Portrait of Saint Guénolé (St Winnold) after a bust in silver on a reliquary from the Church Saint-Guénolé in Locquénolé.Public Domain Abgrall Jean-Marie (1846-1926) – Bibliothèque nationale de France
Here is a weather poem in which St Winnold appears
First comes David, then comes Chad. And comes Winnold, roaring like mad. White or black. Or old house thack.
St David’s Day was March 1st. St Chad, the 2nd. St Winnold’s Day is the third of March. Winnold is his English name, and Winneral, or Winwaloe or Guénolé his Celtic names.
The poem suggests that snow, rain or wind is going to come on these three days. When the wind roars, it will threaten the thatch of houses. If the storms do not come in the first 3 days, then they will come on the last three days of March, which were called ‘the Borrowing Days’. Or so it is said.
St Winnold was around 50 years (460 – 3 March 532) after the end of Roman Britain. His family was from Cornwall. He was the son of a Prince Fragan of Dumnonia, and St Gwen the Three-Breasted, His mother’s Feast day is October 3rd. She is a Saint of fertility, because of God’s Gift of an extra breast. They moved to Brittany to escape a British Plague. Their son grew up to be holy and was the founder and first abbot of Landévennec Abbey (the Monastery of Winwaloe). It is south of Brest.
Winwaloe became what is known as a ‘phallic saint’ because he was associated with fertility. Wikipedia says this came about because of confusion about the origin of his name:
‘his name was thought to derive from gignere (French engendrer, “to beget”)’
St Winnold’s Breton name is Guénolé. How this etymology works is not clear to me! But surely, he as likely to have got a reputation for helping people with fertility problems from his mother? Supplicants would make a wax phallus to persuade the Saint to help them conceive. There are several churches/ chapels dedicated to him in Wales, and a Priory in East Anglia.
March from the Kalendar of Shepherds – French 15th Century
Spring & March
This is the beginning of Spring, meteorologically speaking. There is nothing magical about this day that makes it in any sense actually the start of Spring. It is a convenience determined by meteorologists. They divide the year up into 4 blocks of three months based on average temperature, and the convenience of keeping statistics to months. It could be that spring starts on 2nd March. 14th February. Or the 1st of February as the Celts favoured.
The Venerable Bede in his ‘The Reckoning of Time’, written in 725 AD, quotes more diversity of dates:
However, different people place the beginnings of the seasons at different times. Bishop Isidore the Spaniard said …, spring [starts] on the 8th kalends of March [22 February],…
But the Greeks and Romans, whose authority on these matters, rather than that of the Spaniards, it is generally preferable to follow, deem that spring [begins] on the 7th ides of February [7 February],…
Noting that summer and winter begin with the evening or morning rising and setting of the Pleiades, they place the commencement of spring and autumn when the Pleiades rise and set around the middle of the night.
There is nothing that says we have to have 4 seasons. Egypt had three seasons, the tropics have two. Celts divided the year into 8. Plants have been blooming, sprouting and budding since January, and some will wait until later in the year. Lambs have been born since January. But scientists and society find it easiest to keep statistics on a monthly basis so March 1st it is.
Astronomically, the seasons are more rationally divided by the movement of the Sun. So Spring begins on the spring or vernal equinox, 20th or 21st of March. For my Spring Equinox post go here.
Anglo-Saxon March
In Anglo-Saxon ‘Hrethamonath’ is the month of the Goddess Hretha. Bede gives no further information on who she was and nothing else is known about her. Her name is Latinised to Rheda. J R. R. Tolkein used the Anglo-Saxon calendar as the calendar for the Shire where the third month is called Rethe.
For the Anglo-Saxon, spring was looked forward to with great joy after the bleakness of winter. Christian Anglo-Saxons also saw this as the pivotal month in the year. It was in March that the world was created, and the Messiah conceived, revealed, executed, and ascended to heaven. See my post:
In Welsh the month is called Mawrth, (derived it is thought from the Latin Martius). Gaelic Mart or Earrach Geamraidth – which means the ‘winter spring’.
Medieval/Early Modern March
The illustration (above), from the Kalendar of Shepherds, shows that in Pisces and early Ares preparation was still the main order of the farming day, clearing out the moats, and preparing the fruit trees. Lambing is also increasing in number. And the early modern text below from the Kalendar gives a fine description of the joys of spring.
Kalendary of Shepherds- Description of March.March in the Kalendar of Shepherds.
March the 1st was the beginning of the Roman year in Rome’s early days. The Month was named after Mars, the God of War, as Mars was the patron God of the Rome. March was also the beginning of the campaign season, and the army was prepared, and ceremonies held to Mars. The Salii, twelve youths dressed in archaic fighting costumes led a procession singing the Carmen Saliare.
Ovid & March & Kalends, Nones & Ides
Ovid says the year started on the Kalends of March. Here is what Britannica says about their strange system of dividing months:
‘In a 31-day month such as March, the Kalends was day 1, with days 2–6 being counted as simply “before the Nones.” The Nones fell on day 7, with days 8–14 “before the Ides” and the 15th as the Ides. After this the days were counted as “before the Kalends” of the next month’.
More about this if you read my post on the Ides of March and Julius Caesar.
At the beginning of his book, Fasti, Ovid provides the story of Rome’s foundation. Mars took Silvia the Vestal while she slept. She later gave birth to Romulus and Remus. He also gives details of how Rome was organised. In the piece of the long text I have chosen below he discusses Romulus’ arrangement of the year. It is a year that began on the 1st March, and had only 10 months. 10 is the number of digits we have and the length of pregnancy (so Ovid says).
Ovid wrote in his almanac poem the Fasti:
So, untaught and lacking in science, each five-year lustre That they calculated was short by two whole months. A year was when the moon returned to full for the tenth time: And that was a number that was held in high honour: Because it’s the number of fingers we usually count with, Or because a woman produces in ten months, Or because the numerals ascend from one to ten, And from that point we begin a fresh interval.
