THE ANCIENT IRISH DIVISION OF THE YEAR.
(Continued.)
Whilst the division of the year into two main seasons prevailed in Erin for a long time—how long we do not know—it is quite certain that the sub-division into four quarters is also of ancient date, and was known in pagan times. The fact that the Welsh have hâf and gauaf—our saṁ and gaṁ—certainly points to a time when the Celts were one people, all alike dividing their year into SAM and GAM or SAMAS and GAMAS; but the fact that they have not our words for autumn and spring but others, proves as certainly that the sub-division into four seasons came later, when the Gaedhil and Cymry had separated, and had become two nations.
The Irish name for autumn or harvest is foġṁar, and for spring earraċ. Of these names I have never met with any adequate explanation; and if anyone has rightly explained them, or anticipated what I am going to say about them, I am not aware of it. I think I can show that the words themselves bear traces of their late formation.
Of foġṁar different explanations have been hazarded. O’Donovan took credit for suggesting it was the same as the Greek ὀπώρα, fruit-time. Philologically, nothing could be wilder than this comparison; but he quotes O’Clery’s Glossary as giving another origin: “foġṁar .i. foṫa mís n-gaiṁ,” i.e., foundation of the months of winter. Now, whether O’Clery himself, or some older writer, is to be credited with this guess, whoever started it seems to have got nearer the truth than any one else I [ 46 ]have read of, and without doubt had a faint tradition of the real meaning of the word. If he had been satisfied with giving foṫa gaiṁ as the solution, without dragging in mís, he would have been still nearer the truth, but yet at a considerable distance from it. In the first place, it must be remembered that the sam, saṁraḋ, or summer-half, was reckoned from May to October inclusive; and the gam, geiṁreaḋ, or winter-half, from November to April inclusive. Later on, the second half of this saṁraḋ—including August, September and October—was called foġṁar. The first of August, to this day, is still considered the first day of harvest. But why was the latter half of the summer called foġṁar? The oldest forms of the word are fogmar and fogamar. Now, to me nothing is clearer than that this word fogamar is only fo-gamar, for fo-gamra, and means simply sub-winter. In saṁraḋ and geiṁreaḋ the aspirated d has not been pronounced for centuries; and so the former is pronounced and sometimes written “saṁra” and the latter “geiṁre.” We have seen that geiṁreaḋ was formed from a primitive gaim or gem; but from gam we should have expected *gaṁ-raḋ, as from sam we have saṁraḋ. Perhaps there was a gam-rad at first which was displaced by the collateral form gem-red. If this does not sufficiently explain the gamra in *fo-gamra, then the influence of the broad vowel in fo-, and the law of leaṫan le leaṫan would account for it. As to the difference between fogamra and fogamar, the transposition of a vowel in the last part of a trisyllable is an easy matter; besides we still have such double forms as galar and galra (disease), iolar and iolra (eagle), seomra and seomar (room), etc.
The prefix fo- not only means sub (under, near, towards), but is identical with it. For it has been shown—I think by Zeuss—that fo represents a prehistoric Celtic *vo or *uo, which was for an original *upo—the p between two vowels regularly disappearing in the Celtic dialects. This upo is, of course, identical with the Greek ὑπο, and this with the Latin sub. So that the Irish Celts who at first looked upon the harvest months as part of their summer, came also to look upon them as the ‘sub-winter,’ the near or fore-winter. This explanation is not only confirmed, but, to my mind, completely established by a Welsh analogy. One of the Welsh names for autumn—though not exactly ours, as said before—is strikingly parallel, viz., Cynauaf, which is clearly for Cynt-gauaf= first winter, from cyntaf, first (in compounds cynt and cyn-), and gauaf, winter, which loses the g in composition.
Dr. O’Donovan, in the essay already quoted from, speaking of the old Irish divisions of the year, says: “The fact seems to be that we cannot yet determine the season with which the pagan Irish year commenced.” I do not know if O’Donovan ever gave any further consideration to the point, or altered his mind on the subject. He ridiculed Dr. Charles O’Conor for stating his belief that the old Irish year commenced with May, and that the seasons went in the order—saṁraḋ, foġṁar, geiṁreaḋ, earraċ; but it was chiefly because of O’Conor’s forced (and, indeed, impossible) derivation of earraċ (spring), from “iar-ráṫa,” which he rendered “last quarter.” Now, though this derivation of earraċ will certainly not do, Dr. O’Conor had probably other evidence for his main statement; and even if it was only a surmise, it was a very shrewd one. In itself, there was nothing at all strange or irrational in thinking that the pagan Irish began not only their summer with May-day, but also their new year. The ancient Romans began their year with the first of March, and the Jews began their civil year with Tishri, in autumn, somewhere about the equinox; whilst the religious year, to them more important, began with Nisan, about the time of the spring equinox. If the ancient Irish, who began their summer on May-day, and made it a great festival, began also their year on that day—if May-day was their new year’s day—nothing would be more natural. Are there any facts to prove it?
