On the sixth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
6 Geese a Laying; 5 Golden Rings; 4 Calling Birds, 3 French Hens; 2 Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree
I’ve moved and improved this content and put in on New Year’s Day:
The Past brought to Life
A perpetual almanac of the Year. Folklore, Customs, Myths, Legends, Religions, Ceremonies. Calendars, How the year, months, days, hours, minutes work. Who started them. How different societies have different arrangements. Zodiacs, Seasons, Folklore, Gods and Goddesses. Its all here day by day.
On the sixth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
6 Geese a Laying; 5 Golden Rings; 4 Calling Birds, 3 French Hens; 2 Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree
I’ve moved and improved this content and put in on New Year’s Day:
The Sun is at its lowest at midday; the sun rises and sets at its most southerly position in the whole year. If it continues, life will be extinguished as the world has no light and no heat.
But on this day the Sun begins its rebirth. From this day on, it begins to rise further north each day, the Sun at noon is higher, its sets further north each day. so the arc the rising and settings make is larger, the days are longer; the Sun is getting hotter too.
Symbolically, solstice is an ending as well as a beginning; a turning point and a promise by whatever Deity or non-deity you go by that the cycle of the world will continue. It will turn, the wheel will turn. Warmth and growth will return. Buds already growing in the earth. They will break out and bring new growth soon.
Culturally, its a time to have a party before the weather gets really cold, its a time to evaluate your past life and begin, like the sun, a new and hopefully better cycle.
Note. so if the Sun is at its shortest and weakest why is not the coldest time of the year? That is because the earth and, particularly, the oceans retain the heat of the Sun, and so it is generally colder in January and February. The coldest day varies and can be from November to March, but more often falls in January, then February, then December, more rarely in November and March.
The Solstice and the East Pediment of the Parthenon
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.
I posted about the quite extraordinary story of the Birth of Athene earlier in the year and said
‘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.’
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.
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 guide book. 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.
This evening, 21 December 2022 I am doing my London Solstice Virtual Tour
No season to hedge
Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie by Thomas Tusser www.gutenberg.org
get béetle and wedge
Cleaue logs now all
for kitchen and hall.
A beetle is a hammer and a wedge is used to split logs, so the first thing Tusser enjoins his readers to do for December is to stop digging and hedging and, instead, cut firewood.
He also suggests (if I read the Tudor writing correctly):
Sharpen dull working tooles
Leaue off tittle tattle and looke to thy cattle
and suggests:
Howse cow that is old, while winter doth hold.
But don’t forget:
Out once in a day, to drinke and to play.
He suggests covering strawberries with straw to protect them; Making sure your dried cod and ling don’t rot. Store the products of the Orchard in the attic. Bleed the horse and help the bees with ‘liquor and honie’.
‘Thus endeth Decembers abstract, agréeing with Decembers husbandrie.’
It was on this day, in 2022, that I read, in the Guardian Newspaper, that life expectancy in the UK is reducing for the first time in 200 years, (and that in parts of the UK it has gone down by 10 years during the time of austerity) it is also the anniversary of the Great Smog of 1952.
I’m tempted to say don’t read any more of this and listen to the BBC’s excellent episode of ‘Inside Science: Killer Smog’ instead (or if you cannot use BBC Sounds, then go to the link to a Podcast at the bottom of the piece) Both pieces are based on the work of Dr. Gary Fuller of King’s College, London, detailed in his book ‘Air Pollution: The Invisible Killer’.
But, if you are still with me, what happened in 1952 changed Britain forever, but Fuller makes it clear it did not change Britain enough. What happened was that a terrible smog developed which lasted for a week, beginning on Dec 5th 1952. It killed probably 12,000 people and the hospitals, the emergency services, the mortuaries, the funeral parlours had more work to do than during the Blitz or the Cholera epidemics. Higher deaths than normal were still occurring as late as January 1953,
What changed Britain was that it finally persuaded people that coal-polluted air was a killer. People had debated it since the Victorian period, but did very little about it, some even believing smoke was good for you. After 1952, it was clear what a killer smog was. In 1956, a reluctant government introduced the Clean Air Act which established zones where only smokeless fuels could be used, and other measures including dispersal of polluting industries from the towns, and taller chimneys. This eventually cleared up the problem.