So Romulus divided the hundred Senators into ten groups, And instituted ten companies of men with spears, And as many front-rank and javelin men, And also those who officially merited horses. He even divided the tribes the same way, the Titienses, The Ramnes, as they are called, and the Luceres. And so he reserved the same number for his year,
Itís the time for which the sad widow mourns her man. If you doubt that the Kalends of March began the year, You can refer to the following evidence. The priest’s laurel branch that remained all year, Was removed then, and fresh leaves honoured. Then the king’s door is green with Phoebus’ bough, Set there, and at your doors too, ancient wards. And the withered laurel is taken from the Trojan hearth, So Vesta may be brightly dressed with new leaves. Also, it’s said, a new fire is lit at her secret shrine, And the rekindled flame acquires new strength. And to me it’s no less a sign that past years began so, That in this month worship of Anna Perenna begins. Then too it’s recorded public offices commenced, Until the time of your wars, faithless Carthaginian.
Lastly Quintilis is the fifth (TXLQWXV) month from March, And begins those that take their names from numerals. Numa Pompilius, led to Rome from the lands of olives, Was the first to realise the year lacked two months, Learning it from Pythagoras of Samos, who believed We could be reborn, or was taught it by his own Egeria. But the calendar was still erratic down to the time When Caesar took it, and many other things, in hand. That god, the founder of a mighty house, did not Regard the matter as beneath his attention, And wished to have prescience of those heavens Promised him, not be an unknown god entering a strange house.
He is said to have drawn up an exact table Of the periods in which the sun returns to its previous signs. He added sixty-five days to three hundred, And then added a fifth part of a whole day. That’s the measure of the year: one day The sum of the five part-days is added to each lustre.
For much more about the Roman Year (and leap years) look at my post here.
On This Day
St David’s Day – It is also the Feast of St David, (or Dewi) the patron saint of Wales, who lived in the sixth century AD. Little that is known about him is contemporary but he was an abbot-bishop. His hagiography was written in the 11th Century and not very trustworthy, but the aim was to show the independence of the Welsh Church from Canterbury. His association with the leek is unexplained.
293 – Inauguration of the Tetrarchy
Diocletian reorganises the Roman Empire to be a Tetrarchy with himself and Maximian the Augusti, one in the East the other in the West. Below them were Constantius Chlorus and Galerius the Caesars.
Coppermine Photo Gallery – Coppermine Photo Gallery; Bishop, Aubrey. Imperial Imagery of the Tetrarchy. Rhodes College. Archived from the original on 15 September 2024. Historic map of Roman Empire during the first tetrarchyCC BY-SA 3.0
Below them were Prefectures run by Prefects, who controlled officials called the Vicarious. Britannia, was a Diocese ruled by the Vicarious in London. The Diocese was divided into 4 Provinces,. In charge of those were the Governors, who were now civilians rather than military figures.
Later dioceses of the Roman Empire, around 400 AD By Mandrak – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6088363
The reorganisation was designed to provide a peaceful career path for ambitious men, but in that it failed.
1562 – Massacre in Wassy France, when sixty-three Huguenots were killed and the French Wars of Religion began. Many Huguenots came to Britain, and many settled in Spitalfields, London. My family believe we are Huguenots from the East End.
1628 – Charles I decrees that the ship tax should be extended to every county. This was not put to a Parliament, and illegal impositions like this eventually lead to the English Civil War in 1642. (see my post on the beginning of the Civil War here:
Spring Chickens appear in Cheap and Good Husbandry by Gervaise Markham London 1664
Of Setting Hens (and Spring Chickens)
Gervase Markham wrote a heap of farming and horticulture books in the 17th Century. In ‘Cheap and Good Husbandry’ he wrote about ‘Spring Chickens’. Spring Chickens are essentially March Chickens, March Hares and even March Cats are all special. Markham starts by suggesting this is the time to impregnate them for birth in March:
The best time to set Hens to have the best, largest, and most kindly Chickens;, is in February, in the increase of the Moon, so that they may hatch or disclose her Chickens; in the increase of the next new Moon, being in March; for one brood of March Chickens; is worth three broods of any other: You may set Hens from March; till October, and have good Chickens;, but not after by any means, for the Winter is a great enemy to their breeding….
The expression comes from the 17th Century when Spring/March Chickens were more profitable than old chickens that had gone through the winter. Commonly, it is used in the negative, as in ‘Kevin ain’t no spring chicken.’
Egyptian Book of the Dead goes on display at the Brooklyn Museum
After three years of conservation, the world’s most complete gilded Book of the Dead goes on display at the Brooklyn Museum. Have a look at their post here. The Book of the Dead was prepared to accompany the deceased on their journey in the afterlife. It is full of spells, prayers and incantations. There was no one fixed format, but some are incredibly complex and beautiful. My own feeling is that they confirm my opinion that the Egyptian way of death is totally OCD. There is so much an Egyptian has to do to get a good afterlife. Not only embalming but having models of food, slaves, boats, mummies of dead cats, anything you want to have. It feels like they must have been terrified of death.
A scene from the Papyrus of Ani (British Museum) It shows the heart being weighed on the scale of Maat against the feather of truth. Doing the weighing is the jackal-headed Anubis The ibis-headed Thoth records the result. Behind Toth is Ammit part crocodile, lion, and hippopotamus. The facsimiles were produced by E. A. Wallis Budge; original artist unknown. Public Domain
One of the issues is that the deceased had to have their heart weighed against the feather of Truth (belonging to the Goddess of Truth, balance, law, morality, and justice, Maat) . If it was found deficient, the deceased would be eaten by Ammit who has the head of a crocodile, the shoulders of a lion, and the legs of a hippo.
Wikipedia has a tremendous scan of the facsimile of the Papyrus of Ani, it is a 78ft long scroll and wonderful to look at To see it click on the first picture and zoom in and look left and right! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_of_Ani.
