A Walk Down Memory Lane with Pat Everiss
Posted by admin on 15 Jul 2008 at 12:00 am | Tagged as: Home - Newsletter
Holidays, Festivals and Customs – Part Three
In this, the third and final part of holidays and festivals, I am continuing to look at those days we celebrate during the year, including some that we used to celebrate but no longer do so.
Consigned to the history books is Oak Apple Day, which we used to celebrate on the 29th May, the birthday and restoration of King Charles II. It was a day of thanksgiving, which is all but now forgotten, when Charles hid in the branches of an oak tree near Boscobel House after his defeat at the battle of Worcester.
Next we have Father’s Day, which was first celebrated on the 19th June 1910. An American lady, who decided that dads, as well as moms, should be honoured, introduced it. The special flower for Father’s Day is the rose, red for a father still living and a white one for a father no longer with us. Father’s Day has been observed nationally since 1924.
Following on, we have Alexandra Rose Day, founded in 1912, when Queen Alexandra started the first National Flag Day to mark the 50th Anniversary of her arrival in the United Kingdom from Denmark. Each year, on the 20th June, the Flag Day is launched by the Prime Minister buying a rose on the steps of 10, Downing Street. The sale of roses by volunteers benefits hospitals and other institutions.
On or about the 21st June we have Midsummer Day, which is the day of the summer solstice i.e. the day having the longest period of light. The Druids, who were members of a Celtic religious order in ancient Britain, were believed to have worshipped this occasion at the impressive megalithic monument on Salisbury Plain, known as Stonehenge. Built between 3100 and 1500 BC, Stonehenge is thought to be a type of astronomical clock or calendar for predicting the seasons. The 35-ton Heel Stone stands on the axis of sunrise at the summer solstice and still today people gather on this date to see the sun rise directly above the Heel Stone.
The 15th July is Saint Swithin’s Day. Saint Swithin lived in the 9th century and was the Bishop of Winchester. He was adviser to Kings Egbert and Aethelwolf. Saint Swithin is best known from the popular superstition attached to his name and expressed in the following rhyme:
‘St. Swithin’s day if thou dost rain, for forty days it will remain,
St.Swithin’s Day if thou be fair, for forty days ’twill rain nae mair’.
There have been many attempts to explain the origin of this belief but none have proved generally satisfactory.
Halloween, or All Hallows Eve, falls on the 31st October. Customs and superstitions, gathered through the ages, go into the celebration of Halloween. However, it has its origins in the autumn festivals of earlier times. The ancient Druids believed that on the last night of October, spirits of the dead roamed abroad, and they lighted bonfires to drive them away. Many people clung to the old pagan beliefs and customs that had grown up about Halloween. Some tried to foretell the future on that night by performing such rites as jumping over lighted candles. Laughing bands of guisers (young people disguised in grotesque masks) carved lanterns from turnips and carried them through the villages. Today, faces are carved into hollowed out pumpkins and have lights placed inside them.
The day following Halloween, November 1st, is All Saints Day, a Christian feast day, which honours all saints.
Bonfire Night is held on the 5th November and commemorates the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot, a conspiracy by English Catholics to blow up Parliament and King James I in 1605. Five initial conspirators planned to provoke a general Catholic uprising. They hid barrels of gunpowder in a basement under Westminster Hall in anticipation of the day the King was to attend Parliament. The plot was discovered and one conspirator, Guy Fawkes, was caught in the cellar. All the conspirators were executed.
The basement of the Houses of Parliament is still searched today before the attendance of the monarch and we celebrate the 5th November with fireworks and by burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes.
Remembrance Sunday is always held in November on the Sunday nearest to the 11th. This was the date on which the Armistice was signed to end the First World War. We gather together on Remembrance Sunday at local war memorials, to remember the people whose names are displayed there. The poppy that we wear is the bicoloured Shirley poppy, a variety of corn poppy remembered from World War One as the poppy of Flanders field.
The last patron saints day of the year is Saint Andrew’s Day, celebrated in Scotland on the 30th November. Andrew was one of the twelve Apostles, brother of Simon Peter, and he is said to have been martyred on an X shaped cross, hence the cross on the Scottish flag is in this form. At St. Andrew’s, in Fife, there are the remains of the 12th century Cathedral of Saint Rule, who is reputed to have brought Saint Andrew’s bones to Scotland. Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland and Russia.
The final celebration in our calendar is the shortest day or winter solstice, which is celebrated on or about the 22nd December. At Stonehenge, there are forty stones erected beyond the Heel Stone, coinciding with the axis of moonrise on this day.