Dr. Charles O’Conor certainly did not give any convincing argument on the subject. Mr. David Comyn, in his edition of the Macgnímarṫa Finn, has also hazarded the statement that May-day was the Old Irish “Jour de l’An,” but he gives no evidence. Now, whatever other facts or presumptions may exist in favour of this view—and I dare say there are many—I will bring forward here two bits of evidence which seem to indicate that the ancient Irish year began on May-day; but which seem to have been strangely overlooked.
The first is the well-known quotation from Cormac’s Glossary on the explanation of Bealtaine, the Irish name for May-day—a quotation of which hitherto we do not seem to have made the most. It is as follows:—“Belltaine i. billtene i. teine bil i. teine roinmeċ i. dá ṫenid ṡoinmeċa do gnítís na draide con tincetlaib móraib forra combertír na ceṫrae etarra ar ṫedmannaib ceċa bliadna,” i.e., Belltaine = billtene = tene bil = fire of luck, i.e., two fires of luck the druids used to make [on May-day], with great incantations pronounced over them, and they used to drive the cattle between them against the plagues of the year. The cattle then were driven between the two fires as a safeguard against the plagues of the year. What year? Evidently the ensuing year—the coming year. Neither was it for three months, nor six months; there was only one Lá Bealtaine in the whole year, and on this day cattle were driven between two fires as a safeguard against all the plagues of the ensuing twelve months. If this is not conclusive, it at least proves that for some purposes Lá Bealtaine was considered the opening day of a new year.*
*Bealtaine. I believe the explanation of this word, given above from Cormac’s Glossary, is substantially the true one. ‘Baal-tine,’ or the fire of Baal, will have to be given up. There is no good authority to prove that any god, Bél or Baal, was ever worshipped in ancient Ireland. The oldest form of the name is Beltene, or Beltine; the e in the first syllable is short, and there is generally only one l. The first word, however, is not any adjective meaning good; but more probably a form of Bal = luck, now bail, doubtless allied to the English weal, Lat. val- in valor, Gr. βελ in βελτίων, &c. Bel-tene, now Bealtaine, is therefore the “luck fire,” and Lá Bealtaine = the day of the luck-fire. Many words have double forms, especially in composition, as ban, ben (woman); dag, deg (good); gam, gem (winter), &c. As for the May-day fires, Dr. O’Donovan himself witnessed them in County Dublin in his own time, and they are still kindled in the Highlands, and for the same old superstitious purposes.
The next piece of evidence I have to offer is in connection with earraċ, the Irish name for spring; a word which I have put first at the head of this paper, but which I deal with last. All the explanations I have as yet seen or heard of this word are unsatisfactory. Hitherto classical analogies have been the only ones sought for. The Greek ἔαρ, εἶαρ, ἦρ, spring, has been very tempting, and too many have lightly followed O'Donovan in making this equation. Cormac’s Glossary connected earraċ with the Latin vēr, spring. No doubt the Greek ἦρ and the Latin vēr are identical; the former was probably ϝηρ at [ 47 ]first, till it lost the digamma. But when roots which began with the digamma in Greek are common to Latin and Irish, in the former of these they begin with v, and in the latter with f. Such are οἶνος (for ϝοινος), Latin vinum, O. Ir. fín (now fíon), Eng. wine; εἴκοσι, Doric εἴκατι, Latin viginti, Ir. fiċe; Eng. twenty; οἶσα, Lat. vīdī, O. I. fetar (now feadar), Eng. wit, wot. If the Irish for spring were the same as the Greek and Latin, it should therefore be “fér;” but it was neither fér nor féraċ, it was erraċ (now earraċ), with never a sign of an f. The real Irish analogue of ἦρ and ver is fér (now feur, grass), which most probably was the original meaning of the classical words the bright new grass being one of the most striking signs of spring. Another flaw in the comparison of erraċ with ἦρ and ver is that the Irish word has a double r; whilst there is but one in the classical words, and the ending of erraċ is left quite unaccounted for.
