Category: Archaeology

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St Distaff’s Day & the Triple Goddesses, January 7th

Spinning
Spinning—showing the distaff in the left hand and the spindle or rock in the right hand

I’m not sure what the Three Kings were doing on the day after Epiphany. But, the shepherds, if they were like medieval English farmworkers, would still be on holiday. They went back to work, traditionally, next Monday, which is Plough Monday. By contrast, the women, according to folk customs, went back to work St. Distaff’s Day, the day after Epiphany. In an ideal world, St Distaff’s Day is the Sunday after Epiphany (January 6th), and Plough Monday is the next day. Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way. I am not sure the woman going back to work on the 7th January, would be happy with the men lounging about until Plough Monday,. This year on the 13th January.

A distaff is ‘a stick or spindle on to which wool or flax is wound for spinning’. Because of its importance in the medieval and early modern economy, it became a synecdoche for women. St Distaff is a ‘canonisation’ of this use of the word. So, a day to celebrate working women.

We know that medieval and early modern women were a vital part of the work force, despite the demands of childcare. Many women took on apprenticeships, even more continued their husband’s work after he died. Some professions like silk became a female speciality. Plus, London was full of female servants and nurses. Many women had several jobs. The exhibition at the British Library on Medieval Women. In Their Own Words, indicated that most of the sex workers had two or more other jobs. In the house, the wife was the mistress of a formidable range of technologies. Baking, Brewing, Cooking, Laundry, Gardening, Dairy, Medicine (including distillation), horticulture, spinning, sewing and embroidery. Even, aristocratic women did embroidery of the finest quality, and it often made an important financial contribution to the household.

St Distaff’s Day and Plough Monday

Robert Herrick (1591–1674), born in Cheapside, London, a Goldsmith, priest, Royalist and Poet wrote in ‘Hesperides’.

Partly work and partly play
You must on St. Distaff’s Day:
From the plough, soon free your team;
Then come home and fother them;
If the maids a-spinning go,
Burn the flax and fire the tow.
Bring in pails of water then,
Let the maids bewash the men.
Give St. Distaff all the right;
Then bid Christmas sport good night,
And next morrow every one
To his own vocation.

Here he links the plough team with St Distaff’s Day. This implies that the ploughs would be out on the next day. So as St Distaff’s Day is not always on a Sunday, perhaps Plough Monday is not always on a Monday? He certainly suggests everyone goes back to work on the day after St Distaff’s Day.

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Saints & Goddesses of the Distaff Side

In London, the Fraternity of St Anne and St Agnes met at the Church dedicated to the saints. It is by a corner of the Roman Wall on the junction of Gresham Street and Noble Street. St Agnes is the patron saint of young girls, abused women and Girl Scouts. St Anne is the mother of the mother of the Son of God. So, she represents the three generations of women: maidens, mothers, and grandmothers.

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The Three Mother Goddesses (and someone else) “Limestone relief depicting four female figures sitting on a bench holding bread and fruit, a suckling baby, a dog and a basket of fruit’ the Museum of London

This trinity of women were worshipped by the Celts. Archaeologists discovered the sculpture above while investigating the Roman Wall a few hundred yards away at Blackfriars. Scholars believe it depicts the Celtic Three Mother Goddesses. The fourth person is a mystery, maybe the patron of a nearby temple. The relief sculpture was removed perhaps from a temple, or the temple was trashed at some point. Then the sculpture was used as rubble and became part of the defences of London.

The idea of triple goddesses is a common one. In Folklore and History they have been referred to as Maiden, Mother, and Crone, or even Maiden, Mother and Hag. They come in Roman, Greek, Celtic, Irish, and Germanic forms. Their names include the Norns, the Three Fates, the Weird Sisters, the Mórrígan and many more. The Three Fates, the Goddess Book of Days says, were celebrated during the Gamelia. This is the Greco/Roman January Festival to the marriage of Zeus and Juno. The Festival also gives its name to the Athenian month of January.

