Every time there has been a calendar reform someone gets annoyed. Particularly, it seems, around matters of religious observance. There are whole churches in Eastern Christianity separated from the rest over the shift from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian.
Well, among the English speaking folk that same reform didn’t result in new churches, or, perhaps that would be old continuing churches, but it did have some interesting consequences. But there were disruptions after the loss of eleven days when the day that followed the 2nd of September 1750, instantly became the 14th of September.
For me of particular interest is the fact that the day the English celebrated marking when the Devil being kicked out of heaven, which for those unfamiliar with the incident, his fall was broken when he fell into a blackberry bramble. That day was Michaelmas, the feast of Michael and the Archangels. Ungrateful ass that he is, the devil repaid the blackberry by urinating on it and cursing all who ate the delicious little fruit after that day. (It isn’t clear to me when the all clear happens, but I’m pretty sure it does.)
And, somehow when Michaelmas day shifted those eleven days forward, the curse appears to have stayed at the original spot recalculated, which is now the 10th or, depending on the alignment of something, the 11th of October, now known as Old Michaelmas Day. I guess he devil is a traditionalist.
As I missed the first possibility for noting this, I thought I better get this out with the warning.
Watch out for blackberries! The devil just peed on them…
You’re welcome.
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