Re: Country Related: Christmas
| From: | Lars Henrik Mathiesen <thorinn@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, December 23, 1998, 19:10 |
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Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1998 11:19:11 -0400
From: "David G. Durand" <dgd@...>
This April 1st thing is a post-christian event, related to the the English
adoption of the Gregorian calendar reform. Christmas had moved because of
the inaccuracies in the Roman calendar, and the reaction against the reform
was because people were angry at "losing" 3 months of their lives in the
change.
They only lost 11 days. September 1952 had 19 days. The problem was
that many people paid rent by the month but wages were paid by the
day. New year did move back 3 months too, but I've never heard that
people were angry about that.
Other weird stuff: In Sweden they put in a Feast of Santa Lucia on
December 13 in the old calendar, about where the solstice had ended
up. So now we (Denmark imported the custom in this century) have
school girls running around with candles in their hair and catching
fire 9 days before the new sun returns.
Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)