[thechat] Gee, that time again...
Martin Burns
martin at easyweb.co.uk
Fri Dec 6 03:34:00 CST 2002
On Fri, 6 Dec 2002, Jonathon Isaac Swiderski wrote:
> Today, the cows mooved Lauri Vain to write:
>
> > A way bit out of the topic -- the Catholic Church "made" Christmas and
> > set it to the 25th of December to leave a pagan holiday (celebrated all
> > over Europe), which was very near to that date, into the shadow. Anybody
> > knows what that holiday was about -- just curious (the church apparently
> > made a good marketing decision).
>
> The holiday was Saturnalia, organised round the Solstice (21 Dec., give or
> take, on the modern calendar).
(for those in Roman dominated nations... for those of us up on the Celtic
fringe you're talking about Yule (aka Mean Geimhridh))
> Pretty much your basic pagan party, this
> one celebrated the death of the old year and the birth of the next.
Or rather/also a desperate hope that the dying sun will come back
Cheers
Martin
--
"Names, once they are in common use, quickly
become mere sounds, their etymology being
buried, like so many of the earth's marvels,
beneath the dust of habit." - Salman Rushdie
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