FEBRUARY 33 



Yule; April was Easter monath, taking its name, 

 according to Bede, from Eostre, a Teutonic deity of 

 Spring. It is curious that neither Easter nor Lent 

 derive their names from Christian sources. Lent is 

 the old English name for Spring, from the Anglo- 

 Saxon lencten. May was Thrimylce, because the cows 

 might then be milked thrice a day. June and July 

 were Se serra and Se seftera Litha, the earlier and the 

 later warmth; August was Weod monath, the weed 

 month ; October was Winter-fylleth, probably the 

 winter fall; and November Blot monath or blood 

 month, from the slaying of beasts. 



If the native names for days of the week have worn 

 so well in use, what cause had our people to distrust 

 those for the months ? 



XV 



A wide, dark plain, without a single tree or even a 

 bush in sight for miles, swept by a ceaseless, bitter 

 wind, lashed by fierce blasts of snow, and ^g river 

 overhead a stooping canopy of grey cloud, ofxnor 

 That is the impression of a Caithness landscape on 

 one alighting at Halkirk station on a February noon. 



No scene more forlorn or inhospitable could be 

 found within the British Isles. The prevailing brown 

 tones of the land are hardly more varied than the 

 steel grey of the heavens ; brown heather, brown peats, 

 brown stone houses ; even the roofs most of them 

 are of brown flags, though the great whisky distillery 

 of Gerston strikes a noisier key with its covering of 

 c 



