This explanation is opposed by the statement of Tille that in primitive Germanic times there were sixty-day divisions[999] from which the pairs of months have arisen, and that the fluctuation in the names of months is due to the fact that these divisions of time began in the middle of the Julian month[1000]. The fluctuation in the names of months is shewn by the frequent asterisks in the above list, and the pairs of months are:—big and little Horn[1001], the first and second ploughing month, the first and second May, the first and second Augst, or Augst and Augstin or Haberaugst, and first and second autumn. Our researches ought to make a special refutation of Tille’s thesis unnecessary. Obviously the seasons never had a definite number of days before they became names of months; both phenomena find their explanation in the indeterminate length and position of the seasons upon which the scheme of the Julian months was superimposed. Accordingly, where the name of the month was taken from a longer season, the people counted three or four months with the same name. Thus October and November are called respectively third and last autumn month, December is fourth autumn month, February third or last winter month.
The German names of months were in great measure genuinely popular,—their very multiplicity, which has its roots in the life of the people, suffices to prove that—but they have had to give way to the Latin names in spite of the attempts made in modern times in the popular calendars, and especially under the influence of Romanticism, to establish them throughout. In our own day they persist in popular usage chiefly in Switzerland.
The Anglo-Saxon months are preserved in a well-known passage of Bede[1002]. I give each name with the explanation. 1, giuli; 2, solmonað: mensis placentarum, quas in eo diis suis offerebant; 3, hreðmonað: a dea illorum Hreða; 4, eosturm.: a dea illorum, quae Eostre vocabatur; 5, þrimilci: quod tribus vicibus in eo per diem pecora mulgebantur; 6, liða; 7, liða: blandus sive navigabilis; 8, weodm.: mensis zizaniorum (‘weeds’), quod ea tempestate maxime abundent; 9, halegm.: mensis sacrorum; 10, wintirfyllið: composito novo nonune hiemeplenilunium; 11, blotm.: mensis immolationum; 12, giuli: a conversione solis in auctum diei. Of the explanations of Bede some are obvious, others doubtful. For instance one would rather connect February with the word sol = ‘sun’, or perhaps with sol = ‘dirt’ (on account of the melting of the snow), since no word sol = ‘cake’ is known. The goddesses Hreða and Eostre, who formerly played a great part in mythological discussions, are now with reason suspected as being an explanation of Bede’s. Hreðmonað is ‘the rough month’[1003], hreðness is ‘roughness’, especially of the weather; the name is therefore equivalent to the second term for the same month, hlyda (see below). In the case of eostur one might think of some lost name of a season which, like giuli, was transferred to a Christian festival. For halegmonað and wintirfyllið see below; blotmonað is the slaughtering month; the explanation of giuli is fatally wrong.
A calendar in Bibl. Cottoniensis, assigned by Hickes to the year 1031, has the same names, but unfortunately, on account of damage caused by the great fire, nos. 1, 7, 9, and 12 are missing[1004]. The Menologium Poeticum[1005] does not translate all the names. The series is:—Januarius, Februarius or solmonað, Martius or hlyda, Aprelis monað, Maius, Junius or ærra liða, Julius monað, Augustus or weodmonað, September or haligmonað, October or winterfylleð, November or blotmonað, December or ærra jula. There are missing therefore, probably not by accident, eostermonað and the second month of each of the pairs. Finally I give the list compiled by Hickes:—1, æftera geola; 2, solmonað; 3, hlyda or hlydmonað (‘the loud, blustering month’, on account of the storms); 4, easterm.; 5, maiusm.; 6, serem., midsumorm., ærra liða, Juniusm.; 7, meðm., ædm. (hay-harvest month), æftera liða, Juliusm.; 8, weodm., Augustusm.; 9, haligm., harvæstm.; 10, se teoðam., haligm.; 11, blotm.; 12, midvinterm., ærre geola[1006]. Of these variants upon Bede’s list harvestm., hærfestm. occurs frequently and indeed is attested from the year 1000. In Robert of Gloucester (1297 A. D.) the word means August[1007]. The two others are doubtful: they appear in the first edition of Bosworth’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, which Weinhold used, but are absent in the second, doubtless because the sources are unknown. As far as I can see they come from Hickes, they are missing in Hampson’s Glossary. The Oxford Dictionary says, s. v. meadmonth: “an alleged O. E. name for July”. Of seremonth it gives a late example, where the word is equivalent to August[1008]. It is possible that Hickes used sources which have perished in the fire at the Bibliotheca Cottoniensis. The form searmonað, so far as I know, appears only in Bosworth, and is perhaps a normalising of the spelling. The name ‘dry month’ (mod. Eng. ‘sear’, ‘sere’) corresponds as badly as possible to June, and is not much more suitable for August. A satisfactory explanation would be given if, as Prof. Ekwall proposes to me, we assume that seremonað = sceremonað, s being often written for sc from the 12th century onwards; the name would then mean ‘sheep-shearing month’. Fluctuation in the names of months is seen here also: haligmonað means September or October, harvest-monað both August and September. So far the Anglo-Saxon months present the usual characteristics in the nomenclature, and in the fluctuation of the names. A point worthy of note is the agreement in name with the Gothic fruma jiuleis but difference in position: this is explained by the fact that jiuleis, giuli, jul is an old word for a shorter season.
