On the fourth day of Christmas My true love sent to me Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle-doves And a partridge in a pear tree.
Holy Innocents Day or Childermas is dedicated to children on the day Herod ordered the slaughter of children aged two or under, in an attempt to kill the prophesied Messiah.
It is, therefore, as far as folklore is concerned, an ill-omened day so don’t begin any new enterprise or, indeed, attempt to go back to work. And remember, as Childermas falls on a Saturday this year, Saturdays throughout the year are all ill-omened days. Weather wise, as the fourth day of Christmas is warm, expect the fourth month, April to be similarly warm.
Christmas Games
So, despite your desire to go back to work, it’s best to spend the time in Christmas Games. The one I remember, most fondly, is pick-up-sticks or spillikins. You drop a pile of sticks onto a table-top and then have to pick up as many sticks as you can without disturbing any others. Your go ends when you move a stick. Different sticks have different values.
Another game we played at parties was, I discovered when researching for my Jane Austen’s Christmas Walk, also played in the Austen family. They called it Bullet Pudding. I don’t think we had a name for it, but it involves putting flour in a bowl, upending it on a plate, putting a bullet (in our case a coin) on the top. Players cut off bits of the flour until the coin falls into the basin and the unlucky player (me this year!) has to pick it up with his teeth.
As the post partly concerned bullet pudding, here is a photo of the one we played with on 24th December, my 97-year-old dad is in the background. You can see what a messy game it can be!
I enclose a link to a discussion about the origins of the American Santa Klaus and how this was a method for the elite to keep control of the rowdy working class in New York. The argument, in a nutshell, is that the folk Christmas was outside and rowdy, while Clement Moore who wrote “A Visit from St. Nicholas” introduced a domesticated indoor middle class version of Father Christmas. It’s a fascinating spin on the traditional story.
On the third day of Christmas My true love sent to me: 3 French Hens 2 Turtle Doves And a Partridge in a Pear Tree
Folklore is full of risible methods of forecasting the future and Gervase Markham’s ‘The English Husbandman of 1635 is no exception. He says:
‘What weather shall be on the sixth and twentieth day of December, the like weather will be all the month of January.’
Then and so on for the 12 days of Christmas. Please note that he numbers the 12 days from the 26th, not as I have done from the 25th. I deal with this in one of the forthcoming posts.
So the weather today, the 27th will be the weather ‘the following February’ if you follow Markham, or March if you follow me, and so on until the 12th Day when that will give you the weather on December 2025.
According to Gervase’s method, then weather in early 2025 will be unusually warm.
This is St, John’s Day, he who was loved by Jesus and wrote the Gospel making him the patron saint of booksellers, publishers, printers and writers. Lecterns in the Church of England are normally shaped as an Eagle as this is the symbol of St John, as a writer of grace and power, and a messenger of Authority from God.
19th Century Ecclesiastical Suppliers Catalogue
John the Evangelist was identified as John the Apostle. In the Gospel, an unnamed disciple is called ‘the disciple who Jesus loved’ who is also said to have ‘borne witness and wrote’ the gospel according to John. There are also three letters attributed to the same author, as well as the Book of Revelations. It is still a controversial subject, but Revelations is generally thought to be by a different John. John He was not martyred.
Remember, on 1st January 7.30 I am doing my annual ‘Ring in the New Year’ virtual walk where I look at all things new year. To see more details click here:
First Published in December 2021, revised and republished in December 2023, 2024
The First Day of Christmas, my true love sent to me a Partridge in a Pear Tree
Nebra Sun disc from Stonehenge Exhibition British Museum (photo Kevin Flude) The Disc shows the Sun, the Moon, the Pleides, and illustrates the Summer and Winter Solstice movements of the Sun.
On the 25th December were born Jesus, Mithras, Attis, Saturn, Apollo, and the Invincible Sun.
The Sun Gods have quite a complicated interrelationship. Zeus, and Apollo are both also considered to be Sun Gods. Apollo is particularly interrelated to Helios, the Greek God who drives the Chariot that carries the Sun across the skies every day. The Romans had a God called Sol who some say was a deity who declined to be of minor importance, until the transexual Emperor Elagabalas and then Aurelian in 274 AD revived the cult. Sol Invictus was the focus of Constantine the Great, and has been suggested as a response of the Romans to a trend towards monotheism in the later Roman period. Sol for Constantine was a gateway God to Christianity.
