CHAPTER VI.
THE CELTIC YEAR.
Bliadhna, a year, has been derived by writers on Celtic antiquities from Bel-ain, “the ring or circle of Baal,” but the derivation is at variance with etymological analogies, as well as inadmissible from there being no satisfactory evidence that Baalim worship ever extended to the Celtic tribes. It can only be regarded as part of that punning affectation with which Gaelic scholarship is disfigured. The initial bl occurs in many words which have in common the idea of separation, and bliadhna is likely connected with such words as bloigh, a fragment; ball, a spot, a limb, and denotes merely a division, or separate portion, of time.
The notations of the Celtic year belong to the Christian period, old style. If there are any traces of Pagan times they are only such as are to be gathered from a few names and ceremonies.
The four seasons are known as earrach, spring, samhradh, summer, fogharadh, harvest, and geamhradh, winter. The final syllable in each of these names is ràidh, a quarter or season of the year, a space of three months; and the student of Gaelic will note that the long and heavy vowel, of which it consists, is, contrary to the common rule affecting long vowels, shortened and made an apparently indifferent terminal syllable. It is still deemed, in many parts of the Highlands, unlucky to be proclaimed in one quarter of the year and married in the next, and the circumstance is called being “astride on the seasons” (gobhlach mu’n ràidh). It is an old saying, that the appearance of a season comes a month before its actual arrival; mìos roi gach ràidh choltas, i.e. a month before each season, is seen its appearance. The character of the seasons is described in an old riddle,
“Four came over,
Without boat or ship,
One yellow and white,
One brown, abounding in twigs,
One to handle the flail