In
Britain, the fourth Sunday of Lent (Mid-Lent,
typically in March or early April) was known as Mothering Sunday, when furmety, a sweetened boiled cereal dish, was often served at the family dinner.
Originally, it was a time for visiting one's ‘mother church' – the church
in the town where one hailed from, and people would travel back home to attend
– but gradually came to be a day for honouring one’s mother and giving her
gifts. Thus, it is the progenitor of today’s Mothers' Day.
Googe
(1570) writes of certain British Mid-Lent customs that open a window to
ancient pagan customs that survived the Christian era:
The
boyes with ropes of straw doth frame an ugly monster here
And
call him death, whom from the town, with prowd and solemn chere,
To
hills and valleyes they convey, and villages thereby,
From
whence they stragling doe return, well beaten commonly.
Thus
children also beare with speares, their cracknells round about,
And
two they have whereof the one is called Sommer stout:
Apparalde
all in greene, and drest in youthful fine araye,
The
other Winter, clad in mosse with heare all hoare and graye.
These
two togither fight, of which the Palme doth Sommer get,
From
hence to meate they go, and all with wine their whistles wet.
Barnaby
Googe, The Popish
Kingdome, or Reigne of Antichrist, 1570
In
Germany, Mid-Lent/Laetare/Fourth
Sunday in Lent is known as Totensonntag
('Sunday of the Dead'); on
this day the practice of Todaustragen,
('the carrying out of the dead') is performed. (Tod=Death;
austragen=to carry out). Also
called Todaustreiben, ‘the
driving out of Death’.
To
the Czechs, it is nedele
Laetare (‘Laetare Sunday’, as in English) and nedele
smrtelná, smrt meaning
‘Death’. The Serbo-Croatians call it both Laetare
and Smjertnica.
In
some areas, Todaustragen is known
as Winteraustragen (Winteraustreiben),
for the straw figure represents Winter as well as Death. It is generally found
to occur in conjunction with the practice of Sommereinholen/Sommereinbringen
(the ushering in or bringing in of Summer). Traditionally, a figure
dressed in ivy and greenery or a decorated tree representative of Summer was
welcomed in, and Death/Winter was expelled. Therefore Laetare is known as Sommertag
in areas such as the Rheinland and Main.
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The
figure of Death is known variously throughout Germany as Morana, Morena,
Marzanna, Marena, Muriena, Mamurienda. He was made of straw and sticks,
with a face of white linen. He was clad in old clothing and children
would dance around him, singing, hand in hand. Then followed a
procession through the town; the children threw Death off a bridge, or
off a cliff. In some places he was drowned at sunset, after which the
girls went to the forest to cut a young tree with a green crown, and
hung a female figure on it, decorating it with red, white and green
ribbons, and proceed with the Lito
(Summer) singing into town.
In
Liptovska Kokava (Slovakia) the boys were painted or masked, each
wearing a fur coat turned around, and carrying a staff in hand. The
straw puppet was unravelled and straw placed in the stables. The girls
attended to a straw figure called a Mamuriena, and trooped through the
village.
The
children who performed the rite received treats, such as eggs and pretzels,
from adults. Begging of treats by children (Bettelumzüge,
processions of beggars) was not confined to Todaustragen,
but was practised at other times as well.
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The
Council of Prague outlawed the custom on 1366, and again in 1371 and 1384.
Thus it was probably a pre-Christian custom and viewed as pagan. However, some
say that as the bans followed each other so closely it might have been a new
custom in those times.
Today
it is traditional to break the Lenten fast somewhat, usually with simnel
cakes. These
are raised cakes, with a crust made of fine flour and water, coloured yellow
with saffron, and filled with the materials of a very rich plum-cake, with
plenty of candied lemon peel, and other ingredients.
An
old Shropshire tale has it that long ago there lived an honest old couple,
Simon and Nelly, and it was their custom to gather their children around them
at Easter. Nelly had some leftover unleavened dough from Lent, and Simon
reminded her there was some plum pudding still left over from Christmas. They
could make some treats for the visiting family.
Nell
put the leftovers together, and Sim insisted the cake should be boiled, while
she was just as certain that it should be baked. They had a fight and came to
blows, but compromised by doing both. They cooked the cake over a fire made
from furniture broken in the scuffle, and some eggs, similarly broken, were
used to baste it. The delicacy was named after this cantankerous couple. Or,
so it is said.
It is believed that Mothers’ Day emerged
from the custom of mother worship in ancient Greece. Mother
worship, which kept a festival to Cybele, a
great mother of gods, and Rhea,
the wife of Cronus,
was held on March 15 to March 18
around Asia Minor.