But whilst the Aryan tongues have, of course, many words in common, there are also differences. It does not follow that every Irish word must have a classical analogy, or, at least, it does not follow that such analogies must have the same meaning. Gam, as we have seen, has such analogies, but sam has not; the Greek for summer, θέρος, and the Latin aestas, show no connection with our word, nor with each other. Another explanation of earraċ was offered by the late Canon Bourke in one of his numerous speculations. He suggested the Irish word éirġe, to rise, as the root of earraċ. This has the analogy of the English spring (noun and verb) in its favour; but though there are infinitives and verbals in Irish ending in -aċ, as glaoḋaċ, ceannaċ, etc, the infinitive of the Irish for rise never ended in -aċ; it was érge (now éirġe) for ess-rige, with long e and one r; whilst earraċ has two r’s and a short e.
If May began the year, then the spring season—February, March, April—formed the end of the year. What if earraċ should mean the end? This, I believe, is the true explanation a natural, unforced, Irish explanation, satisfactory in itself, and giving further proof that the Irish pagan year began with May. I consider err-aċ, then, a plain derivative of err, an end or conclusion; later, earr. The simple word earr, which has well-known Teutonic analogies, is, I think, obsolete,[1] now in Ireland; but it is found in some late writers. In a poem written about 1660, by O’Clery (one of the IV. MM.), and given in O’Curry’s MS. Materials (p. 564), the second half of the 12th stanza runs:—
“Maiṫ leam nár láġdaiġ do ċáil
’S gur árdaiġ earr dom anáil.”
That is: “Glad am I thy fame has not diminished, and that my last breath (lit. end of my breath) has extolled it.” And in another poem by the same writer, and quoted in the same work (p. 569), occur the lines:—
Déna an t-inċreaċaḋ dliġe
O ṫús go h-eirr ṫ’ aimsire.”
That is: “Make thou all due criticism of thy life from beginning to end.” Dr. O’Brien, in his Irish Dictionary (1760), gives earr, with a couple of phrases to illustrate it: “duine a n-earr a aoise,” i. a man at the end of his life, in the decline of his years; “a n-earr na tíre i. in the end of the country. Examples of err from ancient writers are still more common; but I need not give more here.
Why earraċ and not earr? In many nouns the Irish suffix -aċ forms augmentatives. Thus, from tos we have tosaċ, beginning, (the exact counterpart of earraċ); from tul, tulaċ (hill); from ceap, ceapaċ (plot of ground); from brat, brataċ (a flag); etc. So earraċ from earr: whilst earr would mean an exact restricted end, earraċ would mean a fuller, more extended end.
“But end of what?” it may be asked. Earraċ with this meaning would be merely a relative word, and how could it come to have an absolute and definite meaning of itself? Well, nothing is commoner in Irish—and, indeed, in other languages too—than for a merely relative term to acquire after a time, generally by abbreviation, an absolute sense. So now we use uaċtar (cream) for uaċtar bainne (upper milk). Inid, shrovetide. Welsh Ynyd, for Initium Quadragesimae—if it is not for Initium jejunii, etc., etc. Perhaps earraċ at first was for earraċ in gaim, end of winter—for our Irish spring has a repute for chilliness as many of our native proverbs testify. I believe, however, that what was meant was earraċ na bliaḋna = the year’s end, and I am inclined to think that this expression—“earraċ na bliaḋna”—so often met with in the Annals and other writings, though, no doubt, in Christian times it was used in the sense of “the spring of the year,” meant at first “the end of the year; but that when the new mode of reckoning was introduced with Christianity, the old name earraċ was still retained for the season, whilst in its original and true sense, its place was taken by such words as foirċeann, deireaḋ, diaiḋ, etc. This mode of naming a season is, moreover, quite agreeable to our Irish custom; witness Inid, already given, and the well-known popular way of naming the months ‘first-month-of-spring,’ ‘mid-month-of-spring,’ ‘end-month-of-spring,’ etc.
I have come to the conclusion then that Dr. Charles O’Conor arrived at with regard to the year and its seasons—that May began the year, that the seasons in their order were saṁraḋ, foġṁar, geiṁreaḋ, earraċ, that earraċ was the last of the seasons, and the end of the year. I have come to this conciusion, however, more easily, more directly, and, I hope, more reasonably than Dr. O’Conor. Yet, my object in this paper was not so much archæological as etymological. Irish etymology is as yet almost an unbroken field—I mean real, modern, scientific etymology—but, perhaps, the slight excursion I have here made, will give some idea of the important bearing the subject may have on many points of Irish history and archæology.
Tomás O’Flannaoile.