Month: July 2025

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Swan Upping July 16th

Swan Upping By Philip Allfrey Abingdon 2006 – CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2464315. The Royal Uppers are to the right and the Vintners’ Uppers on the left.

Swan upping takes place on the 3rd Week of July. It is an annual census of the Swans on the River Thames. This year it began on Monday, July 14th. It began in the 12th Century.

In theory, the King has the ownership of all unmarked Mute Swans on open water in the UK. Swan Upping is an ancient ceremony during which Swans are upped, checked for health and ringed if they do not belong to the King. In fact, it is the Cygnets which are upped. They are checked for weight and health. Their parents are checked for an ownership ring. If the parents are ringed then the young cygnets will be ringed accordingly. If the parents are not ringed, then they belong to the King and remain unringed.

This ceremony now only takes place on the Thames. It begins at Sunbury and progresses to Abingdon. The Swan Uppers have traditional wooden rowing skiffs and a scarlet Upping Shirt. They are managed by the Swan Marker. The Royal Uppers are accompanied by Swan Uppers from the two City Livery Companies that still have rights to ownership of Thames Mute Swans. These companies are the Dyers Company and the Vintners Company.

If you want to catch Swan Upping this year you will find them upping Swans at the following places:

Thursday 17th July 2025 
Sonning-on-Thames 09.00 – Departure point 
Caversham Lock 10.15 
Mapledurham Lock 12.30 
Goring Lock 17.00 
Moulsford 18.00 
  
Friday 18th July 2025 
Moulsford 09.00 – Departure point 
Benson Lock 10.00 
Clifton Hampden Bridge 13.00 
Culham Lock 16.15 
Abingdon Bridge 17.00 

King Charles is Seigneur of the Swans and you can find more details at https://www.royalswan.co.uk

Swans moult in July and August, and this renders them flightless. This can last for a period of up to 6 weeks. So it makes them a lot easier to up!

The Swannery at Abbotsbury

Now I didn’t find that fact on any of the web sites I consulted about Swan Upping. For many years I gave a wonderful programme called Literary Landscapes where we explored lanscapes associated with Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Agatha Christie, Conan-Doyle and Charles Dickens. On it, we went to the Swannery at Abbotsbury in Dorset. This was founded by Benedictine Monks in the time of King Cnut. The Strangeways family acquired the Monastery after the Dissolution and still own the Swannery. So they are the fourth authority in the UK who own Swans.

It is a remarkable place, in the heart of Hardy’s Wessex and by the glorious Chesil Beach. Every other year, the Mute Swans are checked and ringed during the flightless period. When Pavlova was working on Swan Lake, she took the dancers to Abbotsbury to observe the behaviour of the Swans.

Photo by the author of a panel at Abbotsbury showing Pavlova’s dancers posing by the Swans of Abbotsbury

Feathers are collected during the moulting season. They are used by Lloyds Registry, the Society of Calligraphers, illuminators, and other scribes for writing-quills. Other feathers are used by the Plummery to make headdresses for the Royal Bodyguard. They are also used for artists’ brushes, brushes for sweeping bees from honeycomb and arrow flights! (Source: panel at Abbotsbury).

Ringing the Swans at Abbotsbury 2018 Photo by Kevin Flude

Cartmarking is taking place On Saturday at the Guildhall in London 19th July. For more details of the historic vehicle events: https://thecarmen.co.uk/history/cart-marking/

Created July 16th 2025

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Forecasting the Harvest & the Downfall of the Mayor of Casterbridge. St Swithun’s Day July 15th

Harvest on St Swithun’s Day Photo by David Becker on Unsplash

St. Swithun’s day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St. Swithun’s day if thou be fair
For forty days ’twill rain nae mare

It’s not just important for the farmer but, even more, for the corn factor, to get the weather right for harvest. So, this bit of weather lore, repeated every year in the media could be important. But the BBC tells us that, since records have been kept (1841) there has been no period of 40 days rain after St Swithuns Day. However, there is some suggestion of a period of stable weather from mid july to the end of August. But, generally, a lot of old nonsense.

