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)
