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PHASES OF THE MOON. 709
the day and solar time, whether of warriors (BA. 297), or of
servants (353), or of tribunals especially (814-6). If, on the
other hand, some new and weighty matter was to be taken in
hand, they consulted the moon; which does not mean that the
consultation was held or the action begun in the night, but on
those days whose nights had an auspicious phase of the moon :
coeunt, nisi quid fortuitum et subitum incident, certis diebus,
quum ant inchoatur luna aid impletur ; nam agendis rebus hoc
auspicatissimum initium credunt/ Tac. Germ. 11. So in Tac.
Ann. 1, 50 a nox illunis is chosen for a festival.
Now the moon presents two distinct appearances, one each
fortnight, which are indicated in the passage just quoted
she is beginning her course, or she has attained her full orb of
: either
light. From the one point she steadily increases, from the other
she declines. The shapes she assumes between are not so sharply
defined to the sense.
Her invisibility lasts only the one night between the disappear
ance of her last quarter and the appearance of her first, at newmoon
(conjunction of sun and moon) ; in like manner, full-moon
lasts from the moment she attains perfect sphericity till she loses
it again. But in common parlance that nox illunis is included
in the new-moon, and similarly the decline is made to begin
simultaneously with the full.
The Gothic for Travcre\7]vov was fidlifrs m., or fullip n. (gen. pi.
fulli]?e), from which we may also infer a niujips for vov^via.
Curiously, this last is rendered fulli)? in Col. 2, 16, which to my
mind is a mere oversight, and not to be explained by the supposi
tion that the Goths looked upon full-moon as the grander festival.
The AS. too must have called full-moon fyllefr, to judge by the
name of the month (
winterfyllrcS, which, says Beda (de temp,
rat. 13), was so named f ab hieine et plenilunio ; but the later
writers have only niwe mona and full mona. So there may have
been an OHG. niuwid and fullid, though we can only lay our
finger on the neuters niumani and folmdni, 1 to which Graff 2, 222
adds a niwilune; MHG. daz niumoene and volmoene, the last in
Trist. 9464. 11086. 11513 (see SuppL).
1 Also niuwer mano, N. ps. 80, 4. foller mano, ps. 88, 38. In Cap. 107-8 he
uses vol and wan (empty), and in Cap. 147 hornaht, halbscaftig and fol; conf. Hel.
Ill, 8 wanod ohtho wahsid.