The story of its acquisition is also gob-smacking. Budge acquired in it Luxor in 1888. The Egyptian Police came to investigate the house of the illegal dealers. Budge distracted the police while his people tunnelled into the house from the rear, and retrieved ‘his’purchases. He took them to the British Museum and was paid a gratuity of £150 for them!
On this day
First £1 note of the Bank of England Museum 1797 Source Joy_of_Museums Public Domain (CC by sa 4.0)
February 26th 1797 First Pound Note:
The Bank of England issued it’s first ever one pound note (although some sources say March 1797). The Bank had been issuing paper notes since the late 17th Century, but this was the first £1 note. They still had to be signed by hand and allocated to a specific person. The hand signed white paper notes were withdrawn in 1820, and the pound note was, finally, withdrawn in 1988. The £1 in 1797 was worth the equivalent of £157.46 today, so quite a big note! (see here for the calculator.)
1815 – Bonaparte escapes from exile on the island of Elba. War begins all over again.
1995 – Barings Bank collapses after a rogue securities broker Nick Leeson loses $1.4 billion by speculating on futures contracts. Barings is the UK’s oldest investment banking institute,
Pound note first published 2024, Spring Chicken added February 26th 2025 Egyptian book of the Dead added February 26th 2026
Gregorian Calendar, Lunario Novo, Secondo la Nuova Riforma della Correttione del l’Anno Riformato da N.S. Gregorio XIII,[k] printed in Rome by Vincenzo Accolti in 1582, one of the first printed editions of the new calendar
On February 24th 1582 – Pope Gregory XIII published the papal bull Inter gravissimas. This announced amendments to the Julian Calendar created by Julius Caesar and created the Gregorian Calender. Caesar had realigned the Roman Calendar with the Solar Year, creating a ‘Year of Confusion’. The year was 445 days long but it resynced the days to their proper season.
The Julian Calendar
The Julian Calendar used leap years to align the Calendar Year with the Solar Year. But the earth does not cycle the Sun in 365.25 days. This is an overestimate of 1 day every century. So, since the time of Caesar, the year had got 10 days out of kilter. Gregory chopped those 10 days out of the Calendar. The 4th of October 1582, was to be followed by the 15th October 1582. This might seem simple, but imagine you are receiving your salary for October, and you find it 10 days short? Or you have a month to pay your debt and find it called in 10 days early? So the Pope ordered that these 10 missing days shouldn’t be used in calculating financial matters.
Computus
One of the main reasons for the reform was the ‘Computus’. This was the method of calculating Easter. Easter was a festival that followed the movements of the Moon but was synced into the Vernal Equinox. (The timing of Easter is the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox.). So the chopping of 10 days meant that the vernal equinox was set back to its proper place on March 21st. Arguments over the correct calculations of Easter had, in the 7th Century been a major stumbling block in uniting the Celtic Church in Britain with the Roman Catholic Church. (See my post on Easter here).
But this still left the drift caused by Caesar’s faulty leap year system. Gregory’s reforms stopped future drift by fine-tuning the leap years. From 1582 there would not be a leap year in those centurial years which were not divisible by 400. So 2000 was a leap year, but 2100 is not. This skips ‘three Julian leap days in every 400 years, giving an average year of 365.2425 mean solar days long.’ (Wikipedia). This keeps us aligned, although there is still a small error.
If you enjoy this sort of calendrical detail, you will love ‘The Calendar’ by David Ewing Duncan.
British Exceptionalism
Of course, Britain refused to join a Catholic innovation for nearly 200 years. But, religious prejudice at last gave way to reason, when we adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1752. In the process, we lost 11 days, much to the horror of the London mob, who rioted against their loss.
Greece was the last European state to join in 1923. Japan joined in 1873, China in 1912, and Saudi Arabia in 2016. Ethiopia, Iran, Afghanistan, and Nepal keep distinct calendrical traditions. (see seasia.co for more details.) Strictly, we are using the Gregorian amendment to the Julian Calendar because it has all the elements of the Julian Calendar except a couple of adjustments.
Coltsfoot is a daisy-like plant which is flowering about now. Gerard’s Herbal of 1633 suggests that the ‘fumes of the dried leaves taken through a funnel’ is good for those with coughs and shortness of breath. He suggests that it is smoked like tobacco and it ‘mightly prevaileth.’
This idea, Mrs Grieves says in her herbal (1931), is endorsed by ‘Dioscorides, Galen, Pliny, and Boyle’. And Coltsfoot is ‘nature’s best herb for the lungs’. (This is historic information re herbs and NOT current medical advice, as Coltsfoot can be very dangerous!).
Detail from Lobspruch deß edlen hochberühmten Krauts Petum oder Taback Nuremberg, 1658 New York Public Library Public Domain
My grandson and parents found a 19th Century pipe bowl, much like the one pictured here, by the Thames where there were many fragments of clay pipe. For more on 17th Century smoking, have a look here.
On This Day
In Rome February 24th was the day of the 4 yearly leap day. The way they did it was to have two days called February 24th! It was the sixth day before the Calendars (March 1). This practice gradually got replaced by adding a new day, February 29th, at the end of the Month. In England, February 29th starts appearing in the 15th Century. But Wikipedia tells me:
‘the proceedings of the House of Commons of England continued to use the old system until the middle of the sixteenth century. It was not until passage of the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 that 29 February was formally recognised in British law.’
It is said that the owner and playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan replied to someone who was surprised to see him sitting quietly having a drink while his theatre burnt down: “A man may surely be allowed to take a glass of wine by his own fireside?” londonist.com
1832 – Cholera in London
‘The news of the Cholera being in London has been received abroad. According to the feelings of the different nations towards England, France, who wish to court us has ordered a quarantine in her ports of three days; Holland, who feels aggrieved by our conduct at the conference, one of 40 days. The fog so thick in London that the illuminations for the Queen’s Birthday were not visible. ‘
24th February 1832 Thomas Raikes, Diary 1832 (from ‘A London Year’ Compiled by Travis Elborough and Nick Bennison, 2013,
This was the second Cholera Pandemic, but the first to reach the UK. The second landed in Sunderland in October 1831. Cholera killed over 6,000 in London. It was called the Asiatic Cholera based on its origin. The Cholera came more virulently in subsequent decades. It was thought to be spread by a miasma in the air. But, John Snow proved it was caused by polluted water, but I will tell that story in another post.
