The Celtic
Year, A lunar
calendar / Το Κελτικό Έτος, Σεληνιακό ημερολόγιο
This page is adapted from Timeless
Wisdom of the Celts
To the Celts, time was circular
rather than linear. This is reflected in their commencing each day, and each
festival, at dusk rather than dawn, a custom comparable with that of the Jewish
Sabbath. It is also reflected in their year beginning with the festival of Samhain
on 31 October, when nature appears to be dying down. Tellingly, the first month
of the Celtic year is Samonios, ‘Seed Fall’: in other words, from death and
darkness springs life and light.
Caesar confirms this and offers an
explanation (Conquest of Gaul, VI.18):
The Gauls claim all to be descended from Father Dis [a god of death,
darkness and the underworld], declaring that this is the tradition preserved by
the Druids. For this reason they measure periods of time not by days but by
nights; and in celebrating birthdays, the first of the month, and new year’s
day, they go on the principle that the day begins at night.
A
lunar calendar
Another reason for the importance of
night in the Celts’ reckoning of time lies in their regard for the moon and the
feminine principle which it represents. Certainly there is some evidence that
they observed the solar festivals of solstices and equinoxes, and especially
the summer solstice. It is also true that the Druids’ most sacred plant,
mistletoe, was associated with the sun. However, the waxing and waning of the
moon was of far greater importance.
The Celts showed their respect for
the moon by using euphemisms such as gealach - meaning ‘brightness’, and never
referring directly to ‘the moon’. Manx fishermen followed this custom up until
the nineteenth century, referring to the moon as ben- reine ny hoie - ‘queen of
the night’. More persuasive, however, is the evidence to be found in the Celtic
calendar.
The earliest-known Celtic calendar
is the Coligny calendar, now in the Palais des Arts, Lyon. It dates probably
from the 1st century BCE, and is made up of bronze fragments, once a single
huge plate. It is inscribed with Latin characters, but in Gaulish. It begins
each month with the full moon, and covers a 30-year cycle comprising five
cycles of 62 lunar months, and one of 61. It divides each month into fortnights
rather than weeks, with days designated - from observation - as MAT (good) or
ANM (not good). Each year is divided into thirteen months.
The Coligny calendar achieves a
complex synchronization of the solar and lunar months. Whether it does this for
philosophical or practical reasons, it points to considerable sophistication.
The lunar months given on the
Coligny calendar are as follows. The translations are based on those of Caitlin
Matthews:
Celtic names
|
Modern months
|
Meaning
|
Samonios
|
October/November
|
Seed-fall
|
Dumannios
|
November/December
|
Darkest depths
|
Riuros
|
December/January
|
Cold-time
|
Anagantios
|
January/February
|
Stay-home time
|
Ogronios
|
February/March
|
Ice time
|
Cutios
|
March/April
|
Windy time
|
Giamonios
|
April/May
|
Shoots-show
|
Simivisonios
|
May/June
|
Bright time
|
Equos
|
June/July
|
Horse-time
|
Elembiuos
|
July/August
|
Claim-time
|
Edrinios
|
August/September
|
Arbitration-time
|
Cantlos
|
September/October
|
Song-time
|
The 13th month, Mid Samonios, was
duplicated. Since months began with a full moon, no consistent dates can be
given.
The
Celtic festivals
When the legendary Irish hero Cu
Chulainn woos Emer, he eyes her bosom and wishes aloud that he ‘might wander
there’. Her reply suggests the magical importance of the Celtic festivals:
No man may travel there who has not
gone without sleep from Samhain to the lambing time at Imbolc, from Imbolc to
the fires of Beltain, and from Beltain to the harvest time of Lughnasadh, and
from then to Samhain.
This cycle is perhaps the most
exciting aspect of the Celtic approach to time, and certainly the one that we
can most easily follow nowadays. In our time, most of us are out of touch with
the seasons, and the one big Western festival has become more of a time for
ringing tills than ringing the changes. We can bring a sense of rhythm and
continuity to our lives by observing the Celtic festivals.
