Maria Donovan's Blog, page 10

September – The Seventh Month

The ninth month in the Gregorian calendar is remarkable for being linked to the number seven.

It’s a naming convention we inherit from the Romans. 

In the early Roman calendar, when the counting began with March, this made sense. September was then not even the first of the numbered months, as it is now. That honour went to Quintilis, the fifth month, renamed July in honour of Julius Caesar, followed by Sextilis, the sixth month, renamed many years later for his heir, Augustus. 

[image error] Damsons – Six or Seven?

Having focused on the origin of  the word September, I find the significance of Seven stands out to me in bold. It’s hard to unknow its meaning. But it was not something that made an impression on me in the past. I did not think, every time September came around, ‘how odd’.

Did anyone protest in the past that it wasn’t logical? Was it ever debated? Did anyone think it confusing? 

Perhaps, when the Roman calendar was reformed it would have been even more confusing to reset the numbered months: September would have become November, etc. To do so now would be to alter the association of a month with a particular time of year.  

September raspberries

In the northern hemisphere, September is in the season of harvest and marks the beginning of autumn.  Meteorological autumn starts on September the 1st and astronomical autumn with the equinox, which varies between 22, 23 and 24 of September.

But this is only relevant in the northern hemisphere.  In the southern hemisphere, the smell of spring is in the air.  Or it is a season more or less dry or wet than others. 

Perhaps, by the time September became the ninth month, there was no longer a strong connection between the name and its literal meaning. This is always happening with language and one of the reasons why lovers of words like to trace their origins. It can be surprising, enlightening, delightful. But the accepted convention is what it is at the time. Anything else might be thought silly. Unheard of. 

To give an example: I was recently mocked by a bunch of people, enjoying the shade of a shelter on a seaside promenade, for walking under the hot sun in the shade of a small black umbrella. ‘Ooh, is it raining?’ they jeered. 

Would it have done any good to point out that the word ‘umbrella’ is associated with the Latin ‘umbra’ meaning shade? They might have retorted that it may have an even earlier association with ‘umbel’, the spreading shape of a flower. There is an idea of protection from something, but of rain there is no mention. In other languages yes. In other languages they might have mocked me more legitimately for not knowing the difference between a parasol and a paraplu. One thing is true: a sunshade doesn’t need to be waterproof, unless it’s a monkey’s birthday. 

But I don’t own a folding sunshade. A folding umbrella, one that telescopes and fits easily into a bag, has often saved me from sunstroke, though not always from being a figure of fun.

September. Has the disparity between the name and its eventual place in the calendar ever been a source of comedy? Or disbelief?Silly old September! Silly old Romans!

Given their many hundreds of years of dominance, perhaps not. And now it is perhaps too late to change.

[image error]West Dorset in September mist.

Shall we start a movement? Or shall we just live with the quirks of language and the historical decisions that have brought us to where we are now?

Can you think of common words that have moved significantly from their original meanings? 

Be honest: would you feel silly using a brolly for protection from the sun? 

 

 

[image error]Allington Hill. Mid-September in the Northern Hemisphere

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[image error]

What do I think I know about … August?

1.  August was named in honour of the Emperor Augustus.

2.  August used to be the sixth month of the year.

3. August is the second of only two months named after a human being. 

[image error]Consecrated? Able to see the future? Grand and noble? Who me? Drawing by MD.

The month of Sextilis was renamed in honour of the Emperor Augustus in 8 BCE. 

We remember Augustus as the first Roman Emperor but for most of his long political career he was careful to be seen as an elected official of the state. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica:

In republican Rome (c. 509–27 BC), imperator denoted a victorious general, so named by his troops or by the Senate. Under the empire (after 27 BC), it was regularly adopted by the ruler as a forename and gradually came to apply to his office. 

In July we saw how Caesar changed from being a family name to a title synonymous with Emperor. Something similar happens with ‘Augustus’. 

[image error]Fig and figleaf 28 August 2018

The man who acquired the name or title of Augustus as well as the name or title of Caesar was born Gaius Octavius in 63 BCE. His great-uncle, his mother’s mother’s brother, was Gaius Julius Caesar. 

In 44 BCE, when his great-uncle was assassinated and Gaius Octavius was only eighteen, he secured official recognition of his status as the murdered man’s adopted son and heir under the name ‘Gaius Julius Caesar’. It seems that he preferred to drop the family name Octavianus, though he is usually known to us from this time until he becomes ‘Augustus’ as ‘Octavian’.  

When, in 42 BCE Julius Caesar was recognised as a god of the Roman state, Octavian’s status as his adopted son was further enhanced. 

He was elected to rule as part of the Second Triumvirate for five years alongside Marc Antony and Lepidus. A second period of five years of the same rule followed. 

[image error]Apples harvested 25 August 2018

In the course of a decade, by a mixture of diplomacy, waging war, gathering loyalty within the army, pleasing the populace and encouraging ill-feeling towards his rivals, Octavian patiently and systematically out-manoeuvred all of them. In another ten years he was in effect the undisputed leader of the Roman world. 