The use of the terms Hag and Crone for the third Goddess is rare now, but was common. It does a great disservice to the importance of the Grandmother figure. (Although the original meaning of the words were less pejorative. For example, Hag may have meant diviner, soothsayer.) The three phases of womanhood are equally as important to the continuation of the species. They provide love, support, and experience through the generations. Compare these three generations of supportive deities with Ouranos (Uranus), Cronus (Saturn) and Zeus (Jupiter). Saturn castrated and deposed his father, Uranus. Later, he tried to eat his son, Jupiter. But then, Jupiter is nobody’s idea of an ideal father. As one example, he eats his lover, Metis, to avoid her giving birth. (See my post on the birth of Athena.)

Recent work on human evolution has suggested that the role of the Grandmother is crucial to our species’ ability to live beyond the age of fertility. Because, in evolutionary terms, once an individual cannot procreate, their usefulness for the survival of the genes is finished. So what’s the point of putting resources into grandma’s survival? The theory is the Grandmother has such an impact on the survival of the next generation, that longevity. for the female, beyond fertility makes evolutionary sense.

Have a look at this site for more information.

Natural History Museum, Oxford, K Flude photo.

There was a theory widely held that the original Deities, dating before the spread of farming, were mother goddesses. The idea is that the hunter-gather goddesses (perhaps like the Venus of Willendorf) were overthrown by the coming of farmers. These patriarchal societies worshipped the male gods, which destroyed the ancient Matriarchy. Jane Ellen Harrison proposed an ancient matriarchal civilization. Robert Graves wrote some interesting, but no longer thought to be very scientific studies, on the idea. Neopaganism has taken these ideas forward.

More information on St Agnes in this post below:

St Agnes Eve January 20th

One This Day

1845. Today is the anniversary of the breaking of the fabulous Portland Vase by a drunken visitor to the British Museum. It looks immaculate despite being smashed into myriad pieces, a wonder of the conservator’s art. To see the vase and read its story, go to the BM web site here:

wedgwood catalogue of its copy of the portland vase

In the orthodox church, дед Мороз  (Ded Moroz= father of frost), accompanied by Cнегурочка (Snieguroshka= fairy of the snow) brings gifts on New year’s eve, (which is on January 7th). He travels with a horse drawn troika.

Today’s Interesting link

Medieval Sin and the Pointy Shoe — for details, read the BBC’s interesting article.

First Published in 2022, and revised in January 2024 and 2025

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December 21 – Reflections on the Solstice

The Solstice and the East Pediment of the Parthenon

British Museum Shop, reproductions of Hestia and Selene’s Horse from the Parthenon Marbles

At the Summer Solstice, I took a group to the British Museum and, a few days later, to Stonehenge, and managed to ‘integrate’ the two into a solstice narrative. At the BM, over years of trying to explain the sculptures, I have been building in my mind an interpretation of the Pediment that gives, I hope, an original insight into the possible intentions of the sculptors. I don’t know how ‘true’ it is, but I do think it gives an insight into metaphor and symbolism in great works of art. Bear in mind that there is a lot of uncertainty about some of the attributions, and, that the male and female virtues that I am talking about are traditional ones, not necessarily how we would express it in the modern world.

Pediment Sculptures Photo by Nicole Baster on Unsplash

At the left of the above photography, you see the horses that take Helios chariot into the sky to bring up the sun to light the world every day. Most sun deities are male, and the Sun gives light and life to the world, without it this earth is an inert block of ice cold stone. The next statue is casually laying back and looking fit, relaxed and not looking as if he is in that position because of the impossible triangular Pediment space he inhabits. He is the epitome of male strength, usually identified with Hercules but other people have other ideas and a young Dionysus is another suggestion. Whoever he is he represents male beauty and strength. So this end of the pediment represents the Sun and male virtues. This is the East Pediment of the Parthenon which is orientated to the rising sun, a little north of east.

