HALCYON DAYS

THIS PHRASE means happy, peaceful or successful days.

For example, “she recalled the halcyon days of her childhood.”

That was in the halcyon days of the 1980s when the economy was booming.

The origin of the phrase can be traced back to the 16th century. The Halcyon is a bird of Greek legend and the name is now commonly given to the European Kingfisher. The ancients believed that the bird made a floating nest in the Aegean Sea and had the power to calm the waves while hatching her eggs. Fourteen days of calm weather were to be expected when the Halcyon was nesting — around the winter solstice, usually December 21 or 22.

The halcyon days are generally regarded as beginning on the December 14 or 15. The source of the belief in the bird’s power to calm the sea originated in a myth recorded by Ovid. The story goes that Aeolus, the ruler of the winds, had a daughter named

Alcyone, who was married to Ceyx, the king of Thessaly.

Ceyx drowned at sea and Alcyone threw herself into the waves in a fit of grief. Instead of drowning, she was transformed into a bird and carried to her husband by the wind. The myth came to the English-speaking world in the 14th century.

By the 16th century the phrase halcyon days had lost its association with the nesting time of the bird and had taken on the figurative meaning of ‘calm days’. Shakespeare used the expression in Henry VI in 1592. The present use of halcyon days tends to be recalling of the endless sunny days of youth — despite the fact that the original halcyon days were in the height of winter.