In 1870, Julia Ward Howe
(May 27, 1819 - October 17,
1910), prominent United
States abolitionist, social activist, and women's
suffrage campaigner, pacifist
and poet, author of Battle Hymn of the Republic, was the first to proclaim Mother's
Day.
Simnel
Cake
175
g (6 oz) butter
175
g (6 oz) sugar
3
beaten eggs
225
g (8 oz) plain flour
1/2
tsp grated nutmeg
1/2
tsp ground cinnamon
125
g (4 oz) glace cherries
50
g (2 oz) chopped mixed peel
250
g (9 oz) currants
125
g (4 oz) sultanas
450
g (1 lb) almond paste
A
little milk if necessary
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"Cream
together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs
slowly. Fold in the flour and spices. Add the fruit and fold in. Add a
teaspoon or two of milk if too firm.
Line and grease an 18 cm (7 in) round cake tin.
Roll out half the almond paste to a 16 cm circle. Spoon half of the cake
mixture into the cake tin. Put the almond paste circle on top of the
cake mixture. Then add the rest of the cake mixture. Bake until dark
brown and firm.
Once the cake is cool, roll out the rest of the almond paste into an 18
cm circle. Place the circle on top of the cake and brown quickly under a
hot grill.”
Source
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When is Easter?
Easter is on a different date each year according
to the Northern Vernal
Equinox (may fall on March 20, 21 or 22) and the phases of
the moon.
By knowing Easter's date we can determine many others in the Christian
calendar, such as Shrove
Tuesday (Pancake Day), Ash Wednesday and
Lent, Mid-Lent, and
more.
From Wikipedia:
“The
timing of Easter depends on the Jewish Pesach, in English Passover,
which commemorates the sparing of the Hebrew first-born, as recounted in Exodus,
since it is during this holiday that Jesus is believed to have been
resurrected.
The
date of Easter
“Easter
and the holidays that are related to it are moveable
feasts, in that they do not fall on a fixed date in the Gregorian calendar (which follows the motion of
the Sun and the seasons). Instead, they are based on a lunar
calendar like that used by the Jews. At the First Council of Nicaea in 325 it was
decided that Easter would be celebrated on the Sunday after the 14th day of
the first lunar month of spring (in theory, the Sunday after the first full moon
on or after the day of the vernal
equinox). Eventually, all churches accepted the Alexandrian method of
computing Easter, which set the northern hemisphere vernal equinox at 21 March
(the actual equinox may fall one or two days earlier or later), and the date
of the full moon was to be determined by using the Metonic
cycle. A problem here is the difference between the western churches and
the Eastern Orthodox Churches. The former now use the
Gregorian calendar to calculate the date of
Easter, while the latter still use the original Julian
calendar. The World Council of Churches proposed a
reform of the method of determining the date of Easter at a summit in Aleppo, Syria, in 1997.
This reform would have eliminated the difference in the date between the
Eastern and Western churches. The reform was due to be implemented starting in
2001, but it failed. See Reform of the date of Easter.
“Computing
the date of Easter, known as computus, is somewhat complicated. The Wiki page explains
the traditional tabular methods, but also has algorithms
such as the one developed by the famous mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss.
Source: Wikipedia
When is it this year? One explanation can be
found in Chambers:
“Easter Day is always
the first Sunday after the full moon which happens upon or next after the 21st
day of March; and if the full moon happens upon a Sunday, Easter Day is the
Sunday after.”
Chambers, R, (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; See The English Year:
A Personal Selection from Chambers' Book of Days)
Or, probably better:
“Easter
Sunday is the Sunday following the Paschal Full Moon (PFM) date for the year.
In June 325 A.D. astronomers approximated astronomical full moon dates for the
Christian church, calling them Ecclesiastical Full Moon (EFM) dates. From
326 A.D. the PFM date has always been the EFM date after March 20 (which was
the equinox date in 325 A.D.).”
Source
with some explanation, and discussion of popular errors
Lunabar will put moon phases, equinoxes, solstices, etc on
your desktop
The date of Easter (Anglican calculator) (my preferred
reference)
The date of Easter (US Naval Observatory)
Timing of the Crucifixion
and the Resurrection (Christian Churches of God)
Index
of Articles on folklore and other topics
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
Saint Martin and
Martinmas (Hollantide)
St Valentine's Day
Lady Day; strange
Tichborne lore; the penitent thief
Poland's Dyngus Day, and
other Easter Monday customs
Saints Medard and
Swithin: rain prognostication
St James, folklore
and the pilgrimage of Compostela
St Patrick's Day
St Brendan the Voyager
The
'Seven Sleepers' saints
The
Horned God and Western Saints
St Ursula &
the Bear Goddess
How are other ancient gods like Jesus?
The Virgin Mary as Goddess
Sacred wells, springs
and grottoes
