Clio/Clios Attic
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«Clio
Clio's Attic
Here are some notes on the various essays which seemed to fit even less well into their structure than the meanderings which are already there.
A Year of the Seasons Clio cannot recommend a single best source for pagan information, but the Larousse Dictionary of World Folklore is certainly useful to have, and its entries will give you enough information to dig intelligently through the shelves and shelves of mythology and folklore books - which is where you'll find this information; the paganism (primarily Wicca) that one finds in the "religion" section of a bookstore is of an entirely different character. If you are interested in Wicca, or what a typical modern-day ritual in the Celtic Wiccan traditions might look like, Clio recommends Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft by Raymond Buckland as a good initial source. Despite its title, this book is as much concerned with ritual and history as anything else.
"Give Us Back Our Eleven Days!" Clio worked mostly from her own bits and pieces, as is typical for her, but she feels that the best single source on this fascinating subject is Calendar: Humanity's Epic Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year by David Ewing Duncan. Re the final paragraph of the essay: The Gregorian 400-year adjustment removes 72 hours of excess, but the actual accumulated excess is 74 hours, 53 minutes, 20 seconds in 400 years. The uncorrected excess - about 3 hours every 400 years - will accumulate to a day's worth in 3323 years of Gregorian timekeeping. However, that does not mean a correction will be needed in the year 3323 CE - more likely the correction will be 1582+3323, and will take place in 4905. Clio will be waiting.
The Dragon in the Sky Clio's printed sources involve the language of dates in China, and have very little information on the calendar organization itself. For that she is indebted to various websites and apocrypha. This site will tell you what year it is in the various Chinese systems, as well as many others. Clio gives astrology very short shrift, and Chinese astrology is no different. She would prefer to provide a source for those who care to research it on their own; however, the previous URL given in this spot is now defunct, and Clio has been unable to search for another suitable resource. All Chinese phrases are assumed to be Mandarin/Pinyin, unless someone corrects Clio on the matter. Clio was going to provide written characters for many of the phrases, but the years have corroded her calligraphy to the point where it is illegible.
"Established 5757" Clio eventually decided to leave this very long essay in its complete form, after contemplating several deletions. Even so, there is a great deal of tradition and derash (interpretation) pertaining to the Jewish calendar cycle which she has omitted. It is not Clio's intention, after all, to write a book on the subject. Those already exist. Curious readers are directed to the best single source she has found, The Jewish Holidays: A Guide and Commentary by Michael Strassfeld. Clio would also be amiss if she did not mention one of her favorite books, The Story of the Jews: A 4000-Year Adventure by Stan Mack. The Jewish holidays, more so than in other religions (Clio believes) are defined by food - special foods to be eaten at certain times of the year. Clio says this so you will not find it odd that she is listing a cookbook as a reference source. If you are interested in why Shevuot is "the cheesecake holiday," or in the differences between traditional Sephardic and Ashkenazic diet, you will find Faye Levy's International Jewish Cookbook most interesting. The recipes are good too. Incidentally, Clio would like to correct a common misperception: Although it is traditional to eat vegetable-heavy dishes on Sukkot, the mixed-vegetable dish "succotash" does not derive its name from the holiday. It descends from an American Indian term. Check your dictionary. The names of the Jewish holidays can only be definitively spelled in Hebrew. Clio has chosen to use the spellings found in the Strassfeld book, for the most part. However, Strassfeld transliterates both "chet" and "heh" characters as "h." Clio prefers to make a distinction in pronunciation (she normally hears the former said as a German "ch," with a hiss over the back of the throat, and the latter as an English "h.") So where Strassfeld writes Hanukkah and Pesah, Clio prefers Chanukkah and Pesach. Clio also prefers to write "Shabbat" as "Sabbath," for her own reasons. Clio also would like to thank Ardent Reader Shmuel Ross for sending several pages of pertinent notes on the subject.
