A Saint With a Saving Sense of Humour - How St. Bridget Cajoled St. Patrick - A Mediaeval

Legislation of Leap Year Proposals - How Recalcitrant Swains were Mulcted - Leap Year Customs in Other Lands - Leap Year Dances and Dinners of To-day - The Origin of Leap Year - The

Julian Year - Pope Gregory and His Calendar - Where the Old Style Lingers

To begin with the romantic side of Leap Year.

According to tradition, it was no less a person than the holy St. Patrick himself who granted the ladies the quaint privilege attached to Leap Year - the right of feminine proposal!

The story is worth repeating, if only for the fact that, since St. Patrick was born in the fourth century, it shows us how very ancient is the custom. Now, on a certain day this holy man was walking by the shore of Lough Neagh, when St. Bridget came to him, weeping bitterly, in saddest distress.

Inquiring the cause of her tears, he learned that a mutiny had broken out in the nunnery of Kildare, over which she presided, because now that so few men sought the hands of the Christianised colleens, these good ladies sought to claim the right of proposing themselves.

A Human-hearted Saint

St. Patrick considered awhile, and then agreed to concede them the right every seventh year; whereupon St. Bridget threw her arms round his neck, crying:

"Arrah, Patrick, jewel, I dare not go back to the girls wid such a proposal! Make it one year in four!"

Now, as St. Patrick was delightfully human, despite his sanctity, he saw no just cause why he should

Lave gaiety All to the laity, nor why, "Cannot the clargy be Irishmen, too?" Instead, therefore, of reproving St. Bridget for her caress, he laughingly granted her request, doing it handsomely while he was about it, and gave the ladies the Leap Year - "the longest of the lot."

Thereupon St. Bridget promptly turned round, and remarking that it was then a Leap Year, declared her intention of being the first lady to benefit by the new decree, and straightway proposed to the saint himself.

But as this was more than even St. Patrick had bargained for, he effected a compromise, and got out of the difficulty by presenting St. Bridget with a kiss and a silk gown.

Hence the origin - according to tradition - of the fine of a silk dress which every man is supposed to pay to the lady whose proposal he has the temerity to refuse.

Interesting though the story is, it has, of course, no historical value beyond proving the antiquity of the custom; but when we come to the year 1228 - another Leap Year - we find tradition becoming legal fact, for an Act of Parliament was then passed in Scotland, decreeing that every maiden, of whatever rank or class, should have the right to propose to the man of her choice in Leap Year, and if he refused to marry her he had to pay a penalty of £100, or less, according to his rank and estate, unless he could prove that he was already previously betrothed to another lassie.

And when we come to think of the difference in value of £100 at that date and the present day, it is seen that a maiden's disappointment was a costly affair, quite enough to provide her with a nice little dowry against the time when the marriage did take place.

A Quaint Enactment

The wording of the Act is so curious that it is worthy of repetition.

"Ordonit that during ye reign of her maist blessed Maiestie, Margaret, ilka maiden ladee of baith high and lowe estait, shall hae libertie to speak ye man she likes. Gif he refuses to tak hir to bee his wyf, he shale be mulcet in the sum of ane hundridty pundes, or less, as his estait may bee, except and always gif he can make it appeare that he is betrothed to anither woman, then he shale be free."

It has been truly but cynically remarked that the Act was passed during the reign of a woman, but this merely emphasises the fact that although Suffragettes - at least, by that name - were unknown at that period, the emancipation of woman was not, and women knew how to stand shoulder to shoulder in the thirteenth century as well as in the twentieth. One wonders what would have been John Knox's opinion on this truly "monstrous regiment of women."

Penalised Swains

In later years similar laws were passed by various countries of Europe, and, moreover, enforced, if we are to believe the amazing statement that in one year alone in Genoa no fewer than 363 prosecutions were instituted against ungallant gallants who had declined the proposals of certain fair damsels. What a glorious harvest the Italian silk mercers must have reaped in those happy days!

Anglo-Saxon women, apparently, were not so exacting as to the material of consolation, for an old Anglo-saxon chronicle, compiled before the Conquest, merely observes: "This year, being Leap Year, the ladies propose, and if not accepted, claim a new gown."

Sometimes a silk petticoat was given, or even gloves, but a silken gown was the most useful. Looking further afield, we find some very original methods adopted by love-encouraged maidens.