Taking a lesson from the fate of his great-uncle Julius, Octavian was careful to avoid being viewed as a dictator or someone with pretensions to be crowned a king. He observed the old forms of the republic and once the rule of the Triumvirate was at an end, had himself re-elected every year as Consul.

Though he took several titles and honours and refused others, he is said to have been greatly pleased when, in 30 BCE, following the battle of Actium in 31 BCE, and his victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra, the Senate ordered the closing of the doors of the temple of Janus. It was  a great honour to be accepted as the bringer of peace: the doors were always left open in time of war and their closure indicated that, for the time being, ‘all their wars had entirely ceased’.    

[image error]Fallen leaves and apples August 2018

They were to be opened and closed again several times during his lifetime, but this was a period of relative stability, partly accounted for by the removal of his political rivals and paying off the army with plunder from Egypt.

Even while still a member of the Triumvirate, he removed all reference to his position within that power structure from his coinage, which identified it as having been struck in the name of ‘Caesar, Son of a god’. 

From 31 to 23 BCE he continued to govern by virtue of successive consulships. Rather oddly, he is credited with bringing back the Republic (the defence of which had been the given reason for his great-uncle’s assassination in the Senate), ‘when in January 27 BCE he ostensibly “transferred the State to the free disposal of the Senate and people,”‘

Four days later, whether he took the name or it was awarded to him by the Senate, he augmented his name of Caesar with the title. ‘Augustus’. The name had 

an antique religious ring, believed to be linked etymologically with auctoritas and with the ancient practice of augury. The word augustus was often contrasted with humanus; its adoption as the title representing the new order cleverly indicated, in an extraconstitutional fashion, his superiority over the rest of mankind. Encyclopedia Britannica

In 8 BCE it is said that the Senate voted to have the name of the eighth month of the year changed in his honour. Mensis Sextilis (so named because it was the sixth month in the early Roman calendar when counting began with March) was renamed mensis Augustus.

[image error]Last of the Red Roses 28 August 2018

Could the choice of the eighth month have something to do with his original family name, Octavius? Or could it be that it did him honour to follow the month of Julius, named for his great-uncle?

One thing is odd: why didn’t Ovid, who was desperately trying to butter up Augustus in order to be released from exile, refer to either of these months by their new names? He published the first part of the Fasti in 8AD, long after these changes were supposed to have taken place. If he wanted to flatter Augustus why would he refer in his introduction to the whole work to ‘Quintilis…the fifth (quintus) month from March’ which ‘begins those that take their names from numerals’?

The second part of the Fasti, from July to December, was either never written or never published and Ovid remained in exile.  

And note too that July was named for the month of Julius Caesar’s birth. August was the month in which Augustus died. Is that a coincidence? Or did the re-naming of the month occur after he died?  

There’s another mystery and and once again further sifting through the sands of time required.

Do you have any clues? Please pass them on in the comments!

Meanwhile it’s a timely reminder that ‘facts’ can be rearranged by whoever is keen to pass on their version of history.

[image error]

PS: Have a look at the website Legonium ‘where Latin meets Lego’. It appears to be as reliable a source of succinct written information as any other on the internet. It’s also fun and colourful!  

[image error]The summer giant sleeps on

July – the month of Julius

Julius Caesar was born in the month of Quintilis. It was renamed in his honour just before he was murdered.  A bold assertion = a better story? Evidence? I found some. Sources? Click on the links. 

[image error] Gaius Julius Caesar (sort of)

On the winding trail I found out that the great man’s full name was Gaius Julius Caesar. Gaius was, , a common first name and may have meant . Julius shows that he belonged to the clan of the Julii. Julian might have meant or be related to the . Caesar was the name of his family branch. The word ‘Caesar’ might have meant or it might have been derived from the word for ‘to cut’.

Both of these names were handed down, so it doesn’t necessarily mean that Julius Caesar was either downy-bearded, hairy or cut from his mother’s womb – unless these things tended to run in the family.  

[image error] The bearded summer giant sleeps

Isn’t the word ‘Caesar’ a title? Yes and no. It’s a common misconception that Caesar meant Emperor in Julius Caesar’s own lifetime. It seems that his family name took on that meaning because of the association with great, even supreme, power. It was  such a prestigious ‘name’ to have that it was handed down and became a title.  

That he was born in the month of Quintilis appears to be a matter of record. As the name suggests it was the fifth month of the early Roman calendar and the first of the numbered months (followed by Sextilis, September, October, November and December). By the time Julius Caesar was born it was in effect the seventh month but no one had changed the name.

Julius Caesar had overseen the reform of the calendar in 46BCE but the names of the months had remained unchanged. Having numbered months (to my mind) left them as convenient place holders. Julius Caesar was the first historic personage to be honoured in this way in what has been handed down as the Julian and then the Gregorian calender. 

What arguments were made in favour of the name change from Quintilis to Julius when it was proposed in the Senate, I can only guess at without further research: it honours the whole clan, it also suggests the link to Jove. It sounds like a tremendous piece of flattery. 

