Of the Danish months the learned Olaus Worm in the 17th century gives two series[1016]. The months of the first series are lunar months, he says, and begin with the first new moon of the new year:—1, Diur Rey or Renden, on account of the pairing of the animals (at løbe i Rhed); 2, Thormaen; 3, Faremaen, on account of the journeys; 4, Maymaen; 5, Sommermaen; 6, Ormemaen (month of worms); 7, Hoemaen (hay month); 8, Kornmaen; 9, Fiskemaen; 10, Sædemaen (seed month); 11, Pølsemaen (sausage month); 12, Julemaen. The intercalary month is called Sildemaen, ‘the late month’. The Julian months are called:—1, Glugmanet; 2, Blidem. (the mild month); 3, Torm.; 4, Farem.; 5, Maym.; 6, Skærsommer; 7, Ormem.; 8, Høstm.; 9, Fiskem.; 10, Sædem.; 11, Slagtem.; 12, Christm. The northern Danes and the inhabitants of Skåne are said to call the first four months: 1, Glug, 2, Gøje, 3, Thor, 4, Blidel. Blidel was until our own time in popular use in southern Skåne, but it denoted February and in this position it appears in Hickes[1017]. The same series is found in Finn Magnusson[1018], but with certain variants:—1, Ism. (ice month); 2, Dyrem.; 4, Faarem. (sheep month); 6, Sommerm.; 7, Madkem.; 8, Høm.; 10, Ridem. (riding month); 11, Vinterm.; 12, Julem.[1019]. Feilberg in his well-known Dictionary of the popular speech of Jylland gives some characteristic modern popular names. Helmisse (‘holy mass’) really means All Souls’ Day, and then an old worn-out horse, whose last strength is exhausted in the autumn ploughing and who dies in consequence; hence September or October obtains the name helmissemåned. March is called kattemåned, from the pairing of the cats, or prangermåned (pranger = ‘dealer’), because most business is transacted then. These are evidently more in the nature of by-names, but it is precisely names of this sort that oust the Latin names, since they are intelligible.
In the Swedish almanac, until it was modernised in the year 1901, Swedish names stood beside the Latin. They ran:—Torsmånad, Göjem., Vårm. (spring month), Gräsm. (grass month), Blomsterm. (month of flowers), Sommarm., Höm. (hay month), Skördem. (harvest month), Höstm. (autumn month), Slaktm. (slaughtering month), Vinterm., Julm. It is true that these names were never used. The series has arisen from an older one which is first attested for the year 1538. In the latter three months have Latin names, Marsmånad, Aprilmånad, Majmånad, October is named Winmånad (vine-month), December Christmånad. These names shew that the series is of German origin; in Sweden vines are not cultivated, and December 24th is never called Christmas Eve but Yule Eve. The list agrees with one given by Weinhold, p. 8, which as early as the 15th century was common to all Germany, and the agreement is shewn also in this point that, as is often the case in German lists, the months 3, 4, and 5 retain their Latin names. When it is further remembered that Augst means ‘harvest’, the variations will be seen to consist only in the substitution of the old names Tor and Göje for Jenner and Hornung and the renaming of ‘the fallow month’ (Brachmonat) from midsummer, which is in Sweden a great popular festival. The more suitable Slakt- and Julmånad were substituted for Win- and Christmånad in 1608 by the almanac-maker Forsius: the three Latin names were first exchanged for Swedish in 1734 by the almanac-maker Hiorter[1020]. There is moreover one Swedish name which is still very popular and which falls outside the usual series, viz. rötmånaden (‘the rotten month’), so named because it falls in the most sultry time of the summer, when it is very difficult to keep meat and other food from going bad. It is fixed at the time in which the sun stands in Leo (July 22-Aug. 23; about July 13-Aug. 14, old style). Formerly it was known as ‘the Dog-days’,—a translation of dies caniculares—and the position varied considerably. The period descends from the period of the Etesian in the ancient Greek calendar, and it was not till the 17th century that it was generally equated to the time during which the sun stands in Leo[1021].
