Martinmas to Ladyday 
Flower Diary. I wish I had begun earlier, but, after all, 
March used to be the beginning of the year long ago. It 
was, I believe, in 713 b.c. that Numa arranged that the 
Roman Kalendar should begin with January and February. 
The name January comes from the dedication of this 
month by the Romans to Janus, the doorkeeper of 
Olympia, and also the God of Peace : thus it is the open- 
ing month of the year, when the earth is at rest. The 
Saxons called it Aefter Yula. Now let me see what do I 
remember. In January we found a few early snowdrops, 
and gradually all the banks became white with them. 
Such banks, with tall slim beech or elm trees, feathery 
rowans or quickens, and literally carpeted underfoot with 
the funny round “ cabbages ” of the London Pride, called 
hereabouts “ None so pretty ” and “ Nancy Pretty.” In 
Ireland it is called St. Patrick’s Cabbage. It is strange 
to think how it is a lingering, lonely, humble remnant 
of the Alpine flora which was here in the days when all 
was snow and ice, and woolly mammoths roamed to 
and fro. There is a quaint old saying about the rowan- 
tree : 
Roantree and red thread 
Hand the witches all in dread. 
The legend of the Lothly Toad of Bamborough Castle deals 
with this saying. 
Once upon a time, so the story goes, the second wife of 
a certain Lord of Bamboro’ was a witch, who, being jealous 
of her husband’s children, drove out his son to wander the 
wide world and changed his beautiful daughter into a toad. 
She was condemned to remain a toad till her brother 
should come back and free her from enchantment. His 
attempts to do so were at first all in vain, because of the 
spells whereby the witch had encompassed the castle. But 
at last a wise woman advised the poor brother to build a 
ship of rowan wood, and have the ropes and sails all 
bound with red thread. The wicked stepmother, seeing from 
her bower the ship coming sailing over the sea, sent out a 
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