*Ø* Blogmanac September 14 | So, what's today? Nuttin'!

Eleusinian Mysteries, ancient Greece (Sep 11-19) Fourth Day
Today commemorated the abduction of Persephone and Demeter’s search for her daughter.

On the day of the Cross, cross your sails and tie your ropes, rest in harbour. On St George’s Day rise and set sail again.
Traditional Greek saying

If dry be the buck’s horn
On Holyrood morn,
‘Tis worth a kist of gold;
But if wet it be seen
Ere Holyrood e’en,
Bad harvest is foretold.
Traditional Yorkshire proverb

Holy Cross Day
Officially known as the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, today used also to be called Holy Rood Day, or Roodmas. It is a christianisation of the ancient Eleusis feast of Demeter. Some authorities say the Catholic Church feast commemorates the restoration of the true cross to Calvary in 629, after the victory of Heraclius over the Persians. Others say it commemorates the raising of the true cross in the church at Jerusalem in 335 by the Empress Helena.

The rood was a carved crucifix, usually with Mary on one side and St John on the other, placed above the nave of a church, in a rood-loft. After the Reformation, this space became used for an organ-loft or choir stalls.

At Boxley, Kent, there was one in which the image of Christ used to have a moving mouth and limbs. At the Reformation it was found to be a mechanical model, but for years before the priests had tricked parishioners into believing it was miraculous, thereby obtaining money from them.

According to the thirteenth-century historian Rigordus, since Cosroes stole the Cross from Jerusalem in 614, humans have had fewer teeth than previously.

The Ember Days
Today is one of several ember days of the year, a custom instituted by Pope Calixtus in the third century to seek God’s blessing on the fruitfulness of the earth. It was the practice to put ashes on one’s head, but the name might come from the Saxon emb-ren or imb-ryne , meaning a course or circuit, from the ember days’ commemoration at four quarters of the year.

Holy Nuts
Today is traditionally known in Britain as Devil’s Nutting Day, or the Day of the Holy Nut, and hazel nuts gathered today are said to have magical powers. If you find two on one stalk today, they will guard against rheumatism, toothache and evil spells from witches. But you must not gather nuts early in the morning, for it is unlucky.

Pilgrimage of the Black Madonna
From today until September 20 in Switzerland is the Pilgrimage of the Black Madonna, who has many shrines throughout Europe.

Battle of San Jacinto Day, Nicaragua
Today is an important holiday for Nicaraguans as they commemorate their repulsion of invaders on this day in 1856.

“Commemorates 1856 battle between US ‘filibuster’ William Walker, then president and self-styled emperor of Nicaragua who hoped to join Nicaragua to the US as a slave state, and a band of natives armed with sticks, stones, and few rifles. Walker lost.” Source: The Daily Bleed

1321 Dante Alighieri, Italian author of Divine Comedy, died. The great poet was buried at the Bracciaforte monastery dressed in scarlet doctoral robes and crowned with laurel leaves. In 1780 when his tomb was opened to move his remains, the coffin was empty. Some friars said that they saw a ghostly, scarlet-robed figure. In 1865, workmen found in the monastery walls a skeleton, and a plaque that identified the remains as Dante’s.

Goodbye my friends, I go to glory!
Words called out by Isadora Duncan to her friends as she sped off for a drive near Nice

1927 American dancer Isadora Duncan, 49, was killed when the end of the shawl she was wearing caught in the wheel of her Bugatti sports car near Nice, in France.

1982 Fifty-five years to the day after another beautiful and popular American entertainer, Isadora Duncan, died in a motor accident on a road near Nice, American actress-turned princess, Grace Kelly, died in a car crash on a mountain road between Monaco and Nice, France.