It seems that the Senate voted for this in 44 BCE. The Encylopedia Britannica states that this happened ‘in Caesar’s lifetime’. So far, though I have read all around the internet, I have relied heavily on the Encyclopedia Britannica as a reliable linking source. Now, I have misgivings: one, because Julius Caesar was famously murdered in mid-March (if that can be believed) which means the name change by the Senate would have occurred early in the year and only shortly before he was stabbed to death in the Senate (emblematic of a dramatic reversal: tempting); two, because other sources suggest that it was proposed as a memorial to the dead Julius and was  (which seems highly plausible, though I don’t know what the source’s sources were): three: because Ovid doesn’t have anything to say about it. 

Ovid has little to say at all about July because he gave up his project of writing down the Fasti when he had completed June. What we do have is his introduction to the work, in which he names the months. He says: 

Quintilis is the fifth (quintus) month from March,

And begins those that take their names from numerals.

It seems unlikely he would not have mentioned the change of name to honour Julius Caesar since his aim in writing was to get back into favour with the Caesar of the day. Unless it hadn’t yet happened! 

To which we can return, in August. 

As ever, the mists of time and the mesh of the interweb obscures what facts there are. It’s a bit like this photo: you only know the hill must be there because you’ve seen it before. 

[image error]Allington Hill invisible in a July mist

What do I know about June?

June marks the middle of the year…

June is the month of the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere. Perhaps we should call it ‘the June solstice’?

‘Solstice’ comes from the Latin, ‘solstitium’ meaning ‘sun-stopping’ from ‘sol’ (sun) and ‘sistere’ (to make stand).  

[image error]
Solstice 21 June 2018 from Eggardon Hill fort looking west towards Pilsdon Pen, Lewesdon Hill and the setting sun

The precise point in time of the June solstice varies between 20 and 22 June. From now on the time of daylight will shorten in the northern hemisphere and lengthen in the southern hemisphere. 

June marks the end of the spring season, the start of the summer season and also Midsummer.  

Meteorological summer in the northern hemisphere begins on June 1st and ends on 31 August, according to the Met Office (I suppose the Met Office should know). This way of defining the seasons fits summer, autumn, winter and spring into a neat four by three-month pattern in the Gregorian calendar.  

Astronomical summer begins on the June solstice in the northern hemisphere. This ‘start of summer’ is closely followed by the cultural celebration of Midsummer. The traditional date seems to be June 24, the Feast of St John the Baptist. Some midsummer rituals are associated with the Eve of St John.  

June is the sixth month of the year in the Gregorian calendar.

In the Julian calendar, June has sometimes been counted as the sixth month of the year and sometimes as the fourth: in those periods when the year was deemed to begin in March – the cusp of winter and spring in the northern hemisphere.

[image error]Mist over Allington Hill June 1

Once June is over, so are most of the native flowers.

In June, the light greens of spring deepen and darken. Grass goes to seed. Elderflower sugars the hedgerows. Great creamy white plates of it on the wild elder and smaller pink ones in the garden.

[image error]Tree plated with elderflower

The fragrance lures thoughts of making elderflower cordial or fizz: white or pink.

[image error]Creamy pink abundance

The moment the elder flower starts to lose its freshness feels like the turning point of the year. 

[image error]Pink elderflower going over mid-June

Blackberry blossoms appear – some of the latest of all native blooms in Britain. It’s time to harvest the garlic in your garden.

The origin of the name of the month is not clear. 

Ovid, writing over two thousand years ago, gives three possibilities for the naming of the month of June (this will come as no great surprise if you read my blog post on May). Here they are from Book 6 of the Fasti, in the translation by James G. Fraser:  

1. The month is named for Juno (wife and sister of Jupiter), who complains that her husband/brother has already given his mistress Maia a month of her own.  

2. Hebe, the wife of Hercules, disputes Juno’s claim, saying that the month is named for the young (iuvenes) where May was named for the elders (maiores).

3. An argument threatens to break out, until Concord comes with a third explanation, which is that after Tatius and Romulus merged their kingdoms the month was named for this union (iunctus).

Ovid does not say which he thinks is true: ‘Goddesses, forgive me; it’s not for me to decide.’

I find that lack of certainty refreshing. Possibly it also reflects his unwillingness not to offend any further, since he was already in exile from Rome.  June is also the last month in which Ovid gives so much detail about the calendar. Perhaps he decided he was wasting his time.  

[image error]Romans as well as Britons walked Eggardon hill fort’s western ramparts, looking towards the other hill forts and the distant sea. Photo: summer solstice; sunset approaching.

June is a month when many birds raise chicks

It was a delight to find that my garden is now messy enough to have enclosed the bird box with protective branches and that for the first time blue tits decided to make their nest there. and raise a brood of six. The parents worked all the hours of daylight bringing what looked mostly like grubs. Farmers don’t cut their hedges at this time of year – for a good reason. I wish that gardeners would leave theirs alone too. 

[image error]Spot the bird box

June is a special month for birthdays, including mine. 

