Mini-Update (Week of June 29)

June 30 - Talking heads abound on June 30. Before TV chatterboxes took turns skewering each other, St. Paul was martyred, via beheading, about now in the year 65. "As soon as the head was from the body," wrote a Romish writer, the head "said 'Jesus Christus fyfty tymes." Fountains of milk ran from the head, and somehow, lacking feet, the head also gave three leaps. A fountain also sprang from each jumping point. [EDBv1]

July 1 -
Now comes July, and with his fervid noon,
Unsinews labour. The swinkt mower sleeps;
The weary maid rakes feebly; the warm swain
Pitches his load reluctant; the faint steer,
Lashing his sides, draws sulkily along
The slow encumbered wain in midday heat.

A "swinkt" person is exhausted. Beat. Pooped.

July, once named Quintilis, got its new moniker from Mark Antony, who wanted to honor Julius Caesar - ruler of Rome and instigator of the new "Julian calendar." Eventually, his calendar was thought to be out of whack. Pope Gregory XIII, in 1582, introduced some corrections after it was noted that Easter didn't arrive when the spring equinox did. The Gregorian calendar has been adopted by most countries since then, while a few persist with the maddening Daylight Savings Time. [EDBv1]

Image from "The Past Beckons," Bittersweet Magazine

June 2 - A postcard picture:

A Morning's Walk in July

But when mild morn, in saffron stole,

First issues from her eastern goal,

Let not my due feet fail to climb

Some breeezy summit's brow sublime,

Whence Nature's universal face

Illumined smiles with newborn grace,

The misty streams that wind below

With silver sparkling lustre glow;

The groves and castled cliffs appear

Invested all in radiance clear;

O every village charm beneath

The smoke that mounts in azure wreath.

O beauteous rural interchange!

The simple spire and elmy grange;

Content, indulging blissful hours,

Whistles o'er the fragrant flowers:

And cattle rous'd to pasture new,

Shake jocund from their sides the dew. [EDBv1]

Image from Maison La Roque