It is also notable that early worship of Jesus is full of solar metaphors, Jesus being, for example, the light of the world. Churches are also virtually all orientated East West, aligned with the rising and setting suns. The Altar is always at the East End, and effigies on tombs face the East.
Did the Celts have a sun-god? Belenos is a contender, but linguists are proposing his name does not come from words meaning bright but from strong. The God Lugh’s name is suggested to mean ‘shining’ but his attributes are more of a warrior than a sun god. Taranis is probably the best candidate, but he is more of a sky or thunder god than specifically a sun god. However, his symbol is a wheel and the wheel is symbolic of the turning of the year.
The Golden Wheel from Haute Marne in France, (Public Domain, Wikipedia)
His 8 spoked wheel is said to be symbolic of the Sun and it represents the division of the year by the 4 quarterly sun festivals (Winter Solstice, Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox) and the 4 cross-quarter festivals, (Samhain or Halloween, Imbolc or Candlemas, Beltane or May Day, Lughnasa or Harvest Festival).
December 25th is a few days after our reckoning of the Solstice but it was the date of the Roman Solstice.
Christmas Cake
Today, you might be tucking into a Christmas Cake (originally eaten on Twelfth Night). Now, I know many Americans have a bizarre belief that fruit cake is the cake of the devil, something you receive as a gift and give away to someone else, as most Americans hate it. More fool them for missing out on one of the delights of the Christmas period, that and cold turkey sandwiches. Christmas Cake is made on stir up Sunday, the last Sunday in November, to let the ingredients develop their flavour. They are then covered with marzipan and decorative icing.
19th Century Christmas Cake, generally now the icing continues down the side of the cake.
In Germany, they also eat a fruit bread called Stollen or Weihnachtsstollen. The tradition is said to have been started in the 15th Century, when the Pope gave dispensation to allow the use of butter in the fasting period of Advent. The Germans had to use oil to replace the banned butter, but they could only make oil from turnips, so eventually the Pope allowed the use of butter, with which they made bread with added dried fruits.
Stollen By Gürgi – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3720379
In Italy, they eat Panettone, a fruit bread/cake. It is a sourdough, and a cross between a brioche and a cake. It often comes in a beautiful decorative tin, and is delicious. The centre of panettone production is Milan and this year is the 200th Anniversary of Milan’s famous Marchesi 1824 which makes artisanal Panettone from ‘fine ingredients such as six-crown sultanas, naturally candied fruit, Bourbon vanilla from Madagascar, Italian honey and eggs from free-range hens, blended in a slow-rising dough with the exclusive use of Marchesi 1824 sourdough starter‘. Thank you, Mara from Milan, for the heads-up.
Screen shot from website – does not click through to sales!
Which is best? The only way to find out is to eat several slices of each. America, you don’t know what you are missing.
For stir up sunday see the second half of this post of mine.
Helios Colossus of Rhodes, artist’s impression, 1880
Tomorrow is the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti. But as, in the Northern Tradition, the day begins at dusk, so Christmas Day really begins on Christmas Eve. So many countries celebrate the eve as much or more than the day. Also the Christian Church follows a similar tradition of beginning the celebrations on the eve. This is said to be following the Jewish tradition. In Genesis are the words;
‘And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.’
Christian tradition holds that Jesus was born on the holy night and thus is celebrated by the midnight mass.
In Germany there is a relatively light dinner often consisting of potato salad and sausages. Gifts are exchanged afterwards.
December 24th is a day for Mothers, as tomorrow, the 25th, will be born Jesus, Mithras, Attis, Saturn, Apollo, and the Day of the Birth of the Invincible Sun, Solis Invictus. And so we think of Mary, Isis, Theia, the Three Mother Goddesses and mothers everywhere.
