ember Days (which meant both fasting and abstinence from meat on those Ember Days which were also Fridays), and the faithful were encouraged (though not required) to receive the sacrament of penance whenever possible. Since the reforms of Vatican II (1969), Ember Days have ceased to be listed in the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar, and they were made optional by churches of the Anglican Confession in 1976.   'Ember' Significantly in the Eastern Orthodox Church, where Celtic traditions were not a concern, ember days have never been observed. The word 'ember' derives from the Anglo-Saxon ymb-ren, a circuit or revolution (from ymb, around, and rennen, to run), the annual wheel of the sun, clearly. The occurrence of the Anglo-Saxon compounds ymbren-tid ('Embertide'), ymbren-wucan ('Ember weeks'), ymbren-fisstan ('Ember fasts'), ymbren-da gas ('Ember days') makes the etymology quite certain. The word imbren even makes it into the acts of the council of 1009 (jejunia quatuor tempora quae imbren vocant, "the fasts of the four seasons which are called 'imbren'"). It corresponds also with Pope Leo the Great's definition, jejunia ecclesiastica per totius anni circulum distributa ("fasts of the church distributed through the whole circuit of the year"). However, the Roman Catholic Church prefers that the term be derived from the Latin quatuor tempora, meaning 'four times' (a year), while folk etymology even cites the phrase 'may ye remember (the inevitability of death)' as the source. JM Neale's Essays of Liturgiology (1863), Chapter X, finds difficulties: "The Latin name has remained in modern languages, though the contrary is sometimes affirmed, Quatuor Tempora, the Four Times. In French and Italian the term is the same; in Spanish and Portuguese they are simply Temporas. The German converts them into Quatember, and thence, by the easy corruption of dropping the first syllable, a corruption which also takes place in some other words, we get the English Ember. Thus, there is no occasion to seek after an etymology in embers; or with Nelfon, to extravagate still further to the noun ymbren, a recurrence, as if all holy seasons did not equally recur. In Welsh, Ember-week is Wythnos y cydgorian, the Week of the Processions. In mediæval Germany they were called Weihfasten, Wiegfastan, Wiegefasten, or the like, on the general principle of their sanctity.... We meet with the term Frohnfasten, frohne being the then word for travail. Why they were named foldfasten it is less easy to say."   Origins Though the origins of the term 'ember' are clear enough, nevertheless, the reasons for the observance are open to considerable debate. What is generally agreed upon, however, is that the concept of the observance predates the Christian era, and that since Ember Days have never been observed in the Eastern Churches, the pagan origins must lie in the west. In pagan Rome, offerings were made to various gods and goddesses of agriculture in the hope that the deities would provide a bountiful harvest (in June), a rich vintage (in September), or a productive seeding (in December). Others point to much more specific Celtic origins, linked to the Celtic custom of observing various festivals at three-month intervals: (Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain). In any event, the ancient Christian church often sought to co-opt pagan feasts and reorient them to different purposes, and that seems to have been applicable in this instance. These seasonal fasts, four in number, do not appear in early Christian observations: they are first known from the writings of Philastrius, bishop of Brescia (died c. 387) (De haeres. 119). He also connects them with the great Christian festivals. The Christian observation of these (possibly Celtic) seasonal observance of the Ember days had its origin as an ecclesiastical ordinance in Rome and spread from there to the rest of the Western Church. They were known as the jejunium vernum, aestivum, autumnale and hiemale, so that to quote Pope Leo I (440 - '61), the law of abstinence might apply to every season of the year. In Leo's time, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday were already days of special observance. In order to tie them to the fasts preparatory to the three great festivals of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost, a fourth needed to be added "for the sake of symmetry" as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911, has it. The correspondence is forced. From Rome the Ember days gradually spread unevenly through the whole of Western Christendom. Neither in Gaul nor Spain do they seem to have been generally recognized much before the 8th Century. Their observation in Britain, however, was embraced earlier than in Gaul or Spain, interestingly, and Christian