The Insect tribe, as a natural consequence of the month's productive powers, is also abundant. The Lady Bird or Lady Cow is very common, and, though often slandered by ignorance as being the cause of blights, it is in truth their greatest enemy, for both in its perfect and larva state it feeds upon the Aphis, which is itself the blight in question. Nor is it less useful in the hop-countries, as it there destroys the blight so injurious to the hop, which is gathered about the middle of the month. The same good however can not be said of the Harvest Bug, which in some of our southern counties is particularly troublesome,or of the flies which at this time abound everywhere ; and they are soon joined by the yet more annoying array of wasps. Now too the Mole burrows; and the Glow-worm, the Solitary Bee, and the White Moth make their appearance; the Tabanus Pluvialis begins his formidable attack on the cattle, piercing their skins with his proboscis and causing severe inflammation, while the beautiful Dragon Fly, (Libellula) though perfectly harmless, bears all the blame under the name of Horse-Stinger. We next begin to miss the Swifts (Hirundo apus), which now migrate, though it is not ascertained to what countries they go upon leaving Europe. The month is about three parts over, and the Earwig and other insects of the kind are numerous in places where vines or creeping plants are nailed against the walls. Soon afterwards we find Lapwings congregate, Martins and Swallows assemble in flocks, and Linnets, Sparrows, and other birds are seen in abundance, while the air swarms with Butterflies. The Grasshoppers sing less and less every day, and with the end of the month the best river-fishing ceases. Gule of August.—Lammas Day.-St. Peter ad Vincula.— (August 1st). The first of these names has been a source of much trouble to etymologists and antiquarians. What can Gule possibly mean? named GULE from the Latin Gula, a throat; and he refers us to Durandus, who says nothing at all about the derivation of Gule, but who, while giving many excellent reasons for the day being dedicated to St. Peter ad Vincula, tells a tale that inferentially may seem to some to bear out his opinion.-"Quirinus the Tribune having a daughter with a diseased throat-filiam gutturosam-she at the command of Pope Alexander, who was the sixth from St. Peter, sought the chains with which the apostle had been bound under Nero, and kissed them, whereupon she was made whole." Hence Blount very logically infers that the day was termed indifferently, either St. Peter's Day ad Vincula, from the instrument that wrought the miracle, or the Gule of August, from that part of the virgin whereon the miracle was wrought."+ Blount tells us that it was This absurd fancy is well ridiculed by Gebelin, who says that August being the first month of the year with the Egyptians, the first day of it was by them called Gule, and subsequently latinized into Gula.§ * Blount's LAW DICTIONARY-sub voce, Gula. Durandi RATIONALE DIV. OFFIC. Lib. vii. cap. 19, p. 294. Spelman, in his Glossary, follows in the same tract. In the face of Blount's own explanation, which I have here faithfully given from his Glossary, Brand says-and of course his editor, Sir Henry Ellis, who never enquires into any thing, does not correct him" Blount tells us that Lammas Day, the first of August, otherwise called the Gule, or Yule, of August, may be a corruption of the British word, Gwyl Awst, signifying the Feast of August." Suck a thing may indeed occur in an edition that I have not seen; but, if so it is a flat contradiction of his own words. S "Comme le mois d'Août etoit le premier de l'année Egyptienne on en appella le premier jour, Gule; ce mot latinisé fit gula. Nos legendaires surpris de voir ce nom à la tete du mois d'Août, ne s'oub lierent pas; ils en firent la fete de la fille du tribun Quirinus, guerié d'un mal de gorge en baisant les liens de S. Pierre dont on célebre la fète ce jour la."-ALLEGORIES ORIENTALES, Monde Primitif, p. 194 4to. Paris, 1774. Bede explains it as allusive to the sun's return, and we may therefore suppose derives it from the AngloSaxon GEHWEOL, a wheel, as Gebelin has done. "Iol," says the latter writer, "pronounced Hiol, Iol, Jul, Giul, Hweol, Wheel, Wiel, Vol, &c. is a primitive word carrying with it the idea of revolution or of a wheel.'* Dr. Pettingal † derives it from the ancient British, Saxon, or Celtic, or by whatever name we choose to designate that early language, which was used by the inhabitants of this country in common with Gaul, Spain, and Illyricum, before they were over-run by the Romans. It appears by the old tongue still in use amongst the Welsh that a holyday is called by them Wyl; or, to strengthen the sound, Gwyl; thus in the rubrick of the Welsh liturgy every Saint's Day is the Wyl, or Gwyl of such a saint; and in common conversation the Day of St. John is called Gwyl Ievan; and of St. Andrew, Gwyl Andreas; and the first of August, Gwyl Aust. The mere difference of letters, however they may stagger those inexperienced in such matters, present not the slightest difficulty to the etymologist; in the Old English, or British, language, the Y, W, and G, were used interchangeably for each other, and thus Yule, Wyl, and Gwyl, are but one and the same word, and signify the same thing-i.e. a feast-though differently written.