Content-Type: text/shitpost

While looking into the precursors of “furnace” in connection with the previous article, I learned to my pleasure that there is a Roman goddess of ovens. Her name is Fornax (“oven”) and her annual festival, the Fornacalia was held around the second week of February.

(“Fornacalia” has only the most attenuated connection with fornication. “Fornix” is Latin for a brothel, and might be related to an earlier word describing an arched or covered structure, from which “fornax” (“oven”) is also descended.)