Next are Demeter, the goddess of fertility, the goddess of the earth. Placed here to remind us that the Sun needs the Earth to create life and sustenance. It reminds us that the universe is not male, the male only works in conjunction with the female. Demeter is cuddling her daughter Persephone, the Goddess of Hades. She reminds us that life is a cycle of death and life. Plants die, turn into soil and create the conditions for future life.

Next is Hebe, daughter of Zeus and Hera, wife of Heracles (Hercules). She is the cupbearer to the Gods and gives them the ambrosia that keeps them forever young. She is the Goddess of Immortality, a reminder that the universe is eternal.

Next to Hebe is a void where there was the central statue of the east pediment depicting the Birth of Athena (according to Pausanias who wrote a guide in the 2nd Century BC to the Temple). Athena was born from the head of her father Zeus- a virgin birth. Athena therefore is, in some ways, the greatest of the Olympians, as she has the virtues of her female sex and the virtues of her father’s masculinity (and, dear Gods, hopefully not the massive ‘Me Too’ vices of her father). She is therefore, wise, nurturing, just, intuitive, decisive, a leader; an ideal combination of male and female.

Zeus (sitting) Hephastus to right (looking back with Axe) Athena just visible above Zeus's head
Zeus (sitting) Hephastus to right (looking back with Axe) Athena just visible above Zeus’s head

So Zeus eats Athena’s mum, Metis, who is pregnant with her. Sometime later he has a cracking headache. Hephaestus, the disabled artificer God hits Zeus over the head to clear the headache. Zeus gives birth to a fully formed Athena from the split in his head. She was known as Athena Parthenos, Athena the Virgin. Her name is originally Athene but it got changed to Athena in 500 BC.

Hestia, Dione, Aphrodite, Horse of Selene’s chariot

To Athene’s left is Hestia (Vesta for the Romans). Her name means “hearth, fireplace, altar” and she is the goddess of the domestic sphere, of the comforts of home, of a warm fire enjoyed by a loving family.

The next set are two beautifully draped women languidly leaning on each other, and these are Dione, with her daughter Aphrodite – the Goddess of Love. Dione is the daughter of Gaia and Uranus daughter of earth and sky. So, here, counterpoised to Hercules, are epitomes of women. Women of power, creation, and love.

Finally, we have the exhausted horse of Selene. Her chariot takes the moon into the sky, positioned opposite to Helios and the Sun. Selene is the Moon goddess, and the Moon is beautiful, powerful as it gives us the tides and fundamental to the life of humans as she presides over the menstrual cycle. Compared to the movements of the Sun which any fool can work out, and which are relentless (symbolising Justice) the movements of the Moon are mysterious to most of us. So Selene is beautiful, powerful, creative and the Goddess of Intuition.

So, if you put it all together, the East Pediment of the Parthenon shows that the world is a union of the male and the female, balanced between the two with Zeus and Athene in the middle, with Athene holding the main part because she, in her person, represents both the male and the female.

Of course, we know that the Athenian society was a patriarchal one with women mostly kept in the domestic sphere. But here, at least, women were given an equal billing in the organisation of the Cosmos.

Sculptures from the east pediment of the Parthenon
Sculptures from the east pediment of the Parthenon

I must end by warning the reader that this is only my interpretation. I am not a scholar of Ancient Greece. I have come to my own conclusion based on spending a lot of time looking at the marbles, doing Solstice Virtual Tours, and mostly informed by the labels in the gallery, with of course, some reading including Mary Beard’s book entitled ‘Parthenon’ and the BM’s guidebook. In particular, I have not incorporated into my ‘story’ the sculptures that were in the gaps that do not survive or only in fragments scattered throughout the Museum world. Mary Beard was cleverer than I, not reaching conclusions on the basis that we don’t know. But what we do know is that in the centre is Zeus and Athene and at the edges are the chariots of the Sun and the Moon. And so fitting to celebrate the Solstice.

