As we start the countdown to the New Year, Brigg Blog sends all our valued followers very best wishes and trusts 2015 will prove a good one for you.
It will be a close-run thing but if we have a decent day on December 31 in terms of site traffic, Brigg Blog will have enjoyed an all-time record month for "hits".
Fingers crossed....and here's raising a glass to you and 2015 !
All this New Year jumping up and down - Humbug!
ReplyDeleteAlthough we seem to regard that 1st January is New Year's Day, as if by some ordained power, there is no seasonal, or astronomical reason why 1st Jan should be chosen as the start of another year....
The Egyptians celebrated New Year in September - the time of the autumnal solstice, while the Persians and such like hoards celebrated New Year at the spring solstice in March...
We could blame the Romans for New Year being in January - they had a god called Janus - two-faced with one face facing forwards, the other backwards...and the Senate thought it wise, for tax purposes and such things to have Jan 1st as the start of the New Year.
But date didn't really catch on in the rest of Europe until much later. For example,until 1752 England and the Americas celebrated New Year on March 25th...
Old Pope Gregory recalculated the existing Julian Calendar and introduced his Gregorian Calendar and reinstated New Year's Day on 1st January..
Under the Julian Calendar, the Brigg Market Charter defined Brigg Fair as being on St James' Feast Day, which is on 25th July..and while St James' Feast remains on the same date, Brigg Fair was affected by the '12 Lost Days' and is now celebrated on the 5th August..
When the Gregorian Calendar was introduced, the peasants rioted claiming that the Pope had deprived them of 12 days of life and demanded them back....
Anyway, Happy New Year for 2015, Nige - two hundred years since the Battle of Waterloo; 100 years since the tank was used in battle and 200 years since the death of Lady Emma Hamilton (cf Nelson) who died a pauper, after being imprisoned for debt and had become grossly obese..