I feel that a birthday is well placed in June, at the centre of the year between mid-winter festivals. Other people with June birthdays are: Marilyn Monroe; my neighbour, June (a pre-WW2 baby); and (oh dear) Donald Trump – I can only hope that last bit isn’t true. I did get a hilarious card with a gorilla in a Trump wig, promising when opened to make my birthday great again. Thanks. It was. 

[image error]Towards Allington Hill 1 June 2018

Question 1: What midsummer rituals do you know?

Question 2: With whom do you share your birthday month (or even the day)? Someone you admire? Someone you would rather avoid?

Question 3: What’s the month of June like where you are?   

 

 

 

 

The Mysteries of May #1: The Name

‘ You ask where I think the name of May comes from? Its origin’s not totally clear to me.’ (Ovid)  

[image error]Towards Allington Hill 3 May 2018

Oh, Ovid: I love you more and more. Though he was writing about the passing and naming of time and the feast days of the calendar in his Fasti, in a bid to flatter an Emperor and ease his own exile, he said what he knew, and what he knew was that he wasn’t sure:

You ask where I think the name of May comes from?

Its origin’s not totally clear to me.

As a traveller stands unsure which way to go,

Seeing the paths fan out in all directions,

So I’m not sure which to accept, since it’s possible

To give different reasons: plenty itself confuses.

And yet here in the twenty-first century, only certainties seem welcome, if not valid: something that can be expressed in a tweet or even a tiny entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica: 

‘May, fifth month of the Gregorian calendar. It was named after Maia, a Roman fertility goddess.’

Boom. Nailed it.

This is the version that you will see repeated everywhere. Yet, if Ovid, a Roman, considered this to be only one possibility, how can the Encyclopedia Britannica or anyone else be sure?

While that remains a mystery to me, for the time being at least, here are three (or four) explanations offered by Ovid himself about the origins of the name of the month.

His sources? Three of the Muses. What else for a writer? At least he’s honest about it. He’s also careful not to praise one explanation above another, because in those days it seems that one certainty that people relied on was that their lives were governed by the goodwill or otherwise of their gods and other supernatural beings. 

First up is Polyhymnia, the Muse of Sacred Song: she derives May (Maius) from Majesty (Maiestas)

According to Ovid, Majesty is a she, born in the earliest time after the first Chaos, to Honour and Reverence.

noble from her day of birth.

She took her seat, at once, high in the midst of Olympus,

Conspicuous, golden, in her purple folds.

Modesty and Fear sat with her: you could see

All the gods modelling their expression on hers.

At once, respect for honour entered their minds:

The worthy had their reward, none thought of self.

This state of things lasted for years in heaven

Surviving an attack on the gods by a race of giants, Majesty

attends on Jove, Jove’s truest guardian,

And allows him to hold the sceptre without force.

The story continues that she, Majesty, had been worshipped by Romulus, creator of Rome, and by Numa, who was King in its early days, and by others in later ages. In the present tense for Ovid, she ‘maintains fathers and mothers in due honour’. 

[image error]A neighbour’s apple in full blossom and Allington Hill 6 May 2018

This last sentence is important, as it seems to provide a link to the next explanation of the origin of the name of the month of May, which comes from Urania, the Muse of Astronomy. She says that the name is taken from maiores for the city elders

Once great reverence was shown to white hair,

And wrinkled age was valued at its true worth.

The young waged work of war, and spirited battle,

Holding to their posts for the sake of the gods:

Age, inferior in strength, and unfit for arms,

Often did the country a service by its counsel.

The Senate was only open to men of mature age,

And Senators bear a name meaning ripe in years.

The elders made laws for the people, and specific

Rules governed the age when office might be sought:

Old men walked with the young, without their indignation,

And on the inside, if they only had one companion.

Who dared then to talk shamefully in an older man’s

Presence? Old age granted rights of censorship.

Romulus knew this, and chose the City Fathers

From select spirits: making them the rulers of the City.

So I deduce that the elders (maiores) gave their own title

To the month of May: and looked after their own interests.

Numitor too may have said: “Romulus, grant this month

To the old men” and his grandson may have yielded.

In this version of the origins of names, the following month, June, is named not for the goddess, Juno, but for the young men, iuvenes.

Last comes Caliope the ‘beautifully voiced’ chief of all the Muses, who presides over eloquence and epic poetry. She gives us the explanation which comes close to the one with which we seem most familiar: the name of the month of May derives from Maia, daughter of Pleione and Atlas, whose children were the seven Pleiads.

Among them, Maia’s said to have surpassed her sisters

In beauty, and to have slept with mighty Jove.

She bore Mercury, who cuts the air on winged feet,

and Caliope, through Ovid, declares that:

you, Mercury, patron of thieves, inventor

Of the curved lyre, gave your mother’s name to this month.

Again, there is a veneration for elders, which seems a little at odds with the idea of May as a time of blooming youthfulness, were it not for the idea of Maia, as a beautiful mother, blooming with child. 

[image error]Cherry blossom in early May

Ovid concludes the explanations given by these Muses:

All three were equally convincing.

May the Muses’s favour attend me equally,

And never let me praise one more than the rest.

Very wise.

And the fourth possibility? Slipped elsewhere into the text is this, when Ovid comes to describe what happens on May 9.

