Today’s word of the day, thanks to www.etymonline.com, is day. This noun can mean a wide variety of similar but different things. It can mean “the interval of light between two successive nights; the time between sunrise and sunset,” or it can mean “a division of time equal to 24 hours and representing the average length of the period during which the earth makes one rotation on its axis,” or “a division of time equal to the time elapsed between two consecutive returns of the same terrestrial meridian to the sun,” or “a division of time equal to 24 hours but reckoned from one midnight to the next.” That last is probably what we think of when we think of day. And there are other ways to use day, like to refer to analogous periods on other planets.

The word is originally “Old English dæg ‘period during which the sun is above the horizon,’ also ‘lifetime, definite time of existence,’ from Proto-Germanic *dages– ‘day’ (source also of Old Saxon, Middle Dutch, Dutch dag, Old Frisian di, dei, Old High German tag, German Tag, Old Norse dagr, Gothic dags), according to Watkins, from PIE root *agh– ‘a day.’ He adds that the Germanic initial d– is ‘of obscure origin.’ But Boutkan says it is from PIE root *dhegh– ‘to burn’ (see fever). Not considered to be related to Latin dies (which is from PIE root *dyeu- ‘to shine’)” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=day).

Etymonline goes on, “Meaning originally, in English, ‘the daylight hours;’ it expanded to mean ‘the 24-hour period’ in late Anglo-Saxon times. The day formerly began at sunset, hence Old English Wodnesniht was what we would call ‘Tuesday night’” (ibid.). I had always heard or read that beginning the 24-hour day, but apparently it was a practice in other places, or at least in Anglo-Saxon England. According to Meir M. Ydit, the ancient Greeks counted the day from sunset to sunset, while the Babylonians counted it from sunrise to sunrise. The Romans did the midnight to midnight thing like we do (https://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/public/resources-ideas/cj/classics/11-29-11-calendar/counting-day-night.pdf).

The Jews, according to Ydit, were a bit more precise: “In the Jewish tradition it is customary to count the day from the onset of night (i.e., the visibility of three stars in the sky) until after the sunset of the following day” (ibid.). Ydit then goes through a variety of Biblical passages to demonstrate that the evening and night belong to the day following them rather than to the day preceding them. According to L. A. Smith, The early Germanic people counted the day as starting at sunset, not sunrise. It is possible the Anglo-Saxons did the same” (https://lasmithwriter.com/making-a-date-in-anglo-saxon-england/). It seems that the Anglo-Saxons did, because, Smith writes, “According to Bede, the new year began on December 25th, called Modranecht, or ‘Mother’s Night’. There is much speculation about what these ‘mothers’ might be, but there is a tradition of Germanic peoples honouring female ancestral spirits, so possibly this is what Bede is referring to” (ibid.).Bede actually says, “began the year on the 8th calends of January [25 December], when we celebrate the birth of the Lord. That very night, which we hold so sacred, they used to call by the heathen word Modranecht, that is, ‘mother’s night’, because (we suspect) of the ceremonies they enacted all that night” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C5%8Ddraniht). This Modranecht occurred the evening before December 25, so it was their version of Christmas Eve.

While we all know that today is the Ides of March, the day on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in the Forum in Rome in 44 BC, we may not know that on this date in 270 AD, Saint Nicholas of Myra was born. Not much is known about his life. His biographers (really hagiographers) wrote centuries after his death in 343 AD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas).

They say that he grew up in a seaside town called Patara, in Asia Minor, and that his parents were wealthy Christians (ibid.). The wiki says, “In one of the earliest attested and most famous incidents from his life, he is said to have rescued three girls from being forced into prostitution by dropping a sack of gold coins through the window of their house each night for three nights so their father could pay a dowry for each of them” (ibid.). “Other early stories tell of him calming a storm at sea, saving three innocent soldiers from wrongful execution, and chopping down a tree possessed by a demon (ibid.).

He was the Bishop of Myra. He suffered imprisonment under Diocletian but was released under Constantine. He was in a list of attendees for the Council of Nicea in 325, but there is no other record of his being there. “Nicholas had a reputation for secret gift-giving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him, a practice celebrated on his feast day, 6 December”; “According to another source, on 6 December every sailor or ex-sailor of the Low Countries (which at that time was virtually all of the male population) would descend to the harbour towns to participate in a church celebration for their patron saint. On the way back they would stop at one of the various Nicholas fairs to buy some hard-to-come-by goods, gifts for their loved ones and invariably some little presents for their children. While the real gifts would only be presented at Christmas, the little presents for the children were given right away, courtesy of Saint Nicholas. This and his miracle of him resurrecting the three butchered children made Saint Nicholas a patron saint of children and later students as well.[106] The custom of giving gifts on Saint Nicholas Day is popular in various parts of Christendom, with a popular tradition including children placing their shoes in the foyer for Saint Nicholas to deliver presents therein” (ibid.).

In the Netherlands, Saint Nicholas became Sinterklaas, and his feast day was celebrated on December 6. The tradition was transferred to the New World, specifically to New Amsterdam, now New York. But during the Protestant Reformation, the Protestants changed the gift giver from Sinterklaas to Christkindl, the Christ Child, a name which, in English, was corrupted to Kris Kringle, and the date of the gift giving was changed from December 6 to Christmas Eve. And now we know that to the Germans, historically, Christmas Eve would have been the beginning of Christmas Day, not the evening before Christmas Day.

Today’s image is of the arrival of Sinterklaas in the city of Schiedam in 2009, taken and posted by Sander van der Wel. This version of Santa Claus looks much more like a bishop than the version Americans normally think of.