26th June: The Pied Piper of Hamelin

On this date in 1284, According to legend, the Pied Piper reappeared in the German town of Hamelin. He had rid the town of Rats but the townspeople refused to pay him, so he piped away 130 children and sealed them in a cave on Koppenburg Mountain.

1. Hamelin is a real place - it's in Lower Saxony in Germany. One of its big tourist attractions is a re-enactment of the Pied Piper tale each summer.
2. When the piper lured the rats into the river, they didn't all drown. One was left alive.
3. Not all the children vanished forever, either. Depending on which version of the story you are listening to, up to three children were left behind - one who was lame and couldn't keep up; one who was deaf and couldn't hear the music, and one who was blind and couldn't see where to go. This child, or children, were able to tell the adults what happened when they came out of church and found the other children gone.
4. What actually became of the children varies according to the version of the tale, as well. They may have been drowned, like the rats, or taken through a portal to another world which may or may not have been a pleasant one. In some versions the townspeople eventually pay up and get their children back.
5. There may have been an element of truth in the tale. Hamelin's church had a stained glass window depicting the piper and children dressed in white; and it is thought to have been created to commemorate a real life tragic event. There is also a written evidence in the town's records from the 14th century which states, "It is 100 years since our children left."
6. So if the tale is based on fact, what really did happen to all those children? Naturally, theories abound: they died of plague; they were killed in an accident - a landslide, or drowning in the river; they were recruited by a pagan sect and went away to love in the forest, where they disappeared down a sinkhole; they left to take part in a pilgrimage or crusade and never came back; the piper was a paedophile or white slave trader; the people had more children than the town could support, so the superfluous children were deliberately sold off or invited to emigrate.
7. Research into family names has offered some evidence for the emigration theory. Family names from the village of Hamelin in the 13th century crop up with surprising regularity in parts of Poland.
8. There is a street in the town where singing and music are forbidden by a very old law, presumably out of respect for the lost children, who were last seen on this street before they vanished. Whenever there is a parade or procession involving music, the bands must stop playing as they pass this street and not start again until they enter another street.
9. A building in the town with an inscription about the legend has become known as "The Rat Catcher's House". Today, the house is a restaurant with a Pied Piper theme.
10. June 26th is marked in Hamelin as "Rat Catcher's Day", a holiday for pest exterminators. 

25th June: Antonio Gaudi and the Sagrada Familia

Today is the birth date of Antonio Gaud¡ (1852), Spanish architect famous for his unique and highly individual designs. He designed the still unfinished Sagrada Familia, Barcelona. 10 things you may not know about Gaudi's magnum opus:

1. It's not a cathedral. Although it is the size of one, it's a Basilica, and not, as a cathedral must be, the seat of a bishop. Barcelona has an actual cathedral as well, The Cathedral of the Holy Cross and St. Eulalia.
2. Gaudi wasn't the original designer - when construction began in 1882, the architect Francisco de Paula del Villar was in charge, and he had in mind a more traditional Gothic design. He resigned in 1883, and Gaudi took over.
3. Gaudi dedicated 40 years of his life to the Sagrada Familia. It would have been more if he had not been run over by a tram in 1926. At that time, 15 to 25% of the work had been done. He was even buried in its crypt.
4. The Sagrada Familia is still not finished. No-one is quite sure when it will be completed. Some estimate 2026, which would be the centennial of Gaudi's death, but others say it will be more like 2028 or even 2041. When Gaudi was asked about the extremely long time the building would take to complete, he commented, "My client is not in a hurry." It was consecrated in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI, so the finished parts can be used for religious services.
5. Its full title, The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, includes the word "Temple" which indicates the construction was entirely funded by donations. Nowadays an admission fee is charged to tourists who want to go inside, and those fees are used to continue the construction. As the Sagrada Família is the most visited monument in Spain with 3 million visitors every year, that's quite a lot of money.
6. When complete, the building will have 18 towers (representing the Apostles, the Virgin Mary and the tallest, Christ himself) and three grand façades: the Nativity façade to the East, the Passion façade to the West, and the Glory façade to the South. So far, there are eight towers and two completed façades. The tallest tower is 560 feet tall. Gaudi was adamant that it should not reach 984 feet above sea level, because then it would be taller than the mountain of Montjuic, and Gaudi believed that the highest point in the city should be something that was made by God Himself.
7. Gaudi was inspired by nature, and this is reflected in his design. The building does not have straight lines or angles, and the pillars are intended to taper and branch out like trees. Two of the pillars are supported by stone animals, a turtle and a tortoise, representing the sea and the land respectively.
8. The church is a UNESCO heritage site.
9. The organ was installed in 2010. It has 26 stops (1,492 pipes) on two manuals and a pedalboard. However, the size and shape of the church are such that it poses acoustic challenges - so it is planned to install several more organs around it. They will be designed to either be played separately, or simultaneously with the major one, from a single console. When this happens it will effectively be an organ with 8000 pipes.
10. Construction ground to a halt during the Spanish Civil War and didn't start again until the 1950s. Although the building itself wasn't damaged during the war, anarchists did destroy some of the plans and models of what they saw as a conservative religious icon.