First Published 24th December 2022, Republished 2023,2024
The drink of choice was port. Then brandy, claret, punch, rum, porter. So says my source Henry Jeffreys in his book ‘Empire of Booze’ and in this Guardian article:
Claret, probably, originally outsold port. But the wars against France and the difficulty of importing French wine, saw a transfer to wines from our ‘oldest ally’ Portugal. But the travel distance was longer, so the wine was fortified to help preserve it better. Hence, the British addiction to port. Sherry was also popular for similar reasons, being a fortified white wine. Shakespeare calls it ‘sack’ and sometimes ‘Canary’. (Toby Belch ‘says thou lack’st a cup of canary ‘ in ‘Twelfth Night’, which is a Christmas play.) See below for more on Sack and Shakespeare.
Louis Philippe Boitard‘s satirical engraving ‘Imports from France’ Looking east towards the Tower of London. Barrels at the front right are marked Claret, Burgundy and Champagne.
Consumption was prodigious. Samuel Johnson said, ‘All the decent people in Lichfield (where Johnson came from) got drunk every night and were not the worst thought of’. The Prime Minister. William Pitt the Younger said, ‘I have drunk three bottles of port without being the worst for it. University College has witnessed this.’ He is referring to his college at the Oxford University, and so he might be considered to be another of our Prime Ministers who have first disgraced themselves at Oxbridge only to rise to rule the unfortunate British. However, in those days, Port was sold in pint measures (45cl) and was 16%, while now it is 20% and sold in 75cl bottles. So, not quite that bad?
Even so, three bottles is still a lot and a drunken population would have not only increased the death rate but also increased violence and abuse. Gout was one result of too much drinking and a rich diet.
Gout. 18th Century Bath
However, this is Christmas so let’s end on a high note, so here are a couple of recipes!
To make ye best punch
“Put 1½ a pound of sugar in a quart of water, stir it well yn put in a pint of Brandy, a quarter of a pint of Lime Juice, & a nutmeg grated, yn put in yr tosts or Biskets well toasted.”
And Gin? The cheap gin panic had calmed down by the 1770s after no less than eight Gin Acts of Parliament. Booths and Gordon’s Gins were established in London during this period and Gin almost a respectable drink.
There appears to have been a shortage of Gin punch recipes in the 18th Century, but by the end of that century this recipe survives from London’s Garrick Club
– half a pint of gin, lemon peel, lemon juice, sugar, maraschino, a pint and a quarter of water and two bottles of iced soda water.
You would not need many of these to become quite relaxed quite quickly!
Sack and Falstaff.
Sir John Falstaff in Henry IV eulogies on sack saying it not only makes for excellent wit but also the best soldiers:
“A good sherris sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain, dries me there all the dull and crudy vapors which environ it, makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes, which, delivered o’er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit“.
The second your excellent sherris is the warming of the blood; which cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the sherris warms and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extremes. illumineth the face, which, as a beacon, gives warning to all rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puff’d up with this doth any deed of courage—and this valour comes of sherris. that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that it a-work; and learning, a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil till sack commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile, bare land, manured, husbanded, and till’d, with excellent endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand the first humane principle I would teach them should be to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.
in the Merry wives of Windsor Falstaff is still always drinking sack. He asks Bardolph ‘Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in’t.‘ Toast is thought to freshen up stale sack. Also, it could be drunk hot as suggested by Falstaff asking for:
‘Go brew me a pottle of sack finely.’
Bardolph asks if he wants the sack with eggs but Falstaff refuses asking for his sack to be a
‘Simple of itself; I’ll have no pullet-sperm in my brewage.’
A simple is the opposite of a compound, so pure with no additions (apart from the toast!). Pullet sperm is, in think, a dismissive reference to eggs. Sack posset was original a medicine but later a popular treat made with eggs, cream, spices and sack. Once concocted, the top would be a foamy or crusty cap, the middle a custard and the bottom a spicy hot alcohol.
First Published in 2022 and revised December 2023 and 2024
As the Sun enters the House of Capricorn remember the poor Coachman travelling all day everyday in all weathers. Washington Irving in his ‘Old Christmas’ (Originally ‘The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon’ pub. 1819) describes him with a broad red face, a broad body widened by drinking beer; swathed with any numbers of layers of coats trying to keep the cold out. He has many worries on his mind as he has a coach full not only of people who need looking after but also a lot of parcels and commissions that need to be carried out in the many stops along the way. He is delivering parcels, turkeys, geese, presents, children, you name it he is responsible for its safe delivery.
