Leap Year Traditions and Folklore

Several age-old traditions are believed to have been followed in Leap Year or on a leap year day.
Listing some of those below, and a bit of folklore which is mere hearsay and may or may not have actually been the case.

As per folklore,

• Babies born in leap year were thought to be sicklings who would be difficult to bring up & raise.
• Scottish saying, "A leap year is never a good sheep year"
• It was believed that crops will not grow well in a leap year.
• In Greece, marrying in a leap year was said to bring bad luck for the couple.

All these leap year fears, must no doubt have arised because of the general feeling among people, that adding an extra day to the calendar was tampering with nature and it would have dire consequences.
(Or a more plausible reason is that people must have felt "Something has gone terribly wrong with nature, and hence an extra day is being added every 4 years")

In keeping with this general feeling of things gone wrong, traditions involving role reversal may have become more acceptable, such as usually men proposed to women, but in a leap year, a woman could propose marraige to a man.

The most famous such tradition is probably the Irish tradition that has been popularized due to the movie "Leap Year" whose entire story plot was based on this. According to this tradition if a woman proposes marraige to a man on Leap year day, then the man cannot refuse the proposal.

It is said that the tradition in European countries was that women may propose marraige only on leap years, and it is also said that in the 12th or 13th century Queen Margaret of Scotland had even passed a law to the effect that if the man refused such a proposal, then he would have to compensate the woman with a kiss and a new silk gown.
(A variation also says this with an additional condition, that this would apply only when the woman was wearing a red petticoat while proposing).

In Finland, the tradition says the compensation should be gifting fabrics for a new skirt.
In Denmark, is is believed the compensation was 12 pairs of gloves.

According to folklore, men felt that such a law or tradition was a big risk, and this Leap Year law was then later restricted by people to only one day of the Leap Year, which was the leap year day, to minimize this risk.

A lots of such leap year stories still do the rounds each leap year.
Our understanding of science may have grown, but don't we all still enjoy such tales :)
.

C language program code for Leap Year

C & C++ teachers in a lot of schools use leap year calculation program as a classic example to demonstrate the nested if-else conditional scenarios of these languages.

The algorithm or logic for Leap year is basically that:
1. A year is a leap year if it is divisible by 4 but not by 100.
2. If a year is divisible by both 4 and by 100, then it can only be a leap year if it is also divisible by 400.

• Going by the above logic, any year that is divisible by 400 must definitely be a leap year (because any number divisible by 400, is also divisible by 4)
• If a number is not divisible by 400, then we can check whether it is divisible by 100. If that is the case then it is definitely not a leap year (even if it is divisible by 4. this is as per condition no.1 above)
• After checking divisibility of the year by 400, and 100, lastly we can check whether the number is exactly divisible by 4. If it is, then its a leap year, else its not a leap year.

  

A simple C / C++ programming code that uses this logic for determining whether a year is a Leap year or not is given below:

#include<stdio.h>

#include<conio.h>

void main()

{

 int year;

 clrscr();

 printf("Enter the Year that you want to check : ");

 scanf("%d", &year);

  

 if(year % 400 == 0)

     printf("%d is a Leap Year.", year);

else

     if(year % 100 == 0)

         printf("%d is not a Leap Year.", year); 

    else

         if(year % 4 == 0)

              printf("%d is a Leap Year.", year);

         else

              printf("%d is not a Leap Year", year); 

              printf("\nPress any key to Quit...");

              getch();

}

Leap Year Calculation

Leap year calculations are based on 3 simple conditions. After reading this article you will know how to determine whether any given year is a leap year or not.

To be very general leap years come once every 4 years. So because 2008 was a leap year, the next one will be 2012, and the one after that will be 2016. But this is not always the case. There are exceptions to this condition.

An year will be a leap year if all the conditions below are satisfied.

Condition No.1
A year is a leap year only if it is exactly divisible by 4. This is the general principle that usually people are aware of, and it is correct in most cases. Any year which is not divisble by 4 is definitely not a leap year.

Example1: 2012 is a leap year because 2012 is evenly divisible by 4. (2012/4=503)
Example2: 2011 is not a leap year because it is not exactly divisible by 4 (2011/4=502.75 i.e.fraction)

However in exceptional cases, even if a year is divisible by 4 it may not be a leap year. refer condition no.2 below.


Condition No.2 (Exception to the above condition no.1)

A year is not a leap year if it is exactly divisible by 4, and it is also exactly divisible by 100.
For example: The year 1900 is not a leap year because it is divisible by 4 but it is also divisible by 100.

There is an exception to this condition no.2 also, and it is listed below.


Condition No.3 (Exception to the above condition no.2)

A year is a leap year if it is divisible by 4, divisible by 100 & also divisible by 400.
For example: The year 2000 is a leap year because it is exactly divisible by 4, and 100, and also 400.

Using these 3 conditions, we can calculate whether any given year is a leap year or not. Why not try by checking a few do-it-yourself samples..are these leap years 1600, 1700, 2020, 2018, 3000?

When is the Next Leap Year

The next leap year is 2012.

And by virtue of it a leap year, it will have 1 extra day. So instead of the having the usual 365 days in a year, the year 2012 will have 366 days. The extra day in a leap year is always added to the month of February and thus the year 2012 will have a 29th-Feb-2011.

So in the next year 2012, all those people who were born on the 29th Feb, will get to celebrate their birthdays on their actual birthdate, instead of having to celebrate it on the 28th Feb or the 1st March as they have to do in non-leap years.

Leap years generally come once in every 4 years, with some exceptions to it. 2008 was the last leap year,
2012 is the next one, and 2016 will be the next leap year after that.