[797] Tille, Y. and C. 57.
[798] Rhys, C. H. 513, says that the Samhain fell on Nov. 1. The preceding night was known as Nos Galan-geaf, the ‘night of winter calends,’ and that following as Dy’ gwyl y Meirw, ‘the feast of the Dead.’ In F. L. ii. 308 he gives the date of the Manx Samhain as Nov. 12, and explains this as being Nov. 1, O. S. But is it not really the original date of the feast which has been shifted elsewhere to the beginning of the month?
[799] Tille, Y. and C. 12, citing M. Heyne, Ulfilas, 226: ‘In a Gothic calendarium of the sixth century November, or Naubaímbaír, is called fruma Iiuleis, which presupposes that December was called *aftuma Iiuleis.’
[800] Bede, de temp. rat. c. 15. Tille, Y. and C. 20, points out that the application of the old tide-name to fit November and December by the Goths and December and January by the Anglo-Saxons is fair evidence for the belief that the tide itself corresponded to a period from mid-November to mid-January.
[801] Tille, Y. and C. 147. The terms gehhol, geóhel, geól, giúl, iûl, &c. signify the Christmas festival season from the ninth century onwards, and from the eleventh also Christmas Day itself. The fifteenth-century forms are Yule, Ywle, Yole, Yowle. In the A.-S. Chronicle the terms used for Christmas are ‘midewinter,’ ‘Cristes mæssa,’ ‘Cristes tyde,’ ‘Natiuitedh.’ As a single word ‘Cristesmesse’ appears first in 1131 (Tille, Y. and C. 159). The German ‘Weihnacht’ (M.H.G. wich, ‘holy’) appears †1000 (Tille, D. W. 22).
[802] Pfannenschmidt, 238, 512.
[803] The notion is of a circular course of the sun, passing through the four turning-or wheeling-points of the solstices and equinoxes. Cf. ch. vi for the use of the wheel as a solar symbol.
[804] Mogk, iii. 391, quoting Kluge, Englische Studien, ix. 311, and Bugge, Ark. f. nord. Filolog. iv. 135. Tille, Y. and C. 8, 148, desirous to establish an Oriental origin for the Three Score Day tides, doubts the equation *jehwela = ioculus, and suggests a connexion between the Teutonic terms and the old Cypriote names ἰλαῖος, ἰουλαῖος, ἰουλίηος, ἰούλιος for the period Dec. 22 to Jan. 23 (K. F. Hermann, Über griech. Monatskunde, 64), and, more hesitatingly, with the Greek Ἴουλος or hymn to Ceres. Weinhold, Deutsche Monatsnamen, 4; Deutsche Jahrteilung, 15, thinks that both the Teutonic and Cypriote names are the Roman Julius transferred from mid-summer to mid-winter. Northall, 208, makes yule = ol, oel, a feast or ‘ale,’ for which I suppose there is nothing to be said. Skeat, Etym. Dict. s. v., makes it ‘a time of revelry,’ and connects with M.E. youlen, yollen, to ‘yawl’ or ‘yell,’ and with A.-S. gýlan, Dutch joelen, to make merry, G. jolen, jodeln, to sing out. He thus gets in a different way much the sense given in the text.
[805] At a Cotswold Whitsun ale a lord and lady ‘of yule’ were chosen (Gloucester F. L. 56). Rhys, C. H. 412, 421, 515, and in F. L. ii. 305, gives Gwyl as a Welsh term for ‘feast’ in general, and in particular mentions, besides the Gwyl y Meirw at the Samhain, the Gwyl Aust (Aug. 1, Lammas or Lugnassad Day). This also appears in Latin as the Gula Augusti (Ducange, s. v. temp. Edw. III), and in English as ‘the Gule of August’ (Hearne, Robert of Gloucester’s Chron. 679). Tille, Y. and C. 56, declares that Gula here is only a mutilation of Vincula, Aug. 1 being in the ecclesiastical calendar the feast of St. Peter ad Vincula.
[806] Kluge and Lutz, English Etymology, s. v. Yule.