As it happens, I did forget today’s holiday until now, but luckily ate cereal anyway.

The festival of “Cerialia” (“Cerealia”? The spelling seems several.) is a particularly entertaining one, what with the exchange of hospitality among the common people and the letting loose of foxes with burning torches tied to their tails[1]. What a sight! We’ll have to see if we can hunt down a fox today that we might try it!

Today is also St. Alphege’s day. He seems to be the chap who persuaded Svend Tyggeskaeg (aka “Forkbeard” – geez those Vikings knew how to slap a nickname on their marauders) to stop raiding England. So today we eat cereal and celebrate St. Alphege’s stand for peace and, if we can find a fox, we’ll tie a torch to her tail this evening. (Hmm, wonder if Sadie would go for it.)

[1] Blackburn et. al., Oxford Book of Days, p. 160

April 19, just four short days away, is the festival of Cerealia, a celebration in reverence to Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture.

I plan to eat cereal for breakfast that day in celebration. Lissa notes that I eat cereal every day. This is true, and a good thing, for I’m somewhat absent-minded and am likely to forget the holiday.

This comes to mind because it’s the season of spring festivals, rooted in a time when our religious celebrations served as practical markers of stuff we needed to do, like planting. Today is the Fordicia. We’re apparently supposed to sacrifice two dozen pregnant cows in the temples in honor of Tellus, Roman god of the Earth. This seems impractical, so I ate cereal this morning as well.