Feel sorry for the people crowded inside the carriage but even sorrier for those sitting on the roof. They have umbrellas in a vain attempt to keep dry, but the umbrella tines will be poking you in your ear, and the run off from the canopy of the umbrella might trickle down your neck. There might be 6 people inside and up to 10 on the roof. 3d for travelling inside and half of that for the roof. voach
Inside, you are next to a large man who is not very salubrious looking, nor too worried about pressing his thighs against you.
John Keats blamed his consumption on his journey on the roof of a stage-coach travelling from London to Hampstead on a cold wet day in February.
Stage coaches became regular sights on the road during the 17th Century and were quite dangerous as the roads were in such a poor condition. It was suggested that passengers made their wills before travelling! From the late 17th and with Parliament increasingly used to set up not-for-profit toll road, the roads got better, and ‘Flyers’ and mail coaches could get up to the tremendous speed of 10 miles an hour, and averaging 7. This happened because improved roads meant improved suspensions, and wheels, and more and faster horses could be harnessed.
This revolutionized travel. It used to take 5 days in around 1700 to get to Manchester from London, by the mid 18th Century the time taken was reduced to 24 hours, and there were many more scheduled coaches, The mail coaches had priority, the coach had a blunderbuss and two pistols to deter highway men, and the guard had a post-horn with which to warn other vehicles to give clear passage, to alert tollgate keepers to open gates, and to announce arrival at a stop. Extra horses would be harnessed to help get up steep hills which, in some cases, like Broadway in the Cotswolds, might mean an additional 10 horses. Passengers might be asked not only to get off the coach to lighten the load but also to push if the going got boggy. On mail coaches, the passengers were not allowed to get off when the horses were changed, and only 4 were allowed inside the coach.
London was ringed by Coaching Inns, which were coach terminals and hotels. The most famous ones, remaining, are in Southwark on the approach road to London Bridge. The Tabard where the Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales started, The White Hart where Dickens’ Sam Wheeler is the Bootboy, and the George, which although not quite so literary is at least still half intact.
Pilgrims leaving the Tabard Inn for the Canterbury PilgrimageGeorge Inn,Southwark (photo Kevin Flude)
Capricorn
‘The man born under Capricorn shall be iracundious and a fornicator; a liar, and always labouring.
....The woman shall be honest and fearful, and have children of three men, she will do many pilgrimages in her youth and after have great wit.’
From Kalendar of Shepheards 1604 quoted in ‘The Perpetual Almanac of Folklore by Charles Kightly’.
iracundious is first mentioned in a work published by Caxton in the 15th Century and pretty much obselete by the 17th Century. It means easily angered or irritable.
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.
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
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
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.
Fanny Austen Knight was the daughter of Jane Austen’s rich older brother Edward. He, rather strangely to our modern minds, was adopted by distant relatives who were childless. ‘Hey! We have enough boys to be going on with – happy for you to take one, particularly as you own two stately homes!’ as Mr and Mrs George Austen probably never said.
One of those homes was Godmersham Park in Kent, the other was in Chawton, a lovely Hampshire Village where Jane, Cassandra and Mum Cassandra lived, and is now a Museum dedicated to Jane Austen.
Fanny also rather cruelly remembers Jane and Cassandra as being unfashionably dressed and not up with upper-class etiquette. She wrote this when she was an old woman. When she was a teenager and being well brought up she wrote letters to friends of the family and relatyives, and here are extracts from her Christmas letters.
1811 to 1812 Fanny writing to a friend, Miss Dorothy Chapman
‘I don’t know whether I told you that Ms Morris’s are at home for the Christmas holidays. They are very nice girls and have contributed a good deal to our entertainment. None of us caught the whooping cough and have been very well the whole time. We have, in general, had cards, snapdragons, bullet pudding etc on any particular evening and Whist, Commerce and others and tickets were the favourite games. I think when cards fail the boys played every evening at draughts, chess, and backgammon.‘
Commerce is a three card poker type game played with counters. Tickets was Lydia Bennett’s favourite game, which is a gambling game based on luck, and in Pride and Prejudice called ‘Lottery Tickets.’