I think the Conference mentioned above was the London Conference of May 1832, which aimed to establish a Kingdom of Greece with King. It was set up by Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston without discussion with the Greeks and ended up giving them a Bavarian King. King Otto. Otto was forced from the throne in a revolution in 1862, and replaced by a Danish King, from whom Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was descended.
1920 –The Conservative MP, Nancy Astor becomes the first woman to speak in the House of Commons. Constance Markievicz was the first woman elected as an MP in 1918, but she was a member of Siin Fein and did not take her seat.
First published in February 2024, republished in 2025, The Gregorian Calendar added in 2026, and On This Day also added. And Retitled too.
Tombstone of Philus from Cirencester (Corinium Dobunnorum) showing his rain cloak
Feralia & Parentalia
Feralia is the last day of Parentalia a 9-Day Festival for the spirits of the Dead. It is described in some detail by the Roman Poet, Ovid, in his Almanac of the year called the ‘Fasti’. Here, he describes how to honour a parent:
And the grave must be honoured. Appease your father’s Spirits, and bring little gifts to the tombs you built. Their shades ask little, piety they prefer to costly Offerings: no greedy deities haunt the Stygian depths. A tile wreathed round with garlands offered is enough, A scattering of meal, and a few grains of salt, And bread soaked in wine, and loose violets: Set them on a brick left in the middle of the path. Not that I veto larger gifts, but these please the shades: Add prayers and proper words to the fixed fires.
There is much more Ovid says about Feralia, and you can read it for free, in translation by A. S. Kline (which I used above, at www.poetryintranslation.com)
In London, archaeologists have found many Roman cemeteries around the City of London. The Romans forbade burial inside the City limits. So, the dead were buried alongside the main roads out of the City Gates. Aldgate towards Colchester, Bishopsgate to the North. Ludgate along Fleet Street to the West. Newgate to Holborn and the North West. From London Bridge to Southwark and the South. These are the places that parents would be remembered at Feralia.
Map of Roman Cemeteries from the Museum of London exhibition on the Roman Dead, showing the River Thames and River Fleet. Holborn is to the left, marked ‘Western Cemetery’.
Roman Burials
Roman Mortaria
Various rites have been observed. Both inhumation and cremation were practised. I remember excavating a Roman mortaria with a hole in the bottom with the ashes of the dead in it. These large bowls were used as a mortar for grinding foodstuffs. The bottom was deliberated gritted, but they often wore through, and sometimes were reused to hold cremation ashes. I like to imagine, granny being buried in her favourite cooking vessel (or maybe a grandad who baked?).
Many bodies were covered in chalk, perhaps to help preserve the body. A surprising number of bodies are found with the head by the knees. The large number of cases fuels speculation that this was a burial rite, of whom only a percentage were beheaded as a punishment. In York, near Micklegate archaeologists found a large number of beheaded graves in a cemetery thought to be of gladiators. Other graves shown signs of a funeral pyre.
Author’s photograph of a skeleton displayed at the Roman Dead Exhibition, Museum of London, She was between 26 and 35 years old, who lived a hard life, and possibly had anaemia. Her head was severed either: before and causing death, or shortly after death, and placed between her legs as shown.
Procurator Classicianus.
The rich and powerful were remembered with huge monuments, prominently sited along the main roads. The most famous are the burial stones found at Tower Hill of the Procurator Classicianus. What makes this special is that he is mentioned in Roman accounts of the Boudiccan Revolt of AD 60-61. He suggested to Nero that the Province would only be saved if the revenge against the British was de-escalated. Nero wisely withdrew the vengeful Roman Governor Suetonius Paulinus and replaced him with someone ready to conciliate. The Romans held the province successfully for 350 years or so more.
Reconstruction drawing of two stones found while building Tower Hill Underground Station. They read, something like, ‘To the Spirits of the Dear Departed Fabius Alpini Classicianius, Procurator of the Province of Britannia.Julia, Indi (his wife) Daughter of Pacata of the Indiana voting tribe. Had This Set up.
Sketch of a stone Eagle found in 2013 at an excavation at the Minories just outside the eastern side of the Roman Wall in the City of London.
A beautiful carved eagle which adorned a tombstone was found in the Cemetery in Tower Hamlets. Recently, a very grand mausoleum was excavated in Southwark. To find out more, have a look at the BBC website here:
Funerary Bed in Holborn
Finally, a couple of years ago an excavation ran by MOLA discovered a ‘funerary bed’ just outside Newgate in Holborn. It was on the banks of the River Fleet, a tributary to the River Thames. The fluvial location meant that there were extraordinary levels of preservation, which included this bed. It was dismantled and buried in the grave. It may have been a bed used as a grave good, perhaps for use in the hereafter. Or it might have been the bed upon which the deceased was carried to the funeral. (Or both?)
Reconstruction of a Roman ‘Funerary’ Bed found dismantled in Holborn, London (Sketch from a MOLA reconstruction drawing)
They found other grave goods. These included an olive oil lamp decorated with an image of a gladiator; jet and amber beads and a glass phial.
1804 – Richard Trevithick‘s steam locomotive is put on wheels at the Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in Wales. and shows its capability for pulling heavy loads. Unfortunately, the Engine weighs so much it breaks the rails, so the wheels are taken off.
Toad, Frogs & Newts Migration – as the weather warms up a little, later in February is when the amphibians wake up from hibernation, and begin their annual migration to their home pond for spawning. They may walk/hop/slither up to 2 kilometres. The kind people at www,froglife.org coordinate Toad Patrols to help toads across the roads that have sprung up along their traditional migration paths.
