James Baquet Last time we looked at various June days commemorating ecological issues and people helping people. This time, let’s see some that are literary in nature. The first is Bloomsday on June 16. I have written about this before: James Joyce’s groundbreaking novel “Ulysses” follows the “unity of time” concept derived from Aristotle’s “Poetics.” That is, it all takes place within the space of a single day, and that day, for “Ulysses,” was June 16. Why that day? It was the date of Joyce’s first day out with Nora Barnacle, who later became his wife. Today it’s celebrated by Joyce fans in his native Dublin and all over the world with outings of their own — mainly to pubs. June 26 (or sometimes July 22) is a celebration of a different kind: Rat-Catcher’s Day. Though it might not sound literary, it actually memorializes a legendary German event made famous in the English-speaking world in a poem, known as “The Pied Piper of Hamelin,” by Robert Browning. The reason for the dates rests on the fact that the town of Hamlin uses the date given by the Grimm Brothers — June 26, 1284 — but Browning chose to use another traditional date, July 22, 1376. The story says that the German town of Hamelin was having a problem with rodents (which, you may recall, were also associated with the Black Plague). A stranger showed up in brightly-colored clothes and promised to lure the rats away — for a fee. He did so by playing a tune on a pipe, but when the people refused to pay, he lured their children away in revenge. The whole “Rat-Catcher Day” may seem like a joke, but with all the other holidays we’ve seen, is it so far-fetched? Finally, “Seven Sleepers’ Day” on June 27 is another German celebration based on a legend. This derives from a much older Christian legend about the “Seven Sleepers of Ephesus,” seven youths who hid in a cave to escape persecution around year 250 — and emerged 300 years later. There is also a bit of weather lore associated with the day: Locals believe that the weather on that day gives an indication of the average summer weather for the next seven weeks. Vocabulary: Which word above means: 1. multi-colored 2. enticed, attracted 3. came out (of) 4. people who live(d) in the area 5. hard to believe 6. excursions, pleasure trips 7. oneness, harmonious whole 8. related to literature 9. mice, rats, and so on 10. a medieval epidemic that killed 30-60 percent of all Europeans | 