1417
A shy and unmusical stable-hand suddenly began to sing wise and moving hymns.
In 657, a monastery was founded in Whitby, in the Kingdom of Northumbria. It gave employment to several labourers, including an elderly stable-hand named Caedmon who would do anything to avoid singing.
Picture: © Paul Buckingham, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted March 5 2016
1418
The King of Syria goes on a mole-hunt, but Elisha does not seem to mind being his prime suspect.
Naaman, the Syrian general whom the Israelite prophet Elisha cured of leprosy, had not been long back home in Syria when his King was at war with his southern neighbour.
Picture: © Neithsabes, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Posted March 4 2016
1419
The strange-but-true story of a Lady Day tradition.
In the days of King Stephen (r. 1135-1154), Lady Tichborne in Hampshire warned her heirs never to fail in their charity to the poor. To do so, she said, would be bring the family line to an abrupt end, and six hundred years and one meddlesome magistrate later, her unlikely fears came true.
Picture: © Colin Smith, Geograph. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted March 4 2016
1420
A man born blind is healed by Jesus, but finds himself a social outcast as a result.
Jesus has been avoiding Jerusalem, but now he has taken the fateful step. Immediately he engulfs himself in controversy by coming to the aid of a woman accused of adultery, and by appearing to claim to be God. When he heals a blind man on the Sabbath the Pharisees hope he has at last done something they can prosecute him for.
Picture: © Andrey Mironov, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.
Posted March 3 2016
1421
The legend of how Rome was settled gave rise to the March festival of Roman motherhood.
Romans began March, the month of the war-god Mars, by celebrating the ‘Matronalia’, a kind of mothers’ day with presents for the ladies and a day off for slaves. The strange juxtaposition of war and love was said to go back to the legend of how Romulus’s Rome was settled.
Picture: © Rob Campbell, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted March 3 2016
1422
In the populist democracy of 5th-century BC Athens, heroes fell as quickly as they rose.
After Pericles died, the Peloponnesian War with Sparta (431-404 BC) was carried on by other leaders in the radical democracy of Athens, including his nephew Alcibiades, and Nicias. Fighting a war and pleasing a people that brooked no failure in their heroes was not an easy matter.
Picture: © Marie-Lan Nguyen, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted February 29 2016