/library/oar/handle/123456789/116307 2025-11-08T17:41:10Z 2025-11-08T17:41:10Z Mifsud Chircop, George /library/oar/handle/123456789/116328 2023-12-11T07:35:04Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Calends in contemporary Malta Authors: Mifsud Chircop, George Abstract: The most complex ritual of weather divination in Malta is the belief in Rules or Calends. In Maltese, "l-Irwieġel" (/lir'wi:gel/) or "l-Għewejjed" (/le:'weiyet/) the broken plurals of "regola" and "għada" respectively - is an ancient belief that has seen some developments throughout the years since this belief is still alive. Farmers are the people mostly concerned with the prognostication of twelve days; and justifiably so, since they come in continuous contact with the weather that influences their crops. Calends are a period of liminal time dominated by the folk skill of seeing into the future. It was and still is mainly limited to the sphere of men - I believe that this falls symmetrically within the culture of other Mediterranean societies where men are in charge of creation (and women are in charge of fertility). In Malta, the rules start on December 13 and continue until the 24 (Christmas Eve ). It is a special period of twelve days close to mid-winter. This belief is found throughout Europe. There are many countries where the Rules start on December 14, 21, 25, 26, 31 or on January 1. Calends fall on the same days as ours in Portugal, France, Croatia, some Italian provinces such as Calabria and the island of Sicily. So far, little scientific research has been done on Rules in Maltese folklore. Fr. Manwel Magri was the first Maltese scholar to write about this folk perception of time in Maltese some hundred years ago in X'Jħid il-Malti [What the Maltese Say (1925)]. Magri made a promising start, but his comments are not as detailed as one would wish. It is the aim of this paper to study isomorphism of the Maltese folk calendar within the context of the Maltese ritual year in contemporary Malta. Contemporary Maltese people are less dominated by the forces of nature and superstitious belief than by economic forces, the interests of tourism, and the need to underline local identity in an age of increasing globalism. Time and the forces that govern the nature of our rituals have naturally changed radically. This, however, does not detract from the possibility of delving into our ritual year and discovering some explanation of earlier concepts of the world in the distant past.

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z