In the Garden – prune deciduous shrubs such as Buddleia and Spiraea. Sow seeds indoors. Order lots of compost.
First Published in February 2024, revised 2025, On this Day added 2026
Photo Mohammad Amiri from unsplash. Notice the crimson stigma and styles, called threads, Crocus is one of the characters in Ovid’s Metamorphoses
The story of Crocus and Smilax is in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The book tells the story of myths which involve the metamorphosis of a person to a flower, or to a constellation, or to an echo or some supernatural change in being. This poem is one of the most famous in the world, written in about 6 AD. It influenced Dante, Bocaccio, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Keats, Bernard Shaw, and me. Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes have translated modern versions of some of the tales.
The mechanicals in ‘The Midsummers Night Dream’ perform Ovid’s story of Pyramus and Thisbe, Titian painted Diana and Actaeon. Shaw wrote about Pygmalion, and we all know the story of Arachne. She claimed to be better than Athene at weaving. And then was turned into a spider.
The poem is about love, beauty, change, arrogance and is largely an Arcadian/rural poem. This is a contrast to Ovid’s ‘Art of Love’ which I use for illustrations of life in a Roman town. The stories are all about metamorphoses, mostly changes happening because of love. But it is also an epic as it tells the classical story of the universe from creation to Julius Caesar.
Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the Crocus
‘Crocus and his beloved Smilax were changed into tiny flowers.’ Ovid tell us, but chooses to give us no more details. So we have to look elsewhere. There are various versions. In the first, Crocus is a handsome mortal youth, beloved of the God Hermes (Mercury). They are playing with a discus which hits Crocus on the head and kills him. Hermes, distraught, turns the youth into a beautiful flower. Three drops of his blood form the stigma of the flower. In another version, Crocus and the nymph Smilax, fall in love. And are rewarded by immortality as a flower. One tale has Smilax turned into the Bindweed.
Morning Glory or Field Bindweed photo Leslie Saunders unsplash
Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Bindweed
It turns out that Smilax means ‘bindweed’ in Latin. Bindweed is from the Convolvulus family, and I have grown one very successfully in a pot for many years. But they have long roots. According to the RHS ‘Bindweed‘ refers to two similar trumpet-flowered weeds. Both of which twine around other plant stems, smothering them in the process. They are difficult to remove. This, could suggest that Smilax is either punished for spurning Crocus, or that she smothered him with love. Medically, Mrs Grieve’s Modern Herbal says all the bindweeds have strong purgative virtues, perhaps another insight into Smilax’s psychology?
The Metamorphosis of Data and the correct use of the plural
Apparently, in the UK some say crocuses and others use the correct Latin plural, croci. On an earlier version of this post I used the incorrect plural crocii.
On the subject of Roman plurals, the Financial Times editorial department made an earth-shattering decision, a couple of years ago. They updated their style guide to make the plural word data (datum is the singular form) metamorphise into the singular form.
So it is now wrong to say ‘data are’ but right to say ‘data is’. For example, it was correct to say: ‘the data are showing us that 63% of British speakers use crocuses as the plural’ but now, it is better to write ‘the data is showing us that 37% of British people prefer the correct Latin form of croci’.
Violets and Crocuses
Violets and crocuses are coming out. They often come out for St Valentine’s Day, and so obviously associated with Love. White croci usually represented truth, innocence, and purity. The purple variety imply success, pride and dignity. The yellow type is joy.’ according to www.icysedgwick.com/, which gives a fairly comprehensive look at the Crocus.
Crocus & Saffron
The autumn-flowering perennial plant Crocus sativus, is the one whose stigma gives us saffron. Roman civilisation spread the plants around Europe. They used it for medicine, as a dye, and a perfume. It was much sought after as a protection against the plague, and extensively grown in the UK. Saffron Walden was a particularly important production area in the 16th and 17th Centuries.
Saffron in London
Snowdrop, Crocus, Violet and Silver Birch circle in Haggerston Park. (Photo Kevin Flude, 2022)
The Bishop of Ely grew Saffrom in his beautiful Gardens just outside of the City of London. The area remembered by the London street name: Saffron Hill. It is home to the fictional Scrooge. This area became the London home of Christopher Hatton, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth 1. His garden was on the west bank of the River Fleet, in London EC1, in the area now known as Hatton Garden. (For more on Christopher Hatton see my post on nicknames Queen Elizabeth I gave to her favourites).
I found out more about Saffron from listening to BBC Radio 4’s Gardener’s Question time and James Wong.
Croydon (on the outskirts of London) means Crocus Valley. A place where Saffron was grown. The Saffron crops in Britain failed eventually because of the cost of harvesting, and it became cheaper to import it. So, we now import it from Spain, Iran, and India amongst other places. But it is being reintroduced in Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent, and Sussex. These are – the hot and dry counties. The plant enjoys a South-facing aspect. But it needs protection from squirrels and sparrows who love it. To grow it, look at this post from the Garden Doctor.
Saffron Photo by Vera De on Unsplash
Violets
Viola odorata CC BY-SA 2.5 Wikipedia
The Celts used Violets as cosmetics; the Athenians to moderate anger; the Iranians for insomnia, and are loved by all because of their beauty and fragrance. They have been symbols of death for the young, and used as garlands, nosegays posies, which Gerard says are ‘delightful’.
For more on Ovid, use the search facility (click on menu) or read my post here.
On This Day
197 – The Battle of Lugdunum sees the victory of Septimius Severus over Clodius Albinus reputedly the bloodiest battle between Roman armies. The previous emperor Pertinax died in 193 during the Year of the Five Emperors. Three main contenders emerged Severus who was African, Niger was from Central Italy, Albinus was the Governor of Britain.
1800 – Napoleon proclaims himself First Consul making him the dictator of France.
