July 4-16 received its title of the Translation of Martin from being the day on which the remains of St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, 397, “the apostle of the Gauls” (who also gives his name to the Martinmas term) were transferred to the Cathedral of Tours. In Scotland the day is called St. Martin of Bullions Day, and it was a proverb that if the deer rise dry and lie down dry on it, that is if the morning and evening be dry, it will be a dry season till harvest; and it was a general belief over Europe that rain on this day betokened wet weather for the next twenty days.
The Day of St. Martin of the Bag is commonly translated St. Swithin’s day, which is the 15th. St. Swithin was Bishop of Winchester, and no name of an English Bishop is found in the Gaelic calendar.
Lùnasdal, LAMMAS, AUGUST 1-12TH.
This, being a quarter day, formed a great day with old women for saining cattle, and performing those ceremonies by which evil was to be kept away from them for the next three months. Tar was put on their tails and ears, charms (òradh) were said at their udders, red and blue threads were put on their tails, and various observances were gone through with balls of hair (rolag), plants, fire about the earthenware pipkins (crogain) in which milk or butter was to be put, etc. Curds and butter were specially prepared for a great feast held this day, at which it was highly important that everyone got as much as he cared for.
On Lammas day, the gad-fly “loses one of its eyes” (Latha Lùnasdal caillidh chreithleag an leth shùil). The creature is not so vicious after this date.
Lùnasdal is not a word of Gaelic origin, at least no satisfactory Gaelic etymology can be given for it. It is perhaps a contraction of the Latin, luna augustalis, the August moon. The Roman month was lunar, and was reckoned from the first appearance of the moon’s slender crescent in the sky. The moon in the harvest months is of more consequence to the husbandman than at any other season, and has always been taken notice of for its splendour. The temperature of the night air has much to do with this. The Gaelic bears its own testimony to it, in giving distinctive names to the autumn moon.
The corresponding English name, Lammas, had very likely the same origin, and it is a contraction of Lunamas. The derivation of it from Lamb-mas is an “affectation of punning,” and that suggested by Gen. Vallancey from La-ith-mas, “a day of eating fruit,” is extremely fanciful. The omission of n in the middle of a word, for the sake of brevity or from inadvertence, frequently occurs. So g has been elided in Lùnasdal. Augustus, which was adopted as the name of the sixth month B.C. 6, became east in Cornish and eost in Armoric.
Iuchar, THE HOT MONTH (i.e. AUGUST).
The Iuchar consists of 14 days of summer and 14 days of autumn, and Lammas Day, O.S., being the first of autumn, corresponds to the present month of August. It is regarded, in point of weather, as the opposite of Faoilleach, the “storm month” of February.
The name is derived from an obsolete verb fiuchadh to be hot. Lhuyd (Archæolog. Brit.) renders fiuchaeh, boiling, and fiuchadh, a spring, scatebra. In another place he gives fiuchadh as an equivalent of the Latin æstus. In some districts of the north, the name of the season is still called Fiuchar. Linlithgow, celebrated for its wells, is known in the Highlands as Gleann Iuch, and the Linlithgow measures are called tomhaís Ghlinn Iuch. The dropping of f initial, as in the case of the Greek digamma, is too common to need illustration.