Countryman's Diary
| NORTH YORKSHIRE |  | | | CLEVELAND | | | | COUNTY DURHAM | |
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Easter, a moveable feast, much to the Government of 1928’s chagrin
APART from being the first
day of spring, today is
also Good Friday which
is the start of the first
major holiday break of the year.
That holiday is Easter which is
also the most important festival
in the Christian calendar because
the events that occurred during
that weekend are central to the
faith. For that reason, churchgoers
claim that Easter is more important
than Christmas.
This year, Easter is remarkably
early. The earliest and rarest date
upon which Easter Sunday can
fall is March 22 and this year, we
miss that unique event by just a
single day. The latest date that
Easter Sunday can occur is April
25 which means it may be celebrated
within a span of 35 days.
As a moveable feast, therefore, it
is certainly one that can cause
problems within businesses,
schools, universities and the travel
industry as they struggle with
complex holiday arrangements.
The practice of turning religious
festivals into holidays is not new.
Indeed, the word holiday stems
from the term holy day which
was when the people took time
off work primarily to attend
Mass, but sometimes to enjoy a
break from their labours. I very
much doubt whether the early
church fathers foresaw such a
massive swing away from religion
in favour of the new style holy
days. Today, there is nothing very
holy about a holiday.
Not surprisingly, there has long
been a desire to fix the date of
Easter but the problems appear
insurmountable. Although much
of our seasonal timing is based
on the sun, the date of Easter relies
upon the moon but not the
real moon. It is a hypothetical
moon based on tables calculated
by a Greek astronomer in 423BC.
That fictitious paper' moon has
phases based on months which
alternate between 29 and 30 days.
When Pope Gregory made his
radical but necessary changes to
the calendar in 1582, he adopted
those moon tables. That decision
established that Easter Day is the
Sunday after the first full moon
that falls on or after March 21.
If that full moon happens to fall
on a Sunday, then Easter Day will
be the Sunday following. Modifications
are built into these calculations
to ensure the so-called
paper moon is as near as possible
to the actual full moon.
The reason a hypothetical moon
was used in these calculations
was to ensure that nations in the
northern and southern hemispheres
celebrated Easter at the
same time. That would not have
been possible if they had used
the genuine moon and its phases
- there would have been a gap of
one month between some celebrations.
Despite this, the Orthodox
churches used their own system
with the result that the Easter date in places like Greece differs
from that celebrated in the west,
and indeed the early Christian
churches in the west were prone
to using a different system of calculation.
They used a complex
formula based on a Jewish Christian
system that involved a cycle
of 84 years.
In England, similar problems
were being experienced as long
ago as the sixth century because
we had two systems for calculating
the date of Easter. One was
used by southerners, the other by
northerners. People in the south
followed the teaching of St Augustine
who had been sent to
Canterbury by Pope Gregory I.
Northerners followed the practices
of St Columba who followed
the Celtic tradition.
Things came to a head when
King Oswy of Northumbria married
Queen Eanflaed of Kent - it
meant the royal household celebrated
Easter on two different
dates. Oswy decided to settle the
matter and so he called the famous
Synod of Whitby where St
Hilda was abbess. There were two
items on the agenda - one was
the style of tonsure adopted by
the monks, and the other was the
method that should be used to
determine the date of Easter.
There were weighty discussions
about the various systems used
to calculate Easter throughout
the world, including one cycle of
532 years, and a smaller one of
only 19 years. One of the key
members of the Synod was the
famous Wilfred of Ripon, a highly
articulate man of great learning
but something of a rebel.
He listened to the arguments but
his knowledge and skilled oratory
swung the decision towards Pope
Gregory's system. Wilfred, later to
be St Wilfred, reminded the assembly
that Christ had given the
Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven
to St Peter who had moved to
Rome to administer Christ's
fledgling Church.
He therefore argued that the
Synod should adopt the Roman
method for calculating the date
of Easter in England. The Synod
agreed and that system is still in
use.
The English did attempt to fix the
date of Easter through their Easter
Act of 1928 but it has never
been brought into effect. If it had
become law, England would have
been celebrating Easter on a date
that was different from the rest of
the world. And that would have
been confusing.
MY MAIL box this week
contains some interesting
letters from readers. One
comes from Thirsk where my correspondent
reports seeing a wren
feeding blue tits in their nest box.
While watching the family of blue
tits in the box in her garden three
years ago, she noticed a wren beginning
to feed the brood. Gradually,
the parent blue tits appeared
less frequently and so the wren
completely took over the feeding.
The box contained four or five
chicks that were definitely blue
tits and later, when they had
flown, my correspondence
checked inside to find one unhatched
egg which broke as she
touched it. She is not sure
whether that sole egg was from
the blue tits or the visiting wren.
From time to time, there are stories
of one species of animal
adopting others in times of emergency
- I've even read about dogs
adopting lion cubs and the kittens
of domestic cats, and a zoo
tiger snuggling up to a rabbit, but
this is the first time I have come
across a wren feeding the offspring
of another species.
It is a remarkable tale and heartwarming
too - we humans can
often learn lessons from our
wonderful wildlife.
I thank my correspondent for
sharing this fascinating experience
with us.
Another letter comes from a
reader in Carlton Miniott, near
Thirsk, who describes himself as
a warrener and mole controller.
While working on a farm at Ampleforth, he caught a beautiful
golden mole and has kindly sent
me photographs of it. He writes
that in all his years associated
with this kind of work, he has
never previously come across
such an unusually coloured mole.
His own research on the internet
has located a species known as
Juliana's golden mole, but this
handsome little creature lives in
Africa and it is doubtful if one
would ever be found living wild
in this region. Juliana's golden
mole has cinnamon-brown fur
that is slightly darker towards the
back and paler towards the
flanks.
There is no doubt this African
mole is remarkably similar to the
one found by my correspondent.
His photographs show a mole
with a reddish-brown head, paler
shoulders and fur that becomes a
warm silver-grey towards the
rear. Even though the African
mole is not thought to be related
to our British species, the similarities
are striking.
I do not know how rare or unusual
a golden coloured mole is, but
my information is that moles native
to Britain can appear in
colours other than the familiar
velvety black.
Creamy white, silvery grey,
piebald and even a variety with
apricot-style coating can be
found and they often survive attacks
by predators because they
spend so much time underground.
But a golden mole? How
unusual is that - my correspondent
would like to know if anyone
else has come across such an
interesting little beast.
12:44pm Friday 21st March 2008
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