JULY COUNTRY DAYS

Illustration by Eugene Grasset from the Illuminated Book Of Days edited by K and M Lee

Julius Caesar the Roman Dictator who reformed the calendar in 46 BC named the month after himself, he was killed in the Ides Of March so that he couldn't proclaim himself Emperor.  July often contains some good hot days sometimes referred to as Dog Days. At this time of year Sirius, the dog star, rises at the same time as the sun and was thought by the  Romans to give the sun extra heat. The Dog Days are from July 3rd until August 11th .

JULY 

My emblem is the Lion, and I breathe

  The breath of Libyan deserts o'er the land;

My sickle as a sabre I unsheathe,

  And bent before me the pale harvests stand.

The lakes and rivers shrink at my command,

  And there is thirst and fever in the air;

The sky is changed to brass, the earth to sand;

  I am the Emperor whose name I bear.  

Longfellow -  The Poets Calendar

Anglo-Saxon names for the month are Heymonath for haymaking or Meadmonath meaning flowering of the meadows. The full moon in July is called the Wyrt moon or Mead moon . Wyrt is an old English name for herbs and July was the traditional time for taking the first honey from the hive and making mead. 

The main date in July that people associate with weather rhymes is St Swithin's day on the 15th, although there is no record  of this day ever being followed by 40 days of rain even if it pours on the 15th, the average is 17 days with rain.

If St Swithin weep, that year, the proverb say

The weather will be foul for forty days

This old saying covers all eventualities...

If about St Swithin Day a change of weather takes place,

                                         we are likely to have a spell of fine or wet weather

There was also a belief about the ripening of apples. It was thought that if it rained on the 15th the Saint was christening the apples and there would be a good harvest. In many areas no one would eat an apple before this day but after the 15th windfall apples could be used for jam making.

'Til St Swithin's Day be past

Apples be not fit to taste 

Here in Suffolk our one week of Summer was last week and now we are back to cloudy and several degrees cooler.

(I caught up with the Cold Play set from Glastonbury on TV last night - how brilliant it was. Somehow listening to good music has disappeared from my life in the last six years. I've still got some favourite CDs - Divine Comedy, Chris Difford, Robbie Williams, Josh Groban and some Brass band stuff - just need to watch less TV!)

Back Soon

Sue