24th June: Feast Day of St John the Baptist

Because today is his feast day, here are 10 things you may not know about John the Baptist:

1. The story of John the Baptist is related in the Qur'an as well as in the Bible. He is described there as being kind, gentle and humble as well as showing wisdom way beyond his years. Islamic mystics in particular revere him as a prophet.
2. Although the relics of St John are believed to be in a basilica in Alexandria, nobody is sure what happened to his head. Several places claim to possess it, including Umayyad Mosque in Damascus; San Silvestro in Capite in Rome; the Residenz Museum in Munich; Amiens Cathedral in France (brought home by Wallon de Sarton from the Fourth Crusade in Constantinople); Antioch in Turkey, and the parish church at Tenterden in Kent, where it was preserved up until the Reformation. One interesting claim is that John's head was brought to Halifax, West Yorkshire, which has John's head on its coat of arms, The name of the town is said to derive from "halig" meaning holy and "fax" meaning face, which suggests to some scholars that early religious settlers brought a "holy face" with them.
3. Three places claim to possess John's right hand, the one which baptised Jesus: the Serbian Orthodox Cetinje monastery in Montenegro, Topkapi Palace in Istanbul and the Romanian skete of the Forerunner on Mount Athos. Only one place claims to have his left hand: the Armenian Apostolic Church of St. John at Chinsurah, West Bengal, where each year on "Chinsurah Day" in January it blesses the Armenians of Calcutta.
4. He is said to have appeared in Pennsylvania, USA, to Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Latter Day Saints, so he is an important figure in the Mormon religion.
5. The gnostics claim that John never ate locusts, because he was a vegetarian, but would have eaten Honey cakes or manna.
6. The Eastern Orthodox Church dedicates every Tuesday to John the Baptist.
7. John is the patron saint of Jordan, Puerto Rico and its capital city, San Juan, Newfoundland, French Canada, Porto in Portugal, Charleston in South Carolina  and Penzance, Cornwall.
8. He is also the patron of candle makers, farriers, roads and road workers, leather workers, wool workers and health spas.
9. His emblem is a lamb, and he is invoked for the protection of lambs.
10. The feast day is steeped in folklore. If it rains on St John's Day, it will also rain during harvest. Herbs picked on this day, especially Saint John's wort, will have extra healing power. People who go looking in lonely places may find hidden treasure on this day, and it is the best day to cut divining rods.

23rd June: Richard Bach's birthday

Author of Jonathon Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach, was born on this date in 1936. Here are 10 things he said:

1. Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.
2. You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however.
3. Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.
4. If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were.
5. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.
6. Listen to what you know instead of what you fear.
7. Bad things are not the worst things that can happen to us. Nothing is the worst thing that can happen to us!
8. The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.
9. In order to live free and happily you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.
10. True love stories never have endings.