1846 – The Republic of Texas officially transfers power to the State of Texas government and becomes part of the United States.
1878 – Thomas Edison patents the phonograph.
1945 – Battle of Iwo Jima began with the landing of 30,000 US troops.
The Independent January 2021 The Raven the Palladium of Britain
The Raven – the Palladium of Britain
Corvus corax is hatching. An early nesting bird, the Raven is the biggest of the Corvids. They were pushed to the west and north by farmers and game keepers but are making a comeback. Ravens are finding towns convenient for their scavenging habits. So they, again, cover most of the UK except the eastern areas. The Raven is one of the Palladiums of Britain.
A Palladium is something that keeps a city or country safe, They are named after a wooden statue of Pallas Athene, which protected Troy. Perceiving this, Odysseus and Diomedes stole the Palladium from Troy shortly before the Trojan Horse episode. Troy fell and the palladium went to Italy (I’m guessing with Diomedes who is said to have founded several cities in Italy). It ended up in Rome.
The Romans claimed to be descendants of Trojan exiles led by Aeneas. So it was back with its rightful owners. It protected Rome until it was transferred to the new Roman capital at Constantinople. It then disappeared, presumably allowing the Ottoman Turks to conquer the City of Caesar? To read of London Stone as a Palladium see my post here.
The Ravens habits (it is said they know where the battlefields are before they are fought) and their black plumage have made them harbingers of death. In poetry, Ravens glut on blood like the warriors whose emblem they are. Here is a very famous quotation from Y Gododdin, a medieval poem but thought to derive from a poem by the great poet Aneirin from the 7th Century.
‘He glutted black ravens on the rampart of the stronghold, though he was no Arthur.’
This is one of the much argued-about references to King Arthur in the ‘Was he a real person’ trope. The point being, it doesn’t make sense to mention Arthur if King Arthur wasn’t a real person. The story at the Tower of London is that the Ravens kept in the Tower, with clipped wings, keep Britain safe from Invasion. (But see below).
Bran’s Head – the original Palladium of Britain?
By Sonny Mauricio from Unsplash
The Raven was also the symbol of the God-King Bran. Bran was one of the legendary Kings of Britain. His sister, Branwen, was married to the King of Ireland. To cut a long story short, Branwen was exiled by her Irish husband to the scullery. She trained a starling to smuggle a message to her brother, to tell of her abuse.
So Bran took an army over the Irish Sea to restore her to her rightful state. But the ships were becalmed. Mighty Bran blew the boats across the sea – he was that much a hero. Bran was mortality wounded in the fighting that followed. This was a problem because he had previously given away his cauldron of immortality. He gave it to the Irish King in recompense for the insults given to the Irish by Bran’s brother, who hated anyone not British.
Bran’s Head Returns to London
So, the dying Bran, told his companions to cut off his own head and take it back to the White Hill in London. His head was as good a companion on the way back as it was on the way out, and the journey home took 90 years.
At last, they got to London, where Bran told his men to bury his head on the White Hill. As long as it stays here, he said, Britain would be safe from foreign invasion. The White Hill is said to be Tower Hill with its summit at Trinity Gardens, although Primrose Hill is sometimes offered as an alternative.
This was one of the Three Fortunate Concealments and is found in ‘the Triads of the Island of Britain.’ The Triads are from medieval manuscripts which preserve fragments of folklore, mythology and history. They are grouped in groups of three.
Arthur and Bran’s Head
But many years later, King Arthur saw no need for anybody or anything other than himself to protect the realm. So he had the head dug up. Calamity followed in the shapes of Sir Lancelot and Mordred which led to the end of the golden age of Camelot and conquest of Britain by the Saxons. This was one of the Three Unfortunate Disclosures.
If we want a rational explanation for the story, there is evidence that Celtic cultures venerated the skull, and palladiums play a part in Celtic Tales.
So what was Arthur doing destroying the palladium that kept Britain safe? Vanity is the answer the story gives. But, perhaps, it’s a memory of Christian rites taking over from pagan rituals? God, Arthur might have thought, would prefer to protect his people himself rather than Christians having to rely on a pagan cult object.
Ravens in the Tower of London
The story of Bran’s head is inevitably linked to the Ravens in the Tower who, it is still said, keep us safe from invasion. As you can see from the photo at the top we still get in a tizz when one goes missing.
Sadly, and I am probably sadder about this than most, the link between the Tower, Bran, and the Ravens cannot be substantiated. Geoffrey Parnell, who is a friend of mine, told me that while working at the Tower of London he searched the records assiduously for the story of the ravens. He found no evidence of the Raven myth & the Tower before the 19th Century, and concluded that it was most likely a Victorian invention. IanVisits has a 2025 story about the Ravens, and also concurs that the Ravens are a recent myth.
The Welsh Triads give a total of two palladiums for Britain, a couple of nationalistic fighting dragons.
The Head of Bran the Blessed, son of Llyr, which was concealed in the White Hill in London, with its face towards France. And as long as it was in the position in which it was put there, no Saxon Oppression would ever come to this Island; The second Fortunate Concealment: the Dragons in Dinas Emrys, which llud son of Beli concealed; And the third: the Bones of Gwerthefyr the Blessed, in the Chief Ports of this Island. And as long as they remained in that concealment, no Saxon Oppression would ever come to this Island.
All good but then came:
The Three Unfortunate Disclosures:
And there were the Three Unfortunate Disclosures when these were disclosed. And Gwrtheyrn the Thin disclosed the bones of Gwerthefyr the Blessed for the love of a woman: that was Ronnwen the pagan woman; And it was he who disclosed the Dragons; And Arthur disclosed the head of Bran the Blessed from the White Hill, because it did not seem right to him that this Island should be defended by the strength of anyone, but by his own.
Gwrtheyrn is Vortigen, the leader of the Britons after the fall of the Roman Empire in Britain, one or two leaders before Arthur. Vortigern, which means something like strong leader in Welsh was a real person in so far as he, unlike Arthur, is mentioned by Gildas a near contemporary source.
