English Folklore

Folklore says that bad luck looms when Good Friday falls on the Feast of the Annunciation, as it does this year.

It is the first time the dates have coincided for 73 years. The clash is the result of the early Easter.

Christian theologians have noted that it encapsulates the beginning of Christ's life on Earth - the moment that the Angel Gabriel tells Mary that she is with child - and His death on the Cross. Some doomsayers predicted that the world would end on such a date in AD 970 and others said there would be bad luck if Easter fell on Lady Day.

An early English saying ran: "If Our Lord falls in Our Lady's lap, England will meet with a great mishap."

Fortunately the nation has survived the last three such dates, in 1910, 1921 and 1932. If we survive this one, the next will fall in 2016.

Because of the clash, the Churches move the celebration of the Feast of the Annunciation to the next free Sunday, which this year is April 4. In the West, Easter occurs on the first Sunday after the full moon on or after the spring equinox. It always falls between March 22 and April 25.

The perennial debate about whether it should be on a fixed date was refuelled last week by the biblical scholar Geza Vermes, professor emeritus of Jewish Studies at Oxford University.

In a new book, he has calculated the date of the death of Jesus Christ as April 7, on the eve of the Passover, in AD 30.

Tip of the stetson to the Telegraph.