§ If this be a correct view of the matter, the Gule of August means * Allegories ORIENTALES, Monde Primitif, p. 193. See Archæologia, vol. ii. P. 3. These languages appear to have been so nearly alike, that we may fairly call them dialects of the same tongue. It is moreover allowed by Camden, Spelman, and other received authorities, that a considerable part of the present language is to be derived from the OLD ONE, above alluded to. § Thus in our old writers it is common to find YAVE for gave, YEVEN for given; while in ward and guard we see instances of the same sort of change, for the two words are identical. no more than the feast or holyday of August, which was held as such originally, when the English during the papal supremacy paid their Peter Pence to Rome. Following up this notion I should be inclined to think with Pettingal that when the Saxons became Christian they called the month of December, Giuli, or the month of the great Gule, or Nativity, by way of eminence The meaning, here attributed to the word, is completely borne out by Hickes, although he gives it a somewhat different derivation, telling us that I-OL, Cimbric— written by the Anglo-Saxons GEOL, and Dan. Sax. IUL -the o being readily changed into u by the intensive prefixes i and ge,--make el, ol, a "symposium," a "feast," and more emphatically the feasts at Christmas,* There is, however, one objection to Pettingal's theory, or at least to a part of it. If Gebelin's assumption be correct that the Egyptians used Gule to designate the great festival at the commencement of their year, we have a case 66 * See F. Junii ETYMOLOGICUM ANGLICANUM-sub voce Yeol. I should observe too some have maintained that the word being Gothic it could not possibly have a Celtic derivation, the languages being so different. It may be so; but, as we have just seen, even that would not affect the interpretation given by Pettingal; Gothic or Celtic, it would equally mean, a feast;" and this after all is the principal point. I have already remarked that ale, as we find it in the compounds, Church-ale, Bride-ale, &c., is but another form of Yule, Gule, or Ule, for even this last mode of writing the word is not uncommon; thus according to Brand, who quotes from Blount, "in Yorkshire and our other northern parts they have an old custom, after sermon or service on Christmas Day, the people will, even in the churches cry, Ule, ule, ule, as a token of rejoicing; and the common sorts run about the streets singing, Ule, ule, ule! Three puddings in a pule; So also in RAY'S PROVERBS-"It is good to cry Ule at other men's costs." of priority established against the claims of either Celt or Saxon; they could only have been borrowers. It will be in vain to object that the Welsh applied the term, not to any particular feast, but to feasts in general; the meaning of words naturally widens and extends in the course of time, and nothing is more common than the transition from a special, to a general, application of them. Lammas Day.This was another name for the first of August, which by some has been supposed to signify a Lamb-Mass, because on that day the tenants, who held lands of the Cathedral Church in York, which is dedicated to St. Peter ad Vincula, were bound by their tenure to bring a live lamb into the church at high mass. Others give the same derivation, but explain it by saying that "lambs were not then fit to eat, they were grown too big." Others again have imagined that it came from the Anglo-Saxon Hlafmaesse, i.e. Loaf-Mass, " because on that day the English made an offering of bread made with new wheat."* On this day also became payable the so-called PeterPence, a tax levied to the amount of a penny upon every hearth or chimney throughout England, and which was likewise called Rome-feogh, Heard-Penny, or Rome-scot. The origin of this tax, or alms, is a matter of much doubt, having been attributed to various times and individuals. According to Mathew of Westminster, somewhere about the year 727, Ina, King of Wessex, leaving his kingdom to his relative, Ethelhard, set forth on a pilgrimage to Rome, where, with the consent of Pope Gregory, he established the Schola Anglorum, (the School of the Angles),† * Blount's Law Dictionary-sub voce Lammas. I have rendered Schola Anglorum by School of the Angles, from a doubt whether the word, English, was in use so early as the reign of Ina. At all events the title of England was not applied to any part of the country until the time of Ecgberht, A.D. 800, when the mo |