The story of the dragons is supposedly from the pre-Roman Iron Age. Every May Day, the Dragons made a terrible noise, causing miscarriages and other misfortunes. So, King Ludd, whom legends says gave his name to London (Ludd’s Dun or Ludd’s walled City), drugged the dragons. He had them buried in a cavern at Dinas Emrys in Eryri (Snowdonia). The Red Dragon represented the Britons (also called the Welsh) and White Dragons the Saxons.
Vortigern, Merlin and Vortimer
Hundreds of years later, (five hundred?) after the Romans had come and gone. Vortigern was trying to build a castle in Eryri at Dinas Emrys. But the walls keep falling down. ‘You need the blood of a boy born not of man’, his necromancers say. They find a boy called Ambrosius aka Merlin whose mother had lain with an incubus. Merlin accused the necromancers of ignorance and explains the wall collapse is caused by two dragons. They find the cavern and let the dragons go. The walls now stand undisturbed. But the Welsh Red Dragon and the Saxon White Dragon can not now be at peace, and the Britons are defeated by the Saxons.
Vortigern betrayed his own people for the lust of Rowena the daughter of Hengist, the Saxon. Hengist was given the province of Kent as his reward, and thus began the Anglo-Saxon take over.
Vortigern’s son is Gwerthefyr (or Vortimer). He was a better man than his dad and fought to keep the Saxons out. After Vortimer’s death his bones were buried at the chief ports on the South Coast. Here they acted as a palladian and they kept the country safe. But they were moved to Billingsgate, in London and put in a Tower. The loss of the palladium allowed the Saxons to land safely on the Kent coast and consolidate their increasing hold over Britain and turning it into England.
Birds in Love
Here is a lovely little medieval poem. It was found in 1931 in the end leaf of a manuscript where someone had been testing their goose quill and scribbled these three lines:
Why it is so wet in the UK at the moment (February 18th)? The answer seems to be that there is a block of cold weather over the States that is moving the Jet Stream south, bringing lots of wet weather. But there is also another block of cold weather over Scandinavia. This means that the low pressures being driven by the Jet Stream, have no where to go and are stopping and dumping their rain all over the UK.
3102 BC – the death of Krishna starts Kali Yuga, the fourth and final yuga of Hinduism.
1478 – George, Duke of Clarence, traitor to his Brother, Edward IV, was executed in private at the Tower of London. It is said he was drowned in a vat of Malmsey Wine.
1678 – First Part of Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan published.
1991 – The IRA plant bombs at Paddington station and Victoria station in London. The IRA gave warnings, and the Victoria bomb went off at 4.20am and caused no casualties. At or just before 7am, the IRA warned that all London Stations were to be bombed in 45 minutes time. The Authorities were slow to clear the stations and at Paddington a bomb went off at 7:40am. 1 person was killed and 38 people were injured. 11 days earlier, the IRA attacked Downing St with a mortar bomb attack.
Written on February 21 revised in February 18th 23, 24, 25, Birds in Love, Wet Weather and On This Day added in 2026
Fornacalia was a corn festival that took place around February 7th to the 17th. Romans were assigned individual days to celebrate (see below) but the last day, today, was reserved for those fools who did not know their proper day.
Pliny the Elder says it was King Numa Pompilius (753-673 BC), who established Fornacalia, The Feast of Ovens. Fornacalia celebrated Fornax who was the Goddess of the Oven – specifically the grain oven for drying grain. The word for oven is also Fornax, from which we probably derive our word furnace.
Organising the Fornaclia and the Curio Maximus
The Festivals in Rome were organised by the Curio Maximus who was a priest who supervised the curiae. In Rome the citizens were arranged, originally, into the 3 ancient tribes of Rome (founded in the 8th Century BC). The Tribes were supposed to represent the ancient ethnic groups. These were the Ramnes the Latin population, the Tities the Sabines, and the Luceres the Etruscans. The tribes were then divided into 10 curiae each. So there were 30 curiae.
Each Roman was supposed to be assigned to one of the curiae, which had a religious, social and voting function. The name may come from ‘co-viria – a gathering of men’. The members of the curiae were known as curiales. Each curiae had their own priest, or curio, and assistant priest ‘flamen curialis‘. And they organised the religious ceremonies of the curiae. They met in a meeting place called the curia.
So the Curio Maximus would declare when a festival was to be held, and get the curiae to organise the celebrations at the curia. I hope you are still with me! They would choose a date, for example for the Fornacalia, between about the 7th Feb and the 17th of February. And the citizens would go to their curia where there would be a ceremonial roasting of the grain, and baking into bread which would be in honour of the Goddess Fornax.
Ovid & the Feast of Fools
Ovid, who wrote his almanac poem on the Roman festivals (Fasti), reveals many of these details. This is what he says:
Learn too why this day is called the Feast of Fools. The reason for it is trivial but fitting. The earth of old was farmed by ignorant men: Fierce wars weakened their powerful bodies. There was more glory in the sword than the plough: And the neglected farm brought its owner little return. Yet the ancients sowed corn, corn they reaped, Offering the first fruits of the corn harvest to Ceres. Taught by practice they parched it in the flames, And incurred many losses through their own mistakes. Sometimes they’d sweep up burnt ash and not corn, Sometimes the flames took their huts themselves: The oven was made a goddess, Fornax: the farmers Pleased with her, prayed she’d regulate the grain’s heat. Now the Curio Maximus, in a set form of words, declares The shifting date of the Fornacalia, the Feast of Ovens: And round the Forum hang many tablets, On which every ward displays its particular sign. Foolish people don’t know which is their ward, So they hold the feast on the last possible day.
Book II: February 17 From: Fasti, Book 2. Translated by A.S Kline and available here
I am led to believe that the Roman word for the person who looked after a furnace was the fornicator. And as heat was a ’cause’ of lust, fornicators well, they fornicated.