Bullet Pudding is explained by Fanny in another letter
‘You must have a large pewter dish filled with flour which you must pile up into a sort of pudding with a peak at the top, you must then lay a Bullet at the top & everybody cuts a slice of it & the person who is cutting it when the Bullet falls must poke about with their noise & chins until they find it & then take it out with their mouths which makes them strange figures all covered with flour, but the worst is that you must not laugh for fear of the flour getting up your nose & mouth & choking you. You must not use your hands in taking the bullet out.’
I used to play this as a child at Christmas. We used a coin not a bullet. The contestants walk around the table with the flour pudding on which has a knife ready for cutting the pudding. The Music plays and when it stops the one the knife is pointing at cuts a slice of the flour hoping not to make the flour collapse and the coin fall. Snapdragons is a lively game, you put some brandy in a tray or flat dish, add a few raisins, light the brandy and the game is to pick up and eat the raisins without getting burnt!
Other games mentioned by Fanny
Hunt the Slipper, Oranges and Lemons, Wind the Jack; Lighting a Candle in Haste; Spare Old Noll.
Eventually, the coin will collapse, and the hapless winner, according to Jane’s niece, Fanny.
‘must poke about with their noise & chins until they find it & then take it out with their mouths, which makes them strange figures all covered with flour, but the worst is that you must not laugh for fear of the flour getting up your nose & mouth & choking you. You must not use your hands in taking the bullet out.’
In my family, we pushed the winner’s head into the flour to maximise the fun.
Another niece Anna received Jane Austen’s advice on writing a novel:
‘You are now collecting your people delightfully, getting them exactly into such a spot as is the delight of my life. Three or four families in a country village is the very thing to work on, and I hope you will do a great deal more, and make full use of them while they are so very favourably arranged.’
Jane Austen Virtual Tours Coming up!
Jane Austen’s ‘A Picture of London in 1809’ Virtual Walk
7.30 27th January 2025
With the help of a contemporary Guide Book, Jane Austen’s letters, and works we explore London in 1809
Capella Palatina Palermo 12th Century Mosaics God is shown creating the firmament. ‘And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters’
We are coming up to the key days in the year. And so will be looking at calendars and counting days. But what about ages and aeons?
‘Practical Magic in the Northern Tradition’ reports that there are seven ages of the world:
The life of a yew tree is 729 years, and there are seven ages from the creation of the world until its doom.
Three wattles are the life of a hound – 9 years Three hounds are the life of a steed – 27 years Three steeds are the life of a man – 81 years Three men are the life of an eagle – 243 years Three Eagles are the life of a yew. – 729 years
The life of a yew is one age, and there are seven ages from the creation until doom, giving a life for our world of 5, 103 years.
Archbishop Usher of Armagh (1581 – 1656) calculated that the world was created in 4004 BC by counting the begettings in the Bible. If we accept his date, and apply the seven yew tree ages rule, then the world should have ended in AD 1099 (give or take a year). However, it doesn’t make sense to me to have a factor of 3 for the smaller divisions, and then to switch to a factor of seven . So, if there were nine ages of the world, then it would survive for 6561 years, which will end in approx. 535 years time. This calculation has the advantage of not yet being proved wrong! (Please note, cult owners, I have copyright on this date).
It’s notable that when a Cult declares the imminent end of the world, and they trudge up to the top of a high eminence to observe it (normally by Hampstead Pond in London). They seem quite happy to trudge back down again, and are soon up and running again with the same enthusiasm for the next ‘end of the world’ date.)
By the way, the Capella Palatina, illustrated above, is a marvel of gold mosaics and absolutely stunning. It makes a trip to Palermo a must. It’s also seems strange to find a Norman state so far south.
The Jewish tradition was for six or seven ages of 1000 years. The seventh didn’t really count because it was the age of the messiah when there was a 1000-year sort of super sabbath. Or another idea is that it was an age that ran parallel with the other six. So the world was to be 6000 years long.
With the coming of Christianity, dating the Creation, and therefore the Day of Judgement, became more important. (the Romans dated from the foundation of Rome, and the Greeks from the First Olympiad, but they had a whole mythology and creation myths about a Golden Age, preceding their base Iron age and the Bronze Age.)