The dark-eyed Moravian gipsy girl bakes a weird Leap Year cake, and casts it inside the tent of her chosen one as a sign that she is willing to bake for him henceforward.

In Sunny Spain a pumpkin pie is the silent messenger; while in far-off Mandalay a lamp in the window is the token of love. On the first day of the year the "love-lamp" is lighted at eventide, and if the wished-for one enter the dwelling, the little maid places it in the window no more. Henceforth it is to burn for him alone; but if love delays his coming, it gleams like a star each night in the casement, either till he comes, or else, love-lorn, she extinguishes it for ever.

Leap Year Dances

One of the most amusing features of Leap Year is the "Leap Year Dance," which is got up by girls, each of whom asks some man to be her escort to the dance; and she may also choose her partners. No chaperon is required, the man being requested to bring his mother, and so entirely reverse the usual state of affairs.

Besides dances, Leap Year dinners are often held, when the hostess is entire mistress of the ceremonies, and the ladies propose the health of the gentlemen. But when all is said and done, it is very much to be questioned whether more women do not "propose" in the ordinary years? Not in so many words, certainly not, but by the thousand and one little encouragements which the most womanly woman may give to a shy or diffident lover, though he actually does the asking? Surely woman is all-skilled in the delicate mysteries of Love's realm, and has little real need, unless it be done in the spirit of mischief, to undertake a Leap Year proposal and copy the Puritan maiden of Plymouth who, when rejecting the deputed proposal of Miles Standish, turned to his deputy friend and, "with eyes overrunning with laughter, said, in a tremulous voice: 'why don't you speak for yourself, John? ' "

The Origin Of Leap Year

A brief account of the historical side of Leap Year may fitly conclude this article; its interest, though different in nature, is as real and as absorbing.

It is to Julius Caesar that we owe the creation of Leap Year. That famous ruler being possessed of a mathematical as well as a military brain, could not reconcile himself to the discrepancy which existed between the actual length of the year - the time occupied by the earth's revolution round the sun - and the prescribed calendar length, the exact difference being five hours and nearly forty-nine minutes.

But as it was impossible for practical everyday purposes to make the year terminate with a fraction of a day, this worthy soldier called in the aid of Sosigenes, the Alexandrian philosopher, and it was ultimately decided to make every fourth year consist of 366 days, the extra day to be composed of the accumulated odd hours and seconds from the four preceding years!

This arrangment was known as the Julian Year, and the extra day was obtained by counting February 24 twice over. Now, according to the Roman calendar, February 24 is the sixth day before the Calends of March (sextile), so each fourth year becomes bissextile, an old term still retained for Leap Year.

Leap Year itself is so called because by adding a day to February the days thereafter leap forward one more than usual; that is to say, in the ordinary course of events, the day of the month which falls on Monday this year will fall on Tuesday next year, and Wednesday the year after; but the fourth year will leap over Thursday to Friday, because of the extra day in February.

Pope Gregory's Reforms

The centuries passed, and "Imperial Caesar turned to clay," and the Julian Year went on till, in the sixteenth century, it was found that the original difficulty had not been really solved, only exchanged for another, though a minor one, because an extra day every fourth year really lengthened the time by eleven minutes ten seconds too much.

Thus, in 1582, Pope Gregory found that there had been an over-reckoning to the extent of ten days, or that the natural time was ten days behind the calendar.

To make a clean sweep of past errors, this Pope abolished those superfluous days from that year altogether, and declared that October 5 should be reckoned as October 15, and in order to keep this unhappy Leap Year right in future, he decreed that the extra day should be dropped three times in every 400 years.

The New Calendar In England

The Gregorian style, as this arrangement was called, was readily adopted in Roman Catholic countries, but not in Britain till 1752, by which time the difference between the Julian and the Gregorian periods stood at eleven days. An Act of Parliament in that year ordained that September 3 should be considered September 14, and the centurial plan adopted.

Since neither 1800 nor 1900 were Leap Years, there is now a discrepancy of thirteen days between the old and the new style of reckoning, the latter being retained for all purposes only in Russia.

Curiously enough, the old style is still retained in the accounts of the English Treasury, which explains why Christmas dividends are not due till Twelfth Day, Lady Day till April 5, and Midsummer till July 5, and so on.