St. Swithun was Bishop of Winchester from his consecration on 30 October 852 until his death on 2 July. And very little else is known about him. However, he is the patron Saint of Winchester, and has powers against Drought.

Weather Forecasting and Thomas Hardy

The price of corn is very dependent upon the weather. Michael Henchard in Thomas Hardy’s 1886 novel ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ has formed a terrible rivalry with his erstwhile friend Donald Fafrae.  He is determined to outdo him in the Casterbridge Cornmarket. He has a hunch about the weather and the price of corn, but needs reassurances. So despite his doubts about the efficacy of prophecy he goes to see ‘a man of curious repute as a forecaster or weather-prophet.’ Henchard is shrouded to protect his identify. He will not stay to take hospitality from the prophet, nor cross the threshold. He masks his face with a handkerchief, as if suffering from a toothache.

However, the prophet knows this strange man is the former Mayor of Casterbridge, much to Henchard’s surprise. Henchard quizzes him. ‘can ye charm away warts?’ ‘Cure the evil?’ ‘Forecast the weather?’ Replying in the affirmative the cunning man takes Henchard’s crown piece and forecasts:

“By the sun, moon, and stars, by the clouds, the winds, the trees, and grass, the candle-flame and swallows, the smell of the herbs; likewise by the cats eyes, the ravens, the leeches, the spiders, and the dungmixen, the last fortnight in August will be – rain and tempest.’ ‘Twill be more like living in Revelations this autumn that in England.’

Henchard buys up grain at the current high price. But is ruined by the fine weather that sets in for an excellent harvest which sends corn prices tumbling.

The Withered Arm

Local folklore was at the heart of many of Hardy’s stories. Perhaps the most dramatic is the ‘Withered Arm’. Gertrude has a withered arm wished upon her by the former lover of her husband, with whom she has an illegitimate boy.

Years pass, and she is still determined to cure her arm. She visits a Casterbridge Cunning Man. He tells her the only cure is to touch the neck of a recently hanged man. So she goes to Casterbridge on a Hanging Day. She makes arrangements with the hangman. Then she touches the neck of the hanged man. There follows an immediate cure. She cannot resist looking at the victim. A young man she recognises as the illegitimate son of her husband.

I first read these stories one after another at a time I was going through a painful period in my life. I remember throwing the ‘Withered Arm’ at the wall shouting ‘Oh Thomas Hardy’ you miserable man.’ It took me twenty years to come back to him, to appreciate his amazing descriptions of life in rural Wessex. The cast of characters struggling to make a place for themselves in a world that was changing beyond all recognition.

For more about Thomas Hardy search the Almanac of the Past for Thomas Hardy, or look at the Skimmity Ride.

First Published in 2022, revised July 2024, 2025

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Twin, Twins – Festival of Castor and Pollux July 15th

The Ashwini kumaras twins, sons of the sun god Surya. Vedic gods representing the brightness of sunrise and sunset Wikipedia

The Divine Twins, aka the Dioscuri, were horsemen. Patrons of calvary, athletes and sailors, one of many Indo-European twin gods.   They had many adventures including sailing with Jason and the Argonauts.

And are they well connected?! Pollux is the son of Zeus  His twin brother has a different and mortal father, the King of Sparta.  But the boys share the same mother, Leda.  She was raped by Zeus in the guise of a swan.

This makes them examples of heteropaternal superfecundation as Mary Poppins didn’t sing.  But their different paternity had consequences. The most important is that one was (is?) therefore immortal and the other wasn’t. 

According to some version of the story, Castor (the mortal one) was mortally wounded. Zeus gave Pollux the option of letting his brother die while Pollux could spend eternity on Mount Olympus. The alternative was to share his immortality with his brother. Pollux did the good thing. So the twins spend half their year as the Constellation of Gemini and the rest, immortal, on Mount Olympus.  Thus, they are the epitome of brotherly love.

Divine Twins or Sisters from Hell?

The Dioscuri’s sisters were no less than Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. Never mind the Brothers, what Sisters! Helen of Troy you know. And Clytemnestra! They were also twins, Helen the divine daughter of Zeus, husband of Menelaus, lover of Paris. Sister, Clytemnestra, mortal daughter of the King of Sparta, husband of Agamemnon (brother of Menelaus).

