ON THIS DAY: The traditional pagan celebration of King Frost Day was observed. In 1814, a fair to honor the winter figure was held in London on the river Thames, which was frozen solid, as it frequently was during the colder months in the Little Ice Age that gripped Europe in the middle of the last millennium. The 1992 film ORLANDO, starring Tilda Swinton as an English nobleman who lives for 400 years (and turns into a woman halfway through), features a scene at such an English winter fair -- it's one of the most sumptuous sequences I've ever seen on film. [today's movie at IMDb]

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Copyright (c) 2001 MaryAnn Johanson. All rights reserved.