An early Christian attempt to tell the age of creation was the Anno Munda‘s arrangement of the Year. This is pretty complicated and is based on a Talmudic tradition. A late Roman version uses ‘the Diocletian Years’, which is when the persecution of Christians began. It held that the world was created 5500 years before the Birth of Christ. So we are 5500BC plus 2024 years before the date of the creation. And it was supposed to have ended in 500AD, 6000 years after the Creation. so we have outlived Creation by 15024 years.
St Augustine of Hippo took the tradition of six ages and brought it into the Christian canon. These are the six ages:
The First Age “is from the beginning of the human race, that is, from Adam, who was the first man that was made, down to Noah, who constructed the ark at the time of the flood“, i.e. the Antediluvian period.
The Second Age “extends from that period on to Abraham, who was called the father indeed of all nations”.
The Third Age “extends from Abraham on to David the king”.
The Fourth Age is “from David on to that captivity whereby the people of God passed over into Babylonia”.
The Fifth Age is “from that transmigration down to the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ“
The Sixth Age: “With His [Jesus Christ’s] coming, the sixth age has entered on its process.”
As each age is 1000 years, then you can see why so many people were worried as 1000 AD approached.
Of course, six is not such a magical number as seven, and so Shakespeare ran with the idea in the Seven Ages of Man spoken by Jacques in ‘As you like it’. If there are seven ages of human life, and we have a span of six score and ten, then each age is ten years.
The Seven Ages of Man
All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms. Then, the whining school-boy with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then, a soldier, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then, the justice, In fair round belly, with a good capon lined, With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws, and modern instances, And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. (Jacques, Act 2, Scene 7)
Seven Ages of Man Statue 22-foot high cast aluminium Sculpture by Richard Kindersley, located on Queen Victoria Street, Blackfriars, near the Blackfriars. St Andrew’s by the Wardrobe in the background. Photos k. Flude
The Kalendar of Shepherds
Now, the Kalendar of Shepherds has a similar idea, but it calculates it differently. The Kalendar, based on a 15th Century French original, says there are 12 ages of man, corresponding with the 12 months of the year. Each age is 6 years long, and so our likely lifespan is 72.
Kalendar of Shepherds
Each month is allocated to one of the ages, and each month has an insight into human life for that span. So in January we note the first 6 years, if you read above you will see we have no ‘wit, strength or cunning, and we may do nothing that profiteth’.
A little harsh, and as a fond grandfather, it, I refute it, except maybe the first 6 years should not be down to profit.
How Old is a Yew Tree/Eagle
A comment by a reader has prompting me to write the following lines on the discussion of the ages given above:
‘Practical magic’ says the poem is ‘Ancient’ so it’s folklore and not science, so the ages are opinion not scientific fact.
As I understand it Yew trees live a long time but not quite as long as many people think. I base this on the Yew Tree at Steventon, Hampshire where Jane Austen was born, which has/had a plague on it saying it was 1200 years old. I used to visit it regularly and. On one visit, was told that an expert opinion suggested it was more like 700 years old (if memory serves). I do not have the details, but my source would have been one of the people associated with the Church.
The Woodland Trust (says Yew Trees get old at 900 years and cites a few which are ‘said to be’ over 2000 years old. But are they? The scientific sites I have looked at suggest that Yew Trees should be described as ‘ancient’ from 400 not 900 years, and there are problems with dendrochronology dating of yew trees, and so most methods depend upon an estimation from the width of the tree trunk. But that, itself, depends upon how much you believe in the claims for the ancient trees. So, I think it’s best to take the extreme cases with a very large pitch of salt. So 729 years is probably not so far off the mark for a Yew tree.
As to Eagles, this website on eagles says they can live to 30ish in the wild and 68 years in captivity, so the claim for 243 years is way off the mark!
On This Day
1843 – Charles Dickens published ‘A Christmas Carol’
First Published on December 18th 2022, revised and republished in December 2023, 2024
So, the old Sun is dying, and if the Sun keeps going down we are all going to die. To keep our anxiety to a minimum with all of nature seeming to be dying or hibernating, evergreens are a symbol of a promise/proof that life will continue through the dark days. So, with its bright-green leaves and its luminous berries, Holly is the ideal evergreen for the Solstice. And as the prickles symbolise Christ’s Crown of Thorns, and the berries the red blood of Jesus, the symbolism works, too, for Christians.