22nd June: Doughnuts were invented

Although National Doughnut Day is in early June, I'm doing doughnuts today because they were invented on this date in 1847, by a 16 year old sailor who disliked the cakes he was served aboard ship because they were raw in the middle. He came up with the idea of punching a hole in the middle with a pepper pot, and when it worked, went home and told his mother the technique.

1. The first doughnuts were made by Dutch settlers in the US. They called them oliekoeks (a Dutch word literally meaning "oil cake").
2. Having said that, archaeologists have found fossilized remains of a similar food in ancient Native American settlements.
3. It is thought that the first doughnuts were made by mistake when a cow accidentally kicked over a pot of oil which landed in the pastry.
4. Americans eat 10 billion doughnuts a year. The US town with the most doughnut shops per person is Boston. However, America as a country has less doughnut shops per person than Canada, even though the Canadians only eat one billion doughnuts a year.
5. The largest doughnut ever made was an American-style jelly doughnut. It weighed 1.7 tons, was 16ft wide and 16inches high. It was made in Utica, New York, USA on January 21, 1993.
6. The records for eating doughnuts are 29 in six minutes, and the fastest time for eating one is 33 seconds.
7. Doughnuts were distributed to American troops in both world wars, to give them a taste of home. They were handed out by female volunteers who came to be known as "doughnut girls" in World War I and "doughnut dollies" in World War II.
8. The first machine for making doughnuts was invested by Adolph Levitt, a refugee from Russia, in 1920.
9. Why do doughnuts have holes? Apparently so they cook more evenly. In the world of business, nothing is ever wasted - "doughnut holes", little balls of deep fried dough, are also sold as snacks.
10. Dunking doughnuts became popular in 1934 when Clark Gable was seen doing it in a film called It Happened One Night. However, he wasn't the first person to dunk a doughnut, according to legend. It was an actress called Mae Murray who accidentally dropped a doughnut into her coffee.

21st June: Summer Solstice

It's the Summer Solstice already! Here are 10 things you might not know about the summer solstice:

Photo by NASA

1. 
   The word Solstice is derived from the Latin words sol (Sun) and sistere (to stand still).
2. The date of the solstice varies. It usually falls on June 20th or 21st. This year, and in 2015, it's on the 21st. In 2016, though, it will be on the 20th. On very rare occasions the solstice will fall on June 22nd. The last time this happened was in 1971 and it won't happen again until 2203.
3. Stone circles, such as Stonehenge, are a focal point for celebrations of solstices and probably have been for thousands of years. There may be special features on these dates, for example, at Stonehenge the Heel or Sun Stone casts a shadow on the Altar stone at the summer solstice. There is a legend that says if you sit in a stone circle all night on midsummer's eve, you will see Fairies, but beware - they might harass you, so carry a sprig of rue or wear your jacket inside out, which confuses them. If all else fails, run away along a ley line.
4. An alternative name for the Summer Solstice festival is Litha, often used by modern pagans. The word Litha means "Light".
5. According to the Celtic Wheel of the Year tradition, today is the day that the Holly King, associated with winter, does battle with the Oak King, who rules the summer. The Holly King will win today, which is why they days start to get shorter now as we head for winter (depressing thought). At the winter solstice, the Oak King returns for a re-match, and he will win, and so the days start getting longer again.
6. Many of the ancient traditions of this day involve lighting fires to give power to the sun. In parts of Ireland, tradition says that if you carry a pebble to the fire, and whisper your wish to it, and then throw the stone into the fire, you'll get your wish.
7. Magic and witchcraft are closely associated with midsummer - Shakespeare was well aware of this as evidenced in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, and The Tempest
8. As with most ancient festivals, there has been a Christian celebration added on top - in the case of Midsummer, it is celebrating the birth of John the Baptist.
9. Another ancient tradition is the sunwheel. A wheel, or a ball of straw, was set alight and rolled down a hill towards a river. If the fire went out before the sunwheel hit the water, it meant the crops would be good that year.
10. Some say that today, rather than New Year, is the best time to make life-changing resolutions, because your energy levels are higher and you're more likely to keep them up until they become habit. Although if you live in the Southern Hemisphere, New Year is presumably about right.

