Druid Calendar
The oldest calendar in the world was recently discovered in Scotland. It is a series of stones aligned that mark the months. Here we will discuss the Celtic Druid calendars, beginning with the most well known, the Coligny Calendar.
The Coligney Calendar:
The Celts reckoned the months from Dark Moon to Dark Moon (The month having a Light and Dark half…. the Light half being the waxing Moon and the Dark half being the waning Moon). This treatment of months is no different than how they viewed the days and the years as well (Day began at sundown, dawn marking the second half of the day. The year began and ended at Samhain with Bealtaine marking the midpoint of the year.)
How the cycles of the moon were reconciled with the seasons of the year and the 3 major pathways of the Sun (Mid-Winter, Mid-Summer, Equinoxes), is a much more difficult question to answer. Most of the calendars that I’ve seen only give hints at what the names of the Months (Moons) were. Some ideas can be found within an ancient Gaulish calendar called the Coligny Calendar. The names in this calendar were:
* Samonios – Summers end (Oct/Nov)
* Dumannios – Dark time (Nov/Dec)
* Riuros – Frost time (Dec/Jan)
* Anagantios – Indoor time (Jan/Feb)
* Ogronios – Time of Ice (Feb/Mar)
* Cutios – Time of Winds (Mar/Apr)
* Giamonios – Winters end (Apr/May)
* Simiuisonos – Time of Brightness (May/June)
* Equos – Horse time (June/July)
* Elembiuios – Claim time (July/Aug)
* Edrinios – Arbitration time (Aug/Sept)
* Cantlos – Song time (Sept/Oct)
This calendar covered a period of 5 years and included 2 extra months to go with the (5 x 12) or 60 that I’ve named. The intercalary month was named Mid-Samonios or Mid-Giamonios depending on where it fell within the five year cycle (at the beginning or after two and a half years). These extra months basically caught the calendar up to the year in terms of solar days. The Coligny calendar looks promising but it is only the effort of the Gaulish Druids to produce a calendar that conformed more closely with that of their Roman conquerors IMHO. I mention it here to get and idea of what the names for the moons may well be.
(Moons are not indicated, the months are 30 and 29 days long, and modern correspondences are only roughly indicated)
The modern Scottish Gaelic calendar:
I looked for the root meanings of these names. These are as close as I could come. This calendar is a bit more “Pagan”, has these names for the months:
* an t-Samhain – (samh, “sleep or ghost”) – November
* an Dubhlachd – (dubh, “black or dark”) – December
* an Faoilleach – (faol, “wolf”) – January
* an Gearran – (gearr, “rabbit”) – February
* am Mart – (mart, “cow”) – March
* na Giblean – (gibleid, “scraps, bits”) – April
* an Ceitean – (ceatha, “showers”) – May
* an t-Ogmhios – (Ogma = og, “young”, mios, “month”) – June
* an t-Iuchar – (Jupiter = iuchair = eochair, “keys”) – July
* an Lugnasdai – (Lugh = lug, “lynx”) – August
* an t-Sultain – (suil, “eye”) – September
* an Damhair – ( damh, “stag”) – October
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