Monthly Archives: March 2018

Holy Week 2018

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A detail showing Christ and the two theives on their crosses from “The Crucifixion” by Cranach the Elder (woodcut from approx. 1500-1504)

Holy Week, the days between Palm Sunday and Easter, is one of the most important and busiest times of the year in traditional European societies. Everyone is busy baking and cleaning and preparing for the great festival. There are many church services, especially at the end of the week on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

One of the more fascinating or frightening folktales of Holy Week tells us that in Prague and the Czech countryside, underground vaults, caves, and holes that contain hidden treasure will open up shine with a faint light as the Passion is chanted in church. A treasure-seeker can go outside church then and see these places and mark them to come back later. Or, if the treasure-seeker can’t wait to get rich, he can go inside the caves right then but he must get out before the last verse of the Passion reading is complete as the vault or cave will shut when the reading is complete and the treasure-seeker will be trapped inside until the next year.

In Russia, the tale is told that anyone who dies on Good Friday will be ushered directly into heaven just as the Good Thief was. (Many artists who painted depictions of the two thieves actually used the bodies of criminals who had been executed on the wheel as their models as no one was crucified any more; if you look closely, you can still see the thieves’ limbs twisted and bent in strange ways that don’t match descriptions of crucifixions because of their torture on the wheel.)

Much of the folklore associated with Holy Week involves protection of various sorts: To protect against the evil eye, wax from candles burned in church during the Holy Week services would be stuck to the heads of children or animals. Hanging a wreath on the door after sunset on Good Friday will protect the house against lightning. Hot cross buns baked on Good Friday and hung in the kitchen will protect against poverty and if they are hug over the bed, will protect against nightmares.

“Happy New Year?!” Lady Day 2018

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A Coptic icon of the Annunciation, showing the angel Gabriel presenting a lily as he announces the Incarnation to the Mother of God.

A Coptic icon of the Annunciation, showing the angel Gabriel presenting a lily as he announces the Incarnation to the Mother of God.

Lilies are often associated with the celebration of Annunciation. When Eve was driven from Paradise, lilies bloomed wherever her tears fell onto the earth and Gabriel presented lilies to the Virgin Mary when he announced that her Son would re-open Paradise to mankind. Other legends say that lilies blossomed from drops of milk from Hera’s breasts that fell upon the earth and that the lily was therefore the only flower with a soul. Lilies are traditionally considered to drive away ghosts and evil (esp. the Evil Eye) and can break love spells. The first lily of the season strengthens whoever finds it.

Roses are also associated with Annunciation and are used to cast love spells or in healing magic. If you plant roses in your garden, they are said to grow best if you have stolen the seeds from someone else and will then attract the faerie folk.

The Annunciation is celebrated on March 25 (the traditional date of the springtime equinox). Not only was Annunciation — and the equinox — vital to keeping track of time for secular purposes, many ancient and medieval authors claimed that the Annunciation/equinox date were vital at many points of salvation history: the birthday of Adam and the Crucifixion were said to have occurred on March 25 as well. Some also said that March 25 marked the fall of Lucifer, the parting of the Red Sea, as well as the day on which God said, “Let there be light!”

Sometimes called “Lady Day,” the Annunciation was kept as New Year’s Day in many places; the last to give up Annunciation as the New Year’s Day was England and its American colonies in 1752. The correct synchronization of the equinox with the Annunciation is a critical element in the calculation of the date of Easter and the medieval and Renaissance disconnect between the Annunciation and the equinox prompted Pope Gregory XIII to reform the calendar in 1582.

“Beware the Ides of March, 2018!”

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Vincenzo Camuccini, "Morte di Cesare", 1798,

Vincenzo Camuccini, “Morte di Cesare”, 1798,

“Beware the ides of March!” the prophet warned Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. and Caesar was assassinated shortly thereafter, on the ides. Ever since, the Ides of March has been a day associated with doom, disaster, or failure in some form. But what is the “ides”?

Unlike currently used dates, which are numbered sequentially from the beginning of the month, the Romans and medieval Europeans counted backwards from three fixed points: they designated the “kalends,” the “nones,” and the “ides” and all other dates were based on these. (ex. the kalends = the 1st, the nones = the 5-7th, and the ides = the 13-15th days of the month). For instance, rather than saying, “Today is March 3” they would say, “Today is three days before the nones of March.” The kalends marked the new moon, the nones was the half-moon and the ides was the full moon.

The ides of the month marked the full moon and thus the following days of each month were governed by the waning moon, a good time for curses as dark magic grew more powerful as the nights grew darker. Not only would dark magic grow stronger but the darker nights also made crime in general more likely. That the last half of each month was steeped in evil and disaster was underscored by its association with the assassination of Caesar.