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Candlemas   Listen
noun
Candlemas  n.  The second day of February, on which is celebrated the feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary; so called because the candles for the altar or other sacred uses are blessed on that day.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Candlemas" Quotes from Famous Books



... difficulties consequent on his trusting to servants the work of his brewery, which he was too indolent to superintend himself, and on his joining in security for a large sum with a printer who failed, were now gathering fast upon him. His creditors became clamorous; and at Candlemas (one of the quarter days in Scotland) 1762, being equally unwilling to compound with them, as his brother advised him to do, and unable to satisfy their demands, he prevailed on them to accept his notes of hand, payable in four months. When the time was expired, he ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... across the Alps, assumed the "Iron Crown" [22] of Lombardy, and then proceeded to Rome, where he secured the pope (John XII) against the latter's enemies in that city. Otto's reward was the same as Charlemagne's. On Candlemas Day, (February 2d) 962 A.D., the grateful pope crowned him ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... Master Thibaut, compared with the winter of 1407, when it froze from St. Martin's Day until Candlemas! and so cold that the pen of the registrar of the parliament froze every three words, in the Grand Chamber! which interrupted the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... St. Peter, ad Vincula, were bound by that tenure to bring a living lamb into the church at high mass.—Cornell's Interpreter. Lammas day was always a great day of account, for in the payment of rents our ancestors distributed the year into four quarters, ending at Candlemas, Whitsuntide, Lammas, and Martinmas, and this was as common as the present divisions of Lady day, Midsummer, Michaelmas, and Christmas. In regard to Lammas, in addition to its being one of the days of reckoning, it appears from the Confessor's laws, that it was the specific ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various

... hanged, but it was rescued for holy uses. The same night after the execution, a great crowd flocked about the gallows, and there spent the fore part of the night in heathenish howling, and performing many Popish ceremonies; and after midnight, being then Candlemas day, in the morning having their priests present in readiness, they had Mass after Mass till, daylight being come, they departed to their own houses." There was "sympathy with sedition" for you, gentlemen. No wonder the crown official who tells the story—same worthy predecessor ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan

... and selling of pardons, indulgences for 40,000 years to come, their processions on set days, their strict fastings, monks, anchorites, friar mendicants, Franciscans, Carthusians, &c. Their vigils and fasts, their ceremonies at Christmas, Shrovetide, Candlemas, Palm Sunday, Blaise, St. Martin, St. Nicholas' day; their adorations, exorcisms, &c., will think all those Grecian, Pagan, Mahometan superstitions, gods, idols, and ceremonies, the name, time and place, habit only altered, to have degenerated into Christians. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... put off their colours,' she remarked; 'but that was never the way i' my family. Why, Mrs. Parrot, from the time I was married, till Mr. Higgins died, nine years ago come Candlemas, I niver was out o' black ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... animals and only rarely for the benefit of the crops. The cross-quarter-days, February 2 and August 1, which were also kept as festivals, were probably of later date, as, though classed among the great festivals, they were not of so high an importance as the May and November Eves. To February 2, Candlemas Day, probably belongs the sun-charm of the burning wheel, formed by the whirling dancers, each carrying a blazing torch; but no special ceremony seems to be assigned to August 1, Lammas Day, a fact suggestive of a ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray

... hoped, at least in this part of the world, to know (except from memory and predictions of the almanac) whether the sun were round or square, until next Easter-day should come. It was not quite impossible that he might appear at Candlemas, when he is supposed to give a dance, though hitherto a strictly private one; but even so, this premature frisk of his were undesirable, if faith in ancient rhyme be any. But putting him out of the question, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... priesthood like the vestals, priestesses of Vesta. As has been seen, the goddesses Belisama and Sul, probably goddesses of fire, resembled Brigit in this.[227] But Brigit, like Vesta, was at once a goddess of fire and of fertility, as her connection with Candlemas and certain ritual survivals also suggest. In the Hebrides on S. Bride's day (Candlemas-eve) women dressed a sheaf of oats in female clothes and set it with a club in a basket called "Briid's bed." Then they called, "Briid is come, Briid is welcome." Or a bed was made of corn and hay with ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch

... rather flimsy grounds, and a Litany in English substituted—the "English Procession," as it was called. Many images in the churches had been destroyed, as superstitious; the censing of those remaining had ceased. The peculiar ceremonies of Candlemas, Ash Wednesday, and Palm Sunday had been omitted in many places. A chapter of the Bible in English was being read after the lessons at Mattins, ...
— The Acts of Uniformity - Their Scope and Effect • T.A. Lacey

... markets, and meetings for buying, which continued for a week: and after Christianity was introduced into Svithjod, the Things and fairs were held there as before. After Christianity had taken root in Svithjod, and the kings would no longer dwell in Upsala, the market-time was moved to Candlemas, and it has since continued so, and it lasts only three days. There is then the Swedish Thing also, and people from all quarters come there. Svithjod is divided into many parts. One part is West Gautland, Vermaland, and ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... such a cheerful, voluntary air! So far removed from your sour parochial or state-gatherers,—those ink-horn varlets, who carry their want of welcome in their faces! He cometh to you with a smile, and troubleth you with no receipt; confining himself to no set season. Every day is his Candlemas, or his Feast of Holy Michael. He applieth the lene tormentum of a pleasant look to your purse,—which to that gentle warmth expands her silken leaves, as naturally as the cloak of the traveller, for which ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... at sea and were sadly in want of a change of diet. Seventeen days later, they sighted the small islands and rocks which they called Baixos de la Candelaria, Candlemas Reefs; these have been identified with Lord Howe Islands, lately ceded to ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge

... these— Spring's full-faced primroses, Summer's wild wide-hearted rose, Autumn's wall-flower of the close, And, thy darkness to illume, Winter's bee-thronged ivy-bloom. Seek and serve them where they bide From Candlemas to Christmas-tide, For these simples used aright ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling

... during that winter, the sun had shown itself a little in the afternoon, but it was the 2d of February, that ancient Candlemas day whose treacherous sun, the precursor of a six weeks' cold spell, inspired Mathieu Laensberg with these two lines, which have with justice ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... too soon!' he argued, the veins of his forehead beginning to swell. 'If he gets her this side o' Candlemas I'll challenge en—I'll take my oath on't! I'll be back to King's-Hintock in two or three days, and I'll not lose sight of ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy

... greatest price; but as soone as seede-time is past, you shall then thresh no more of those graines till it be neare Midsummer, but begin to thresh vp all such Barly as you intend to conuert and make into Malt, and so from Michaelmas till Candlemas, apply nothing but Malting, for in that time graine is euer the cheapest, because euery Barne being full, some must sell for the payment of rents, some must sell to pay seruants wages, and some for their Christmas prouisions: in which ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham

... opened his eyes and said that he had no stomach for such song, and from the next door came the mutter of the drums. For on that night—which was Candlemas—Thursday, or as we should now call it "Friday"—the gaolers were keeping holiday, and drinking English beer brewed in Sussex; for the beer of West England was not to their liking, as any one who has walked ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring

... the great Candlemas fair. At breakfast she said to Elizabeth-Jane quite coolly: "I imagine your father may call to see you to-day. I suppose he stands close by in the market-place with the rest ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy



Words linked to "Candlemas" :   Candlemas Day, Feb 2, February



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