The Drifting Cycle Clio had an even bigger problem with transliteration here than she did with the Jewish calendar (see above). No two documents spelled all the names of the months the same way; some didn't even come close to resembling each other. The twelfth month has been listed as Zulhijjah, Thw al-Hijjah, and Dhu al-Hijjah in addition to the spelling she eventually used. All the month names were taken from David Ewing Duncan's book Calendar, already cited above. Clio notes, though, that the names of the months are frequently written in a much simpler form, especially on calendars where space is sometimes limited. You may more often see the following names: Muharran Other transliterated phrases use the spelling of whatever source they were obtained from. Clio has found a lack of good sources on Islamic holidays and apologizes for her poor showing here. For example, of all the links on this web page, not one of them gave her satisfactory answers on the holiday of Isra' and Mi'raj (27 Rajab). If you can bring any better sources to her attention, please do. The translation of the Qu'ran verse is credited to A. Yusuf Ali. This is apparently a well-known translation; Clio is not knowledgeable about these things. The link above should be able to tell you more. The theory on the names of some Islamic months implying a previous lunisolar system was stolen from the Duncan book.
Three Minor Saints For saintly lore Clio uses the Larousse Dictionary of World Folklore and the Penguin Dictionary of Saints as memory aids. So many saints to keep an eye on .... Some of the comments about Christmas in this essay are discussed again when Clio talks of the Christian cycle of holy days.
"The Holy Blisful Martir" Another rather long essay, second only in length to the Jewish one ... but Clio feels less apologetic about this one, given her prolonged period of silence. Clio admits to using the book Celebrations: The Complete Book of American Holidays by Robert Myers as a memory aid while writing this essay. Don't bother trying to find this book unless you enjoy the hunt; it's been out of print for ages. When writing about biblical affairs, Clio finds it useful to place her copy of Halley's Bible Handbook by Henry Halley and The Unauthorized Version by Robin Lane Fox next to each other and refer to them in unison. Halley is (or, rather, was) an unabashed Bible apologist; for him everything in the Bible must be exactly thus and so simply because it is in the Bible and thereby not subject to dispute. Fox is a historian and, Clio believes, something of an anthropologist; his book treats the Bible as the starting point of a vast detective story, whereby he attempts to verify through other historical records just how much of it is true. Clio recommends the book highly; even if you do not endorse its skepticism it is fascinating reading (unlike Halley, which no one would ever read for its own sake). The full discussion on dating Christ's birth lasts several pages and is to be found as section III of the first chapter. Interestingly, Fox describes himself as someone who "believes in the Bible but not God." Clio finds that position much more difficult to comprehend than someone who believes in God but not in the Bible. She wants to make it clear that she is not picking fights with anyone's deity, merely with the absolute veracity of a piecemeal, many-times-recopied work of folk history based largely on several conflicting oral traditions. With a view to that comment, Clio wishes to apologize for talking about what are primarily Catholic traditions under the umbrella term of "Christianity." Clio does not mean to offend members of Protestant religions, but from the perspective of history and folklore, the Catholic traditions are clearly the wellspring; the Protestant traditions, while valid, have chosen to abandon or outright reject various points of Catholic lore or dogma. Certainly Clio does not know of any Protestant faiths introducing significant new traditions (save Reformation Sunday, somewhere around 31 October); the trend is always in the direction of reducing folklore rather than enhancing it. Therefore, in discussing Christian custom, she has chosen to stick with the motherlode.
Too Far To See So, despite Clio's warning, you want to try to swallow the last thousand years in a single gulp? Well, more power to you. Clio recommends History of the World by J.M. Roberts - a rather dry but thorough treatment - and Millennium: A History of the Last Thousand Years by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, which tells history through stories of individuals, and tends to therefore be more haphazard but also more entertaining. The two taken together make good companions. Clio also recommends a copy of The Timetables of History by Bernard Grun as a reference - this will serve as the metronome which keeps the other two books in synch. In fact, Clio recommends having this book on your shelf even if you don't have any interest in the other two.
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