About the Astronomical Calendar 2026 cover picture:
Did Macbeth really have red hair?
Don’t know. He has sometimes been called the Red King, but that referred to his martial effectiveness as a commander in King Duncan’s army. About ten percent of Irish and Scottish people have red hair, the highest concentration in the world. In mediaeval times and even later, redheads were suspected of being witches, they had been scorched by hell fire. I like red hair. I copied a hank out of one of the sketches I made of my friend Guy Blackburn, whom I knew when we were teachers in a Navajo school in Arizona.
Why is Macbeth wearing the crown of Scotland as he approaches the witches? They predicted that he would be “king hereafter.”
There are three three-witch scenes in the play: Act 1 Scene 1, in thunder and lightning, brewing the spell in the cauldron; Act 1 Scene 3 on a heath, Macbeth’s first visit to them; and Act 4 Scene 1 in a dark cavern, “Double, double, toil and trouble.” The last is when the witches give him warnings and deceptive reassurances; “Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be” till Birnam Wood shall come to Dunsinane.
He may have been wearing armor at the first visit, to which he came from the battlefield, but not the kilt, which came into use in the 16th century, and in its short form in the 18th.
Listing the different eras in which the characters live, 1040, 1599, 2025, a past or future performance of this play (since I have yet to see an actual one), I forgot to mention the amateur astronomer who has somehow gained permission to use the balcony stage as his observing platform. He is in sidereal time 15, the Corona Hour, and appears to be aiming his telescope at Lyra, at one of the prized objects in that small constellation – the Ring Nebula? No, of course: Epsilon Lyrae, the Double Double.
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I need the very first Astronomical Calendar 1974 to complete my collection. Please let me make you an offer you cannot refuse if you have a spare copy! Or, at least, let me try!!!!!!!!!! I’ll not be like the tape nor the Scotch play!
Hello, David, I’m flattered by your desire for AC74 and I wish I could oblige, but I’m sorry to say I have only one copy of it myself. The only way may be to ask on EBay, and I’d be interested to know the result.
I didn’t notice the person with the telescope on the cover of my printed copy. Looking at the detail in this blog post I saw the figure as a woman. Perhaps we could leave their gender open to the viewer’s interpretation?
Guy, thank you so much for 53 years of the Astronomical Calendar, the Companion, To Know the Stars, the Understanding of Eclipses, and your other publications. You have informed and guided my understanding of the sky, the cosmos, and our place in it. I will miss the Calendar, which has accompanied my morning tea for many years. Best wishes as you retire from the annual chore of cataloging, diagramming, and illustrating every conceivable astronomical event of the coming Gregorian calendar year.
I hope you will still make time for the occasional blog post about events celestial and terrestrial, as we struggle to create a peaceful world in which everyone’s basic needs are met and we can all live in freedom and dignity.
Thank you, Anthony. We’ll find ways to keep in touch.
Happy to have the Calendar. A hypothetical question about the play. There is indeed a superstition that one should refer to it as “The Scotch play” or “The Scottish play” (see e.g. Wikipedia). Imagine for a moment that the superstition extended to all of Shakespeare’s plays. We could refer to “The Danish play” and everyone would know which one we meant. But can you find unambiguous descriptions (“the” + one adjective + “play”) of each of the other plays? “The Veronese play” (or “The Verona play”) won’t do, because it could mean either “Romeo and Juliet” or “Two Gentlemen of Verona”.
Difficult for the 7 Henry plays.
“Richard III”, as samguinary as “Macbeth”, might be “The Yorkist Propaganda Play”.
Or the Tudor propaganda or revisionist play.
Oh, dear! After reading through everything, to go back and notice in that “this will be the LAST Astronomical Calendar”!! What are we going to do? We have used this at our school for putting together our School of Ageless Wisdom Calendar for as long as I can remember.
Thank you so so much for all the wonderful years. We have all learned so much. It really is a time of transition and change.