Originally written in 2022 and revised 2024

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Cures for the Bewitched – November 7th

A Witch bottle and Contents on display at Greenwich Tourist information Centre
A Witch bottle and Contents on display at Greenwich Tourist information Centre

This post failed to publish on the 7th November, so here it is:

As we are between Halloween, and Halloween Old Style the chances of bewitchment are high what with all those spirits being out and about on this – the most uncanny of all times. So, you might want to look at ‘Doctor Lilly’s Last Legacy’ of 1683 which gives a cure for those who have been bewitched at Halloween.

Take two horseshoes, beat them red-hot and nail one on the threshold of the door, but Quench the other in the Urine of the party bewitched: then set the urine over the fire in a pot or Pipkin and put the horseshoe into it. Make the urine boil with a little salt put onto it, and three horseshoe nails until it is almost all consumed: what is not boiled away cast into the fire. Keep then your horseshoes and nails in a clean paper or cloth and use the same manner three times. It will be the more effectual if is done at the change or full of the Moon.

Doctor Lilly’s Last Legacy, Online at the Wellcome Collection, although you will need a login to view it. I found it first in my favourite source, Perpetual Almanac of the Year by Charles Kightly.

Doctor Lilly’s Last legacy ‘Being the poor man’s physician, the sick man’s friend, and the country-man’s doctor’.

Items like this make me wonder about the gullibility of the human being, but I guess we are surrounded by examples of the lack of sense of a large proportion of our species. Perhaps I should rephrase this, I think most people make sensible decisions about their day-to-day life, but many do not have the critical thinking skills to evaluate the bigger issues.

For more on keeping witches away, witches’ marks etc. have a look at this post of mine.

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Martinmas Eve Halloween Old Style November 10th

Skating on thin ice

St Martin was one of the most important in the Medieval Calendar of Saints. We will have a look at him tomorrow on his Saint’s Day.

But it is also Halloween or it would be if the Calendar had not been change in 1752. So for traditionalists this is the actual Halloween. It gives another chance to look into the future and to celebrate Halloween traditions.

If Martinmas ice will bear a duck
Then look for a winter of slush and muck.

i.e. it will be a mild winter. From my experience, this will only have any validity if used in the North.

Today is also for Kali, Indian destroyer of Evil, and also for the Fate, the Norns, the Furies, the Morrigan and Persephone.

first Published 10th November 2021. revised 2024

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Myths, Legends & Halloween Virtual Tour October 31st 2024

Bran's head taken to Tower Hill
King Bran’s head buried at Tower Hill

Virtual Walk: Thurs 31st October 2024 8.00pm

On Thursday, I am doing my first London Walk Virtual Tour of the winter season.

The walk tells the story of London’s myths and legends and the Celtic origins of Halloween.

The walk will tell the story of London’s Myths and Legends, beginning with the tale of London’s legendary origins in the Bronze Age by an exiled Trojan called Brutus. Stories of Bladud, Belinus, Bran and Arthur will be interspersed with how they fit in with archaeological discoveries.

As we around the City, we also look at the origins of Halloween celebrations and how they may have been celebrated in early London


The virtual route starts at Tower Hill, then down to the River Thames at Billingsgate, to London Bridge and Southwark Cathedral, to the Roman Forum at the top of Cornhill, into the valley of the River Walbrook, passed the Temple of Mithras, along Cheapside to the Roman Amphitheatre, and finishing up in the shadow of St Pauls.

To book:

Register on Eventbrite

REVIEWS (from London Walks website)
“Kevin, I just wanted to drop you a quick email to thank you ever so much for your archaeological tours of London! I am so thrilled to have stumbled upon your tours! I have wanted to be an archaeologist since 1978 at the ripe old age of 8 years,… I was told for years that I could not be an archaeologist [for any number of reasons, which I now realise are completely ridiculous!], so I ended up on a different course of study. And now at the age of 50, it is my one great regret in life. So, I am thoroughly enjoying living vicariously through you, the digs you’ve been on, and the history you bring to life for us! British archaeology would have been my specific area of study had I pursued it. ?? Thank you SO MUCH for these! I look forward to them more than you can imagine, and honestly, I’ll be sad if you get them down to 1.5 hours! They’re the best 2 hours of my week! 🙂 Best, Sue

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Partial Eclipse August 27th – 28th 2026

Loughcrew Neolithic carvings.