It happened like this.  The Swan was being pursued by an eagle, so Leda protected the Swan and took it to bed.  On the same night she slept with her husband Tyndareus of Sparta. Two eggs were fertilised, each split in two to give two sets of twins.

Leda and the Swan, 16th-century copy after the lost painting by Michelangelo

Clytemnestra

She was the wife of Agamemnon, the arrogant leader of the Greeks.  On the way to retrieve Helen from Troy, the Greek Fleet was becalmed. So, following his seers’ advice, Agamemnon sacrificed his own daughter, Iphigenia, on the island of Aulis.  The Gods then set the winds fair to Troy. (Read Iphigenia at Aulis by Aeschylus, a great play which I studied in Classical Studies at University).

Meanwhile, Queen Clytemnestra, abandoned at home, broods on her husband’s heartless fillicide. She takes a lover. After 10 years of war, Agamemnon comes back, in triumph, from the destruction of Troy. He brings with him his prize, the Trojan Princess, Cassandra, sister of Hector.

Cassandra has been gifted with the ability of accurate prophecy. But, as often in the case of prophecy stories, the gift came with a sting in its tale. She was also cursed with the inability to get anyone to believe her!  She prophesies disaster and that she too will be a victim.

Strutting with arrogance, Agamemnon demands Clytemnestra prepare him a bath. And, so she runs it for him, and she gives him the hottest bath possible. With the help of her lover, she hacks Agamemnon to pieces with an axe. Cassandra is butchered.

painting of Clytemnestra after she has slaughtered her husband Agamemnon _by_John_Collier,_1882 (Wikipedia Guildhall Museum)
Clytemnestra by John Collier,_1882 (Wikipedia Guildhall Museum)

Attitudes

I visit John Collier’s painting of Clytemnestra at the Guildhall, in London, regularly. I am fascinated by her grim, yet satisfied, expression.

In the 18th/19th Century, rich people were into ‘attitudes’.  For example, Emma Hart, later Lady Hamilton, would be invited to present an attitude in front of a dinner party of mostly male aristocrats.  She would dress up in a flowing, revealing unstructured classical gown.  Then she would stand on a table or pedestal, and present herself as Helen or Andromache or any other classical beauty guests might fancy an eyeful of.  She would assume an appropriate facial expression and posture for everyone’s pleasure. 

Detail of Emma Hart modelling as Iphigenia by George Romney in ‘Cimon and Iphigenia’

Being Clytemnestra is, surely, the most difficult? I imagine Collier’s model being prompted to look both sad at the loss of the daughter. Outraged at the arrogance of the husband. Horrified at the gore of the murder. But, overall, she has to portray a grim satisfaction that the bastard got exactly what he deserved.

Dorothy Dene

Lord Leighton had a famous model who was exceptionally skilled at adopting poses for his paintings. He determined to help her with an acting career. As part of the plan he helped improve her cockney accent. It is said this inspired Bernard Shaw’s story Pygmalion, which, in turn, inspired My Fair Lady and Eliza Doolittle. 

Leighton’s model was Dorothy Dene.  She became a famous actress, outstripping the fame of Ellen Terry and Lily Langtry. For more on Leighton and Dene look at my post here.

John Collier

Before we finish, do have a look at John Collier’s Wikipedia because he is the most ridiculously well-connected painter you can imagine! Related to half the Cabinet and married to TWO daughters of Darwin’s Bulldog, T.H. Huxley (grandfather of Aldous Huxley).

For more on Flaming June see my blog post of 12 July 2024

European Twin Gods

It is suggested that twin male gods are a feature of Indo-European religions. The divine Twins are associated with horses/chariots and are responsible for moving the Sun and the Moon. Their use of a horse above the water means that they can rescue people lost at sea.  

St Elmo’s fire was said to be the way they manifested their divinity to sailors.   Diodorus Siculus records that the Twins were Argonauts with Heracles, Telamon, and Orpheus. Further, he tells us, in the fourth book of Bibliotheca historica, that the Celts who dwelt along the ocean worshipped the Dioscuroi “more than the other gods”.

