This is Saint Agness Eve, probably more famous than the saints feast day itself thanks to Keatss poem. It was a day on which girls and unmarried women who wished to dream of their future husbands would perform certain rituals before retiring for the night. These included transferring pins one by one from a pincushion to their sleeve while reciting the Lords Prayer, or abstaining from food and drink all day, walking backwards up the stairs to bed, and eating a portion of dumb cake (previously prepared with a group of friends in total silence, and often containing an unpleasantly large proportion of salt) before lying down to sleep. Saint Agnes, patron saint of virgins, was martyred in the early fourth century at the tender age of 13, apparently for refusing to consider marriage. Her emblem is a lamb, perhaps because of the similarity of its Latin name, agnus, to her own. https://youtube/watch?v=A39r1jmh0mw
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 19:55:16 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015