August 27th – 28th sees a partial lunar eclipse.

Could ancient people’s predict eclipses? Well, lunar eclipses are relatively easy to predict, while solar eclipses are difficult. But it is likely that Babylonian and Assyrians astronomers could. Have a look at https://www.queensu.ca/gazette/stories/eclipses-were-once-associated-death-kings-attempting-predict-played-key-role-birth for more details,

There are plenty of people who believe that eclipses can be predicted by Stonehenge. And it certainly can be used that way, but this doesn’t mean it was. A series of stones, and posts in concentric circles with sight lines to innumerable features on the horizon offers many ways of making calculations which combined with observations over a long period COULD predict, predictable celestial phenomena. Doesn’t mean they were. So it is very difficult to say what they were capable of, and only the most obvious alignments can be certainly confirmed.

This Washington Post article below suggests the Loughcrew Cairns near Dublin were built about the time of a total eclipse, and that one of the stones with complicated carvings on may show a lunar eclipse. If you look at the sketch of the stone above, you will see the biggest circle, near the middle, may represent the moon, and it obscures the circle behind it which may represent the sun. Read this for the details: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/18/this-5000-year-old-stone-carving-may-be-the-worlds-first-drawing-of-an-eclipse/

What is striking is how can they say it was built around the time of a total eclipse and make that seem significant because there is no way archaeological dating is accurate enough to give any idea whether it was built for a particular day. Also, there are many more circles and objects on the large stone, and to pick two out to prove what you want it to prove, is not proof. We are left with the intriguing possibility, but it is no more than that.

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May Posts & Medieval Royal Horses

Medieval illumination of a medieval tournament

I’ve been taking groups around Britain from London to Edinburgh and have fallen behind on my postings.

So, I am going to post a few posts today to put them on my Almanac of the Past. They will be brief, and will be worked up for a re-publication in greater length next year.

Archaeological Discoveries at Elverton St. Westminster

Near the site of the medieval jousting arena in Westminster, London at Elverton St, archaeologists, nearly 30 years ago, excavated a Cemetery which contained the remains of horses. The University of Exeter has recently revealed the results of their analysis of the horses’ bones. The 15 animals studied were found to be above average in height, and marked by a life where they had been worked hard. Analysis of their teeth suggested they came from as far afield as Scandinavia, the Alps, Spain, and Italy.

Three of the animals are the largest found in England at the time. The findings suggest they might be from a Royal Stud farm, providing war, jousting or hunting animals for the elite.

For more details read: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68632099

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Archaeology discoveries, February 2024

Sketch of a Roman skull of a man who was crucified.
Archaeology discoveries. The Image is a sketch of the ‘Facial Reconstruction, Impossible Factual/BBC’

Interesting Archaeology discoveries.

The following discoveries were reported in Salon IFA the newsletter of the Society of Antiquaries of London in Salon: Issue 526  7 February 2024, which you can see here:

Pliny the Elder’s Villa found near Vesuvius?

The 1st Century seafront villa, with views of the Bay of Naples and of Mount Vesuvius, has been excavated at the town of Bacoli, which was the port of Misenum. Pliny commanded the fleet as ‘Praefectus classis Misenensis’. Pliny tried to rescue his friends and family, ignoring warnings saying ‘Fortune favours the brave’, ‘Audentes Fortuna luvat’. It didn’t and he died, at Stabiae, by toxic fumes. Read more about the villa here:

Face Reconstructed for a Victim of Roman Crucifixion

A male skeleton found, 4 years ago, in a Roman cemetery in Fenstaton in Cambridgeshire was found with a 2-inch nail through his heel bone. BBC 4 has made a documentary about the recent reconstruction of the man’s face by, as Salon reports it:

‘US forensic artist Joe Mullins, of George Mason University, Virginia. He usually works with law enforcement agencies, reconstructing the faces of modern-day crime victims. ‘

To follow the details, read more here, or watch the BBC documentary, ‘The Cambridgeshire Crucifixion’, which can be viewed on BBC iPlayer.

