The corresponding English name, Lammas, had very likely the same origin, and it is a contraction of _Lunamas_. The derivation of it from Lamb-mas is an “affectation of punning,” and that suggested by Gen. Vallancey from La-ith-mas, “a day of eating fruit,” is extremely fanciful. The omission of _n_ in the middle of a word, for the sake of brevity or from inadvertence, frequently occurs. So _g_ has been elided in _Lùnasdal_. Augustus, which was adopted as the name of the sixth month B.C. 6, became _east_ in Cornish and _eost_ in Armoric. _Iuchar_, THE HOT MONTH (_i.e._ AUGUST). The _Iuchar_ consists of 14 days of summer and 14 days of autumn, and Lammas Day, O.S., being the first of autumn, corresponds to the present month of August. It is regarded, in point of weather, as the opposite of _Faoilleach_, the “storm month” of February. The name is derived from an obsolete verb _fiuchadh_ to be hot. Lhuyd (_Archæolog. Brit._) renders _fiuchaeh_, boiling, and _fiuchadh_, a spring, _scatebra_. In another place he gives _fiuchadh_ as an equivalent of the Latin _æstus_. In some districts of the north, the name of the season is still called _Fiuchar_. Linlithgow, celebrated for its wells, is known in the Highlands as _Gleann Iuch_, and the Linlithgow measures are called _tomhaís Ghlinn Iuch_. The dropping of _f_ initial, as in the case of the Greek digamma, is too common to need illustration. _Fèill Moire_, ASSUMPTION DAY. This is the middle day of autumn (_latha meadhon an fhogharaidh_), August 15-27. It was counted a greater day than St. Mary’s Day (_Féill Moire_) in spring, and was called “the Big St. Mary’s Day.” Harvest operations were now vigorously pushed forward, and hence the saying, “Big St Mary’s Feast in harvest, sheaf and binding and men with their coats off” (_an Fhéill Mhoire mòr a’s t-fhogharadh sguab ’us ceangal ’s daoin’ as an léintean_). _Féill Ròid_, ROODMAS, SEPTEMBER 14-26. This day is the first of the rutting season among deer, and it was held that if the night before it (_oidhche na Féill Ròid_), be wet, or (as it was expressed), “if the deer took his head wet into the rutting season” (_ma bheir e cheann fliuch san dàmhair_), there will be a month after it of dry weather, and the farmer need be under no apprehension as to securing his crops. The belling of red deer among the hills on this night is magnificent. The night succeeding Roodmas was called “the night of the nut,” “the night of the Holy Nut” (_oidhche na cnò, na cnò Naomh_), a name, the reason of which is doubtful. Some say it arises from this night dividing harvest in unequal halves, as the kernel is divided in the nut. Brand (i. 353) mentions a custom of going a nutting upon Rood Day, and it seems to have been a popular belief that on this day the devil goes a nutting. This does not explain why the nut is called the Holy Nut. The Holy Rood is the same as the Cross. MICHAELMAS (_Feill Mìcheil_)