It is Solmōnaþ. Cake Month. A rare cause for cheer in the damp gloom of February.
In the Anglo-Saxon calendar, Solmōnaþ sat where February is now. It marked a time when offerings were made to pagan gods, back when England was less Christian and more heathen. The idea was simple. Feed the gods and hope they stayed in a good mood. Humanity has always tried to bargain with the weather.
Our source for this is the venerable Bede, who noted in De temporum ratione that “Sol-Monath can be said to be the month of cakes, which were offered to their gods”. Visions of chocolate sponge and thick icing may spring to mind. Lower expectations. These cakes were likely plain breadcakes, unleavened and unsweetened. Less bake-off, more hard tack.
Later scholars, never keen to let joy go unchallenged, argued that this was all a misunderstanding. They pointed out that there is little evidence elsewhere for ‘sol’ meaning cake. In Old English it more often meant mud or dirt. Given the state of English fields in February, they suggested Solmōnaþ was really Mud Month. A theory with cold, wet logic on its side.
Even so, the balance of opinion has drifted back to Bede. ‘Sol’ is now generally accepted as meaning something like a hearthcake. The old monk, it seems, knew his crumbs.
Cake Month, then, survives. And let us be honest. Cake Month sounds far better than Mud Month. One warms the soul. The other just ruins your shoes.
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