First written in 2023 updated in July 24 and 25

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Fête Nationale Française. Le 14th Juillet. Bastille Day July 14th

French Revolutionary Month of Messidor (June-July) Bastille Day

Today, is the French National Day, le Quatorze Juillet. Bastille Day, celebrating the storming of the infamous Bastille on 14 July 1789. It was a symbol of Royal oppression, but only held 7 relatively insignificant prisoners on the day it was stormed. 200 attackers and 1 defender were killed in the first round of the battle.  Then the Commander, de Launay, surrendered to avoid more deaths.  But the angry attackers dragged him from the Castle to the Hôtel de Ville. He was beaten and shouted “Enough! Let me die’, kicking a cook in the groin. He was killed with 7 of his soldiers. However, inglorious a victory it was symbolic of the collapse of the old order.

The French Revolutionary Calendar introduced a rational non-christian calendar to France. The months were given new names as reported, satirically in Britain in 1811, by John Brady as Wheezy, Sneezy and Freezy; Slippy, Drippy and Nippy; Showery, Flowery and Bowery; Hoppy, Croppy and Poppy. (starting with ‘October).

In fact, the real French names were: Vendémiaire, Brumaire, Frimaire; Nivôse, Pluviôse, Ventôse; Germinal, Floréal, Prairial; Messidor, Thermidor, Fructidor.

The official name of July was Messidor (or ‘hoppy’). You might like to have a look at my post on the fascinating details of the Revolutionary Calendar to celebrate the French National Day. The 14th July was the day named after Sage in the Month of Messidor.

The French Revolution’s Solar Year — January 2nd

First published in 2024, revised 2025

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Yesterday, Jane Austen, Flaming June & Lord Leighton June 26th

Flaming June by Lord Leighton

Yesterday, the day before.

Yesterday, I was revising a post about ‘Yesterday’ Last Year. It was about a visit to two exhibitions in Mayfair. I took out the bit on Flaming June and ‘posted it back’ to June 26th. Thinking a post on Flaming June would be appropriate at the hot end of June. So, it was designed for next year. But the system decided to send you all the unfinished post. I’m bringing this to your attention because it implied Flaming June was still on display. It isn’t it has gone home, and I didn’t want your wasted visit on my conscience.

Yesterday – the concept.

Isn’t Yesterday an awesome concept? The second most important concept in the universe? After ‘Today’? Yesterday, no longer today? The first day in the past. Irretrievable, gone, unchangeable except, strangely subject to gradual decay and imperceptible alterations to the actuality. The contrast between today and yesterday is awesome. The comparision between ‘yesterday and today’ and ‘today and tomorrow’ cosmic?

Yesterday, this year

Yesterday, just like ‘Yesterday’, in my post last year. I was doing a Jane Austen Walk. In fact last year I did two Jane Austen Walks. So then I had some time off to explore the Mary Beale and Flaming June exhibitions. Yesterday, this year, I took my group of Jane Austen students to Albermarle Street, to the legendary publisher ‘John Murray’. Publisher of Moby Dick, Darwin, Lord Byron, Jane Austen and many others.

The door was open at No 50.. I felt sure someone was going to come out and tell me off for disturbing them with my reading of Jane Austen’s letter. It was written to the rogue, John Murray, although Jane thought him a likeable rogue. The letter is supposed to have been composed by Henry Austen, Jane’s Banker Brother, who was helping her with her publishers. But Henry was ill and said he was dictating it to an amanuensis. However, its very difficult not to see it as Jane’s. Here is the piece of it I read out.

‘The politeness and perspicuity of your Letter equally claim my earliest exertions. Your official opinion of the Merits of Emma, is very valuable & satisfactory. Though I venture to differ occasionally from your Critique, yet I assure you, the Quantum of your commendation rather exceeds than falls short of the Author’s expectation & my own. The terms you offer are so very inferior to what we had expected, that I am apprehensive of having made some great Error in my Arithmetical Calculation…. but documentation in my possession appear to prove that Sum offered for you by you for the Copyright of Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park & Emma, is not equal to the Money which my Sister has actually cleared by one very moderate Eddition of man’s will park.