It will be the ancient sacred rites of the Lemuria,

When we make offerings to the voiceless spirits.

The year was once shorter, the pious rites of purification, februa,

Were unknown, nor were you, two-faced Janus, leader of the months:

Yet they still brought gifts owed to the ashes of the dead,

The grandson paid respects to his buried grandfather’s tomb.

It was May month, named for our ancestors (maiores),

And a relic of the old custom still continues. 

Again this seems at odds with our idea of burgeoning springtime in the Northern Hemisphere, although Ovid also describes the Roman festival of Flora, which began in April and continued into May.

It seems that Ovid, who was born in 43 BC, was quite aware that there were many rituals and ideas associated with the name and the month of May, peering, as he did, back into the earlier history of Rome, and telling us what he knew went on in his own lifetime.

[image error]Towards Allington Hill Apple blossom over 19 May 2018

 

Another way to interrogate the naming of the month of May is to look at the etymology of the word ‘May’ itself. 

Merriam Webster gives us the familiar:

Origin and Etymology of May: Middle English, from Anglo-French & Latin; Anglo-French mai, from Latin Maius, from Maia, Roman goddess

The Free Dictionary takes us further back, past Maia, the Italic goddess (probably based on Maia, a Greek goddess), all the way to the Indo-European root ‘meg’ meaning ‘great’, which has given us ‘majesty’ and ‘major’ as well as May.

Perhaps the root is the answer to it all? For May is a great word for a great month isn’t it? One way or the other.

And to speak of May blossom?

Another time.

[image error]May be out – mid-May

Do you have any theories about May?

If your name is Meg, did you know that it means great? So don’t take too much notice of ‘Family Guy‘. 

All quotes from Ovid taken from Poetry in Translation: Ovid, Fasti, ‘On the Roman Calendar’, translated by A.S. Kline, 2004

All words and images copyright Maria Donovan 2018. If you wish to use any images from my website please contact me for permission.

Guest post: May in Oz – the view from Down Under by Sarah Klenbort

The months of the Gregorian calendar, their names and cultural associations, are historically connected with life in the Northern Hemisphere. But in Australia, May brings autumn or fall. My friend, the writer Sarah Klenbort, give us a view from Down Under. 

[image error]Sunrise, Bronte Beach, NSW, 8 May 2018

May, Australia

May in Sydney is when the tourists go home and leave the beaches empty for us locals to swim and surf and search for anemones in the sandstone rock pools at low tide. May is cold nights and clear warm days (though the start of this month was unseasonably warm, nearly 30 degrees C).

May is when you dig out a jumper you haven’t seen for six months. May is mandarins and pumpkin scones, because it’s finally cool enough to turn the oven on.

Fall means short days, early sunsets. When my husband first moved here from Wales he was shocked at how brief twilight is, this close to the equator: ‘The sun goes down, and bang! Lights out!’

It’s the light that changes most; I find it hard to describe the quality of that antipodean sun that turns the pears on my windowsill a golden green.

[image error]In May, Autumn or Fall pears are in season in NSW

May is when Sydney-siders start thinking about ‘going to the snow’, as they say—a seven hour drive southwest to the Snowy Mountains. Sydney hasn’t seen snow since a freak weather event in 1836 brought an inch of the white stuff to our beaches.

I come from Atlanta, Georgia, where the seasons are more distinct—100 degrees Fahrenheit in summer and snow in winter. And when I first arrived in Australia, the seasons seemed to blend together—not four but two: hot and not as hot, with gums and palm trees all year round.

The varied and various First Peoples of this country see much more. In Kakadu in the Northern Territory, where it’s 32 degrees nearly every day of the year, the whites have two seasons: wet and dry. But the traditional owners of this land have six. May is part of the Yegge, which is ‘cooler, but still humid’ and signalled by flowering yellowbutt. Yegge follows Benggerreng, or ‘knock ’em down storm season’ marked by ‘violent windy storms that flatten the speargrass’.

I first came here as a brazen young woman in a bikini; these days I’m a middle-aged mum. It’s only now—as we begin to lose our seasons—that I have a more profound appreciation for the subtle differences: the way the sun at dawn turns the sandstone gold, the mournful cries of two dozen black cockatoos as they fly overhead in Sydney each May.

[image error]Sarah goes swimming Photo by K.

Sarah Klenbort lives in Sydney with her husband and two daughters. She teaches Literature at Western Sydney University and Creative Writing at Sydney Community College. Her fiction has appeared in Best Australian Stories, Overland, Southerly, Island Magazine and various U.S. and U.K. literary journals. She’s published articles in The Guardian and Eureka Street. In 2016, Sarah and her Welsh husband left their jobs, took the kids out of school and travelled around Australia with a camper trailer, visiting deaf schools and deaf communities along the way. You can read about these adventures on her blog: handsacrossaustralia.com

 

Thanks, Sarah!

Do go and see Sarah’s blog. It’s an amazing read, particularly if, like me, you’re an armchair traveller. You can share some wonderful places and experiences from a ‘lap’ of Australia in a year of travel.

