Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 March 1916 — QUAINT LEAP-YEAR CUSTOMS [ARTICLE]

QUAINT LEAP-YEAR CUSTOMS

Right of Woman to Woo and Not to Be Wooed Dates Bark to a legend of St. Patrick. Away back in the days of Julius <J*esar, about 45 years before our Savior was born, Sosigenes, a philosopher from Alexandria, after taking counsel with a group of astronomers, decided that every four years "*hould consist of 266 days, and thus there came into the calendar what is commonly known today as leap year. The origin of the old custom for j woman to woo and not to be wooed during leap year is traced back to a legend of St. Patrick. As the old story goes, the good man was walking along the shores of Lough Neagh after having “driven all the frogs from all the hogs and banished all the varmints," when he ■met St. Bridget, who, with tears and lamentations, informed him that trouble was brewing among the women of her district because they were not allowed to propose marriage to men. St. Patrick was stern, but he offered to compromise by allowing the ladies the privilege they desired once every seven years. Then St. Bridget threw her arms around St. Patrick’s neck and begged him to make it one year in four. “Ah, Bridget,” St. Patrick is said to have replied, ••squeeze me that way again and I'll give you leap year, the longest one in the loti” Then the future S.t. Bridget, encouraged to this extent, thought of her own husbandless condition and popped ‘ the” question to St Patrick. But St. Patrick had already taken the vow of celibacy, so he had to patch her wounded heart with a kiss and a silken gown. And ever since that time if a man refuses a leapyear proposal he must pay the penalty of a kiss and a silken gown. This quaint legend, of course, has the earmarks of a myth pure and simple, but it is recorded in several old books, and must have been taken seriously in several countries. Scotland had a leap-year law in 12S8 which was actually enforced. ) Here Is the English translation of the curious edict: “It is a statute and ordained that during the reign of Her Blessed Majesty for every year known as! leap year every maiden lady of both high and low estate, shall have the liberty to bespeak the man she likes, I and should he refuse to take her to he his lawful wife he shall be fined in a sum of pounds, more or less; as his estate may be large or small, unless he can prove that he is already | betrothed to another woman, in ! which case he may go free.” Not many years after this there j was a similar law in France, which i received the king's approval. The! story ig told that numbers of maid-! ens took advantage of it. In Genoa and Florence then was) a law of this sort in effect during! the daj’3 of Christopher Columbus, and one of his hiosr'aphers hints at the time, during leap year, when several ladies proposed to him, but as he was already be*~othed he •.escaped their wiles.” In England during the early 1 Sth ■century the men made merry on the 29th of February, often climbing on barrels of liquor to drink the health of the women they expected •would propose to them. In the rural districts homely men paraded the streets, sighing as they passed the girls: “Woe is me, no lady will propose to me!” In the days of King Henry VIII. Will Somers, the court jester, furnished merriment for the king by Having the maids at the royal palace . propose to him in the presence of the king. Of course, the jester refused, but he presented each with a kiss and a silken gown, according to the custom. Even as late as the lath century leap-year entertainments were held, and women proposed to men in public. Skatfng parties, where the

women called for the men and took them to the frozen ponds, were the fashion. The men would give exhibitions of skating, after which proposals of marriage were in order. Sometimes the best skater was proposed to half a dozen times. Leap-year parties were quite the thing, also, and Merrie England seems to have been a gay old place in those 12 months. According to a quaint book, publsbed in London in 1606 under the title of ‘Love. Courtship and Marriage',” the English seem to have taken, the leap-year custom as an unwritten law, for the author says: Albeit, it nowe become a part of the common lawe in-regard to social relations of life, that as often as every leap year© doth return, the 1. dyes have the .sole privilege during the time it continueth of making love, either by wordes or lookes, as to them it seemeth proper; and moreover, no man will be entitled to the benefit of the clergy who doth in anywise treat her proposal with slight or contumely.” How the need of a leap year” was first felt —in an astronomical, not matririonial sense-—is an interesting w-cmpte of long continued calculations. In the very earliest Mimes it was observed that during one period of the year the days gradually increased in length fusing "day” for the period during which the sun remains above the horizon), and that then they gradually decreased in length tor another period to run the same The Egyptians noted the length of this period and called it 365 days. This was done in the following manner: They observed that, as the sun rose earlier or later, it appeared at different points in the horizon. Let us suppose that at a certain day in .March the sun rose just opposite a certain tree in the horizon. Every day after it would rise at a point a little further to the north of the tree, for about 90 days; then its place of rising would for other 90 days gradually come back to the place in the horizon where the tree stood. It would then pass that point, rising daily more and more to the south of the point where the tree stood, then in P 0 days more the sun would reach its most southerly rising point on the horizon. Then it j would begin to retrograde, and in 365 days from the time when the first observation was made the sun would again appear to rise just opposite the tree marked on the horizon, This method no doubt was sufficiently crude, but it gave the approximate length of the year. As more accurate methods began t-- be employed by the Greeks they t oted that 365 days did not really express the correct length of the year. They found that on the 365th day the sun fell a little short of rising at the place it had risen previously, and. that on the 366th day ii rose at a point beyond it. In fact, that on the 365th dtiy the year was not quite done, while on the 366th day it was more than done. They also observed that the point at which the sun appeared to rise on the 366th day was about three times as far distant from the standard point on the horizon as the point at which it had risen on the 365th day; hence they concluded that 365 1 i days was the correct length o! the year. Nature's year then consisted, it was seen, of days and parts of day, w hile our year must consist of whole days, if we call our year 365 days, then it will be six hours short; if we call it 366 days, it will be 18 hours too long. In the former case w e should gain on nature one day in lour years. In the latter we should lose three days in four year*.

