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788 SQMMEE AND WINTEE.
carriage, and beg for money. This girl, decked with flowers and
ribbons, and named pinxterbloem, reminds us of the ancient god
dess on her travels. The same pinxterbloem is a name for the
iris pseudacorus, which blossoms at that very season; and the
sword-lily is named after other deities beside Iris (perunika, p.
183-4). On the Zaterdag before Pentecost, the boys go out early
in the morning, and with great shouting and din awake the lazy
sleepers, and tie a bundle of nettles at their door. Both the
day and the late sleeper are called luilap or luilak (sluggard).
Summer also had to be wakened, p. 765.
Everything goes to prove, that the approach of summer was
to our forefathers a holy tide, welcomed by sacrifice, feast and
dance, and largely governing and brightening the people s life.
Of Easter fires, so closely connected with May fires, an account
has been given; the festive gatherings of May-day night will
be described more minutely in the Chap, on Witches. At this
season brides were chosen and proclaimed, servants changed,
and houses taken possession of by new tenants.
With this I conclude my treatment of Summer and Winter ;
i.e. of the mythic meanings mixed up with the two halves of
the year.
An examination of the twelve solar and thirteen lunar
months 1 is more than I can undertake here, for want of space ;
I promise to make good the deficiency elsewhere. This much
I will say, that a fair proportion of our names of months also
is referable to heathen gods, as we now see by the identifi
cation of May with summer, and have already seen in the case
of Hrede (March) and Eastre (April), p. 289. Phol, who had
his Phol-day (p. 614), seems also to have ruled over a Phol-mdnot
(May and Sept.), conf. Diut. i. 409, 432, and Scheffer s Haltaus
36. The days of our week may have been arranged and named
on the model of the Eoman (p. 127) ; the names of the three
months aforesaid are independent of any Latin influence. 2 A
remarkable feature among Slavs and Germans is the using of one
name for two successive months, as when the Anglo-Saxons
1 That there were lunar years is indicated by the moon s being given at artali,
for year s tale, p. 710.
2 Martius rests on Mars, Aprilis must contain a spring-goddess answering to
Ostara, Majus belongs to Maja, a mother of gods. The same three consecutive
months are linked in the Latin calendar, as in ours, with divinities.