Anyway, a deal was done, and at her death Jane had about £500 in her bank from the proceeds. Meanwhile, a man came out of Murray’s to deliver the ‘Do shut up’ speech.’ to me. This you sometimes get if talking to a large group in the business district. But no, he proceeded to charm my American Students from South Florida. He turns out to be an actual Murray, descended from the famous John Murray who was helping out at the office.

Yesterday Last Year and Flaming June

On the way back from the Philip Mould Gallery, last year, I popped into the Royal Academy to renew an old acquaintance with ‘Flaming June’ by Lord Leighton. It was on one of its rare visits to the UK. There is also the statue of the Sluggard and was all free to view. It’s now gone back to Puerto Rica.

The Sluggard by Lord Leighton

Although the Guardian sniffily looked down its long nose at this gorgeous painting. It is now quite famous. Lord Leighton sold it to the Graphic Magazine, who made a reproduction and gave it away as a high quality gift. They produced a staggering 500,000 print copies in 1895.  Lord Leighton then died and the Graphic put the painting in their window as the Funeral Procession went by.

After being on display at the Ashmolean, the painting went missing and out of fashion. In the 1960s it reappeared on a wall in a house in Battersea. Then Andrew Lloyd Webber says he saw it for sale in the Kings Road for £50. But his Grandma refused to lend him the money as she said “I will not have Victorian junk in my flat”. It was eventually bought by the rather marvellously named Museo de Ponce, Puerto Rico. I think they paid £1000 for it. This is where she still resides.

It is days like yesterday (last year and this year) that you realise what a wonderful thing it is to live in London. All this, and all without laying out a penny (travelling on my free travel pass too!).

Dorothy Dene probably was the model for ‘Flaming June’ and I talk about her and Victorian painters here.

I have one of those half million prints on my bedroom wall.

Print of Flaming June by Lord Leighton

Yesterday – last year, the other art gallery.

This post was first published as part of my Mary Beale, the painter, post, which you can see here:

The Day before Yesterday

The Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones, dialled in a surprisingly similarly sniffy review of Ed Sheeran’s art. Basically, he said of them both that they aren’t genuine art and have no soul.

First written last year, and revised today, July 10th

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June & July – Street Parties in London on the Vigils of Feast Days

Image from the Agas Map of London Civitas Londinum is a bird’s-eye view of London first printed from woodblocks in about 1561
Civitas Londinum is a bird’s-eye view of London first printed from woodblocks in about 1561

John Stow tells us that there were bonfires and street parties in London throughout June and July. These were held on the Vigils of Saints’ Feast Days. The Vigil is the evening before a festival. A custom that might owe a little to the Celtic choice of dusk as the beginning of the new day.

Front cover of the Survey of London by John Stow
Front cover of the Survey of London by John Stow

Stow was the author of the ‘Survey of London‘ first published in 1598. Unfortunately, he does not give a list of the vigils thus celebrated. He only mentions those of St John the Baptist and of St Paul and St Peter. For these he gives a very vivid description, which I included in my post on June 24th here.

The other festivals would be for prominent Saints, particularly those with London Churches or Chapels named after them. These might include: St Botolph, St Alban, St James, St Thomas, St Margaret, St Wilgerfortis, St. Mary Magdalen, St Bridget, St James, as well as Saints John, Peter, and Paul. I’m guessing that City wide street parties would be reserved for the most important Saints. But with local celebrations for the Saint on the local Church. I am assuming these celebrations were ended or much reduced after the Reformation.

This is what Stow says of the Vigil celebrations.

‘In the months of June and July, on the vigils of festival days, and on the same festival days in the evenings after the sun setting, there were usually made bonfires in the streets, every man bestowing wood or labour towards them; the wealthier sort also, before their doors near to the said bonfires, would set out tables on the vigils, furnished with sweet bread and good drink, and on the festival days with meats and drinks plentifully, whereunto they would invite their neighbours and passengers also to sit and be merry with them in great familiarity, praising God for his benefits bestowed on them. These were called bonfires as well of good amity amongst neighbours that being before at controversy, were there, by the labour of others, reconciled, and made of bitter enemies loving friends; and also for the virtue that a great fire hath to purge the infection of the air. ‘

John Stow is one of the most important sources for Tudor and Medieval London. He was a Londoner, buried in St Andrews Undershaft (see map above), who wrote up all he could glean about London. I use him all the time – for example, on my Wolf Hall Tudor London Walk. Stow’s Survey of London can be accessed online, in full, here: or via the wonderful online Agas Map, from which the map above came from.

