FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Yellow Turkscap Lily. Lilium Pomponicum flavum.
Dedicated to St. Petronilla.
JUNE.
And after her came jolly June, array’d
All in green leaves, as he a player were;
Yet in his time he wrought as well as play’d,
That by his plough-irons mote right well appeare.
Upon a crab he rode, that him did bare
With crooked crawling steps an uncouth pase,
And backward-yode, as bargemen wont to fare
Bending their force contrary to their face;
Like that ungracious crew which faines demurest grace.
Spenser.
This is the sixth month of the year. According to an old author “unto June the Saxons gave the name of Weyd-monat, because their beasts did then weyd in the meddowes, that is to say, goe to feed there, and hereof a medow is also in the Tutonicke called a weyd, and of weyd we yet retaine our word wade, which we understand of going through watrie places, such as medowes are wont to be.”[159] Another author likewise says, that “weyd is probably derived from weyden (German), to go about as if to pasture;” he further says, they called it Woedmonath, and that woed means “weed”; and that they called it also by the following names: Medemonath, Midsumormonath, and Braeckmonath; thought to be so named from the breaking up of the soil from bræcan (Saxon), to break: they also named it Lida erra; the word Lida, or litha, signifying in Icelandic, “to move, or pass over,” may imply the sun’s passing its greatest height, and Lida erra consequently mean the first month of the sun’s descent. Lida, it is added, has been deemed to signify smooth-air.[160]