What comes along almost every four years and has traditions and superstitions attached to it? That would be Leap Year, in which we add an extra day on February 29th called Leap Day. The extra 24 hours of Leap Day are added to ensure that the calendar is in alignment with the Earth’s journey around the Sun. Our calendars contain 365 days, but the time it takes the Earth to travel around the Sun is slightly longer at 365.2421 days.
The Egyptians were the first to notice a need to add a leap year and Julius Caesar brought the practice to Europe. Pope Gregory corrected Caesar’s calendar in 1582 with the Gregorian Calendar, currently in use today. It still contains minor discrepancies that will need to be addressed 10,000 years from now.
Leap year traditions
Leap Day on February 29th has been accorded traditions, superstitions, and suppositions for many years. Here are some of the more interesting ones:
- What could be more magical that the one day that comes around every four years or so that women are allowed to propose marriage to men! In Ireland women are allowed to do that on Leap Day. According to a popular legend, St. Brigid of Kildare beseeched St. Patrick in the fifth century to allow women to propose marriage. St. Patrick acquiesced, agreeing to their being able to do so every seven years.
But Brigid pleaded with him to shorten the time in between proposal years and St. Patrick agreed to allow women to propose marriage every Leap Day. According to the folk tale, Brigid dropped to a knee and proposed to St. Patrick, but alas he refused her. Kissing her on the cheek, he gave her a silk gown as recompense for his refusal. Consequently, any man who refuses a Leap Day proposal must give his paramour a silk gown.
- In Europe’s upper classes, it once was law and now is tradition that a man refusing a woman’s Leap Day proposal has to buy her 12 pairs of gloves she can wear to hide the fact that she has no engagement ring from her proposal.
- It is considered unlucky for someone to be born on Leap Day in Scotland. Pope Paul III, Italian composer Rossini, and American rapper Ja Rule were born on February 29th.
- Marriages that take place during Leap Year, and especially on Leap Day, are thought to be doomed in many places in the world.
The film 2010 Leap Year depicts actress Amy Adams playing a character named Anna Brady who travels to Ireland to propose to her fiancé on Leap Day. The movie shows all the trials of Anna’s attempt to win back her love. It leaves us with a feeling that maybe women need to be allowed to propose on any day of any year.
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