First Published 2022 and republished 2025

John Stow, London’s Historian 22nd April
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Thoreau moves to Walden Pond July 4th 1845

1967 postage stamp of Thoreau

Today, is Independence Day. The day that a great democracy came into being and established a rational system of Government, designed to stop autocracy. One of the great thinkers of the US was Henry David Thoreau. He moved into his hut on Waldon Pond on 4th July 1845. He wanted to experience life to the full. He thought he could best do that by living a simple life in the wild. 

Some think he was autistic, but his journals and publications show he lived a rich life.  His work links observations of nature with philosophic meditations and folk lore. His interest in ecology and avoidance of waste are forerunners of modern environmentalism. 

‘Walden’ his book about life in his hut near Concord, Massachusetts is his best known work. 

I began to occupy my house on the 4th of July, as soon as it was
boarded and roofed, for the boards were carefully feather-edged and
lapped, so that it was perfectly impervious to rain; but before
boarding I laid the foundation of a chimney at one end, bringing two
cartloads of stones up the hill from the pond in my arms. I built the
chimney after my hoeing in the fall, before a fire became necessary for warmth, doing my cooking in the mean while out of doors on the ground, early in the morning: which mode I still think is in some respects more convenient and agreeable than the usual one. When it stormed before my bread was baked, I fixed a few boards over the fire, and sat under them to watch my loaf, and passed some pleasant hours in that way. In those days, when my hands were much employed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper which lay on the ground, my holder, or tablecloth, afforded me as much entertainment, in fact answered the same purpose as the Iliad.

Thoreau and Civil Disobedience.

From Project Gutenberg. Thoreau was also a principled opponent of unjust laws. He inspired Gandhi, amongst others, in the principles of Civil Disobedience.  He was imprisoned for refusing to pay tax to the American state in protest at the African-American War and Slavery.  He supported John Brown. 

Project Gutenberg page of Thoreau’s ebook.

John Brown’s Body lies a mouldering in his grave.

Brown believed that slavery would only be ended by fighting to liberate the slaves.  He was involved in the State Civil War in Kansas. Subsequently, he then launched a raid on Harper’s Ford, which caused several deaths.  Brown was found guilty of Treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia and executed. He was the first American to be found guilty of Treason. But Thoreau supported him, while other Abolitionists took a more pacifist position.

All in all, he is therefore an inspiring character. His life can inform that still tricky debate about challenging injustice in the modern world. Attitudes to ‘Just Stop Oil’ and the war in Gaza are causes where the same issues are still open to debate.

First published July 2025

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Dog Days of Summer July 3rd

Dog Days. A facsimile of a page from Bald’s Leechbook (British Library Royal MS 12 D XVII) Public Domain, Wikipedia.

July 3rd is the traditional beginning of the Dog Days of the Summer, those sultry, frazzling days when it is too hot to be comfortable. The Dog Star is Sirius, one of our nearest neighbours. In fact, it doesn’t rise until July 19th. So there are other definitions of the Dog Days. Bald’s leechbook, a 10th Century medical book, defines the Dog Days as the 15 days before Lammas and 35 days after. Lammas is the 1st August. ( see my post on Lammas here.) A leech was the name for a Doctor. The book includes one of the first references to plastic surgery (for cleft palates). (see this British Library page for more details.).

In fact, Sirius rises on July 19th (but it would have risen on July 3rd in Egyptian times). However, it was felt that although Sirius hadn’t risen by July 3rd, it was in the sky, invisible and influencing the world. The Greek Almanac Poet Hesoid said the Dog Days started when Sirius came in to the sky not when it becomes visible.

