MARCH, the third month of our modern year, containing thirty-one days. As in the Roman year, so in the English ecclesiastical calendar, used till 1752, this was the first month, and the legal year commenced on the 25th of
March. The Romans called this month Martius, from the god Mars, the reputed father of their nation; and it received the name Hlyd Monath, i.e., loud or stormy month, from the Anglo-Saxons. There is an old saying, common to both England and Scotland, which represents March as borrowing three days from April; which are thence called the Borrowing or the Borrowed days. In the "Complaynt of Scotland," we find "the borial blasts of the three borrowing dais of Marche bed chaisset the fragrant flureise of eyrie frut-tree far athour the feildis." And these borrowing dais are described in the glossary as "the three last days of March" to which the following popular rhyme refers:—
"March borrowit from Averill
Three days, and they were ill;"
and then there is another rhyme, which graphically characterizes those three "ill" days in detail:—
"The first, it sall be wind and west,
The next, it sall be snaw and sleet;
The third, it sall be sic a freeze,
Sall gar the birds stick to the trees."
Dr Jamieson, in his Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, says, "These days being generally stormy, our forefathers have endeavoured to account for this circumstance, by pretending that March borrowed them from April, that he might extend his power so much longer. . . . Those who are much addicted to superstition will neither borrow nor lend on any of these days."