sources connect the Ember Days observations with St Augustine of Canterbury, 597, said to be acting under the direct authority of Pope Gregory the Great. The precise dates appear to have varied considerably, however, and in some cases, quite significantly, the Ember Weeks lost their connection with the Christian festivals altogether. Timing The Ordo Romanus fixes the spring fast in the first week of March (then the first month), thus loosely associated with the first Sunday in Lent; the summer fast in the second week of June, after Whitsunday; the Autumnal fast in the third week of September following the Exaltation of the Cross, September 14; and the Winter fast in the complete week next before Christmas Eve, following St Lucy's Day (December 13). Other regulations prevailed in different countries, until the inconveniences arising from the want of uniformity led to the rule now observed being laid down under Pope Urban II as the law of the church, in the Councils of Piacenza and of Clermont, 1095. The dates of their celebration are now determined by national church hierarchies rather than by the universal Roman liturgical calendar, and they have been transformed into 'days of prayer for peace'. Ordination of clergy The present rule which fixes the ordination of clergy in the Ember weeks was set in documents traditionally associated with Pope Gelasius I (492 - '96). In the earlier church, ordinations took place whenever necessity required. Gelasius is stated to have been the first who limited them to these particular times. The rule, once introduced, commended itself to the mind of the church, and its observance spread. We find it laid down in the pontificate of Archbishop Ecgbert of York, 732 - '66, and referred to as a canonical rule in a capitulary of Charlemagne, and it was finally established as a law of the church in the pontificate of Gregory VII, c. 1085. Source: Wikipedia Catholic Encyclopedia    Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911    Readings and Litanies for the Ember Days   Quarter Tense, Ireland In the Irish calendar such days were known as Quarter Tense. The dates of their celebration are now normally determined by national Roman Catholic hierarchies and not by the universal calendar of the church. The Saturdays of Quarter Tense were considered especially appropriate for priestly ordination. The days of Quarter Tense were, until the Second Vatican Council, time of obligatory fasting and abstinence. However, in Ireland, the obligation of abstinence (the complete avoidance of meat) on the Saturdays of Quarter Tense outside Lent was removed by the Vatican in 1912. The term 'Quarter Tense' is derived from the official Latin name quattuor tempora ('the four times'). In the Irish language, Quarter Tense is Cátaoir or Laethanta na gCeithre Thráth (lit. 'the days of the four times'). The old dates in the Irish calendar for the observation of Quarter Tense were: The Wednesday, Friday and Saturday following Ash Wednesday, (liturgical colour: purple). The Wednesday, Friday and Saturday after Pentecost Sunday, (liturgical colour: red). The Wednesday, Friday and Saturday after September 14 – the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, (liturgical colour: purple). The Wednesday, Friday and Saturday following December 13 - Feast of Saint Lucy, (liturgical colour: purple).   Feast of Lights, ancient Egypt The festival on this day featured offerings of lights burning all night in tombs and in front of icons of the gods. Ganesh Chaturthi (Hinduism; date varies annually, approx. Aug 20 to Sep 15)   Greater Eleusinian Mysteries, ancient Greece (Sep 10 - 19) Fifth day. A note about the dating of items in Wilson's Almanac "The fifth [day] was called He ton lampadon hemera, the torch day, because on the following night the people ran about with torches in their hands. It was usual to dedicate torches to Ceres, and contend which should offer the biggest in commemoration of the travels of the goddess, and of her lighting a torch in the flames of Mount Aetna." John Lempriere (c. 1765 - February 1, 1824), Bibliotheca Classica or Classical Dictionary (1788), Hippocrene Books, 1986    Source "Then came the 19th of Boedromion, the first day of the festival which was called Mysteria, The Mysteries, for everything else was mere preparation, and other mysteries were not the true Mysteries, which were now about to begin. This day had the special name of agyrmos, (Hesychios), 'gathering'. In the morning the procession of mystai assembled, began to move, left the city by way of the potters' quarter and the Sacred Gate, and marched along the Sacred Road to Eleusius, where it arrived in the evening." Carl Kerenyi, Eleusis, Princeton University Press; Reprint edition (August 12, 1991)   Source   Circensian games, ancient Rome  (Apr 12 -