Volume 1

The book of days : a miscellany of popular antiquities in connection with the calendar / edited by Robert Chambers.

  • Robert Chambers
Date:
1879-1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The book of days : a miscellany of popular antiquities in connection with the calendar / edited by Robert Chambers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    54/848 page 42
    UNLUCKY DAYS. THE BOOK OF DAYS. ste genevieve. be of tlie age of Henry II., the first or Ealends of January is set down as ' Dies Mala.' These Saxon Kalendars give us a total of about 24 evil days in the 365 ; or about one such in every fifteen. But the superstition ' lengthened its cords and strengthened its stakes ;' it seems to have been felt or feared that the black days had but too small a hold on their regarders; so they were multiplied. 'Astronomers say that six days of the year are perilous of death; and therefore they forbid men to let blood on them, or take any drink ; that is to say, January 3, July 1, October 2, the last of April, August 1, the last day going out of December. These six days with great diligence ought to be kept, but namely [mainly ?] the latter three, for all the veins are then full. For then, whether man or beast be knit in them within 7 days, or certainly within 14 days, he shall die. And if they take any drinks within 15 days, they shall die; and if they eat any goose in these 3 days, within 40 days they shall die; and if any child be born in these 3 latter days, they shall die a wicked death. Astronomers and astrologers say that in the beginning of March, the seventh night, or the fourteenth day, let the blood of the right arm ; and in the beginning of April, the 11th day, of the left arm; and in the end of May, 3d or 5th day, on whether arm thou wilt; and thus, of all the year, thou shalt orderly be kept from the fever, the falling gout, the sister gout, and loss of thy sight.'—BooTc of Knowledge^ b. 1. p. 19. Those who may be inclined to pursue this subject more fully, will find an essay on ' Day- Fatality,' in John Aubrey's Miscellanies, in which he notes the days lucky and unlucky, of the Jews, G-reeks, Homans, and of various distin- guished individuals of later times. In a comparatively modern MS. Ealendar, of the time of Henry vL, in the writer's possession, one page of vellum is filled with the following, of which we modernise the spelling:— ' These underwritten be the perilous days, for to take any sickness in, or to be hurt in, or to be wedded in, or to take any journey upon, or to begin any work on, that he would well speed. The number of these days be in the year 32; they be these:— In January there be 7 :—1st, 2d, 4th, 5th, 7th, 10th, and 15th. In February be 3 :—6th, 7th, and 18th. In March be 3 :—1st, 6th, and 8th. In April be 2 :—6th and 11th. In May be 3 :—5th, 6th, and 7th. In June be 2 :—7th and 15th. In July be 2:—5th and 19th. In August be 2 :—15th and 19th. In September be 2 :—6th and 7th. In October is 1 :—6th. In November be 2 :—15th and 16th. In December be 3 :—15th, 16th, and 17th.' The copyist of this dread list of evil days, while apparently giving the superstition a qualified credence, manifests a higher and nobler faith, lifting his aspiration above days and seasons ; for he has appended to the catalogue, in a bold firm hand of the time—' Sed tamen in Domino con- fide' (But, notwithstanding, I will trust in the Lord.) Neither in this Ealendar, nor in another of the same owner, prefixed to a smaU MS. volume containing a copy of Magna, Charta, &c., is there inserted in the body of the Ealendar anything to denote a ' Dies Mala.' After the Heformation, the old evil days appear to have abated much of the ancient malevolent influences, and to have left behind them only a general superstition against fishermen setting out to fish, or seamen to take a voyage, or landsmen a journey, or domestic servants to enter on a new place—on a Friday. In many country districts, especially in the north of England, no weddings take place on Friday, from this cause. According to a rhyming proverb, ' Friday's moon, come when it will, comes too soon.' Sir Thomas Overbury, in his charming sketch of a milkmaid, says, 'Her dreams are so chaste, that she dare tell them ; only a Friday's dream is all her super- stition; and she consents for fear of anger.' Erasmus dwells on the ' extraordinary inconsis- tency' of the English of his day, in eating flesh in Lent, yet holding it a heinous ofience to eat any on a Friday out of Lent. The Friday su- perstitions cannot be wholly explained by the fact that it was ordained to be held as a fast by the Christians of Borne. Some portion of its maleficent character is probably due to the character of the Scandinavian Yenus Freya, the wife of Odin, and goddess of fecundity. But we are met on the other hand by the fact that amongst the Brahmins of India a like super- stitious aversion to Friday prevails. They say that ' on this day no business must be com- menced.' ^ And herein is the fate foreshadowed of any antiquary who seeks to trace one of our still lingering superstitions to its source. Like the bewildered traveller at the cross roads, he knows not which to take. One leads him into the ancient Teuton forests; a second amongst the wilds of Scandinavia; a third to papal, and thence to pagan Borne ; and a fourth carries him to the far east, and there he is left with the conviction that much of what is old and quaint and strange among us, of the superstitious relics of our fore- elders, has its root deep in the soil of one of the ancient homes of the race. JANUARY 3. St Peter Balsam, martyr, 311 ; St Anterus, pope, 235 ; St Gordius, martyr ; Ste Genevieve, virgin. STE GENEVIEVE. Sainte Genevieve, who has occupied, from the time of her death to the present day, the distin- guished position of Patroness Saint of the city of Paris, lived in the fifth century, when Christi- anity, under corrupted forms, was contending with paganism for domination over the minds of rude and warlike races of men. Credible facts of this early period are few, obscure, and not easily separated from the fictions with which they have been combined; but the following principal events of the life of Ste Grenevieve may be taken as probably authentic:—She was born in the year 422, at iNanterre, a village about four miles from Paris. At the early age of seven years she was consecrated to the service of re- ligion by St Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, who happened to pass through the viUage, and was * Dr Buchanan, Asiat. Res., vol. vi. p. 172.
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