Bede’s further statements as to the Anglo-Saxon year are very important and have been much disputed. He represents it as a lunisolar year with lunar months. It began on Dec. 25th; this night the heathens called modra nect, id est matrum noctem ob causam, ut suspicamur, ceremoniarum quas in ea pervigiles agebant (“that is the night of the mothers, because, as we suppose, of some ceremonies which they performed in the night”). In an ordinary year each season had three months, in leap-year the thirteenth month was intercalated in the summer, it was a third liða and a year of this kind was called annus thri-lidi. Further, the year was divided into two halves, winter and summer, of six months each, and winter began with the month wintirfyllið. Here and here alone have we an account of a heathen Germanic lunisolar year. A priori such an account contains nothing surprising. Tacitus, Germ. XI, had already stated that the Germans observed the lunar month. The question is whether they also named the months and arrived at a fixed series, whereby the empirical intercalation of a month would arise of itself. In the last centuries of heathen times they were certainly not at a lower stage of civilisation than many other peoples in various parts of the world among whom this form of year did arise, but the trustworthiness of the report is far from being established by this general consideration.
Bilfinger has subjected the account to severe criticism, and on internal evidence states it to be a construction of Bede’s[1009]. The account, he says, fluctuates between the solar and the lunar year; for instance Bede says in one place that the year begins on December 25th, and in another that winter begins with the lunar month wintirfyllið. But this is done in any description of a lunisolar year that does not choose expressions with pedantic accuracy. Even in modern scientific handbooks we read e. g. that the Attic year began with the summer solstice, which is an abbreviated and incorrect expression for ‘at the first new moon after the summer solstice’. The learned chronologist, Bede, has, according to Bilfinger, elaborated his system upon the following points of departure: the derivation of the word ‘month’ from ‘moon’, the phrase annus thri-lidi, which really means ‘a year so favourable that three sea-voyages can be made in it’, and the beginning of the year on Dec. 25th, which is assumed by Bilfinger to be the ecclesiastical beginning of the year on Christmas Day, at that time used in England. The Anglo-Saxon names of months, he concludes, are accordingly nothing more than native terms for the Julian months, and therefore first became names of months on the introduction of the Roman calendar. The criticism is acute, but is not without its weak points. Bede knew quite well that the Latin mensis is connected with μήν and properly means lunar month, and had a very good knowledge of matters chronological; why then should he claim lunar months for the Anglo-Saxons if to his knowledge only solar months existed among them? In regard to the explanation of thri-lidi we require to know from documents that two sea-voyages were usually made in summer, and what was the goal of these voyages that there should be only two of them. Such evidence is not forthcoming. And further, as Prof. Ekwall informs me, Bilfinger’s explanation is linguistically improbable. Such a formation would presuppose a word *līð, ‘journey’, and no such word exists; on the other hand þriliði, ‘with three liða’, is perfectly regular[1010]. Further ‘the holy month’, halegmonað, cannot be explained by Christian influence, since there is no great Christian festival in September: the origin must be sought in the heathen cult, but is obscure. It is not improbable that the festival of harvest was intended. However this carries the name back to pre-Christian times. Wintirfyllið means, according to Bede, ‘(first) full moon of the winter’. With this is connected Gothic fulliþ, translated by ‘full moon’[1011]. By this parallel the lunar character of this month is also proved. In opposition to Bilfinger’s theory it therefore appears that there are a couple of facts, arising out of the months themselves, which point to the heathen origin and lunar character of the months.
