Wednesday 17th April

Last night as I went to shut the bantams in, little devils are still strutting their stuff till 8.30. A great commotion rose above my head, it wasn't the bats but the blackbirds who were busily defending their nest.  Owls with various noises contributed to the sounds, and I looked up to the sky to see a very misty almost full moon.  My mind reached out, how can I know so little of everything.  So when is Easter?

Earliest and Latest Easter Dates. According to the Metonic cycle, the Paschal Full Moon falls on a recurring sequence of 19 dates ranging from March 21 to April 18. Since Easter happens on the Sunday following the Paschal Full Moon, it can fall on any date between March 22 and April 25 (years 1753-2400).

I tracked through the Coligny Calendar, the so called druidic second century  Gaulish calendar discovered, and it became even more complicated with intercalar years but I understood the need to make sense of winter and summer.

So next I went to Breverton's - Book of the Welsh Saints to find the answer.  Now of course there was a split between the Celtic Christian church and the Roman church, the Celtic church of Britain followed the Jewish custom of Easter but the Bishop of Rome in 457 AD had changed religious dates a great deal earlier.  

In AD 664, adhering to Celtic custom, King Oswy (Oswiu) of Northumbria celebrated Easter on April 14. His wife, however, who had been brought up in Kent, followed Roman practice and fasted that day. For the queen, it was Palm Sunday and she would not celebrate Easter for another week.

Well Britain did not come round till 664 at the Synod Of Whitby over which Saint Hilda presided, when King Oswiu dictated that the Roman custom should be followed and that all monks should be tonsured, a break from the Ionan  Celtic tradition.

Easter eggs of course come from a more pagan tradition, (as of course all religions do).  Spring is the time the birds begin laying eggs, traditions are made, rolling eggs down hill, making annual payments to one's landlord, of eggs and hens. And so we devolve  such customs down to chocolate eggs, though the tradition of painting real eggs still continue on Easter day.

And to finish, something from Kilvert's Clyro's- Easter Eves Idyll.

"More and more people kept coming into the churchyard as they finished their day's work.  The sun went down in glory behind the dingle, but still the work of love went on through the twilit and into the dusk until the moon rose full and splendid. The figures still continued to move round the graves and bend over the green moundsin the calm clear moonlight and warm air of the balmy evening.  At 8 o clock there was a gathering of the Choir in the church to practise the two anthems for tomorrow.  The moonlight came streaming in broadly through the two chancel windows.  When the choir had gone and the lights were out and the church quiet again, as I walked down the Churchyard alone the decked graves had a strange effect in the moonlight and looked as if the people had lain out to sleep for the night out of doors, ready dressed to rise early on Easter morning....."

Thus, according to the Ecclesiastical tables, the Paschal (Passover) Full Moon is the first Ecclesiastical Full Moon date after March 20 (which happened to be the vernal equinox date in 325 AD). So, in Western Christianity, Easter is always celebrated on the Sunday immediately following the Paschal Full Moon.


The cuckoo story at St Nevern, knew it was around somewhere.