Anyone around the world wish to share their experiences of where they are in May? Cultural, meteorological, historical. It’s all of interest to me: Maria Donovan

If you enjoyed Sarah’s post as much as I did, let us know! I’d like to ask her do another guest post in the future. 

 

One thing no one really knows about … April

It is a curious thing that…

[image error]Beetle full of flowers

the true origin of April’s name remains uncertain. Here are some theories:

April could be derived from Aphrilis, named for Aphrodite, the Greek version of the goddess the Romans called Venus.
April could be derived from aperire, Latin for ‘to open’.
April could be derived from the same root that gives us ‘après’: because April is the month that follows March. 

The first two suggestions could be connected: the female is often symbolised as being ‘open’; think of Venus, or Aphrodite, rising from the sea, in an opening shell, as flowers open in springtime. 

The ‘aperire/to open’ theory is popular, and quite old: Ovid, in his Fasti, Book IV, comments on it as he speaks directly to Venus. 

Venus, there are some

Who’d grudge you your month, and snatch it away.

They say Spring was named from the open (apertum) season,

Because Spring opens (aperit) everything and the sharp

Frost-bound cold vanishes, and fertile soil’s revealed,

Though kind Venus sets her hand there and claims it.

She rules the whole world too, and truly deserves to:

While Ovid’s translator, A.S. Kline, observes under his notes on Venus, that: 

‘April is her month which name Ovid derives from άφρός (aphros), sea-foam, since Venus-Aphrodite rose from the sea’.  

[image error]Sea foam Het Zwin 1 April 2018

Perhaps Ovid didn’t know for sure. At the time he was writing, mensis Aprilis had long been known as the name of the fourth month (and before that the second month, when by custom the beginning of the year was March).

As a Roman exile trying to put himself back into favour, perhaps Ovid wanted to please Venus by defending her honour and her rights. Perhaps he did not want to take any chances.  

Stella Maris, Star of the Sea, is another name for Venus/Aphrodite. 

[image error]
Foaming sea Het Zwin April 1 2018

The Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom comes many good things attributed to the powerful female deities that went before her, has been given the same name since at least medieval times. This led me to wonder whether Mary and my own name, Maria, might be, after all, as closely linked to the sea as I would like them to be. But that’s another rabbit-hole. 

[image error]Small person under a cherry tree

 

 

 

Back to the origins of the name ‘April’. Mensis Aprilis: the month of April. For the origins of the name, in whom can you trust? 

 

 

The British Museum tweeted, in April 2018: 

#April takes its name from the Latin word aperire, meaning ‘to open’ – just like flowers do in spring! The Romans called the month Aprilis.

The BM did not respond to a request via twitter for a source for this ‘fact’, which also appeared in their  in 2015: 

April is named after the Latin word aperire, meaning ‘to open’ (i.e. spring). 

How I would like to know how they know what they think they know. Is there some definitive source? Or is this just an assertion sweeping in on a tide of ‘knowledge’ Ovid brought into question all those centuries ago? Don’t tweets matter? 

The Encyclopedia Britannica will only go as far as to say that the name

probably derives from the Latin aperire (“to open”), a possible reference to plant buds opening at this time of year in Rome. 

What a difference a ‘probably’ makes, holding as it does a sense of allowance to be made for other possibilities. 

[image error]Muscari opening

A third theory is that the name derives from the same root that gives us ‘après’ in French meaning ‘after’. The logic goes that the month of Mars (March) was the first in the calendar and that the month of Venus/Aphrodite (April) was ‘nearby’. The word is supposed to be derived from Vulgar Latin ‘ad-pressum’ or, in English, to press.

To join the three theories together: what if the name for Aphrodite/Venus was not only synonymous with being ‘open’ but also for being put into the position of being the ‘follower ’. Typical patriarchal ploy.

Usage seems to trump any theory. 

If you want to know more – for instance, is the word ‘April’ really of Etruscan rather than Roman origin? Because ‘When a Latin word defies all attempts at explaining its origin, it is customary to resort to Etruscan’. So says Anatoly Liberman. You can read more in his post for the Oxford University Press.

Whatever the truth of it, it still surprises me to realise how little I knew about the origins of the name of the beautiful month of April.

Which theory do you prefer?

Do you have any other theories of your own?

[image error]Allington Hill greening up in April 2018

Please add your comments below.

***All photographs are the property of Maria Donovan.

 

 

 

 

An April Fools’ Day Easter

The French say ‘Poisson d’Avril’, the English say April Fool’s Day, April Fools’ Day or April Fools Day. 

[image error]IJzendijke: a town well known for its enormous fish

In 2018, April Fools’ Day and Easter Sunday coincide. The last time this happened was in 1956. The next time it happens will be 2029, if the date of Easter has not been fixed by then.

Easter is that rare thing in our calendar: a moveable feast. Easter Sunday is calculated as the first Sunday after the first full moon following the Spring Equinox. In 2018 the Spring Equinox (in the Northern Hemisphere) was on March 20. The full moon occurs on Saturday 31 March. The following day is Sunday, April 1st: Easter Sunday.

