Adown the hills they rush, and through the vale,
With deafening clamor, till they reach the main.
The Romans dedicated this portion of the year to the heathen god Janus, from whom it derives its name. Our Saxon ancestors gave it the name of wolf-monath, or wolf-month, because the wolves, which anciently infested the British forests, impelled by hunger, at this season descended from their accustomed haunts and attacked the domestic animals, and even man himself, when the inclemency of the weather had destroyed or put to flight their usual prey. Such scenes are now unknown in Great Britain. Thomson describes the dire descent of a troop of such monsters from
The shining Alps,
And wavy Apennines and Pyrenees,
——By wintry famine roused:
Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave,
Burning for blood!—bony, and gaunt, and grim!
Assembling wolves in raging troops descend;
And, pouring o’er the country, bear along,