For more archaeology read my post: https://www.chr.org.uk/anddidthosefeet/london-before-london-and-dna/

Published in February 2024, revised 2025

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Festival of Imbolc, St. Bridget’s Day February 1st

Snowdrops in late January 2024, Gilbert White’s House Selborne (Photo Kevin Flude)

Today is Imbolc, one of the four Celtic Fire Festivals. It corresponds with St Bridget’s Day, which is a Christian festival for the Irish Saint, and is the eve of Candlemas. Bridget is the patron saint of all things to do with brides, marriage, fertility, and midwifery (amongst many other things, see above). And in Ireland, last year (2024) was the very first St Bridget’s/ Imbolc Day Bank Holiday!

St Bride,s Statue St Bride's Church. Fleet Street
St Bride’s Statue, St Bride’s Church. Fleet Street from K.Flude’s virtual tour on Imbolc

St Bridget, aka Briddy or Bride, converted the Irish to Christianity along with St Patrick in the 5th Century AD. She appears to have taken on the attributes of a Celtic fertility Goddess, called Bridget or Brigantia, so some doubt she was a real person.

Brigantia

There are Roman altars dedicated to Brigantia The Brigantes tribe in the North were named after the Goddess. The Brigantes were on the front line against the invading Romans in the 1st Century AD, and led by Queen Cartimandua.  Cartimandua tried to keep her independence by cooperating with the Romans, while, a few years later, Boudica took the opposite strategy. But both women appear to have had agency as leaders of their tribes and show a great contrast with Roman misogyny.

altar to Brigantia
Altar to Brigantia from K Flude’s virtual tour on Imbolc

Last day of medieval Christmas and the Lords of Misrule.

This was the end of the Christmas period. John Stow, in the 16th Century describes the period between Halloween and Candlemas being the time that London was ruled by various Lords of Misrule and Boy Bishops (see my post here). In the piece below Stow goes on to talk about a terrible storm that took place on st February 1444.

Against the feast of Christmas every man’s house, as also the parish churches, were decked with holm, ivy, bays, and whatsoever the season of the year afforded to be green. The conduits and standards in the streets were likewise garnished; amongst the which I read, in the year 1444, that by tempest of thunder and lightning, on the 1st of February, at night, Powle’s steeple was fired, but with great labour quenched; and towards the morning of Candlemas day, at the Leaden hall in Cornhill, a standard of tree being set up in midst of the pavement, fast in the ground, nailed full of holm and ivy, for disport of Christmas to the people, was torn up, and cast down by the malignant spirit (as was thought), and the stones of the pavement all about were cast in the streets, and into divers houses, so that the people were sore aghast of the great tempests.’

Wells dedicated to St Bridget

There are many wells dedicated to St Bride. They were often used in rituals and dances concerned with fertility and healthy babies. And perhaps, the most famous, was near Fleet Street. Henry VIII’s Palace of Bridewell, later an infamous prison, was named after the Well. St Bride’s Church has long been a candidate as an early Christian Church, and although the post World War Two excavations found nothing to suggest an early Church, they did find an early well near the site of the later altar of the Church, and by the remains of a Roman building, possibly a mausoleum. Therefore, it is possible that the Church was built on the site of an ancient, arguably holy, well.

St Bridget's Well Glastonbury
St Bridget’s Well, Glastonbury

The steeple of St Brides is said to be the origin of the tiered Wedding Cake, which, in 1812, inspired a local baker to bake for his daughter’s wedding.

Steeple of St Brides Fleet Street
Steeple of St Brides Fleet Street

Imbolc and St Bridget’s Day are the time to celebrate the return of fertility to the earth as spring approaches. In my garden and my local park, the first snowdrops, violets, and daffodils are coming out, and below the bare earth, there is a frenzy of bulbs and seeds budding, and beginning to poke their shoots up above the earth, ready for the Spring. In the meadows, ewes are lactating, and the first lambs are being born.

