Re: samhain?

On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 07:39:24PM +0000, Ray Brown wrote:
> To add to the fun, both "New Style" - with the dates given above - and
> "Old Style" (following the Julian Calendar) quarters days are observed for
> different purposes. The financial year, for example, begins with the Old
> Style Lady Day, now the 6th April, since until we adopted the New Style
> calender in 1752 Lady Day was also "New Year's Day". Rather boringly ever
> since then New year's Day has been Jan. 1st.
Though for some reason the fiscal date was not further adjusted when the
Julian and Gregorian calendars drifted further apart in 1900; Julian
March 25th is Gregorian April 7th these days.

Based on what I've read, January 1st was always the date called "New
Year's Day"; March 25th was called simply "Lady's Day" even when it was
the date upon which the year number changed.

The old scheme is admittedly more interesting, but for "interesting" I
prefer to switch calendars entirely. :) The Jews, for instance, change
their year number in the fall - rather boringly on the first day of a
month, and on the day called "New Year's" (or, rather, "Head of the
Year") - but less boringly, they *number* their months starting in the
*spring*, so that the calendar year begins in month 7 instead of month
1.  So even though AM 5765 just began in September, the day about to begin
at sundown as I write this message is the 20th day of the 8th month.

-Marcos

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