How the worlds leap-day customs took hold, from evil omens to true love
On Thursday, fun-seekers will converge on the town of Anthony, straddling the Texas-New Mexico line, for a three-day festival of music, food and handmade gifts. But there’s an important restriction: Only “Leaplings” may attend the first day of the festival. Also known as “29ers,” these are people who were born on leap day — Feb. 29. Anthony calls itself the Leap Year Capital of the World.
The rest of the world gets to experience Feb. 29 with varying levels of fanfare. The reason we receive the extra date is because the 365 days it takes for the Earth to journey around the sun are an approximation: A full “sidereal” year runs for 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes and 9 seconds.
To prevent those extra hours from adding up and slowly shunting the seasons forward, an extra day is created every four years to absorb the surplus. However, while leap days have been observed since they were mandated by Roman dictator Julius Caesar in 46 B.C., not every country has taken the leap — even with the introduction of the extendible Gregorian calendar in 1582, which is used in most parts of the world.
Approximately every three years, the traditional Chinese calendar adds a leap month when 13 new moons occur between the beginnings of the 11th month in two consecutive years. The Soviet Union introduced both a Feb. 29 and a Feb. 30 from 1930 to 1931 as part of its Stalinist revolutionary calendar of 30-day months, which created five-day weeks and eliminated weekends.
Advertisement
In 1699, Sweden instituted a calendar that provided for a gradual transition from Julian to Gregorian timekeeping by skipping leap days for 40 years. The plan was abandoned in 1712, and leap days — along with a single Feb. 30 — were reinstated.
In the United States, leap years are easy to remember, since they coincide with presidential election years. But not always: The first year of each new century must be divisible by 400 to receive the extra date.
Feb. 29 is an auspicious day for Hollywood: It was on that date in 1940 that Hattie McDaniel became the first Black actor to win an Oscar, for her performance in “Gone With the Wind.”
But elsewhere, it’s regarded with more wariness. The date is considered unlucky in Scotland, much like Friday the 13th. Being born on a leap day is a bad omen; farmers have been known to remark, “Leap year was never a good sheep year.”
Advertisement
In Greece, Feb. 29 is considered to be so unlucky that couples are discouraged from marrying on the date. Those who do are warned that they will divorce and never find true love.
This superstition probably came from the Romans, who conquered Greece in 146 B.C. and brought with them the belief that February was the month of the dead. An extra date meant one more day when the god of the underworld — Pluto to the Romans, Hades to the Greeks — was free to walk the earth.
Ireland takes a sunnier view of Feb. 29. Following a 5th-century complaint by St. Brigid of Kildare that it takes men too long to make honest women of their sweethearts, St. Patrick decreed that leap day would see the gender roles reversed, and women would be permitted to propose to men.
The custom was popularized by the romantic comedy “Leap Year,” in which Amy Adams’s character travels to Ireland to pop the question to her boyfriend while he attends a conference in Dublin on Feb. 29. (The movie came out in 2010 — not a leap year.)
Advertisement
The gender role-reversal also became custom in some Northern European countries, which discouraged men from rejecting leap-day proposals. In Finland, a man who says no on Feb. 29 is obliged to purchase his bride-not-to-be enough material to make a skirt. In Denmark, the cost is a dozen pairs of gloves, apparently to hide the shame that comes with a declaration of love not resulting in a wedding ring.
The Brits adopted a leap year tradition of their own: alcohol. Invented by world-renowned bartender Henry Craddock at the American Bar of London’s Savoy Hotel, the Leap Year — a blend of gin, vermouth, lemon juice and Grand Marnier — made its debut in 1928. According to Craddock’s 1930 “Savoy Cocktail Book,” the drink is said “to have been responsible for more proposals than any other cocktail that has ever been mixed.”
In Taiwan, a leap-day custom sees daughters serving pig trotter noodles to their parents. This is a precautionary measure, stemming from the superstition that the elderly are more likely to die in leap years.
Advertisement
Perhaps the most committed response to the extended calendar comes from France, where the newspaper La Bougie du Sapeur only publishes on leap days.
Founded in 1980 and having printed just 11 editions before Thursday’s, the newspaper took its name — which translates to “the soldier’s candle” — from the 19th-century cartoon character Sapeur Camember, a leapling who enlisted in the army despite having celebrated only four birthdays.
La Bougie du Sapeur has a circulation of 200,000 copies in France, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium. This year, it will publish the solution to its 2020 crossword puzzle. The newspaper also donates some of its sales revenue to nonprofits benefiting people with autism and epilepsy.
Editor Viscount Jean D’Indy described his periodical in 2020 as a “serious press” but added, “Laughter is good for your health, and as such it should be reimbursed by social security.”
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLWqv9OoqbJnYmV%2FdXuPa2ZrcV%2BhsqK8jJ2YsmWjqr2mvtKtoK2hn6PAbsDRmpuirJmku7R5xZ6ZZmppZA%3D%3D