‘Ivy’ says Culpeper in his Herbal of 1653, says its winter-ripening berries are useful to drink before you ‘set to drink hard’ because it will ‘preserve from drunkenness’. And, moreover, the leaves (bruised and boiled) and dropped into the same wine you had a ‘surfeit’ of the night before provides the ‘speediest cure’. (The Perpetual Almanac of Charles Kightly)
Henry Mayhew (editor of Punch) in his ‘London Labour and London Poor’ (1851–62) talks of Christmasing for Laurel, Ivy, Holly, and Mistletoe. He calculated that 250,000 branches of Holly were purchased from street coster mongers every Christmas. He says that every housekeeper will expend something from 2d to 1s 6d, while the poor buy a pennyworth or halfpennyworth each. He says that every room will have the cheery decoration of holly. St Pauls Cathedral would take 50 to a 100 shillings worth.
He also calculates that 100,000 plum puddings are eaten. Mistletoe he believes is less often used than it used to be, and he hopes that ‘No Popery’ campaigners will not attack Christmassing again.
Hot plum pudding seller from Sam Syntax Cries of London, 1820s from the Gentle Author Spitalfields Life website
Culpeper on Ivy (1814 edition):
It is so well known to every child almost, to grow in woods upon the trees, and upon the stone walls of churches, houses, &c. and sometimes to grow alone of itself, though but seldom.
Time. It flowers not until July, and the berries are not ripe until Christmas, when they have felt Winter frosts.
Government and virtues. It is under the dominion of Saturn. A pugil of the flowers, which may be about a dram, (saith Dioscorides) drank twice a day in red wine, helps the lask, and bloody flux. It is an enemy to the nerves and sinews, being much taken inwardly, out very helpful to them, being outwardly applied. Pliny saith, the yellow berries are good against the jaundice; and taken before one be set to drink hard, preserves from drunkenness, and helps those that spit blood; and that the white berries being taken inwardly, or applied outwardly, kills the worms in the belly. The berries are a singular remedy to prevent the plague, as also to free them from it that have got it, by drinking the berries thereof made into a powder, for two or three days together. They being taken in wine, do certainly help to break the stone, provoke urine, and women’s courses. The fresh leaves of Ivy, boiled in vinegar, and applied warm to the sides of those that are troubled with the spleen, ache, or stitch in the sides, do give much ease. The same applied with some Rosewater, and oil of Roses, to the temples and forehead, eases the head-ache, though it be of long continuance. The fresh leaves boiled in wine, and old filthy ulcers hard to be cured washed therewith, do wonderfully help to cleanse them. It also quickly heals green wounds, and is effectual to heal all burnings and scaldings, and all kinds of exulcerations coming thereby, or by salt phlegm or humours in other parts of the body. The juice of the berries or leaves snuffed up into the nose, purges the head and brain of thin rheum that makes defluxions into the eyes and nose, and curing the ulcers and stench therein; the same dropped into the ears helps the old and running sores of them; those that are troubled with the spleen shall find much ease by continual drinking out of a cup made of Ivy, so as the drink may stand some small time therein before it be drank. Cato saith, That wine put into such a cup, will soak through it, by reason of the antipathy that is between them.
There seems to be a very great antipathy between wine and Ivy; for if one hath got a surfeit by drinking of wine, his speediest cure is to drink a draught of the same wine wherein a handful of Ivy leaves, being first bruised, have been boiled.
Happy Eponalia
Roman Horse from Bunwell, Norfolk. Illustration by Sue Walker.
In 2021 I posted about Eponalia for the 18th Dec but I have now added it here and this is what I said:
I’ve been too busy working on my Jane Austen and Christmas Virtual Tour (I have just done that again this year) to post over the last few days. And I have, therefore, shamelessly stolen this post off my Facebook friend Sue Walker, who is a talented archaeological illustrator, artist and a very good photographer.
She wrote: ‘the 18th December is the festival of the Celtic goddess Epona, the protector of horses, she was adopted by the Romans and became a favourite with the cavalry. This finely sculpted bronze horse with a head dress and symbol on its chest is 37mm high – found in Bunwell #Norfolk #Archaeology’