The difficulties lie elsewhere. The beginning of the year is according to Bede Dec. 25. But where a fixed series of twelve months exists, with a fixed intercalary month, it lies in the nature of things that the month which is doubled in the intercalation should be the beginning of the year, since this month is regulated by a fixed point or season of the year; the month in question is in this case liða, in summer. Now the beginning of the year in the sense mentioned [above, p. 276], does not necessarily coincide with the beginning of the series of months. The beginning of the year in this case, however, is on Bede’s own testimony the beginning of winter, as among the Scandinavians. We are therefore driven to the conclusion that Bede erroneously substituted the ecclesiastical beginning of the year at the Christmas festival, and that the cause of his error was the fact that at this time the heathen Anglo-Saxons celebrated a Feast of the Mothers, which corresponded to the Scandinavian Yule festival celebrated at the same time of the year; whereas in reality the Anglo-Saxons, like most peoples, had no sharply defined beginning of the year.
Although, therefore, Bede’s account presents great difficulties, they are not diminished by the assumption that the scheme is a construction of his own. In my opinion there is no denying the trustworthiness of the account or the probability that the heathen Anglo-Saxons had arrived at a fixed series of months with empirical intercalation in the summer. But even if this was so, the case is isolated, and does not advance our knowledge of the form of the year among the other Germanic peoples. This only may be pointed out, that the Icelanders inserted their intercalary week in the summer just as the Anglo-Saxons, according to Bede, did with their intercalary month. But since the form of the year is so entirely different in each case, this agreement cannot be made to support further conclusions, any more than the two cases of agreement with the Gothic calendar.
The Icelandic months, in conformity with the peculiar arrangement of the year, do not coincide with the Julian, but begin either shortly before or in the middle of these. The series is:—1, þorri; 2, Goi; 3, Einmánaðr, because one month is left before the beginning of summer; 4, Gaukmánaðr (cuckoo month) or Sáðtið (seed-time) or Harpa (unexplained); 5, Eggtið or Stekktið or Skerpla (unexplained); 6, Sólmánaðr (sun month) or Selmánaðr (cowherd’s hut month); 7, Miðsummar, or Heyannir (hay-time); 8, Tvímánaðr, since two months are left to the beginning of winter, or Kornskurðmánaðr (barley-cutting month); 9, Haustmánaðr; 10, Gormánaðr (slaughtering month, gor is the refuse thrown away in the slaughtering); 11, Frermánaðr (frost-month) or Ylir (cognate with Yul); 12, Jólmánaðr (Yule-month) or Hrútmánaðr (ram month, on account of the pairing of the sheep) or Mörsugr (‘the fat-sucker’)[1012]. Some of these names are also used to describe seasons and have been explained [above, p. 74]. With the exception of þorri, Goi, and Einmánaðr, however, these months are not used in practical life, where the reckoning is performed in weeks. In modern times the Icelandic months have other names but keep the same position in the year:—1, Miðsvetrarm. (midwinter month); 2, Föstu(in)gangsm. (beginning of fasting); 3, Jafnðøgram. (month of the equinox); 4, Sumarm. (beginning of summer); 5, Farðagam. (because it is the legal time for moving); 6, Nottleysum. (the nightless month); 7, Stuttnættism. (month of the short nights) or Maðkam. (as in Denmark, month of worms); 8, Heyannam. (month of the hay-time); 9, Addrattam. (m. necessitatum apportandarum); 10, Slatrunarm. (slaughtering month), older Garðlagsm. (m. sæpium struendarum); 11, Riðtíðarm. (spawning month); 12, Skamdegism. (month of the short days) or Jólam[1013].
In Norway, according to Finn Magnusson[1014], January is sometimes called Thorre, February sometimes Thorre, now and again also Gjö, March sometimes Gjö, here and there also Krikla, June Gro (sprouting month); I shall return [below, p. 302], to the explanation of the variation. Weinhold gives a complete list:—1, Torre; 2, Gjö; 3, Krikla or Kvine; 4 and 5, Voarmoanar; 6 and 7, Sumarmoanar; 8 and 9, Haustmoanar; 10 and 11, Vinterstid; 12, Jolemoane or Skammtid (time of the short days)[1015].