Samhain
The Celtic year began with Samhain.
Celebrated around 31 October, it was a time of deliberate misrule and
contrariness, rather like the Roman Saturnalia. It was also a time when the
veil between this world and the Otherworld was thought to be so thin that the
dead could return to warm themselves at the hearths of the living, and some of
the living - especially poets - were able to enter the Otherworld through the
doorways of the sidhe, such as that at the Hill of Tara in Ireland.
At Samhain cattle were brought in
for the winter, and in Ireland the warrior élite, the Fianna, gave up war until
Beltain. It was a sacred time, whose peace was normally broken only by the
ritualized battle of board games such as fidchell.
Our modern Hallowe’en stems from
Samhain, and one explanation of the traditional pumpkin lanterns is that the
Celts once placed the skulls of ancestors outside their doors at this time. The
Christians took over the Celtic festival and turned it into All Saints Day.
Even the modern English celebration of Guy Fawkes Day has echoes of the ancient
fire festival.
Imbolc
Coming at lambing time, around 31
January, Imbolc (or Oimelc) celebrated the beginning of the end of winter. New
lambs were born, and a dish made from their docked tails was eaten. Women met
to celebrate the return of the maiden aspect of the Goddess. This survived into
Christian times as the Feast of Brigid: the saint was a Christianized version
of the pagan goddess who was the daughter of the Dagda (see page 00). In the
Outer Hebrides, Celtic Christian celebrations of this festival lasted into the
twentieth century, with women dressing a sheaf of oats in female clothes and
setting it with a club in a basket called ‘Brid’s Bed’.
Beltain
Beltain, celebrated around 1 May,
was another fire festival; but whereas Samhain was associated with going to
ground, and withdrawing, Beltain burst forth with an abundant fertility. Cattle
were let out of winter quarters and driven between two fires in a ritual
cleansing ceremony that may have had practical purposes too. It was a time for
feasts and fairs, for the mating of animals, and for divorces - possible
arising from trial marriages entered into at Lughnasadh. Like Samhain, it was a
time for boardgames - as well as for travel between the worlds: the legendary
poet Taliesin is said to manifest at Beltain.
Beltain was sacred to the god
Belenos, the Shining One, whose name survives in placenames such as
Billingsgate, and in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline - Hound of Belenus. In fact the
word ‘Beltain’ derives from Bel-tinne - fires of Bel. As noted above, for the
Fianna, Beltain heralded the start of the ‘fighting season’. De Jubainville, in
his Irish Mythological Cycle, writes :
It was on a Thursday,
the first of May, and the 17th day of the moon, that the [invading] sons of
Miled arrived in Ireland. Partholan [chief of the next race of invaders] also
landed in Ireland on the first of May ... and it was on the first day of May,
too, that the pestilence came which in the space of one week destroyed utterly
his race. The first of May was sacred to Beltene, one of the names of the god
of Death, the god who gives life to men and takes it away from them again. Thus
it was on the feast day of this god that the sons of Miled began their conquest
of Ireland.
Beltain is the origin of pagan May
Day festivities such as that of the Padstow Hobby Horse, and maypole dancing,
of the ‘Queen of the May’, and of ‘well dressing’ - decking holy wells with
flowers, as still practised in some rural communities.
Lughnasadh
Lughnasadh was a summer festival
lasting for as long as two weeks either side of the day itself, which fell
around 31 July. It was said to have been introduced to Ireland by the god Lugh,
and so was sacred to this god. The Romans identified Lugh with Mercury. At any
rate, both are gods associated with skills, and this festival was celebrated
with competitions of skill, including horse-racing. There was horse-trading,
too; perhaps this is why the festival was also linked to the fertility goddess
Macha, who dies in childbirth after being forced to race against the King’s
horses. In Ireland the festival was associated with Emain Macha, in Ulster, but
was held in various locations, including the royal fort of Tara.
