Today is leap day; that strange 29th day of February that comes around every 4 years. Well…almost every 4 years. I’ve been reading a lot about Leap Day. Thanks Encyclopedia Britannica! You and I were buddies when I was a wee child with lots of time on my hands, and it seemed fit to turn to you on this day where we theoretically have time on our hands. Or are we catching up for lost time?
The idea of catching up for lost time has been around for more than a few millennia, but we’ve always been struggling with how to catch up. Julius Caesar had the moxy to add another day to February, which was already short (more about that in a bit).
Way to go Caesar… and in roughly 15 days we’ll be remembering the Ides of March when Caesar was killed by fellow leaders and friends.
Don’t worry, that act of violence didn’t stem from leap year, but ever since that day, March 15, 44 BCE , the Ides of March has been viewed with some sense of foreboding and superstition.
Speaking of superstition…
Have you ever wondered why February is weird? Leap year or otherwise, it’s the diminutive month with less days than its other monthly buds.
But why?
Because of superstition.
Encyclopedia Britannica to the rescue once again! Man, I haven’t read from this good series since I was 10 and had to write a paper on chinchillas. And back then, I didn’t have a handy dandy link to click, I had to turn pages and stuff. But I digress…
So what does superstition have to do with February being wacky?
Back around 700 BCE (before Julius Caesar and his calendar), a Roman king named Numa Pompilius reigned. Rome was in its infancy…okay maybe it had graduated to baby carrots…but things were still new.
At the time the calendar had 10 months, and Numa noticed a discrepancy of days to seasons, so he added two months. It’s good to be king!
BUT…the king was superstitious, and according to the tradition at the time, even numbers were seen as unlucky. He subtracted a day from each of the 30 day months to make them 29 and left the months with 31 days alone.
But the number of days per year became even, and thus unlucky, so it meant that one day had to be taken away to make an uneven yearly number. And February became 28 days.
Why February?
It was this month that the Romans would honor the dead with rituals, so the month was already seen as superstitiously unlucky and foreboding.
And even though we’ve had MANY changes to the calendar since then…somehow February and its normally 28 days….and the occasional leap year…have remained.
Which makes me wonder…
What traditions or habits do we hold onto because of superstition?
Are there words that we avoid saying out loud because if we do, somehow something bad will happen?
What places do we avoid because of it not being ‘the right number’?
And are we living out someone else’s superstition?
Well, those are just some of my extra thoughts on this extra day.
Maybe I’ll go for a walk under a ladder or step on some cracks or something…
