February

The word February originates from the Latin word februare, meaning to clean. Nature, in the form of Venus by Botticelli, performs an annual cleaning ritual that occurs at the end of the year.
(In the Roman calendar, February was the last month of the year.) Nowadays, so called spring cleaning occurs around this time.

In Germanic culture February was considered to be the month of ice and melting ice, “Schmelzmond” or “Taumond”, as well as the month of shed- ding of antlers, thus often called “Hornung” (horning).