The Calendar

What follows is based on some notes used for a talk/discussion given to the moot. The idea was to investigate the way that we perceive the passing of time and the attempts by humans to build a framework around this. The purpose is to look at the origins of some of the concepts and to understand that these ideas are still developing by adaption, fusion and invention. I hoped that by removing some of the mystery or confusion attached to some of these concepts that it may make them more familiar when used on more mystical occasions.

It is very common for people to refer to the calendar rather than the calendars. Even that statement may seem odd unless you are aware that there are more than one. I'm not referring here to weird calendar systems being used long ago in far off lands, I'm referring to concurrent calendars in use in modern day Scotland by anyone living here (think civil, legal, academic, religious). Let's have a look at some of them and their starting points.

The fourth entry can be replaced by the systems used by the various religious groups as appropriate. Four new years, and that's excluding a bit of inter faith, I'm sure that the Bricket Wood Coven would approve.

Misleading Traditions

It is common for people to justify things by reference to tradition. In Scotland we have the traditional New Year celebrations. So it may come as a bit of a surprise to learn that it has only been at the beginning of January since 1752. The reasons behind this are a little convoluted but go something like this, based on information from The Calendar by David Ewing Duncan.

In early Roman times (753 BC was year 1 in the Roman calendar) the year had 10 months and began in March, "which opened the farming and fighting season". Anyone familiar with the Latin numbering system will notice that the last 6 months are named after the numbers :-

700 BCE - January and February were added to the end of the year by King Numa bringing the number of months to the familiar 12 though still with the old names.

153 BCE - New Year moved to 1st January on the basis that that was when "the strength of the sun was perceived to be returning" but this change was not always followed.

46 BCE - Julius Caesar introduced his calendar reforms, to get the calendar back in line with the seasons, including making 1st January the official start of the year to bring it "nearer to the winter solstice". The 12 months were alternately 30 and 31 days long, "with the exception of February, which under Caesar's system had 29 days in a normal year and 30 in a leap year". The Senate later renamed Quintilius to Julius (July) in his honour.

8 BCE - Emperor Augustus institutes calendar reform to fix an error with leap years. The Senate honours the emperor by renaming Sextilis to Augustus but "the Senate decided that Augustus's new month, with only 30 days, should not have fewer days than the month honouring Julius Caesar, with 31 days". They pinched a day from February and re-arranged the lengths of the final four months. Bang goes your neat alternating system.

1155 CE - "the English Crown determined to revert to the presumed early Roman system" the date chosen was 25th March.

1582 CE - 10 days removed from October in order to institute the calendar reforms of Pope Gregory XIII. Only Italy, Spain, Portugal and Savoy make the initial deadline.

1600 CE - Scotland adopts the Gregorian calendar but England and Wales do not. Just think of the fun, two concurrent calendars.

1752 CE - Gregorian calendar finally reaches the rest of Great Britain, reform moves New Year back to 1st January. This reform was achieved by removing eleven days from the calendar but the financial bods didn't fancy losing 11 days interest so the financial year stuck to the old new year but moved 11 days from 25th March putting it on 5th April.

1800 CE - a 12th skipped Julian leap day in 1800 moved the start of the financial year another day which is the reason that it starts on April 6th.

Having a holiday at Christmas is traditional, but it was only in 1958 that Christmas become an official holiday in Scotland. Due to the Reformation, Christmas had ceased to be a holiday in 1690. Christians banning Christmas because of its pagan connections or just because they didn't like the idea of people enjoying themselves ? Bizarre. How old does something have to be in order to be considered "traditional"?

I wondered why the people who devised this wheel had decided to use Celtic names and after rummaging about for a while I came across the following on Wikipedia :-

"There appears to be no surviving evidence that the eight festivals described in this article were formally observed as a 'set', and the complete eightfold Wheel of the Year was unknown under that name prior to modern Wicca, as far as we know.[5] In early forms of Wicca only the cross-quarter days were observed. However, in 1958 the members of Bricket Wood Coven added the solstices and equinoxes to their original calendar, as they desired more frequent celebrations. Their High Priest, Gerald Gardner, was away visiting the Isle of Man at the time, but he did not object when he returned, since they were now more in line with the Neo-druidism of Ross Nichols, a friend of Gardner's and founder of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids.[15] Lamond, Frederic (2004). Fifty Years of Wicca. Sutton Mallet, England: Green Magic. pp. 16-17. ISBN 0-9547230-1-5."

In the above quote the section up to the [5] is taken from Hutton, Ronald. The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles. Oxford, Blackwell. pp. 337-341. ISBN 0-631-18946-7.

If you would like to read the Wikipedia entry for the Wheel of the Year click here.

The Bricket Wood Coven must have been real party animals. Four sabbats and thirteen esbats a year isn't enough. We want more !

Fair enough, since we now know that the wheel is composed of two separate parts, let's dismantle the wheel. The important point to note is that one set of dates is determined by astronomical events and the other by fixed dates in the calendar. The dates of the astronomical events are referred to as quarter days and the calendar dates with Celtic names are referred to as cross quarter days. As a result some people believe that the cross quarter days should not be fixed to the calendar dates but should be placed at the mid point between the quarter days.

The Quarter Days

The quarter days are defined by the 4 main solar astronomical events. These are split between the 2 solstices which give us the longest and shortest days of the year and the 2 equinoxes which are the days where night and day are of equal length, 12 hours each on Earth. It is worth noting that these events are directly related to the astrological cycle. I know that this may be stating the obvious but all too often the obvious is overlooked.

