The seasons of the year in Old English
Earl R. Anderson
‘Feower tida synd getealde on anum geare’, Ælfric writes in De temporibus anni , translating a portion of Bede's temporum ratione and he enumerates the seasons together with their Latin counterparts: ‘ Ver is lenctentid … Aestas sumer Autumnus hærfest Hiems winter.’ Byrhtferth Ramsey ‘Þa feower timan lengten, sumor, winter’, allegorizing them as symbols childhood, adolescence, manhood old age, blood, choler, black bile phlegm, air, fire, earth water, elsewhere refers to ‘gewrixlunge Þæsra timan, Þæt ys lenctenis sumoris hærfestis wintres’. From these passages, others like them, it would appear that Anglo-Saxons observed four seasons: spring, summer, autumn winter. This conclusion seems obvious enough represents conceptual baseline for Bosworth–Toller dictionary entries lencten lenctentid, sumer, winter even though clear from own citations often mean ‘Lent’ means ‘harvest’.
Anglo-Saxon England