*Ø* Blogmanac | June 1 | The month of June, sacred to the goddess Juno

The sixth month of the year derived its name from the Roman Junius, a gens or clan name related to juvenis, meaning young. The Roman writer, Ovid, in Fasti, his work on the Roman calendar, writes: Junius a juvenum nomine dictus (v, 79). Another possibility is that it might derive from the goddess Juno – perhaps both explanations are correct.

Juno was the Roman Mother Goddess, known to the Greeks as Hera, and her original name to the Romans was Junonius. Among her attributes, she is queen of heaven, approximating Frigg in the Northern Tradition, and Mary in the Christian. She is ruler of the high point of year, when there is maximum light and minimum darkness (in the Northern Hemisphere). On June 22, the northern Summer Solstice will occur, and here in the south, we will have our shortest day.

Juno is a counterpart of Janus and the divine watcher over the female sex, so this month is considered the best time to marry. As Juno Moneta, guardian of wealth and money, she had a temple on the Capitoline hill in Rome where the empire’s coins were minted. The folklorist Nigel Pennick writes, “This theme of wealth can also be seen in the runic year cycle: the half-month of Feoh, the time of wealth and abundance, begins on 29 June”.

The most likely derivation is that the month was dedicated a Junioribus – that is, to the junior or inferior branch of the original legislature of Rome, just as May was a Majoribus, or to the superior branch.

The Saxons called it Weyd-monat, because their beasts did then weyde into the meadows, meaning that they went in and fed (cf the Tutonic weyde, a meadow). Another explanation is that June was Woedmonath, and that woed means weed. June was called Medemonath, Midsumormonath and Braeckmonath (breaking of soil). Another name was Lida erra (Icelandic Lida = to move, or pass over): the sun passing its highest point. Another Anglo-Saxon calendar term for the sixth month was se Ærra Liþa (Aerra Litha – the earlier Lithe-month), ‘before Liþa (Litha)’ – Litha means midsummer, and is a term for the solstice used today by many neo-pagans. The Saxons also called it Seremonath (dry-month)

The old Dutch name was Zomer-maand (summer-month); in the French Revolutionary calendar the month was called Prairial (meadow month, 20 May to 18 June).

The Irish used to call this month meitheamh, and the Franks called it Brachmanoth, meaning ‘break month’. In modern Asatru, it is called Fallow. The backwoods (Amerindian) name is Hot or Strawberry Moon.

June is ‘the door of the year’, the gateway to inner realms. In the goddess calendar the first 12 days of June belong to Hera.

European folklore tells us that: good weather in ‘Flaming June’ is required if there is to be a good harvest; bats flying on a June evening are a sign of hot, dry weather, and if swallows fly near the ground in June it’s a sign of coming rain.

In the south-west of England, there was still in 1826 the old pagan custom of throwing flowers into a stream at this time of year.

What is today’s date in the Anglo-Saxon calendar? Click here to find out. You’ll need your latitude and longitude, which you should be able to get in the masthead of Wilson’s Blogmanac.

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The Wheel of the Year
See also http://www.equinox-and-solstice.com