Pr Ntr Kmt World Religious Calendar Pagan Holy Days

World Religious Calendar 261
Ash Moon
Day 11
The Celtic calendar started out as a moon calendar, but was aligned with the solar year during
antiquity. Robert Graves proposed the Celtic tree calendar described here. While widely used by
Neo-Pagans, many critics dispute the authenticity. The Beth-Luis-Nion calendar (the one used here)
starts with New Year on the Winter Solstice. The Beth-Luis-Faern calendar starts with New Year on
Samhain.
Each Celtic tree month (or moon) is named for a Celtic Ogham letter (first line above) and a tree
(second line above). All of the Celtic months also had additional folk names (folk names for this month
listed below).
Polarity: Feminine
Planet: Neptune
Archetype: Lir (Celtic God of the Sea)
Symbol: trident
Folk Names:
Moon of Waters
Asatru (ancient Norse) information
Month: Horning
Roman information
prid. Kal. Mart.
(pridie) eve of the Kalends of March
in a leap year, this is a.d. IV Kal. Mart.
in a leap year this is 3 days before the Kalends of March
Month: Februa or Febrvarivs or Februarius
The pridie Kalends is the eve of the Kalends (first day of the next month). Pridie (abbreviated prid.)
is Latin for “the evening before”.
The Roman month of February is named for a feast of purification. Romans called February the
“Month of Purification”. During the festival of Lupercalia, priests would beat barren women with a
goatskin thong called a februa (“means of purification”) in the belief it would make them fertile.
February was originally given over the the infernal deities, making the purification feast essential as a
counterbalance to all the evil that could occur in the world. February had 28 days (an even number)
because of a Roman superstitious dread of even numbers. February eventually became sacred to Juno
Februra, the Roman Queen Goddess.
The earliest Roman months were lunar. According to Roman mythology, the ten month solar calendar
aligned to the vernal equinox was introduced by Romulus, the founder of Rome, around 753 BCE. In
Romulus’ calendar, Ferbuary did not exist.
Numa Pompilius, the second of the seven traditional kings of Rome, added two more months, for a
12 month year. In Numa’s calendar, February was added to the end of the year (after December) and
had 28 days (or 23 days with an extra five intercalary days in some years). The extra five days at the end
of February were viewed as unlucky and not considered to be part of the normal year.
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