Violets, bulbs, and my first Daffodil of the year. Hackney (2022), London by K Flude

I, occasionally, do walks about Imbolc and other Celtic festivals, in conjunction with the Myths and Legends of London, and at May Eve, the Solstices, Halloween and Christmas (when I have time). See the walks page of this blog

https://www.chr.org.uk/anddidthosefeet/walks

And let’s end with the Saint Brigid Hearth Keeper Prayer Courtesy of SaintBrigids.org

Brigid of the Mantle, encompass us,
Lady of the Lambs, protect us,
Keeper of the Hearth, kindle us.
Beneath your mantle, gather us,
And restore us to memory.
Mothers of our mother, Foremothers strong.
Guide our hands in yours,
Remind us how to kindle the hearth.
To keep it bright, to preserve the flame.
Your hands upon ours, Our hands within yours,
To kindle the light, Both day and night.
The Mantle of Brigid about us,
The Memory of Brigid within us,
The Protection of Brigid keeping us
From harm, from ignorance, from heartlessness.
This day and night,
From dawn till dark, From dark till dawn.

For more about St Bridget.

First published in 2023, revised and republished Feb 2024, 2025

I have republished my post of the Chinese New Year which you can see here:

Chinese New Year February 10th
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Prophecy January 3rd

Three Farm Labourers

This is the time for prophecy for the upcoming year. Prophecy is, of course, related to new year’s resolutions and central to the nature of the new year. As Janus, the Roman God of Beginnings and Endings has two heads looking in both direction, we, look back on the year passed before putting plans/hopes/aspirations/resolutions together for the hopeful new year ahead. Fortune-tellers normally tell their clients what they want to hear, and couch advice in generalities, enigmas and expectations. But such prophecy is not useless because we take what we are told through the lens of our own life, fears and aspiration. We might ignore those which don’t resonate, while latching on to those which fit in with thoughts and inclinations. It can help clarify our ideas and lead to plans and a state of mind to help us avoid our fears, and maximise our changes of realising our dreams.

Here are two pieces of ‘Weather Lore’ from Richard Inwards book of the same name:

January should the sun appear
March and April will pay full dear.

Janiveer freeze the pot by the fire
As the day lengthens
So the cold strengthens

In this almanac, we have been following Gervase Markham’s 17th Century weather forecasting system, suggesting that the weather on the 10th Day of Christmas will rule the weather in the 10th Month. So October will be wet and warm.

The Mayor of Casterbridge, desperate to beat his one-time friend, Donald Farfrae, now a rival, in Corn dealing consulted a Cunning Man about the likely weather, and was as a result made a pauper.

Old Moore’s Almanac made the following predictions for 2023:

They got most of them wrong! As they were in the 2022 almanac when they prophesied a a ‘prevailing sense of optimism’ and ‘high support for the Government’. There was no word of a European war either.

Bible Prophecy

A simple form of prophecy was to open a book at random, stab a finger randomly onto the chosen page, and the text there will give you an insight into your future. Old lore recommends using a Bible but, as I prepared for my New Year’s Walk, I took a small, light book of poetry, randomly chosen, for my Prophecy demonstration as I don’t have a light portable bible.

I tried it out before the walk and this is what my random choice was:

The Perfect Life
It is not growing like a tree
in bulk, doth make Man better be;
or standing long an oak three hundred year,
to fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere;

A lily of a day
is fairer in May,
although it fall and die that night-
It was the plant and flower of Light.
In small proportions we just beauties see:
and in short measures life may perfect be.

Ben Jonson

Of course, I intended to do the prophecy live, but my hasty scan of the poem suggested parallels with my Almanac interests, and the last two lines, suggested I was going to have the perfect life in 2023 with a life full of ‘beauties’. I decided to stick rather than twist and used this poem for my walk. Re-reading it again now, I can also see you could interpret it as a call to enjoy life now because you never know when it is going to end! But then that is always good advice.

First written in January 2023, revised in 2024