Pagans vs Papers. Who's right?

December 21, 2018 1:34 AM

Unconfuse me. If it's winter solstice today, why is it being marked at Stonehenge tomorrow?

It's the December 21st and the papers are telling me that today is the shortest day of the year. Google tells me that the solstice occurs at 22:23 tonight but people will be gathering at Stonehenge tomorrow.

Google says that the 2017 solstice occurred at 16:28 on the 21st. Again, it was marked at Stonehenge on the 22nd. So I'm confused. Why the two dates? Is it something to do with the solstice occurring after sunset?

- Is the shortest day, in the UK, today or tomorrow? (21st or 22nd?)
- Why is winter solstice being marked at Stonehenge on the 22nd and not the 21st?

It's a times like this that I understand why our ancestors found it so hard to wrap their heads around heliocentrism.

posted by popcassady to Science & Nature (12 answers total)

Best answer: My guess would be that if today was the shortest day, that means tonight is the longest night. So tomorrow morning is the end of the longest night and the start of longer daylight returning. That seems like the thing I would want to celebrate.
posted by lollusc at 1:54 AM on December 21, 2018 [29 favorites]

The monument field is closed at night. Per this English Heritage link, it opens at 0745 to celebrate the sunrise at 0809, which is the first dawn after the solstice.
posted by plep at 2:25 AM on December 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Is the shortest day, in the UK, today or tomorrow? (21st or 22nd?)

Technically, the shortest day is Friday, but only by about a second.

I agree with lollusc. Solstice celebrations are about the fact that things are going to now get "better" - it is new years day, so to speak. Take it from a senior druid...

King Arthur Pendragon, a Druid leader, told the BBC in 2014: ‘What we’re really here for is to celebrate the fact that the cycle of the world turns, and from now on the days get longer and it’s the return of the sun.
posted by vacapinta at 2:53 AM on December 21, 2018 [5 favorites]

Response by poster: Found the answer in this thread on Twitter.

@EnglishHeritage:
"Winter Solstice marks the shortest day/longest night of the year – when the sun sets on Thursday. However, the celebrations at Stonehenge have always revolved around when the sun RISES on the next day, as this welcomes longer days, notions of rebirth and promises for the future."
posted by popcassady at 4:38 AM on December 21, 2018 [12 favorites]

If you look at the Maeshowe chambered cairn in Orkney - you will see a 5,000 year old massive structure aligned so that the setting sun would shine straight down a corridor into a central chamber as the sun prepares to set on the winter solstice (or actually for 3 weeks centred around this date). A reminder of just how long people have been celebrating solstices and how important they were considered. At that time and only real events that could be observed for celebration were either sunrise or sunset - or the duration between the two - nothing more accurate. I suspect that the sequence went something like

[sunset].... hope, hope, hope [sunrise] ...party!

Note that in many long-standing calendars (the Mayan for example) days were considered to start at sunrise - not a midnight.
posted by rongorongo at 5:02 AM on December 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

The precise time of the winter solstice 2018 is Dec 21, 22:22 GMT. If solstice were before dawn, instead of well after, would it make a difference?
posted by theora55 at 6:00 AM on December 21, 2018

Pagans tend to mark the "day" as starting at sunset -- like May Eve (evening of April 30), Hallows' Eve (evening of October 31). In this case the moment of solstice is after sunset Dec 21, so if you're going to celebrate a sunrise, you'd celebrate the next one after the moment of solstice.
posted by heatherlogan at 6:05 AM on December 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

So as not to abuse the edit window: I should clarify that when I write "Pagans" I mean modern neo-Pagans (as most of the celebrants at Stonehenge are). This time-marking convention does not necessarily apply to historical pagan societies.
posted by heatherlogan at 6:09 AM on December 21, 2018

Response by poster: The precise time of the winter solstice 2018 is Dec 21, 22:22 GMT. If solstice were before dawn, instead of well after, would it make a difference?

2016 winter solstice occurred at 10:44 on the 21st. The celebrations were held that day. That makes sense if you consider the day to have begun at sunset. But counter to that theory, solstice occurred on the 21st at 17:11 in 2013 and the celebrations were held on the same day.
posted by popcassady at 6:44 AM on December 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: …17:11 being an hour after sunset.
posted by popcassady at 6:50 AM on December 21, 2018

This Pagan marks the solstice as "longest night," not shortest day, followed by staying up until sunrise and celebrating that the nights get shorter and the days get longer from here. So the day after the solstice sounds like the proper time to hold the public celebration.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:51 AM on December 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

Also, as I understand it, the solstice is roughly an approximate three day affair, not something that follows human imposed constraints. Interestingly, many Mayan astronomical temple sites took this feature into account and their solstice markers stretch over a few days.
posted by effluvia at 11:26 AM on December 21, 2018 [4 favorites]