Job done, or so we all thought. Dr Gary Fuller tells us that we are incapable of dealing with more than one pollution threat at a time. In 1962, another smog, created by sulphur dioxide pollution, killed perhaps 1,000 people in London. And London still has a lot of air pollution, not just from traffic fumes, and it is still killing people.
Traffic pollution in London is being dealt with more aggressively, partly as a response to a brave coroner who found that a 9-year-old girl, Ella Kissi-Debrah, died because of air pollution. (girls-death-contributed-to-by-air-pollution-coroner-rules-in-landmark-case). The London Mayor is finally addressing this issue by, first creating and then expanding, the Ultra Low Emission Zone, to encompass all the London Boroughs. This has been very controversial as it has meant many people having to sell cars that do not meet the standard. It has an unfortunate byproduce which was that it enables the unpopular Conservative Party hanging on, by the skin of their teeth, to Boris Johnson’s old constituency. Results in other by-elections and opinion polls suggested they would lose it. Since, then, the Rishi Sunak Government has gone full petrol head, rowing back on Climate Change targets in various areas.
Another front against car pollution are the Local Traffic Neighbourhoods which were set up by local authorities using COVID-19 legislation to introduce traffic reduction methods by blocking off many neighbourhood roads from through traffic. These have been fought tooth and nail by its opponents, but generally has not affected local government elections.
But much less well known are other threats. For example, there is an increasing threat from trendy wood burning stoves which are very polluting, and yet their sales are soaring as people seek ways of mitigating soaring post-Ukraine war electricity prices. Agriculture is very polluting too, with fertiliser, and manure mixing with urban pollution to create dangerous particulates. It turns out that the most polluting time of the year is not Autumn, nor Winter but Spring because of this agricultural activity.
The 1952 episode was created by a temperature inversion which kept a blanket of cold damp air over London, stopping pollutants being dispersed and blown away. What made it such a killer was that Britain, in post-war austerity (this time introduced by the Labour Party) meant that we were exporting our top grade coals and allowing domestic users to use terrible stuff called ‘nutty slack’ which was sludge, dust, and fragments of very low grade and therefore very smokey coal. 18% of the coal used was domestic, but it contributed 60% to the emissions. The fog was yellow and sulphuric, transport was halted as no one could see beyond their hands in front of their faces, and people had to leave cinemas because no one could see the screens.
Following our second (Conservative induced) austerity our systems are in collapse, ambulances, hospitals, water supplies in a terrible condition. Our water companies are pumping sewage into our rivers and seas, a vast tide of Food banks and warm spaces trying to help people in their bitter choices between eating and heating, and the Government has closed down the infrastructures that helped us through the COVID-19 crisis.
We need to stop being short-sighted, not just ‘solving’ one problem before moving onto the next. We need a fundamental revision of our systems to allow us to enjoy the last two of the four freedoms so eloquently expressed by Roosevelt (the subject of this year’s BBC Reith Lectures):
Air Pollution Podcast click here:
First Published on December 5th 2022, Revised and republished on December 5th 2023.
I have began to prepare my next set of tours both virtual and real. But here are the first two virtual tours, both with a seasonal theme.
The London Winter Solstice Virtual Tour
Wed, 21 Dec 2022 19:30
We explore London’s History through its celebrations, festivals, calendars and almanacs of the Winter Solstice
Winter Solstice festivals have been a time of review, renewal and anticipation of the future from time immemorial. The Ancient Britons saw the Solstice as a symbol of a promise of renewal as the world entered bleak mid winter. The Roman season was presided over by Janus, a two headed God who looked both backwards and forwards, and Dickens based his second great Christmas Book on the renewal that the New Year encouraged.
We look at London’s past to see where and how the Solstice might be celebrated. We also explore the different Calendars – the Pagan year, the Christian year, the Roman year, the Jewish year, the Financial year, the Academic year and we reveal how these began. We look at folk traditions, Medieval Christmas Festivals, Boy Bishops, Distaff Sunday and Plough Monday, and other London winter traditions and folklore.
