Lady Day 25th March

Lady Day 25th March

• Feast of the Annunciation Day
• Origins of Lady Day
• Ladies Day

Feast of the Annunciation Day

Not many special days have female associations, Lady is special because in the Christian religion, it was the day when Jesus was conceived.  The Christmas nativity will be 9 months later.

To continue this theme, Lady day is also the feast of the Annunciation.  In this context, the word annunciation means announce.  When the angel Gabriel pronounced the conception, or incarnation, of Jesus in the Virgin Mary.

Lady Day on 25th March is one of the four Quarter days, the others are: Christmas on 25th December, Midsummer's Day on 24th June and Michaelmas on 29th September.

In England, Lady Day was New Year's Day up to 1752.  Indeed it is in England that Lady Day still has the greatest significance.  Until 1971, Quarter Sessions or Quarter Assizes had a connotation with Quarter days.  Nowadays Quarter Sessions have been replaced with Crown Courts.  Quarter days were also the traditional day when tenants paid their quarterly rent.  Indeed standard leases still have the clause:  'Rent on a lease is payable on the 'usual quarter days' unless the lease states to the contrary.

Multiple Origins of Lady Day

Once cannot help noticing the proximity of these quarter days to significant solar events.  The winter solstice, the spring equinox (Lady Day), the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox.  However, the relationship is not precise because the quarter days are on fixed date 4 or 5 days after the more precise solar event.  It's as though our ancient ancestors waited a few days to be sure, and then celebrated the solstice or equinox with a quarter day.

Lady Day is another example of the church appending a religious celebration to a pagan festival, the relationship between Halloween and All Saints would be another case in point.

In myths described in the Mabinogion Welsh folk tales, Lady Day celebrates the union between the spring Virgin Goddess and the young solar God.  In another Mabinogion tale, the spring equinox (Lady Day) is when Llew takes revenge on the evil Goronwy.  According to the allegory, Llew lances his bitter enemy with a shaft of sunlight.

To return to the Holy Bible, and the Gospel according to St Luke:

Luke 1:26
And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.

Ladies Day

The other connotation, or corruption of Lady Day is Ladies Day.  This seems to be a feature of every major horse race meeting from Ascot to York.  Lady day bears as much resemblance to these ladies days as lady does to 'ladette' - nuff said.

Summary of Lady Day

In view of all that it has going for it, Will and Guy are surprised that Lady Day is so little known, and hardly ever celebrated.  To recap, Lady Day is one of only 4 quarter days during the year, it falls near to the vernal equinox, and crucially, it commemorates Christ's conception.

See more special events, days of celebration:

• Up-Helly-Aa   • Groundhog Day   • Candlemas   • Cherry blossom day   • Earth Day   • Grand National

• May Day   • Midsummer's Day   • Festival Days   • Lady Day   • Friday 13th superstitions

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