‘But when the artichoke flowers, and the chirping grass-hopper sits in a tree and pours down his shrill song continually from under his wings in the season of wearisome heat, then goats are plumpest and wine sweetest; women are most wanton, but men are feeblest because Sirius parches head and knees and the skin is dry through heat.’ Hesiod

The perceived ill-effects of Sirius on the male of the species continued into the 18th Century:

‘In these Dog Days, it is forbidden by astronomy to all manner of people to be let blood or take physic. Yes, it is good to abstain all this time from women. For why all that time reigneth a star that is called Canicula, Canis, a hound in English, and the kind of the star is broiling and burning as fire. All this time, the heat of the sun is so fervent and violent that men’s bodies at midnight sweat as at midday: and if they be hurt, they be more sick than at any other time, yea, very near dead. In these days, all venomous serpents creep fly and gender, so that many are annoyed, thereby: in these times, a fire is good night and day and wholesome, seeth well your meals and take heed of feeding violently.’

The Husbandman’s Practice. 1729, quoted in the Perpetual Almanack of Folklore by Charles Kightly

Scientifically, Sirius is too far away to have an effect on our climate. But it was the brightest star in the sky. It preceded, both the Egyptian Floods and the really hot weather in Greece. There is also a tendency for commentators to blame riots on unusually hot weather. Otherwise, English references are really just copying classical Greek writers without much thought.

First Published July 2025

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Haymaking time & the Wrong Time to Marry July 2nd

Haymaking. Hayricks Photo by Roman Synkevych 🇺🇦 on Unsplash

‘They that wive twixt sickle and scythe shall never thrive’

The time between Haymaking and the corn harvest was such a busy period, that it was considered a bad time to marry. Haymaking was done by hand with a sickle, these were swung at an angle to cut the grass. It was easier if a good rhyme could be set up. The first man would step out to start cutting, but the next man had to leave a little gap to ensure he was safe from his fellow’s swinging sickle.

Apparently, the song ‘One Man went to mow, went to move a meadow’ gives the right gap, the second man would come in with the next line ‘Two Men went to mow, went to move a meadow’ and so on.

Once cut, the grass needed to be dried out in the fields, and turned every so often with a pitchfork. Once dried, it was taken to the farmyard and the hay built into a hayrick. The rick typically had a thatched roof. The hay, normally made of a mixture of grasses, was cut off from the rick by a hay knife to fed to animals in the winter.

Experiments at Rothamsted Park Grass, in Hertfordshire, have allowed scientists to study the effects of annual hay cutting. This study has been in continuous operation since 1856 which makes it the oldest continuous field experiment in the world. Among the many findings is the counterintuitive discovery that when fertiliser was evenly applied, the number of plant species declined from forty to fewer than five. Here is an article on Rothamsted Park Grass which gives interesting details.

If you wish to grow your lawn to increase biodiversity and to make it wildlife friendly, then read this is article. It is very important that we revive our battered wildlife. 97% of the UK’s semi-natural grassland has been destroyed over the last 80 years says ecologist Jack Marley. So not only should you adopt NoMowMay, but you should divide your lawn up into areas, and mow some regularly, others rarely and some every so often.

July Haymaking from the Kalendar of Shepherds 15th Century

Read my post on Forecasting the Harvest.

First published in June 2023, republished in July 2024, 2025

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July Julius Caesar’s Month

July – Kalendar of Shepherds 15th Century

July is named for Julius Caesar. Originally, the Roman Month was called Quintilis, as it was the fifth month of the Roman calendar, which originally started in March. Caesar reformed the calendar in 44BC and the Senate renamed the month after him. For more on Roman Months, see my post here.

The 7th month is called Lúil in Irish and Gorffennaf in Welsh. In Anglo Saxon it was Æfteraliða, or “after-mild;”, Liða, means “mild” or “gentle,” or the period of warm weather around Midsummer. June is Arraliða, or “before-mild”.

It is on average the warmest month in most of the Northern Hemisphere, where it is the second month of summer. The star signs are: Cancer (until July 22) and Leo (July 23 onwards),

‘

July is the month of Haymaking, as you can see from the image (above from Kalendar of Shepherds). To find out more about haymaking, wait for the next post.

From the Kalendar of Shepherds comes this description of the month.

First published, in 2023 and republished in 2024, 2025