As we all know, leap years, in which we bump up our standard 365-day Gregorian calendar to 366 with the addition of February 29, arrive once every four years. This is to accommodate the fact that the Earth actually takes 365.2422 days to orbit the Sun. If we didn’t, at some point in the future (about 750 years, to be precise), we would find ourselves enjoying winter in June.
The arrival of a leap year is marked in various ways around the world, not only by those celebrating their rare, yet true birthdays—‘leaplings’, if you will. In Ireland, Leap Day is also known as Bachelor’s Day, thanks to the tradition whereby women are ‘allowed’ (perhaps ‘encouraged’ might be more appropriate these days) to propose to the man in their life. This supposedly stems from a complaint made by nun St Brigid of Kildare , in the 5th century, that women were having to wait too long for their prospective husbands to get down on one knee.
This story is from the February 26, 2020 edition of Country Life UK.
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This story is from the February 26, 2020 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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