The Swedish list of months is therefore largely of foreign or learned origin. The only popular names are Tor and Göje, which also often occur without the addition of ‘month’. The Icelanders have made Thorri and Goi into mythological figures[1022]. In Sweden the people have personified these names. When it snows, Goja shakes her robe. Thor (= March), with the long beard, entices the children outside the wall, they say in the north of Skåne,—in the south the same thing is said of Bliel (Blidel = February)—and then Far Fäjeskinn (= April) comes and drives them in again. The latter month is conceived of as ‘Father Sweep-skin’: but it is possible that in far the month-name Fare-maaned (= April) appears. In Norway the names of the same three months—Thorre, Gjö, and Krikla—were the only ones in common use, and so in Iceland, þorri, Goi, and Einmánaðr. The beginning of these three months was hailed with popular celebrations both in Iceland and elsewhere in Scandinavia[1023]. And now attempts have been made to prove that these Norwegian months are old lunar months. In Aasen’s Norwegian Dictionary it is stated that the country people even to-day still count and name the moons, so that e. g. the moon which is in the heavens during the Yuletide-festival is termed the Yule moon if it continues until the end of the festival, the day of Epiphany: and if it does not last till the end of this period, then the next following moon is the Yule moon, i. e. the Yule moon is in reality the moon which is in the heavens on the day of Epiphany. The terms and the calculation of the following moons are regulated accordingly. Certainly the heathen Germans must have been acquainted with the lunar month, and the existence of the lunisolar calendar among the Anglo-Saxons is not to be denied, but in this case we must unreservedly agree with Bilfinger[1024] that this lunar reckoning is of Christian origin. Then in order to fix the date of the important movable festivals the most convenient practical means was to begin from the first new moon after the day of Epiphany, i. e. after the Yule moon. The old rule says:—“Count the moon which is in the sky on the day of Epiphany as long as it lasts, and then ten days onward from the new moon, and you have the terminus Septuagesimæ.” Hence is derived the Swedish peasant rule:—“The moon which is in the sky at the day of Epiphany shall be the Christmas moon, whether it be young or old.” After this follows the disting-moon[1025]. On account of the ecclesiastically prescribed period of Lent and the Easter festival it was absolutely necessary to be able to calculate this time, and the calculation was most simply performed in the fashion just described, although the phenomena of the heavens did not exactly agree with the rule of computation. The third of these moons was followed by the Easter festival. For this reason these three months have stamped themselves upon the minds of the people in all the Scandinavian countries. It is because they are lunar months, and not because they began, like the Icelandic months, in the middle of the Julian months, that the relationship of the first three Norwegian names of months to the Julian varies in the manner shewn [above, p. 298]. A further question, however, is the age of the names þorri (Tor) and Göje. Since in spite of many ingenious attempts these words remain etymologically unexplained, and moreover are not borrowed, the names must originate in an older period. What they meant before they received their present application we do not know, but there is nothing to shew that they are not old names of months. There is a possibility, certainly somewhat remote, that their use as names of months is pre-Christian, although the computation is Christian. There would be nothing surprising in this, if it were the case, since the Germans were acquainted with lunar months, and they had attained a much higher stage of civilisation than many peoples who were familiar with the lunisolar year as regulated by empirical intercalation.
A sure indication of an Old Swedish heathen reckoning in lunar months has been acutely pointed out by Beckman[1026] in the rule, attested from the time of the Reformation, for fixing the date of the fair at Uppsala known as the disting, which is a direct continuation of the great sacrificial festival at the heathen temple in Uppsala, the disablot. The rule, as has already been indicated (p. 302), says that the disting shall be held at the full of the moon following the Epiphany moon, and therefore exactly two months before the Easter full moon. This rule certainly goes back to ancient times and cannot arise from the Christian computation of Easter, since there would be no reason for arranging with reference to Easter the date of a fair so long before Easter and originating in heathen times[1027]. Rather is the explanation given in the words of Tacitus, that the Germans held their assemblies at new or full moon, which would also apply to the great sacrificial festival and the popular assembly of the Svear. This however presupposes that the insertion of the intercalary month was fixed in some way, so that no error might arise in regard to the moon of the disting. After Christianity was introduced, and with it the computation of the three moons before Easter, the computation of the disting-moon was also modified in accordance with these. A statement of Snorre[1028] however causes difficulty. Snorre says that the disablot was celebrated in Goe, but that after the introduction of Christianity the date of the fair was altered to Candlemas (Feb. 2). The latter statement contradicts the rule, and is ingeniously explained by Beckman. In the year 1219, when Snorre was staying in Sweden, the full moon of the disting fell on the first of February, and Snorre has generalised the single case. Goe, as has been seen above, is the name of the month, but the Göje new moon has been shewn to be the second after Epiphany, and therefore the moon following the disting-moon, which is identical with the Tor new moon. Herein lies an unexplained difficulty. It is to be presumed, however, that the arrangement of the heathen lunar months must have been different from that of the Christian Easter moons, and that this must have been the cause of the difference in the position of the moons. The heathen disting-moon, called Goe, did not entirely correspond either to the Christian þorre or to Goe: Snorre has made Goe equivalent to it, otherwise it has been made equivalent to þorre. The necessity of computing the Christian Easter has very often caused the new moons to fall after the period (Yule, Tor, Goe) from which they are named. On the contrary the disting-moon is the very moon in which the disting is held. This is certainly a survival of an older pre-Christian computation, which was later fitted into the Christian computation of the new moons before Easter, and was re-arranged accordingly.
