ROMANCE OF THE ALMANAC.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2251, 15 March 1921, Page 4

ROMANCE OF THE ALMANAC.

SOME QUAINT PRODUCTIONS.

PROPHECIES AND SUPERSTITIONS. Wonderful figures are sometimes quoted of the circulations of work* of popular authors, yet it is safe to say that no other printed matter can compare in the matter of circulation with that of the almanacs which, year after year, arc turned out in an ever-increasing variety of Sizes, shapes, and prices. The almanac is one of mankind’s oldest institutions. Even the origin of the word.is doubtful, but it seems probable that it is onefbf the few (iike “arsenal”), which have come to. Western Europe direct from the Arabic. ■

Go to the British Museum, and there you may see the oldest almanac in existence. Buried fully 3,000 years ago, in the days of Raineses the Great, 25 columns are still legible. Fortunate days are marked in black ink, unfortunate in red; so in those early ages it would seem tliat the “red-letter” day had a reverse significance to that which it possesses at present.

It contains hints as to certain re 2 ligious ceremonies and charms, and predictions as to the destiny of children born on certain days of the week or month. .

To make a jump and come down to the Christian era, almanacs have Keen traced back to the second century A. 1)., and by the eighth century they had become comparatively plentiful. To church people they must have been indispensable, for by that time the number of feast days and saints’ days had so greatly increased that il would lie impossible to have carried them all in the memory.

In those days each psalter and Iffeviary had a calendar at the beginning. in which were noted down the fasts and feasts of the.church. One which belonged to King Atheist a n shows also the tablets of the moon. UNLUCKY FRIDAY. About the end of the Norman Conquest almanacs had attained a very advanced state, and there are still in existence beautiful specimens made in the Netherlands, in France, and in Italy. Gome are exquisilively illuminated, and must have been specially commissioned bv rich men.

All these almanacs had lists of lucky and unlucky days, and by degrees, as the years rolled on, we Hu(l almanacs increasing in size, and containing quaint writings on the subjects of astrology, medicine and popular superstitions. Each month, except April, had two or three unlucky days. April had only one, but this was the famous —or rather, infamous —Walpurgi* night, when witches rode to their revels on their broomstick steeds.

Il is quite as likely that the .-tillexistentoni dislike ot Friday may be ;iu inheritance from the almanacswriters, as that day is considered unlucky purely because il was that of the Crucifixion.

Read these quaint old productions, and you will find that it was on Friday that Cain killed Abel. 011 Friday that the Innocents were slaughtered and John the Baptist lieheaded.

It was not until .1495 that the lirsi printed English almanac appeared. One of these, found in Scotland, is now in the Bodleian Library at Oxlord. It is a tiny production of 15 leaves, and only two indies square. [( must have been about the beginning of the sixteenth century tiiat aiinariae-makers began to prophesy, but their prognostications were even more vague than those ventured upon by modern soothsayers. Dr. Dee's famous almanac- appeared in 1571. It contained that rhyme, so useful even to-day, beginning. “Trihtv days hath September."

Tables of interest and other matter of use to the merchant appear first in the “Poor Richard” almanac, published in the days of Charles T. It was followed shortly by the first religious almanac, a regular “Roundhead" production, full of the most blood-curdling and melancholy

predict ions. ARRIVAL OF “OLD MOORE.” The universities, which had for so long been responsible for the production of almanacs, eventually sold their rights to the Stationers’ Company, but in 1775 a bookseller called Carman started to fight the monopoly, and after a long Imitle, during which he spent a good deal of time in prison, won his c-ase.

“Old Moore’s Almanac” was started by Francis Moore at the end of the seventeenth century, and, under many different editors, has been going for more than two centuries. About the same date there was started in Fra nee a publication called the “Altimanaeh Royal,” and of this the editor had the then novel idea of inserting the names and

birthdays of all the European royalties, together with the names off ambassadors in the various capitals.

This was the origin of the now ' celebrated “Almanack de Gotha.” | That famous American, Dr. ! Franklin, was responsible for a ! well-known almanac. It was pub- | fished for about 25 years, and paid ' well. Though Franklin was the 1 real editor, the name of liiehard I Saunders appears on the title-page.