[Sca-cooks] festivals and calenders

[Decker, Terry D.]

> 1. may i please post this entire discussion, with emails cut 
> out of it, to
> a Pagan group i am on??? please????

That's fine by me.

> 
> 2. yes, weird things happen to lunar calenders when you "fix" 
> the dates to a
> solar year... also recall that the order of some months has 
> changed, and a
> few months added and then the days standardized.......

Another point to consider is most agrarian societies with lunar calendars
also track the equinoxes, which provide anchors for planting and harvest.
Although the true equinox point moves westward, a full cycle is about 26,000
years, so most societies don't last long enough to see the precession.

Of course, until 1752, New Year's came on March 25 (at least for the British
Isles and the rest of the Empire).

> 
> 3. living in Pennsylvania, as i do. the pagan festivals (or the
> Christian/pagan ones) seem oddly out of synch with the actual 
> weather. but i
> understand it makes more sense in the mediteranean, owing to 
> the moderating
> influence of the mediteranean sea......
> 

Earlier societies based their festivals on local conditions as well as
astronomical calculations.  Thus, while Norse, Irish and Egyptian festivals
might be similar, there could be regional variation in the dates.
Standardization and globalization of the calendar can be practically dated
to 1582 and the Catholic Church's acceptance of the Gregorian calendar.

Bear