June

June, the sixth month in the Christian calendar, consisting of thirty days. Ovid (Fasti, vi. 25) makes Juno assert that the name was expressly given in her honour. Elsewhere (Fasti, vi. 87) he gives the derivation a junioribus, as May had been derived from majores, which may be explained as in allusion either to the two months being dedicated respectively to youth and age in general, or to the seniors and juniors of the government of Rome, the senate and the comitia curiata in particular. Others connect the term with the gentile name Junius, or with the consulate of Junius Brutus. Probably, however, it originally denoted the month in which crops grow to ripeness. In the old Latin calendar June was the fourth month, and in the so-called year of Romulus it is said to have had thirty days; but at the time of the Julian reform of the calendar its days were only twenty-nine. To these Caesar added the thirtieth. The Anglo-Saxons called June “the dry month,” “midsummer month,” and, in contradistinction to July, “the earlier mild month.” The summer solstice occurs in June. Principal festival days in this month: 11th June, St Barnabas; 24th June, Midsummer Day (Nativity of St John the Baptist); 29th June, St Peter.