[371] I have followed in many points the views on Teutonic chronology of Tille, Deutsches Weihnacht (1893) and Yule and Christmas (1899), which are accepted in the main by O. Schräder, Reallexicon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde, s.vv. Jahr, Jahreszeiten, and partly correct those of Weinhold, Ueber die deutsche Jahrtheilung (1862), and Grotefend, Die Zeitrechnung des deutschen Mittelalters (1891).
[372] In Scandinavia the winter naturally began earlier and ended later. Throughout, Scandinavian seasons diverged from those of Germany and the British Isles. In particular the high summer feast and the consequent tripartition of the year do not seem to have established themselves (C. P. B. i. 430). Further south the period of stall-feeding was extended when a better supply of fodder made it possible (Tille, Y. and C. 56, 62; Burne-Jackson, 380).
[373] Cf. ch. xi, where the winter feasts are discussed in more detail.
[374] Grimm, ii. 675, 693, 762, notes the heralds of summer.
[375] Jahn, 34; Mogk, iii. 387; Golther, 572; Schräder-Jevons, 303. The Germans still knew three seasons only when they came into contact with the Romans; cf. Tacitus, Germ. 26 ‘annum quoque ipsum non in totidem digerunt species: hiems et ver et aestas intellectum ac vocabula habent, autumni perinde nomen ac bona ignorantur.’ I do not agree with Tille, Y. and C. 6, that the tripartition of the year, in this pre-calendar form, was ‘of foreign extraction.’ Schräder shows that it is common to the Aryan languages. The Keltic seasons, in particular, seem to be closely parallel to the Teutonic. Of the three great Keltic feasts described by Rhys, C. H. 409, 513, 676; C. F. i. 308, the Lugnassad was probably the harvest feast, the Samhain the old beginning of winter feast, and the Beltain the high summer feast. The meaning of ‘Beltain’ (cf. N. E. D. s.v. Beltane) seems quite uncertain. A connexion is possible but certainly unproved with the Abelio of the Pyrenean inscriptions, the Belenus-Apollo of those of the eastern Alps, and, more rarely, Provence (Röscher, Lexicon, s.v. Belenus; Holder, Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz, s.vv. Belenus, Abelio; Ausonius, Professores, iv. 7), or the Bel of Bohemia mentioned by Allso (ch. xii). The Semitic Baal, although a cult of Belus, found its way into the Roman world (cf. Appendix N, No. xxxii, and Wissowa, 302), is naturally even a less plausible relation. But it is dear to the folk-etymologist; cf. e.g. S. M. Mayhew, Baalism in Trans. of St. Paul’s Ecclesiological Society, i. 83.
[376] Tille, Y. and C. 7, 148, suggests an Egyptian or Babylonian origin, but the equation of the Gothic Jiuleis and the Cypriote ἰλαῖος, ἰουλαῖος, ἰουλίηος, ἰούλιος as names for winter periods makes a Mediterranean connexion seem possible.
[377] Cf. ch. xi.
[378] Grimm, ii. 615, notes that Easter fires are normal in the north, Midsummer fires in the south of Germany. The Beltane fires both of Scotland and Ireland are usually on May 1, but some of the Irish examples collected by J. Jamieson, Etym. Dict. of the Scottish Language, s. v., are at midsummer.
[379] Tille, Y. and C. 71; Rhys, C. H. 419. The primitive year was thermometric, not astronomic, its critical moments, not the solstices, a knowledge of which means science, but the sensible increase and diminution of heat in spring and autumn. The solstices came through Rome. The Sermo Eligii (Grimm, iv. 1737) has ‘nullus in festivitate S. Ioannis vel quibuslibet sanctorum solemnitatibus solstitia ... exerceat,’ but Eligius was a seventh-century bishop, and this Sermo may have been interpolated in the eighth century (O. Reich, Über Audoen’s Lebensbeschreibung des heiligen Eligius (1872), cited in Rev. celtique, ix. 433). It is not clear that the un-Romanized Teuton or Kelt made a god of the sun, as distinct from the heaven-god, who of course has solar attributes and emblems. In the same Sermo Eligius says ‘nullus dominos solem aut lunam vocet, neque per eos iuret.’ But the notion of ‘domini’ may be post-Roman, and the oath is by the permanent, rather than the divine; cf. A. de Jubainville, Intr. à l’Étude de la Litt. celt. 181. It is noticeable that German names for the sun are originally feminine and for the moon masculine.
[380] Mogk, iii. 393; Golther, 584; Jahn, 84; Caspari, 35; Saupe, 7; Hauck, ii. 357; Michels, 93. The ploughing feast is probably the spurcalia of the Indiculus and of Eadhelm, de laudibus virginitatis, c. 25, and the dies spurci of the Hom. de Sacrilegiis. This term appears in the later German name for February, Sporkele. It seems to be founded on Roman analogy from spurcus, ‘unclean.’ Pearson, ii. 159, would, however, trace it to an Aryan root spherag, ‘swell,’ ‘burst,’ ‘shoot.’ Bede, de temp. rat. c. 15, calls February Sol-monath, which he explains as ‘mensis placentarum.’ September, the month of the harvest-festival, is Haleg-monath, or ‘mensis sacrorum.’