An insightful blog, from Astrologer Patrick Arundell...
As Easter approaches many of us chocoholics will be counting down the days until the Easter bunny makes its usual Easter Morning chocolate egg delivery but how did a serious Christian festival become associated with rabbits and eggs? Easter rabbits and eggs For Christians this is a special time of year celebrating the resurrection of […]
An ancient stone monolith in England’s Peak District may well have been an astronomical marker, according to new archaeological evidence. The 4,000-year-old stone which is located at Gardom’s Edge is triangular in shape and angles up toward geographic south. Gardom’s Edge Monolith Its orientation and slant angle are aligned with the altitude of the sun […]
OK, stop fooling around and pay attention at the back! You’re probably aware that the 1st of April is April Fool’s Day, although the tradition itself isn’t that ancient as these things go. April Fool’s Day 2012 The celebration is first mentioned in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales which was written in the 14th Century. Nevertheless some writers […]
It is believed that the origins of Halloween may probably be found in an ancient, pre-Christian Celtic festival which honoured the dead. The Celts divided their year into four major holidays and according to this calendar, the year began on a day which now corresponds to November 1st on the modern calendar. Halloween History The […]
And now for something completely different…We all know the image of the mummy who appears swaddled in bandages every Halloween. You probably also know of the famous curse of Tutankhamen… Curse of Tutankhamen The story goes that when Howard Carter opened the pharaoh’s tomb in 1922 it unleashed a dreadful curse which according to the […]
It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride’s father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month, which we know today as […]
One of the loveliest of sights, at this time of year in the UK, is that of swallows soaring and plunging in the sky. Of course, the traditional saying is that “one swallow does not make a summer”. Swallow Tattoos And of course, tattoos have also become part of popular culture. You may have noticed […]
Father’s Day is celebrated all over the world on various dates. In the UK, Father’s Day will see generous portions of TLC handed out on the 19th of June. Yet the notion of Father’s Day is quite recent, it is in fact a nineteenth century invention… The reason for this may be that in distant […]
One of the most endearing sights in the Spring in the UK must be the lambs playing in the fields. Who would have thought that these little creatures have a long pedigree of folklore and mythology associated with them?