20th June: Loch Ness Day

Today is Loch Ness Day - so 10 facts about the Loch and its monster.

1. The vital statistics of Loch Ness: 36.2 km (22.5 mi) at its longest point; 2.7 km (1.7 mi) at its widest point; Surface area: 56 km2 (21.8 sq mi); 226.96 m (744.6 ft) deep at its deepest point; contains 7.5 km3 (1.8 cu mi) of water.
2. By surface area it is the second largest loch in Scotland (Loch Lomond being the first) and the second deepest (after Loch Morar). In terms of volume, though, it beats them all hands down: in fact, it contains more fresh water than all the lakes in England and Wales put together.
3. It has an island - Cherry Island, at the south western end. It is a man made island, or crannog, possibly constructed in the Iron Age. There used to be a second island, Dog Island, but when the Caledonian Canal was built, the water level of the loch was raised and the island submerged.
4. The earliest report of a sighting of the monster was in the 7th century, in an account of the life of St Columba. The Saint was visiting the area when he came across a funeral service near the River Ness. The people told him that the dead man had been killed by a "water beast" while swimming in the river. Columba then did something which surprised them. He told one of his followers, Luigne moccu Min, to swim across the river. When the monster came after him, Columba made the sign of the Cross and commanded: "Go no further. Do not touch the man. Go back at once." The monster stopped in its tracks, as if it had been "pulled back with ropes" and fled in terror. Presumably this miracle resulted in a few conversions among the pagan Picts.
5. Nessie's most active year seems to have been 1933, when there was a rush of sightings, beginning on 2 May when Loch Ness's water bailiff Alex Campbell first used the term "monster" to describe it. On 22 July, a London tourist, George Spicer, and his wife saw a large, narrow-necked creature cross the road in front of their car, carrying "an animal" in its mouth. In August, a student vet called Arthur Grant, who was riding his motorcycle near the loch, almost hit a creature with a long neck, which, on seeing Grant, turned tail and disappeared into the loch. In November, Hugh Gray was walking home from church when he saw a large creature rise up out of the loch. He took photographs, but only one showed any evidence of the monster. The most famous picture of Nessie, was taken by Robert Kenneth Wilson, a London gynaecologist, in April 1934.
6. You can see Nessie on Apple Maps, according to Andrew Dixon who saw something that could be the monster while browsing.
7. Naturalist Sir Peter Scott may have been a believer. After seeing a bunch of photographs taken by Robert H. Rines in the 70s, Scott announced that the scientific name of the monster would be Nessiteras rhombopteryx (Greek for "The Ness monster with diamond-shaped fin"), so that Nessie could be added to the British register of officially protected wildlife. But then again, it was soon pointed out by Nicholas Fairbairn that the name was an anagram for "Monster hoax by Sir Peter S".
8. Some legends associate the Loch Ness Monster with the mythical creatures, kelpies. These creatures lived in the loch, but could come out onto dry land and turn themselves into horses. Unwary travellers who fancied a ride into town would get on the "horse" which would then gallop into the loch, taking the hapless rider with them. Dumb tourists, apparently, were rather yummy. This is how come the monster is sometimes referred to as a "water horse".
9. People who believe in the monster reckon it is a plesiosaur, which managed to survive in the loch despite going extinct everywhere else. Non-believers have claimed it is an Otter, a Seal, a diving bird, a toy submarine, a boat, a floating log, or even an Elephant raising its trunk out of the water.
10. Brenda Sherratt was the first person to swim along the length of Loch Ness in Scotland. It took her 31 hours and 27 minutes in July 1966, and the monster presumably wasn't very hungry that day.