At the end we use ancient methods to divine what is in store for us in 2022.
CHRISTMAS WITH JANE AUSTEN VIRTUAL LONDON TOUR
Friday 23 December 2022 7.30pm
We look at how Jane Austen spent Christmas and at Georgian Christmas traditions and amusements.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a Jane Austen devotee in possession of the good fortune of a couple of free hours must be in want of this virtual walk.”
This is a special walk, which looks at the traditions of Christmas during the Regency period and how Jane Austen might have celebrated it. It will give some background to Jane Austen’s life and her knowledge of London. We used her novels and her letters to find out what she might have done at Christmas, but also at how Christmas was kept in this period, and the range of ‘Curiosities, Amusements, Exhibitions, Public Establishments, and Remarkable Objects in and near London available to enjoy.
This is a London Walks Guided Walk by Kevin Flude, Museum Curator and Lecturer.
Review: ‘Thanks, again, Kevin. These talks are magnificent!’
To Book:
My correspondent, Morcus Porcus, pointed out the error of my opening statement for my post on November November- the month of immolations:
The 9th Month of the Roman Calendar 9 being ‘novem’. Now its the 11th because they needed to add months to glorify Julius Caesar and Augustus.
In fact, the pre-existing months were simply renamed. Romans talk of a ‘legendary’ calendar being set up by Romulus which consisted of 10 months of 30 and 31 days followed by a winter period which brought the year towards the number of days in the celestial cycle. Apparently, it was not well regulated and the months eventually began to lose their integration with the seasons.
The year began in March, suitable names were given to March, April, May and June but the next 6 months were given numbers as below.
The Calendar was reformed several times; January and February added but the major reform was instigated by Julius Caesar in 46BC with the so-called ‘Year of Confusion’. This first year of the introduction of the Julian calendar was 445 days long to realign the seasons, and began on January 1st, with 365 days, 12 months and a 4 year leap year cycle. This held sway until the 16th Century when a further reform was ordered by Pope Gregory as the year is not exactly 365.25 days long. It was not adopted in the UK until the 18th Century when we lost 11 days to align ourselves with Europe.
My walk at New Year called ‘Ring in the New Year’ deals with issue of calendars through the ages.
More on the Ides and the Kalendes of the month
A day when it is ‘certain to rain heavily’. But it didn’t really did it? I experienced it as a nice warm sunny day.
On this day you, supposing you are someone who wants to find out who your true lover is, must:
Carefully peel an apple in one piece.
Turn round three times with the peel in your right hand
The peel will fall in the shape of your the first letter of your true love’s name.
Drop the peel over your left shoulder
See what shape letter it forms on the ground and this will be the first letter of your true love’s name.
And if it breaks into pieces you are doomed, probably, to never finding your true love.
To make this work you have to repeat:
St Simon and St Jude, on your I intrude
By this paring I hold to discover
Without any delay, to tell me this day
The first letter of my own true love.
Jude is the Saint of:
Lost Causes
Desperate causes
Hopeless causes
The Hopeless and the Despaired.
So maybe the apple peel isn’t going to work for you (although he is also the Patron Saint of the Impossible).
Simon the Zealous was martyred by being sawn in half, and is, of course, the patron saint of woodcutters and lumberjacks. Jude aka Thaddeus was martyred with an axe. They are linked by the same Saint’s day because they went to Syria together to preach where they were met their fates.
There are at least four Judes who may or may not be different people. One of them, who may have been Jesus’ brother, wrote the Epistle of St. Jude. This letter, on slim foundations, is a possible explanation of why he is the Saint of Lost Causes because he warns of the dangers of the wicked working against salvation. But if this is true than the Lost Cause is Christianity so I think not. His real name was Judas and the identification with Judas Iscariot is given as another reason for the Lost Causes association but why?
Is the question that Terry Cook asked me, and this is my answer.
So the Cutty Sark is twice famous.
Her name comes from Tam O’Shanter, one of Robert Burns’ greatest poems. written in 1791. And everyone knows of Robert Burns, Scotland’s national poet. Burns night has become world famous for anyone interested in Scotland.
