Who Forgot The Sundial Batteries?

"Arthur Uther Pendragon... formerly known as John Rothwell..."

hee hee.

Pagans??? OMG...next the Wiccans will be showing up

Oh
Wait

Obviously the true-believers ;)

How in tune with nature and the seasons are they if they must rely on a calendar to tell them the right day to celebrate?

mike

he has a chance to redeem himself , a second full moon this month. Stonehenge was about moons too.

Yeah well....

Whatever floats yer boat.......

Well, better early than late.

what a coincidence.....

my mother in law is a druid and i can't count the times i've caught her making odd noises and hieratical gestures come the solstice...and i notice she twitches and whimpers when the moon is waxed full......but to the point she is ALWAYS confusing dates and appointments...i reckon it's just a harmless druidical thing....they're frightfully eccentric you know...

btw for those interested in this sort of thing her maiden name was miri murdo cryogena...which i translate as(and admittedly my Celtic is a tad rusty) 'the cow which visits and never leaves or gives milk.."

we all have one of those john.
I used to call mine Endora.
she would pop by often and always a surprise.

"btw for those interested in this sort of thing her maiden name was miri murdo cryogena...which i translate as(and admittedly my Celtic is a tad rusty) 'the cow which visits and never leaves or gives milk.."

A brilliant translation; one which will withstand the test of time. I wish I had thought of...er translated it.

These people have obviously learned *nothing* from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Oh crap, now that I wrote that I'm going to have to pop the DVD in and watch it again.

John Begley: ...her maiden name was miri murdo cryogena....

That's odd, as the "cryo" part implies cold. The word does sound cool though, so I guess it's possible that the etymology might have developed outside of what limited research I've done.

I'm sure over the last 4500 years other Stonehedge patrons have made similar mistakes, but today, in this age of google they deserve to be mocked ruthlessly!

1/365=0.002739726027397260273972602739726

And to think that the dress and rituals of modern "Druids" are the invention of a victorian dime novelist, because the secret ceremonies of the ancient druids were, well, secret.

"I'm sure over the last 4500 years other Stonehedge [sic] patrons have made similar mistakes, but today, in this age of google they deserve to be mocked ruthlessly!"

Actually, the real pagans of ancient times were probably far better attuned to the days, seasons and astronomical cycles than these modern poseurs.

They had to be to survive.

It does not matter if they got the day wrong, as long as they *believe* !!

Belief trumps science - just ask Al Gore.

puddin n pie, did you accidentally calculate the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere?

Cannot be a Stonehenge scene. Snow does not occur in a dangerously warming, southern part of England.

I wonder if the Archdruid of Canterbury Rowan Williams was in attendance?

"handfasting"

Err, wasn't that what they were doing in the Seinfeld episode titled "The Contest"?

I hope it is not off-topic to vigorously wish Merry Christmas to Kate and with thanks for your valiant fight for truth in the face of the politically correct paradigm police. All the best to you!

Kimbal, I see your charade and wish you the best in the new year.

After all, someone named "Kate" tricked me into posting at the PBS site.

I can't trust anyone anymore.

Matthew 1:18 - 2:12

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."

All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."

When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

wpeA.jpg (2497 bytes) In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage."

When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: 'And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.'"

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage."

When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

a top notch rendition of my all time fave xmas carol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfDQdK2taUA

Winder if Lizard May was there........you -know-, she thinks she's ahead of her time!

She's your typical Druid, Gaia worshipper

....wonder.......

winder lizzie may has a nice ring to it.

They can't even get their own religion right, and we're supposed to take them seriously?

Who is supposed to be taking them seriously, Shawn? No one has for a couple thousand years

I was in a jewellery store in Eire several years ago and the owner told me that he and his wife converted and were now members of a speaking-in-tongues Pentecostal church. The druids didn't bother them when they were R.C. but busily placed whatever voodoo doodads they use for curses on fence posts around his property when they became filled with power from on high.

They're a relic. But, if standing around Stonehenge is your thing, go for it. Even their curses can't hurt a flea.

Thanks for that link curious. Beautiful.

And a big thank you to Kate and Merry Christmas to all!!

what's a hand-fisting ceremony?

read that wrong; I meant to say FASTING.

Sure you did, Harry. Sure you did.

PiperPaul @ 6:53 I tried to make a comment on that PBS site (first time ever)and was rejected because they said I had posted too many times already. Not sure what the scam is there.

I got the date wrong this year also. We usually celebrate the shortest day of the year with a bottle of champagne as every day after that is longer than the one before. Once I popped the cork I decided to check the day length on my Palm and found out that we should have done this on the 22 of December. Can't recork champagne so we figured that the 21st was close enough (only 1 minute in day length at 50 degrees N).

The way to find the shortest day of the year when one doesn't have modern technology is to look at sun position. Winter solstice is maximum southward course of sun and summer solstice is maximum northward path of sun (apparent path from an earth-centric viewpoint). There's probably a rock that marks these sun positions at stonehenge and one would think that the people who worship there would know that.

At midsummer, the sun rose behind the famous heelstone. Dunno what happens in mid-winter exactly. Would it be a perfect 80-degree thing?

(p.s. - are Wiltshire henges your bag, baby? Please check out Stonhenge's equally interesting but sadly neglected twin-henge(?) Avebury. There's a real gosh-darned modern (met a guy who grew up there) village inside of it, and the earthworks and related monuments are kind of mind-blowing.

Or even 180-degree, if you can count.

methinks it moves twice of 23.44 degrees, the tilt of the earths axis. solstice to solstice.

at both of the equinox ,sun rises exactly east , and sets exactly west.

summer solstice is 23.44 north of east , winter 23.44 degrees south of east.
midsummer , the crossquarter points were also calculated, these correspond roughly to groundhog day,mayday, and the dogdays of august , rise of the dog star Sirius , halloween

My wife and I went to see Stonehenge when we were over there. The most disappointing thing was you couldn't get anywhere near the thing because of how it was roped off. I was taking pictures while listening to the audio tour on a small radio they'd handed out, when I heard a faint sound. I thought it was feedback from the radio, but as it turns out there were two women on the pathway singing to the stones. There was no way to tell if they were Druids or Wiccans or whatever, if they had been modern day Druids, they would have been distressed to learn from the tour guide that their ancient cousins preferred using natural settings rather than building massive structures.

cal2 - well, upon reflection, I suppose you've got it right; the sun does not, even in the wintertime, rise in the west. Solipsistically re-reading my own post just now, I'm interested to discover that I seem to have been entertaining the idea last night. Made perfect sense at the time. Glug glug glug glug glug.

One hopes that none of the Stonehenge monuments were in danger of being crushed... by a dwarf.

mhb23re
at gmail d0t calm

Even wrong I bet the party went on.

these neo-druidic recontructionists remind me of early Christian gnosticism. Contemporary beliefs are so far away from the actual/original religious orientation as to make them very poor facimiles.

To Ron in Kelowna: I escorted my Mum to her cousin's 60'th in 2000. April, 2000, we were passing Stonehenge & decided to 'drop in' as it were. Half way around the circle, the wind switched direction and a minor blizzard came in from the north. 'Oh to be in England, now that April's here' forsooth: I have NEVER been so cold as I was that visit.