Mar 25

Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Feast of the

This day celebrates the appearance of the Archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary announcing that she was to become the mother of Jesus. The date for this feast couldn't have been fixed until the date of Christmas was established, and obviously the two dates had to be nine months apart. In England, the feast of the Annunciation is commonly called Lady Day.

Annunciation usually falls during Lent, and is kept as a feast day in the midst of the Lenten fast. If it should happen to fall on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, it is transferred to a date following Easter. According to medieval superstition, it was a bad omen when Easter and the Annunciation fell on the same day.

In Sweden it was called Varfrudagen 'our Lady's Day.' Common pronunciation turned it into Vaffeldagen 'waffle day.' This is the source of heart-shaped waffle irons: the waffles commemorate the heart of the Virgin Mary.

St. Dismas' Day

One of the thieves that was hung with Jesus was named Dismas. He is the patron saint of condemned to death.

Tichborne Dole

The custom of handing out a dole or allotment of flour to the village poor in Tichbourne, England dates back to 1150.

Lady Mabella Tichbourne, on her deathbed, begged her husband to grant her enough land to provide an annual bounty of bread to the poor. Her husband, an evil man, snatched a blazing log from the fire and said that his wife could have as much land as she was able to crawl across before the flames died out. Although she had been bedridden for years, Lady Mabella had her servants carry her to the fields bordering the Tichbourne estate and miraculously managed to crawl across twenty-three acres. With her dying breath, she proclaimed that if her heirs should ever fail to honor her wishes, the family name would die out.

Each year, villagers in need of assistance gather at the porch of Tichbourne House to claim their portion of the gift: a gallon of flour for adults, half for children.

The fields across which Lady Mabella dragged herself are known as "The Crawls."