[thechat] Gee, that time again...

[Martin Burns]

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