Born in October

The name and the season

October comes from the Latin octo, 'eight', since it was the eighth month of the old Roman year. The Anglo-Saxons, Bede tells us, called it Winterfylleth, because winter was reckoned to begin with its first full moon. In the northern hemisphere it is the month of falling leaves, the last gathering of fruit and nuts, and the slaughter and salting of livestock that could not be fed through the winter. Its full moon, the first after the Harvest Moon, is known in English folk naming as the Hunter's Moon.

Festivals and folklore

On 15 October the Romans sacrificed the 'October Horse' to Mars, the right-hand horse of the winning team in a chariot race on the Campus Martius, a rite whose meaning was already debated in antiquity. The month ends with All Hallows' Eve, the vigil of the Christian feast of All Saints on 1 November, which coincided in Ireland and Scotland with Samhain, the beginning of winter, when the boundary between the living and the otherworld was believed to grow thin. Its customs of disguise, bonfires, divination about future spouses and carved turnips, later pumpkins, travelled with Irish and Scottish emigrants to North America and became modern Halloween (see the Wheel of the Year). The Hindu festival of lights, Diwali, often falls in late October or early November, and in many places October is the month of harvest thanksgivings and wine festivals.

Birthstone and birth flower

October's stones are the opal, whose shifting play of colour is caused by tiny spheres of silica diffracting light, and the tourmaline, added in 1952 (often specified as pink tourmaline), a gem that occurs in more colours than almost any other. Older traditional lists give the opal alone or with aquamarine. Roman writers prized the opal above most stones; its nineteenth-century reputation for bad luck is often traced to Sir Walter Scott's novel Anne of Geierstein (1829). The month's flowers are the marigold, read by the Victorians as grief and in Mexico used to guide the dead home, and the cosmos, a newer addition.

Traits tradition gives to people born this month

October is shared by Libra and Scorpio, and popular portraits of October-born people combine charm with depth. They are traditionally described as sociable, diplomatic and artistic, with a strong sense of justice, and as intense, perceptive and loyal once committed. Almanacs warn of indecision on the one side and secrecy or jealousy on the other. These are traditional characterisations; studies have not found that birth month or sign shapes personality.