In the other Scandinavian countries also the enumeration of the moons between Christmas and Easter was neglected after the Reformation had made the observation of the fast superfluous, or rather it was replaced by another: the New Year’s Day appears as the regulating point instead of Epiphany.
The Swedish almanacs of the 16th and 17th centuries give the new moons in words, the practice ceasing in the second half of the 17th century. In accordance with the custom of the ecclesiastical computation the new moon is (nearly always) named after the following month, that in which the moon ceases: Ny Göijemånat, the new moon of Göje, therefore falls in Torsmånad (January), and so on. Sometimes, doubtless inadvertently, the new moon is named after the month in which it falls, i. e. Ny Göijemånat falls in February. Now certain years receive 13 new moons, and therefore one intercalary moon, for which the computers give rules. But the almanac-makers never follow these rules. In two or three of the oldest almanacs[1029] the intercalary moon is certainly described as such[1030], but its position in the year does not correspond to the rule of the computers: in 1603 it is simply placed in the Julian month in which two new moons fall. Otherwise the difficulty is got over by leaving uncounted the intercalary moon or some of the new moons. Another way out is chosen by Herlicius, 1630 and 1641, and Thuronius of Åbo, 1660: Torsmånadsny, the new moon of January, is contrary to the rule placed in January; in the further enumeration the new moons run over into the month preceding that after which they are named, and the thirteenth and last new moon is again called Torsmånadsny, i. e. this is doubled and serves as an intercalary moon. Here, therefore, the insertion of the intercalary moon depends upon the position of the new moon in relation to the beginning of the year, i. e. to the first of January.
This method has become popular, and its popularity has been assisted by the fact that the people, through the use of the rune-staves recording the golden numbers, were accustomed to the calculation of the new moon. Above all the first moon of the year (nykung = ‘new king’) played a very important part. The men took off their hats and the women curtseyed when they saw it; from it were taken oracles for the new year. The question is whether a popular name was also given to the new moons. Apart from the almanacs, which use the names of months introduced into them, I find in Swedish only one example: Torretungel (tungel, dialect for ‘new moon’)[1031]. The Danish chronologist Worm gives both a lunar and a solar series of names of months[1032]. The names are for the most part equivalent or similar to those of the solar series, but in the first half of the year they occupy an earlier position, which fact certainly has something to do with the naming of the new moons according to the usual computation. Worm expressly states that these lunar months were still in use and began with the first new moon of the new year.
An account of connected lunar months among the East Finns has been translated and communicated to me by Professor Wiklund. The authority makes a man of the people speak as follows[1033]:—“The moon which is born while the winter day is still in his house (December 18–22), or after that, is the first heart- (middle-)moon. In this way the Christmas festival sometimes falls in the first heart-moon, and then we hope for a good harvest. But when the first heart-moon is born late, e. g. after Twelfth Day, there is no second heart-moon in this year, but there follow the foam-moon (so called because the snow looks like foam), the snow-crust moon, the melting moon, the sprouting moon, etc.... When we reckon the moons of the year, beginning with the first heart-moon, we sometimes get thirteen months in the year, although there are only twelve book-months.” At first sight it is very tempting to see in this account old Finnish moon-months regulated by the winter solstice, as e. g. among the Siberian peoples, which would be quite conceivable so far north. However this is not so. The heart-moon is in the given instance doubled, i. e. it is an intercalary moon. Now it is a familiar fact that the intercalary month, i. e. the first of the two months with the same name, gets in front of the regulating-point; it is therefore ‘forgotten’, and a second moon with the same name is inserted after it. We must therefore ask:—Within what limits, under the given conditions, will the moon fall which in ordinary years is the heart-moon, in leap-year the second heart-moon? The following tables give the answer: the limits begin at the two extremes of new moon on the first and on the twenty-ninth of January; we must of course reckon one day for the solstice, December 21, and not the whole ‘house’.
The regulating-point is therefore New Year’s Day: the heart-moon, and in leap-year the second heart-moon, begin with the first new moon after this. This rule however makes it impossible for the first heart-moon ever to begin before the winter solstice. It will be found that in regard to the position of the heart-month, and in leap-years of the first heart-month, this regulation leads to such a position of these months as is given in the account. The calendar is therefore not a native lunar one, but the already mentioned adaptation of the lunar reckoning in accordance with the new year of the Julian calendar[1034]. The Finns, who from the earliest times have owed their culture to the Scandinavians, have taken this process from them also, but in Finland it has not been driven out by the influences of later civilisation, just as in Norway, which long remained comparatively untouched by these influences, the Catholic lunar reckoning has been preserved.