Solar
festivals
We know less about Celtic
celebrations of solar festivals. However, the solstices were probably
celebrated. Miranda Green suggests that the fires of Beltain were ‘sympathetic
magic to encourage the Sun’s warmth on earth’. She adds that Beltain,
Lughnasadh and Samhain ‘celebrated critical times in the annual solar cycle’,
and that pagan and Christian Celtic midsummer festivals involved rolling a
flaming wooden ‘solar’ wheel down a hill and into a river. It is also
significant that sun disks, solar chariot wheels and swastikas (whose arms are
intended to portray a blazing, spinning sun) are important motifs in Celtic
art.
A
view of Newgrange burial mound (Meath, Ireland), where the winter solstice was
celebrated.
Point
to see the entrance.
Celtic astrology and
tree calendars
Astrology is an art, or science,
that focuses on the passage of time, and which emphasizes the unique nature of
a moment in time. Much has been written about ‘Celtic astrology’. Classical
writers - including Strabo, Caesar, Diodorus Siculus, Cicero and Pliny -
comment on Druidic knowledge of astronomy and astrology. There is also evidence
that the Druids understood the tides and that they cut mistletoe and other
plants at particular phases of the moon. Peter Berresford Ellis puts forward a
tentative case for a Celtic astrology, mentioning among other things the
survival of astronomical terms such as dubaraith, meaning eclipse, into modern
Irish. He suggests that if the Druids did use astrology in addition to various
forms of divination, their astrology would have been lunar-based, as is Hindu
astrology, which uses a system of 27 or 28 lunar ‘mansions’.
Another tantalizing point is the
Coligny calendar’s designation of days as ‘good’ or ‘not good’. However, in the
end there is no absolute proof, probably because of the Druidic aversion to
keeping written records.
Similarly, there is no proof that
the Ogham-based Celtic tree calendar popularized by Robert Graves actually
existed, whatever poetic truth it contains.
Attuning to time cycles
There are several ways to apply the
Celtic sense of time. First, we can attempt to become more aware of the truth
of constant change. Nothing stays the same; ‘what goes around comes around’.
There are ‘good’ days and ‘not good’ days. We should not cling to good times or
despair during bad times. One way to develop an awareness of this is to keep a
diary of our moods and experiences. Reading it back later will develop a sense
of perspective.
Keeping a diary can usefully be tied
in with observing the phases of the moon - preferably in the night sky. Many
people who keep a ‘moon diary’ find a pattern in their lives, and in their
moods, corresponding to the lunar phases. This can enable you to plan
accordingly, as well as developing your sense of natural rhythm.
On the larger scale, we can observe
the festivals and attune our lives to seasonal changes. We may find that
Samhain is a good time to become more introspective and plant the seeds of new
projects, allowing them to germinate over the winter months. On a more sombre
note, this is a good time to remember the dead. Beltain, on the other hand, is
a time to embark on projects requiring courage and energy.
http://seliniartemisekati.blogspot.gr/
- Επιτρέπεται η αναδημοσίευση του περιεχομένου της ιστοσελίδας εφόσον
αναφέρεται ευκρινώς η πηγή του και υπάρχει ενεργός σύνδεσμος(link ). Νόμος
2121/1993 και κανόνες Διεθνούς Δικαίου που ισχύουν στην Ελλάδα.
ΕΠΙΣΗΜΑΝΣΗ
Ορισμένα αναρτώμενα από το διαδίκτυο κείμενα ή
εικόνες (με σχετική σημείωση της πηγής), θεωρούμε ότι είναι δημόσια. Αν
υπάρχουν δικαιώματα συγγραφέων, παρακαλούμε ενημερώστε μας για να τα
αφαιρέσουμε. Επίσης σημειώνεται ότι οι απόψεις του ιστολόγιου μπορεί να μην
συμπίπτουν με τα περιεχόμενα του άρθρου. Για τα άρθρα που δημοσιεύονται εδώ,
ουδεμία ευθύνη εκ του νόμου φέρουμε καθώς απηχούν αποκλειστικά τις απόψεις των
συντακτών τους και δεν δεσμεύουν καθ’ οιονδήποτε τρόπο το ιστολόγιο.
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου