The Celtic Calendar and the English Year

Abstract

The author examines the linguistic and historical evidence for the names and implied meanings of the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon months, seasons, days, solstices, equinoxes and festivals, and concludes that the major divisions of the English traditional year are of Anglo-Saxon rather than Celtic origin. Key Words: Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Festivals, Days of the Week, Names of the Months and Seasons. Introduction England has a rich tradition of annual customs and festivals which include Yule, Lent, Easter, May Day, Midsummer, Harvest and Halloween, as well as many local minor festivals. The majority of published references on English folk tradition tend to attribute either Roman or Celtic origins to these annual events. For example, Yule is often identified with the Roman Saturnalia, and May Day with Floralia. However, it is the Celtic calendar that is most often used to explain the origins of the English traditional year. A recent study of the ritual year by Ronald Hutton of Bristol University (Hutton, 1996), has involved a thorough re-examination of the historical records, and has largely discredited the concept of the Celtic calendar. However, Hutton does not fully explore the Anglo-Saxon evidence. The purpose of this essay is to review the linguistic evidence, and use the results to suggest a basis for the English traditional year. The Celtic Calendar The native languages of Britain and Ireland descend from two branches of the Indo-European family (Renfrew, 1987), Celtic and Germanic (see table 1). The Celts (Kd,ot) are first recorded in the 5th century BC by the Greek historian Herodotus, who locates them in the area of the upper Danube (Selincourt, 1954,142). Later Roman historians referred to a number of peoples within their empire as being either Celts or Gauls. Archaeologists have therefore attempted to find evidence of these early Celts in central Europe, and have identified two possible cultures known as Hallstatt and La Tine (Renfrew, 1987, 211-249). However, the Celtic language group was not recognised by that name until the beginning of the 18th century (Edward Lhuyd, 1707), and its relationship to these archaeological cultures is still a subject of much debate (James, 1999). Nevertheless, at their greatest extent, Celtic languages were spoken throughout what is now northern Italy, France, Spain, Britain and Ireland. Evidence `No man will travel this country, 'she said, `who hasn't gone sleepless from Samain, when the summer goes to its rest, until Imbolc, when the ewes are milked at spring's beginning; from Imbolc to Beltane at the summer's beginning and from Beltane to Bron Trogain, earth's sorrowing autumn.' The above passage comes from the 10th to 11th century collection of Irish heroic tales known as the Ulster Cycle (Kinsella, 1970, 27). During the wooing of Emer (Tochmarc Emire) by the hero Cuchulainn, he is required to sleep for a year before she will agree to marry him. In describing the year Emer also provides the earliest reference to all four of the Irish pagan festivals, that marked the changing of the seasons. Three of these festivals names have survived in Ireland and highland Scotland, as the months May, August and November. However, in the later sources Bran Trogain is known by the name Lugnasad(see tables 2 and 5). Discussion In the 19th century during the `Celtic Revival' these early Irish festivals were rediscovered by folklorists and academics such as Sir James Frazer, who between 1890 and 1915 published a twelve volume study of magic and religion entitled The Golden Bough (Frazer, 1922). This and similar works attempted to reconstruct a pan-Celtic year that was said to have existed not only in Ireland and Scotland, but throughout Britain and the former Celtic speaking parts of Europe. This `Celtic Calendar' was believed to have included the winter and summer solstices, and the spring and autumn equinoxes, as well as the four recorded festivals that marked the changing seasons. …