Talk:Celtic calendar
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[edit] "Celtic New Year" Factoid
The popular literature over the last century or so has given birth to the near universal assumption that Samhain, now associated with the Roman Catholic theme and folkways of Hallowe'en, was the "Celtic New Year". A number of sources including both the work of scholarly historians and Neopagan writers have begun to place this assertion under the microscope. In his exhaustive study of the folk calendar of the British Isles "Stations of the Sun"(Oxford University Press, 1996), the historian Ronald Hutton points out that there are no references earlier than the 18th century in either church or civic records which attest to this usage. Although it may be generally correct to refer to Samhain as "Summer's End", this point of descent into the year's darkness may need better proof for us to cite this "end" as also being a "beginning". On the other hand, there -is- a huge volume of proof of the western world, including late Celtia, as having begun their calendars either at the end of December, or around March 25th, at various periods back through and before Medieval times. (added to the main article 7/11/06 by Earrach)
[edit] Date of Coligny
" and dates to the 1st century, BC or AD, a time when the the Roman Empire imposed use of the Julian Calendar in Roman Gaul." well, which, BC or AD? I assume BC if it was Julian ...
no, man, the Julian calendar was in force until 1582, and longer. It's either just AD or just BC, we don't know. dab (ᛏ) 08:06, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- Assuming the Julian calendar was imposed by Julius then it woud need to be BC (d. 15 March 44 BC) --Nantonos 21:44, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Which Calendar?
This article suffers from talking about three things at once without clearly separating them:
- The Coligny (and Villards d'Heria) Gaulish calendars from the first century BC, a five year luni-solar calendar
- The mediaeval Irish and Welsh calendars, a solar calendar with four quarterly festivals
- The modern neopagan '8-fold wheel' calendar, dating from the 1960s, popularly and incorrectly supposed to be both ancient and Celtic.
There is actually a fourth missing section not discussed at all
- Modern survivals of the mediaeval calendar, in Irish month names and in Scots law (pre 1990's reforms)
The solution would seem to be to split into sections and casrefully discuss each one and any links between them. --Nantonos 21:44, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
- I know, that's the ultimate aim, of course. I just took the article as I found it and began to insert tidbits so far, but it needs a major revision. dab (ᛏ) 05:52, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Questioning section; Mediaeval Irish and Welsh Calendars=
" This observance of festivals beginning the evening before the festival day is still seen in the celebrations and folkloric practices among the Gaels, such as the traditions of Oíche Shamhna (Samhain Eve) among the Irish "
I wish to question this statment for the reasons of linguistic structure and translation. It is important to note as mentioned in the following section of the statement of julius cesar, that gaelic cultures may have in history and do in modernday, consider the day to begin at nightfall and there fore celebration is NOT the evening BEFORE a festival. Proven or unproven it is misleasing to either to state so. Also, with regard to this it must be considered that there is no original grammar to distinguish Oíche Shamhna as either 'Night of Samhain' or Night before Samhain' in fact the most accurate thing to say is Samhain Night as to do otherwise would be placing an ancient concept into the syntax of an Caighdeán Oifigiúil and should be qualified as such. A qualifying standard may be to say, 'when applied within modern calander structures'??? The concept of the evening being the beginning of a festival has morphed in modern folklore to adjust to modern calanders, Ask any Irish person when Samhain is and they will say 31stOct and not 1stNov They dont mean the night of the 31st and the day of the 1st, they mean the 31st and only that calander day!!!....
You've sorta' got a point there but I think we're both going to get squashed by the steamroller of popular assumptions out there. In his Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar says that the Gauls began their (...days, etc.)"at night". That's it. And from there all the assumptions and confusion have proceeded. In any of the several Latin translations I've checked Ceasar quite plainly does not say "from sunset-on". I've been lobbying for a long time that the main reason for this, perhaps unqualified, "jump" is due to a Bibliocentric historical scheme where the Celts (like everybody) were assumed to have descended, not from the trees, but from the landing-ramp of Noah's Ark... the "lost tribes" would no doubt measure their days using the semitic custom of measuring "from sunset-on". Nope,Ceasar just says the Gauls did it "at night" though; you know, possibly like some other culture I'm thinking of does it, say, perhaps even at 12:00AM. earrach
- Hi Emma, if you are considering removing or replacing sourced text, you need to have good, Verifiable sources to cite that prove the sourced text is somehow wrong or inaccurate. Having a personal disagreement with the sourced text is not sufficient. ~ Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 02:23, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
A Guide to Irish Mythology,by Daragh Smyth Irish Academic Press; 2nd edition (July 1998)ISBN-10: 0716526123 gives the meaning of the phrase 'Oiche Shamana'which is literal and not influanced by any caighdeán."summers end night" would not be an unsupported meaning for the word. I dont believe the current text should be changed or deleted, just expanded to qualify it. It would also have continuity with the article on samhain here on wiki[1]
