Leap Year Superstitions Around The World

Today is Leap Day so Joe brought us some info on what the rest of the world thinks of this day. Now, that'll cost you 12 pairs of gloves. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jack leap here was never a good sheep here. According
to the Scots, being born on a leap day is
a bad almon. In Greece, February twenty ninth is considered
to be so unlucky the couples are discouraged from marrying
on that date. Those who do are warned they will
be divorced and never find true love. So if you
mind your own damn business. So if you're forty years

(00:20):
old and your birthday is today, you're ten. You've had
ten birthdays on your day. Yeah, that must be a
hell of a cross to bear, you child. Or it's
liberating and you can act like a ten year old,
or it's mildly amusing to people. You tell. The Greek
superstition probably came from the Romans who conquered Greece in

(00:40):
one forty six PC. Of course you knew that and
brought them brought with them the belief that February was
the month of the dead. An extra date meant one
more day when the god of the underworld Pluto to
the Romans Hades to the Greeks, was free to walk
to the earth. So today you got the Hades walk
in the earth. We'll be damned both ways before you
cross the streets. Eighties people don't give a damn. Almost

(01:03):
everybody on planet Earth uses the Gregorian calendar. China is not.
They've got their own Chinese calendar, but so much of
the world is dominated by the other calendar they have
to adjust to it all the time. I'm surprised they
just haven't given in and thought, you know, let's all
drive on the right side of the road and just
make life easier. The Chinese are hardcore Han supremacists. That's

(01:23):
the main ethnic group. I mean, they are seriously Han supremacists.
They think everything to do with their culture is superior
to others. Yeah. The Gregorian calendar, which was kind of
forced on the world by Pope Gregory the eighth and
fifteen eighty two, has since been adopted as a matter
of convenience by most secular and non Christian countries, just

(01:45):
so we all are speaking the same language. And who
the hell cares anyway, Well, who cares, I'm not using
any Catholic calendar. Yeah, Okay, Ireland Jack takes the Sun here.
Can I have a second take of that? Michael? Do
we have enough tape? Yeah? Go ahead. Ireland takes a
sunnier view of February twenty ninth. Following a fifth century

(02:07):
complaint by Saint Bridget of killed There that it takes
men too long to make honest women of their sweethearts. Wow.
Fifth century she was saying, put a ring on it,
wow uh, Saint Patrick decreed that leap Day would see
the gender roles reversed and women would be permitted to
propose to men. That notion popularized by the romantic comedy

(02:27):
leap Here, which oddly enough came out in twenty ten,
which was not a leapier mmmm that is cyronmic. The
gender role reversal also became custom in some Northern European countries,
which discouraged men from rejecting leap Day proposals. In Finland,
a man who says no on feb twenty nine is
obliged to purchase his bride to be enough material to

(02:49):
make a skirt. Wow, I gotta do what? And then
she's saying, I gotta make a skirt. I don't know
how to do that well. And if it's like a
mini skirt, that's not Can I just give you twenty bucks?
That's what I do? Give it A tiring amount of material.
Go ahead and make a skirt out of this. Then
let me say now the Danes a more practical folk

(03:10):
in Denmark, the cost is a dozen pair of gloves,
apparently to hide the shame that comes with a declaration
of love not resulting in a wedding ring. If I
if I open a box and there's twelve pairs of
gloves in there, I think you're a crazy person. Well,
and these Danish girls are thinking, okay, I get to

(03:31):
ask him if he wants to get married on this day,
and if he doesn't, I got to get a dozen
pair of gloves to hide my eternal shame because I
don't have a ring. This suck. I wait till tomorrow.
Thank you for the gift. But it's at least eleven
pairs of gloves more than I need, and perhaps twelve.
Never mind, I'm getting on tender. This is ridiculous. Uh.

(03:52):
Putin made a heck of a threat overnight. Did you
see that we could get into it more? Later? He says,
the West risks nuclear conflict if it intervenes more in Ukraine.
We come through with the funding and give them more weapons.
He's threatened. He says, I have the weapons to hit
Ukraine with nukes and will do it. It's bluster, I assume,
But eh, you know, that's like throwing around the D

(04:14):
word in a marriage. I mean, it's just not cool,
which you're allowed to on February the twenty ninth, And
if your spouse says they don't want to get divorced,
you have to give them fifteen hats to it and
six left shoes for some reason, which illustrates the fact
that you'll be walking around in circles as a couple

(04:37):
until you settle your differences. Of course, it's the tradition
in Finland. Is this all Wikipedia? I wonder how much
of this is just completely made up? That's what I
should do. I should That's what I'm can do. What
I'm retired, Doug going to spend my life putting completely
made up things into Wikipedia about the meaning of Saint
Patrick's Day or something. I love that idea. Oh my gosh,

(05:00):
I wouldn't. I couldn't wait to get out of bed
in the morning to get started. You need to find
a purpose in retirement. There it is. In Armenia, children
walk around with a candlelight in their mouth all day long,
are symbolized Bah blah blah, armstrong and getty