However, others derive the word from the word Fornix, which is an arch. And arches, it was said, was where the Brothels were, hence fornicator. Not sure that I’m going with the idea that Brothels were always under arches. Below is what the online etymology dictionary’s definition which might help you make up your mind:
from Late Latin fornicationem (nominative fornicatio), noun of action from past-participle stem of fornicari “to fornicate,” from Latin fornix (genitive fornicis) “brothel” (Juvenal, Horace), originally “arch, vaulted chamber, a vaulted opening, a covered way,” probably an extension, based on appearance, from a source akin to fornus “brick oven of arched or domed shape” (from PIE root *gwher- “to heat, warm”). Strictly, “voluntary sex between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman;” extended in the Bible to adultery. The sense extension in Latin is perhaps because Roman prostitutes commonly solicited from under the arches of certain buildings.
As you can see, it’s a big old mix-up of arches, brothels, brick ovens, all quite unconvincing, so I’m sticking with my over-heated stoker theory. To find out more about Ovid and his Almanac look at my post here.
The Annona
Rome had a population of one million people, and keeping them fed was a difficult task. So the celebration of Fornacalia was an important feast designed to protect Rome’s all important grain supply. The Imperial Government took on the responsibility of providing the grain in a system called the Annona. and provided the Citizens with free bread. The Italian Annona brought much of its grain from Egypt.
Londinium & the Annona
Dominic Perring in his recent book on Roman London (Londinium in the Roman Empire) speculates that the fluctuating fortunes of London was dependent upon the routing of a northern Annona through Londinium. When the Emperor was engaged with the North Western Empire London thrived, when he wasn’t interested it declined.
On This Day
1634 – Puritan author William Prynne was sentenced in the Star Chamber for publishing “Histrio-masti”, criticising the theatre (and criticising Bishops). This was one of various trials he faced in the Star Chamber. The Star Chamber was not a normal court, with a Jury but was the instrument of repression by Charles I’s autocratic regime. Prynne had already been imprisoned in the Tower of London for a year. On the 17th February he was sentenced to: imprisonment for life; £5,000 fine; expelled from Lincoln’s Inn (i.e. deprived of the right to practice law); deprived of his Oxford degree; to have his ears cut off; to be pilloried at Westminster and Cheapside in the City of London. Oh and branded on the Cheek with S.L (Seditious Libeller).
1864 – The CSS H. L. Hunley, a Confederate vessel, is the first submarine to sink a warship, the USS Housatonic.
First published February 2023. Revised and republished 17th February 2024, 2025, On This Day added 2026
Romulus and Remus suckling from a wolf. The event was celebrated by the festival of Lupercalia
Lupercalia was a Roman feast of purification. It was dedicated to the she-wolf who saved Romulus and Remus, the traditional founders of the City of Rome. The centre of the festivities in Rome was a cave called the Lupercal. This was, supposedly, where the wolf suckled the twin brothers until they were rescued by Faustulus, a shepherd.
The Lupercalia was also called dies Februatus. The word seems to be derived from proto-italic word februum for purification by making an offering. The purification instruments were called februa. This is the basis for the Roman month named Februarius and our February. For more about February see my post here.
We are also in the middle of the Parentalia, which began on the 13th February and lasted nine days. It honoured parents and family ancestors. People would visit the family tombs found along the roadsides outside of the City. Here they would honour the ancestors by making offerings.
Goddesses of the Family Heath
There would be a family banquet and offerings made to the Lares – the household deities. Romans had a household altar for their worship. The Greek Goddess Hestia was the Goddess of the Hearth – the centre of any household, and Vestal was the Roman equivalent. Dickens borrowed the concept of the Household Gods in his Christmas book ‘the Chimes’.
According to Wikipedia the Codex-Calendar of 354, shows that 13 February had become the holiday Virgo Vestalis parentat. This was a public holiday which by then appears to have replaced the older Parentalia.
29 – The Day that Christ overcame the devil. February 15th was the date chosen for this festival, which was called Sarum Rite. But it is long obsolete in the Church calendars, and no one seems to know what it was about. Although it seems obvious to me, it must be when the Devil tried to tempt Jesus in the Wilderness. I have just found this site which is equally unsure. But feast-of-the-triumph-of-christ-over-the-devil suggests that Jesus was baptised on 6th January and 40 days later takes us to February 15th when the Devil:
‘took him up into the holy city, and set him upon the pinnacle of the temple,
And said to him: If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written: That he hath given his angels charge over thee, and in their hands shall they bear thee up, lest perhaps thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Jesus said to him: It is written again: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.‘
The story continues, but you get the gist of it. As to the date of AD 29. Dates about Jesus are very uncertain.
898 – In the Laws of King Alfred the Great, February 15th, the day Christ overcame the devil, was a day off for freemen. This is about the date of the first day in Lent. Lent of course varies with the date of Easter. In 2026 Lent starts on February 18th. But the law code says the 15th is the day off. I delve more into Days off in the Anglo Saxon Calender on August 15th.
1748 – Jeremy Bentham was born. He was a utilitarian philosopher, who believed ethics consisted on contributing to the great good of humanity. He was also involved in the foundation of the London University and founded University College, London – London’s first university. Founded in 1826.
Jeremy Bentham’s “Auto-Icon” at University College London. Photo Michael Reeve. Licensed by author under GNU Free Documentation License
My part in his story is that the mother of my children is a textile conservator and one of her first projects was to sort Jeremy Bentham out. He was an atheist and did not believe humans survive death. In order to encourage free thought, he ordered that his body should be publicly dissected (after his death!). His skeleton was then dressed in a suit, stuffed with straw, adorned with a cast of his head, Hat put on, and seated on a chair. Then placed in a cupboard, only to be brought out on ceremonial occasions. He’d got a bit dusty over the years, and a little frayed at the edges. So his clothes were repaired and cleaned, and restuffed with acid-free stuffing. Then put back in the cupboard, where you can still see him.
