jFe&ruat]? 



XIV 



WE have lost something tin discarding the Anglo- 

 Saxon names for the months in favour Anglo-Saxon 

 of the classical style. It was ridiculous month names 

 to borrow the name February from our Eoman 

 conquerors, because they chose to celebrate their 

 Februa, Lupercalia or purifying festivals, in that 

 month; there was some sense in the Saxon name 

 Sol monath, mire month, which, like many of the 

 other month-names, gives us a glimpse of England 

 as it was when the earliest ploughs had just begun 

 to scratch its surface. The mire month just as the 

 old Dutch used to call it Sprokkel-maand, the thaw 

 month, when the earth softens after the winter cold. 

 The Saxons had their purifying season also in 

 the old pagan days, but it was September, which 

 they called Halig monath, which is quite as sensible 

 as our servile compliance with the Eoman calendar 

 in calling it the seventh month, whereas it is the 

 ninth in our year. Then what a finely descriptive 