The Cross Quarter Days

The origin of the cross quarter days, as used by the Bricket Wood Coven, is indicated in The Stations of the Sun by Ronald Hutton as follows :-

"One of the 'Ulster Cycle' of early medieval Irish tales is 'Tochmarc Emire', the story of the wooing of Emer by the hero Cu Chulainn, which (at least in its extant form) was probably composed in the tenth or eleventh century. One of the tests which she set her semi-divine suitor was to go sleepless for a year, and in setting her challenge she named the main calendar points of the yearly cycle as they feature repeatedly in Irish literature of the time. Instead of denoting the cardinal points of the sun or the main Christian festivals, she indicated the opening of the four seasons."

If samhain was shown to be on any of the other dates it would have serious repercussions. Of course it could be that the Irish Celts used one date for the start of the year and the Gaulish Celts used another. The trouble with this idea is only that it would threaten the theory of the unity of the Pan Celtic world. The Coligny calendar throws up another interesting point which in this case is taken from the Roman Britain website :-

"Two of the main Celtic religious festivals Beltain and Lughnasadh were indicated on the Coligny calendar by small sigils, and each year started with the month of Samonios, during which period the festival of Samhain was celebrated. A fourth major festival Oimelc, which occurred during mid winter, is not indicated on the tablet."

This suggests that the time of year of Samhain is known on the calendar, at least in relation to Beltain and Lughnasadh, contrary to the debate suggested earlier. More important is the absence of Oimelc, or Imbolc, if it is supposed to be a major celebration. Imbolc is something of a mysterious celebration as there is virtually no historical evidence to support how it was celebrated. In The Stations of the Sun Ronald Hutton says :-

"It was placed in the Roman calendar, adopted by the Irish by the time that written records begin, on 1 February. The festival must be pre-Christian in origin, but there is absolutely no direct testimony as to its early nature, or concerning any rites which might have been employed then. There is, in fact, no sign that any of the medieval Irish writers who referred to it preserved a memory of them, and some evidence that they no longer understood the meaning of the name itself."

When does a day start ?

The Roman Britain website also contains the following related quote :-

"Though not confirmed by the Coligny inscriptions, we also know that in accordance with general Celtic custom, which was itself adopted from the ancient Greek observance, each day was reckoned to last from sunset to sunset; not midnight to midnight as our modern Roman calendar dictates."

The idea of starting a day at sunset exists elsewhere such as in Judaism and Islam. It strikes me as being a more obvious method of picking a point to begin and end the day, along with the possibility of sunrise, as they would seem to be observable events. How do you work out that it is midnight ? The effect of starting the day at sunset as the Celts apparently did would be that once a Roman calendar is introduced the dating of celebration days would leave them spread over 2 of the new days. This may go some way to explaining the extensive use of 'eves' to start the celebration at sundown and continuing into the 'next' Roman day. In this way when Samhain is placed on the new calendar it becomes Hallowe'en (All Hallows eve) and then All Hallows itself.

The Seasons

Time and Place

It would appear that the wheel of the year is a product of its own environment. Let's look at some of the problems associated with its use in other geographical regions. The following is from Wikipedia :-

"As the Wheel originates in the Northern Hemisphere, in the Southern Hemisphere many Neopagans advance these dates six months so as to coincide with the natural seasons as they occur in their local climates, which oppose and complement those of the Northern Hemisphere. For instance, a Wiccan from southern Australia may celebrate Beltane on the 1st of November, when a Canadian Wiccan is celebrating Samhain. The appropriate set of festivals for an Equatorial Wiccan is problematic."

In the southern hemisphere there are various problems as indicated above but the real headache hasn't been mentioned; if you are facing north, towards the sun, it rises to your right hand side and sets to your left hand side. This means that the sun is moving through the sky in the opposite direction, which means clockwise is reversed. So which direction do you go to cast a circle and then which to break it ? Are deosil and widdershins reversed ?

The equatorial regions are possibly even worse. Depending on the time of year the sun flip flops between the northern and southern versions and by the same means so does clockwise. Seasons have little meaning, there could easily be 2 growing seasons per year.

I suppose that we should just be grateful that, unlike various other religions, ours doesn't require fasting. During the month of Ramadan Muslims are required to abstain from eating, drinking any liquid, and sexual intercourse during the daylight hours of this month. That is probably fine if you are in a tropical zone where there are roughly 12 hours of daylight. The Islamic calendar is based on 12 lunar months of 354 or 355 days which means that it moves through the seasons. If Ramadan occurs in the winter in the northern hemisphere, less awkward, if summer more awkward due to the length of daylight. Now imagine you are a Muslim in the northern polar region when Ramadan falls midsummer and the sun doesn't set. No, sex would be the least of your problems.

What if ?

The present difficulties are relatively minor ones. Just think about the implications of the picture above. The assumptions of the Wheel of the Year and our calendar systems are a planet with one sun, one moon, seasonal variation, and days which are shorter than years. Where will that leave the Wheel of the Year when pagans leave Earth ?

As a parting thought I'd just like you to ask yourself how you would go about measuring time if you were deprived of all our modern tools and devices ? Imagine that there are no clocks, calendars, or computers. When would your day start ? How would you measure time ? How would you tell the time of year ? Would any of this have been important if the rest of your society were equally in the dark ?

Who knows, you might come up with a better version. Judging by the difficulties detailed in the previous pages that shouldn't be too much of a challenge.

Should it ?

Talks