In either cas s e it would come to.; pass that by-and-by January would he I the mid-summer month, anil June fall in mid-winter. As this would be annoying and perplexing and would gradually shift everything from its true anniversary, the Romans fell on the expedient of making three short years arid a long one, and so on , that is three years of 365 days and one of 366 days. 1 years x 365 i; days is 1,461 days. 36-:»--36.i-:-36->-'-366 days is 1.161 days. This wag adopted by the Romans in the time of Julius Caesar as the correct reckoning, under the name ot The Julian Calendar.” To dis--I>ose of the off day. the 24th of February was doubled every fourth year, and the day so interposed was called bisextile. By this intercalation the calendar and seasons were 4c4pt somewhat in harmony. We adopt another method, and add a day to February every fourth year, whereas in the intervening years ‘'February lias 28 alone.” In process of time, however, it was discovered that the year had not been correctly measured, and that therefore the Julian calendar was defective. ■ The invention of clocks and watches introduced greater accuracy in the measurement of time than had formerly been possible, and these

w r ere now used tojielp in finding the exact length of the year. Suppose that we have a chronometer wHlch is absolutely correct, and th l at on a certain day in March we observed that the sun rose at exactly 6 o’clock. If we note the time of its rising 365 days thereafter, we shall find that it rises a little after 6, and that on the 366th day it rises a little before that hour; and, calculating exactly, we shall find the true length of the year to be 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 52 seconds. Our year, then, is too long by 11 minutes, 8 seconds, or about threequarters of an hour in 4 years, or about 1 day in 130 years. How, then, shall we proceed to make a correction for this difference between the real ami the assumed length of the year? First we call the years 1700, 1800, 1900, which ought to be leap years, common years. Thus a century consists of 76 common years ■ / * and 21 leap years. Seventy-six multiplied by 365 added to 24 and multiplied by 366 is equal to 36,524 days. One hundred years multiplied by 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 52 seconds are equal to 36,524 days, 5 hours, 26 minutes, 40 seconds. The error now is reduced to about a quarter of a day in a century, and our years are too short; but if we add a day in every four centuries we shall be approximately correct, tor 400 years will now consist of 303 common years and 97 leap years, or I 16,097 days, whereas they ought to consist of 146,096 days, 21 hours, 16 minutes, 4 Q seconds, an error of ; bout a day in about 4,000 years. The Julian calendar remained in use till 1532, when Pope Gregory abolished it and instituted a new and improved one which we now use, called th© Gregorian calendar. First he dropped ! 0 days, which had been gained from the time when the Julian calendar was adopted by the Romans to the year 1582. Secondly, every year whose number can be divided by four without a remainder was to be leap year, and to contain 3'60 days. Thirdly, the last of every century, although divisible by four, vn s not to be a leap year, unless it were also the last year of a period os four centuries. By this rectification of the calendar the maximum error has been reduc ed to one day in 4 0 centuries. For many years the English adhered to the Julian calendar, or the “Old Style,” as it was called; and it was not until the year 1751 that the British parliament enacted that 11 days should be omitted after the second day of September, 1752, and that the third day should be the 14tli —In other words, that the Greg s -' orian calendar, or “New Style,” should be adopted. If it be asked why the month of February should have at best fewer days than any other month, the reason appears to be that the ancient Roman year began in March, and that February, being then the last of the year, they found that they had appropriated too many days for the -preceding months, and thus the last one Was deprived of its proper share. —Boston Post.