Country Diary of a Lady: January

Named from the Roman god Janus, who is represented with two faces looking in opposite directions, - as retrospective to the past and prospective to the coming year.

Feast Days, etc.

Jan. 1 New Years Day

Jan. 6 Twelfth-Day, Epiphany

“Then came old January, wrapped well

In many weeds to keep the cold away

Yet did he quake and quiver like to quell

And blewe his nayles to warm them if he may;

For they were numbed wth holding all the day,

And hatchet keene, which he felled wood

And from the trees did lop the needlesse spray.”

Faerie Queen, E. Spencer

Mottoes:

"Janiveer freeze the pot upon the fire.”

"A wet January a wet spring."

"The blackest month of all the year is the month of Janiveer."

"If the grass grows in Janiveer it grows the worse for it all the year."

Except from “A Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady” by Edith B. Holden