[image error]
‘Aan tafel’ which means ‘At the table’ and also ‘Come to the table!’

Of all the theories about the origins of April Fools’ Day, certain things are held in common: one is that it’s natural to want to have a laugh at the beginning of spring; another is that at certain times of the year it’s a good thing to allow the normal order to be disrupted, in a good-humoured way, so that it can be maintained, by common consent, for the rest of the year.

[image error]Having a laugh in public is not a crime

Perhaps that’s what made Joseph Boskin’s Origins of April Fools’ Day April Fools’ Day hoax so believable. A professor emeritus at Boston University, he told a journalist, who was pushing him for an answer, that the tradition went back to the days of the Emperor Constantine, whose jesters and fools said they could rule more wisely than he, which he took with amusement, making one of them King for a Day in his place. According to his own testimony, he didn’t think he would be believed, and forgot about it, but the story had his country’s media fooled and he was even criticised for having damaged a young journalist’s career. According to Boskin, that wasn’t true either.  

But it was necessary to make that clear, because there are rules about the kinds of pranks it’s acceptable to make on April Fools’ Day: a joke should do no real harm; and I was brought up with the belief that jokes are only allowed up to midday. After that the joke is supposed to be on the perpetrator. So haha Panorama. On an evening in 1957, in one of the most famous of all media jokes, Richard Dimbleby narrated the story of the spaghetti harvest. 

[image error] Spaghetti Harvest Hoax

It’s well done, with the right kind of detail to fool people who just weren’t that familiar with pasta. But the programme was aired in the evening and perhaps people were not then used to the idea that a serious programme like BBC’s ‘Panorama’ could be capable of making a joke.   

On April Fools’ Day the tradition is often still followed that a piece of fake news given out in a serious tone in the morning is admitted to be a hoax by noon. But watch out: we now have global news, twenty-four hour reporting and the tweets of Donald Trump. It’s hard to know what’s real and what’s not on any day or hour or minute of the week.

For me, this last example of an April Fools’ Day prank is the best of its kind: it’s funny and doesn’t harm anyone. In fact, it’s doing a good job of making maths (math if you prefer) classes look interesting. Although the teacher, Matthew Weathers, who set up the whole thing and a string of others, works at a place with the unlikely name of Biola University, he gets 10 out of 10 from me for invention, planning, and sheer effort.

Click and enjoy. Happy Easter: and be careful out there. All is not what it’s pretending to be. 

 

[image error]

8 million views and counting.

What are your best and worst April Fools’ Day stories? Please share them in the comments!  

Five things I think I know about … March

Once again, I test my capacity to have ingested and assimilated fake news like a fish swallowing micro-beads.

That process began many years before ‘fake news’ and ‘microbeads’ were familiar concepts swimming in a shared soup of consciousness.

Five assumptions about March: 

March is named for Mars, the Roman god of war. 

March used to be the first month of the year.

In March the clocks spring forwards.

March 21 is the vernal equinox.

March marks the beginning of spring. 

[image error]Spring? March 1 2018. Brrr.

1.  March is named for Mars, the Roman god of war.

So agree the Encyclopedia Britannica and our old friend, Ovid, though Ovid also calls him ‘Gradivus, Marching God’ as if ‘Mars’ was once a nickname, a description that has stuck. The Oxford English dictionary says the origin of the word ‘March’ is ‘Middle English, from an old French dialect variant of ‘marz’, from the Latin Martius. Martius menses, the month of Mars. In more recent times, the name Mars has been shared with a planet and a chocolate bar, but that’s another story.

Mars used to be the first month of the year.

Ovid (again) reminds us that when Romulus, son of Mars (according to myth), founded Rome, his calendar began in springtime with the month of Mars, father of the race. “Mars’ month, March, was the first'”. The Romans later invented January and that became the first month.  

[image error]In the history of these islands (speaking of what is now the UK), the New Year has moved back and forth between January and March but for a couple of centuries, until we finally adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, the legal New Year began on March 25.

In March the clocks spring forwards 

This one I know is true, from experience. The way it is currently arranged, the last weekend of the month of March is the time for putting the clocks forwards. Officially the time of the change is 1am on Sunday morning. The clocks go forwards to 2am.  It is sometimes called ‘Daylight Saving Time’ though the span of daylight is the same. It will be lighter in the evenings.

This is one of those occasions when we realise how artificial are the ways in which we measure time. Every year, usually when the clocks are due to go back, and we have all adjusted to what is also called ‘Summer Time’, there is a bit of a to-do about whether we should permanently stay in a state of +1 from where we are supposed to be. Arguments are made and then someone says they’ll miss their ‘extra hour in bed’ and we steel ourselves for increased darkness in the evenings. It feels like it ought to be the other way around, but apparently, that’s only if you live in the south. In Scotland they want a bit of light in the mornings.

[image error]Between the snows 16 March 2018

I am old enough to remember an experiment with staying on a +1 in the winter, and walking to school through dark streets, fascinated by walking over and over my own shadow, which slipped under my feet as I passed under streetlights.

The changing of the clocks can lead to missed appointments, or just some confusion if your digital device has changed the time for you and you don’t know why.

