NIELS JØRGEN THØGERSEN
OCTOBER And all its 31 days Niels Jørgen Thøgersen The name October comes from the word octo. This is the Greek and the Latin name for the figure eight. The reason is that this month was the 8th month in the old Roman calendar, which originally was made by king Numa Pompilius around 500 BC. In this calendar March was the first month in the year. This calendar was many centuries later replaced by the Gregorian calendar, where January is the first month of each year and where October consequently is month no. 10. This calendar was introduced from around 1580. It Denmark it happened in the year 1700. In the old days this month was in Denmark ( and the other Nordic countries, I believe ) called SÆDEMÅNED ( SEED MONTH ). Why ? Because this was the month when the winter seed ( i.e. rye ) had to be sowed.
And here is the old verse of this month: Now you have to plough and sow the rye and fill up the casks with new lovely wine. Now cold times will be part of our daily life, so a warming stove is just what I like There are also a number of old Danish weather warnings for this month:
October is bad tempered because the old summer has passed away If the trees do not let their leaves go this month, it will be a very cold winter