Figureheads on the prow of ships are very often of a semi naked women with her torso breasting the water. The sexy young witch, Nannie Dee, in Tam O’Shanter is identified as the one who is very ‘Vauntie’ and with a short shift that she wore as a child and so is now short and revealing. The poem names this garment as her ‘Cutty Sark. Sark is her shift. Cutty is dialect for short. The Cutty Sark’s figurehead shows Nannie in her shift holding the tail of Tam’s horse.
Her cutty sark, o’ Paisley harn,
That while a lassie she had worn,
In longitude tho’ sorely scanty,
It was her best, and she was vauntie.—
Ah! little kend thy reverend grannie,
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie,
Wi’ twa pund Scots, (’twas a’ her riches),
Wad ever grac’d a dance of witches!
The story is that the drunken Tam on his steady horse Maggie is travelling home when he seems a devilish dance taking place in a graveyard, presided over by the devil himself. Tam is so excited when he sees the young beautiful witch that he bellows his approval and all of a sudden the merriment ends, and in deadly silence the witches turn on Tam and race to catch him.
Tam tint his reason a’ thegither,
And roars out, ‘Weel done, Cutty-sark!’
And in an instant all was dark:
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied.
When out the hellish legion sallied.
As bees bizz out wi’ angry fyke,
When plundering herds assail their byke;
As open pussie’s mortal foes,
When, pop! she starts before their nose;
As eager runs the market-crowd,
When ‘Catch the thief!’ resounds aloud;
So Maggie runs, the witches follow,
Wi’ mony an eldritch skreech and hollow.
They have to get across a brook before the witches because the witches cannot cross the water. The witches must get him before the brook or face burning at the stake. All depends on Maggie (Meg). The young witch in the Cutty Sark is catching up as they approach the brook. Maggie makes a magnificent leap, the witch makes a despairing grab and only can reach Maggie’s tail but Tam and his horse make it to safety leaving the witch the tail.
Ah, Tam! Ah, Tam! thou’ll get thy fairin!
In hell they’ll roast thee like a herrin!
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin!
Kate soon will be a woefu’ woman!
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg,
And win the key-stane of the brig;
There at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running stream they dare na cross.
But ere the key-stane she could make,
The fient a tail she had to shake!
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie prest,
And flew at Tam wi’ furious ettle;
But little wist she Maggie’s mettle—
Ae spring brought off her master hale,
But left behind her ain gray tail:
The carlin claught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.
Now, follow the link below and read the whole poem but read it out loud, standing up and with gusto. Don’t worry about the pronunciation just enjoy it.
So, my Halloween walks depend heavily on almanacs for at least some of their content. I explain almanacs on another page, but they were a way of helping people keep track of the year, both reviewing past events, and looking forward to future ones.
One third of books published in London in the Stuart period were almanacs, but if you could not read or did not have the money you could buy or make a cog almanac.
So, I was printing out some images to show my walkers and thought why not make one? So I did.
Bit of wood, saw off 35cms. Each edge needs to represent a quarter of the year, so each centimetre mark represents 3 days, and one day extra 30 * 3 +! = 91 days per quarter. Use bread knife or hacksaw to mark the days off. Buy wooden drawer knob and double ended screw, fit to end of the piece of wood, stain or vanish the wood.
Then I need to find out what all the symbols mean, but they represent notable days like Saint’s Days (Michaelmas, Martinmas, Candlemas etc. , equinoxes, solstices, Christmas, Easter etc. etc..
You count the days off as the year passes.
Simple.
ROMAN LONDON – A LITERARY & ARCHAEOLOGICAL WALK
Saturday 30 October 20/22 11.30 am Monument Underground Station
This is a walking tour features the amazing archaeological discoveries of Roman London, and looks at life in the provincial Roman capital of Londinium.
To book
Myths, Legends & Halloween Walk
Sunday 30th October 2022 2.30pm Tower Hill Tube
The walk tells the story of London’s myths and legends and the celtic origins of Halloween
To book
Myths, Legends & Halloween Virtual Tour
MONDAY 31st October 2022 7.30pm
The tour tells the story of London’s myths and legends and the celtic origins of Halloween
To book