We say things like, ‘We’ll have an hour’s less sleep’ as if the night is really an hour shorter. This is sometimes true when you are on night-duty, though when I was nursing we used to split the difference with the day shift. We also had to use some sleight-of-hand adjusting two-hourly observations and the timing of drips, so that we could all settle back as soon as possible into what passed for normality. 

March 21 is the vernal equinox. 

[image error]Red camellias in March

Yes it is. Except when it isn’t. In 2018, the vernal or spring equinox, took place around 16.15 on March 20. But that is only in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere it is the autumn equinox. 

The word ‘equinox’ derives from the latin for ‘equal night’, but despite what the Oxford English Dictionary says, other sources will tell us this is only roughly true. It is the time when the sun’s rays are perpendicular to the Equator. The equinox marks the passing of the sun over the celestial equator – an imaginary line in the sky above the imaginary line on the ground.

[image error]Snowing again March 18 2018

March marks the beginning of spring.

Yes, and no. Once again it depends where you are. In the Northern Hemisphere, astronomical spring (this doesn’t mean it’s highly priced) begins with the equinox. At the same time in the Southern Hemisphere, it is the beginning of astronomical autumn. Meteorological spring in the Northern Hemisphere begins on March 1st. But tell that to the photo at the top.

With every answer come new questions. In time perhaps they will be answered.

What for you is the first sign of spring? 

[image error]Last of the March snows melting under primroses

Writing Flash Fiction

Whether you already love flash fiction or are intrigued to know more about it, here’s a wonderfully informative guest post by Gail Aldwin, whose new collection, Paisley Shirt, is freshly published and gathering admiring reviews. Welcome, Gail! 

 

What is flash fiction?

For some writers, flash fiction provides an opportunity to write a story from start to finish in one go. Using prompts such as pictures, single words, or lyrics from a song, the story is committed to the page ‘in a flash’. Although some stories in Paisley Shirt, my new collection, published by Chapeltown Books, did leap onto the page fully formed, others took more honing.

In this way, flash fiction is a distilled version of a longer story that includes characters, plot, dialogue and theme but these are presented by suggestion rather than written in detail. The words leave room for the reader’s imagination.

Flash fiction sits alongside short stories and longer fiction but does not attempt to replace them. In a busy life with increasing demands, flash fiction offers readers the chance to enjoy a bite-sized piece of fiction that can be enjoyed between train stops, during a coffee break or while a child naps.

The length of the story is one of the constraints and delights of flash fiction. In UK publications it is generally agreed that anything from as little as 50 words up to 500 words constitutes flash fiction but in American literature it can be up to 1000 words.

Ideas for writing flash fiction

A famous example of a piece of flash fiction comes in the form of Ernest Hemingway’s six-word story: For sale: baby shoes, never worn. Although the account of how he wrote this on a napkin to meet a challenge set by friends is now believed to be apocryphal, the story itself is not diminished.  

For compulsive readers of classified advertisements, other stories come to mind, For sale: wedding dress, never worn. It’s worth scouring this section of your local paper for ideas, think about using the following columns to inspire short writing: missing, wanted, situations vacant. Another way to tackle flash fiction is to use phrases that immediately provide the context for a story. Try writing a story that includes one of the following: ‘open wide’ or ‘tickets please’ or ‘you’re welcome’.

Using photo prompts

Photographs or images in magazines and brochures are used as a stimulus for many different types of writing. Although this isn’t a new idea, flash fiction provides the chance to step into the shoes of a photographer and view portraits of couples and families with new understanding and insight.

Images presented in a photograph represent a moment of being. It’s interesting to reflect upon the relationship between the photographer behind the camera and those captured in the image to create a story.

[image error]
Collections

These are just a few of the techniques and strategies I used to stimulate stories that now feature in Paisley Shirt. My collection is one of a series all presented with the same cover format but using different coloured borders. I chose a copyright free image from Flickr to give the central image of a paisley shirt for my cover. Mandy Huggins, who is also published by Chapeltown Books, used her own painting as the cover image for Brightly Coloured Horses.

Workshop

If you would like to find out more about writing flash fiction, I am delivering a workshop at Waterstones in Dorchester on Sunday 13 May from 1:30–3:30pm. For more information and to book go to the Dorset Writers Network website and look under the events tab.

About Gail Aldwin[image error]

Gail Aldwin is a prize-winning writer of short fiction and poetry. She works as a visiting tutor to creative writing students at Arts University Bournemouth. Gail’s new collection of flash fiction Paisley Shirt is published by Chapeltown Books. The Kindle Edition and paperback can be purchased from Amazon or buy the paperback from bookshops including Serendip, Lyme Regis, Gullivers, Wimborne Minster, Waterstones, Dorchester, The Swanage Bookshop, Swanage and Octoberbooks in Southampton.

You can find Gail at:

Twitter:        @gailaldwin

Facebook:     https://www.facebook.com/gailaldwinwriter/

Blog:              The Writer is a Lonely Hunter

Chair DWN:  http://www.dorsetwritersnetwork.co.uk