June in Scottish Gaelic is ‘An t-Ògmhios’ (roughly pronounced as ‘an tawk veeus’) literally meaning the ‘young month’ though some people believe it means the early month in relation to how early the sun rises at this time of year. Of course, we enjoy long summer days in June with the sun rising around 04.30am and setting about 10.30pm!

The summer solstice is marked this weekend; ‘grian-stad an t-samhraidh’ literally meaning the summer stopping of the sun. This is in reference to the sun’s annual path through the sky and the fact that it has reached its zenith for the year before ‘stopping’ and getting lower throughout the remainder of the year. Solstice comes from the Latin word solstitium, made up of ‘sol’ meaning “sun” and ‘sistere’ which means “to stand still”. The Gaels were well versed in the seasons, the patterns of the moon and sun and their calendar were very much linked. We see people here in Britain gathering at places such as Stonehenge in England and at the Callanish Stones in the Hebridean Isle of Lewis, closer to Skye, which is a much older stone circle than Stonehenge.