blog days

Today my Landsbankinn desk calendar tells me that "Hundadagar byrja". This translates as "Dog Days Begin". Remembering some terrible dog days from my own childhood summers in New England, I checked into the issue, and it turns out to be pretty interesting. The tradition of naming dog days comes to us originally from the ancient Greeks, who observed that the star Sirius rose and set with the sun during this time in the summer. They thought that Sirius, also called the Dog Star and the brightest star in the sky, added to the sun's heat during this time. Later the Romans, always better at branding, came along and slapped on the famous "Dog Days" label and the concept took off. All that extra thermal juice did seem to make for a lot of sticky, humid, hot weather - one might even say hundleiðinlegt veður*.

Because of differences in latitude and custom, dog days begin at different times in different locations. Here in Iceland they begin on the 13th of July and last until the 23rd of August. An English-language source that is presumably more southerly has them occurring from the 3rd of July until the 11th of August.

The Icelandic word for dog is hundur which sure seems a lot like "hound". In fact, they share the same proto-Germanic root khundas. The word "dog" didn't take over in English until the 1500s and its origins are apparently mysterious. OK, there's your etymology lesson for the day. Now please don't hound me any more!

*dog-dreary weather