Leap Year 2012, February 29th 2012 | Astrologer Patrick Arundell

Leap Year 2012

Leap years appear in many types of calendar from various countries and cultures, the one most of us are familiar with is the Gregorian calendar, in which February in a leap year has 29 days instead of the usual 28.

Leap Year 2012

Although leap years are really just a means to make nature fit a mathematical framework many traditions have developed around these events. If you are born on February 29th, you may find yourself described as a “leapling” or “leaper”.

Although you may feel cheated that you will have 75% less birthdays than most folks at least you can choose the date of your non-leap year birthday by opting for either February 29^th or March 1^st (no, you can’t have both).

It was once thought that leapling babies would be more sickly than other children. Similarly, it was believed that beans and peas planted during a leap year “grow the wrong way” and furthermore, “Leap year was never a good sheep year.” Probably the best known leap year tradition is that at this time women can propose marriage to men.

There are two sources for this tradition both of them equally unlikely to be true. The first claims that in 1288 Queen Margaret of Scotland passed a law saying any man who refused an offer of marriage from a woman on this date should be fined. There are a couple of flaws to this argument, not least that Queen Margaret was only five years old at the time.

The next suggestion for the origin of leap year proposals takes us to 5^th century Ireland and St. Patrick. St. Bridget approached St. Patrick, to complain that women had to wait for men to propose marriage. St. Patrick decided women could pop the question one year out of every seven. St. Bridget was not impressed and after some negotiation it was decided that women could propose on a leap year.

St. Patrick wasn’t paying attention to the date and must have been shocked when St. Bridget proposed to him there and then. He refused but gave her a kiss and a beautiful silk gown in consolation – not such a bad deal really!