ABSTRACT
Events as benchmarks for our lives Since the dawn of time, human beings have found ways to mark important events in their lives: the changing of the seasons; the phases of the moon; the eternal cycle of birth, death and the miraculous renewal of life each spring. In Britain, the early folk festivals were associated with Plough Monday, May Day, Midsummer Day and Harvest Home, the latter celebrating the final gathering of the grain harvest (Oxford Interactive Encyclopaedia, 1997). From the Chinese New Year to the Dionysian rites of ancient Greece and the European carnival tradition of the Middle Ages, myths and rituals have been created to interpret cosmological happenings. To the present day, scratch the surface of the archetypes of Old Father Time on New Year’s Eve, Guy Fawkes on 5 November Bonfire Night, Hallowe’en, or Father Christmas on 25 December, and remnants of the old myths and celebrations will be found underneath.
