It's Saturday! Cut your nails!

As everyone knows Saturday is a good day to cut your nails, for you will meet your sweetheart on the following day. Who hasn't met a sweetheart on a Sunday because of their footcare the day before? No-one that's who!

On other days cutting your nails may bring further fortune or misfortune. This is of course all true and scientifically proven through the stringent work of podiatrists.

Monday for health, 
Tuesday for wealth, 
 Wednesday for news, 
Thursday for shoes, 
Friday for sorrow, 
Saturday see your sweetheart tomorrow, 
If you cut them on Sunday you cut them for evil, 
And all the week through you will sup with the Devil.

Source: Household Tales with other Traditional Remains – Sidney Oldall Addy

July 16th - Crab the Parson!

Have you ever had the urge to lob handfuls of small, bitter fruit at a vicar?

Well now's your chance! 

On July 16th you would find hundreds of bruised and battered parsons covered in the remnants of crabapples thrown by enthusiastic parishioners to celebrate the eve of Saint Kenelm's Day.

(Source: Maypoles, Mayhem and Martyrs by Quentin Cooper and Paul Sullivan.)

Dragon Day!

As everyone knows July 14th is Dragon Day! 

That is because, as everyone knows, a dragon landed in a cowfield in Henham, Essex, on this day in 1669. This incredible event was reported widely via pamphlet (the Huffington Post of its day) and became the foundation of a glorious drunken fair in which copious amounts of cider and beer (in the same glass) were consumed in honour of this fiery visitor.

So, like those villagers of old (or university students out on the razz) raise a glass of Snakebite to the Dragon and roar!

Saint Peter's Day - Paint your Boat and Change your wife!

On Saint Peter's Day it was said that fishermen would repaint their boats and change their mate.

We are not entirely sure why changing a partner would be a celebration of Saint Peter. 

Tidying up your boat made a lot of sense, of course, as that would please the piscatorial chap. 

This might just be slander.

Or it might be true...

Pay Your Bills! It's Pied Piper Day!

Today is Pied Piper day.
According to "The Mystical Year" this is the day that the Pied Piper visited Hamelin and exacted his terrible revenge for non-payment of bills...
A lesson for us all methinks...

Avoid the Devil's Porridge!

This Midsummer Day if you are approached by the devil with a steaming bowl of delicious porridge.
Ignore him.
Blank him.
Do not eat the porridge.
If you do not eat the porridge you will be safe from his wicked ways and he will briefly be at your beck and call.

Please note this only seems to happen at Chanctonbury Rings...

Spectral Fields - Mix 4 - Join us one last time...

The Kalendar Host has been reading.

He has found himself lost in “A Year in the Country - Wandering Through Spectral Fields” by Stephen Prince. This incredible work has inspired a new journey out of the Kalendar Heath and across these Spectral Fields to discover music, ideas, stories, folk horror jaunts, hauntological treats and nostalgic terror.

This is the third of four mixes dedicated to this new book. This mix explores chapters 40-52 through music, sound and key extracts, acting as an accompaniment or, if you will allow, an aural appendix.

Buy the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Year-Country-Wandering-Pastoralism-Hauntology/dp/0957400721

Discover the delights of Tristram Carey, Mount Vernon Arts Lab, Olan Mill. Paper Dollhouse, The SoullessParty, The Bulgarian State and Television Female Vocal Choir, Field Trip England, Jugg, Jane Weaver, Beautify Junkyards, Johnny Flynn, Matt Berry, The Wombles, Sproatly Smith, The Woodbine and Ivy Band and many more...