Pr Ntr Kmt World Religious Calendar Pagan Holy Days

World Religious Calendar 440
Ogham tree calendar
Saille (S)
Willow Moon
Day 1
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). Robert Graves claimed that the Celts used a 13 month tree calendar. Critics dispute this
claim. Graves’ claims are based on 19th century work by Edward Davies, who found references to the
trees in the 1685 work Ogygia by Ruairi Ó Flaitheartaigh, which was in turn derived from oral history
and older works such as Book of Ballymote and Auraicept na n-Éces.
Polarity: Feminine
Planet: Moon
Archetype: Morgan le Fay
Symbol: serpent
Folk Names:
The Witch’s Moon
Moon of Balance
Asatru (ancient Norse) information
Month: Ostara
Roman information
a.d. XVII Kal. Mai.
17 days before the Kalends of May
Month: Aprilis
The a.d. XVII Kal. designation means ante diem or 17 “days before” the Kalends (first day or New
Moon) of the next month. When counting days, the Romans included both the start and end day (in
modern Western culture, we skip the start day). When the Romans switched to a solar calendar, they
continued to use the lunar day names.
The Roman month of Aprilis is named for Aphrilis, a corruption of name of the Greek Goddess
Aphrodite. The Greek Goddess Aphrodite was considered to be the same as the Roman Goddess
Venus. Ovid said “I have come to the fourth month, full of honor for you; Venus, you know both the
poet and the month are yours.” April was sacred to Venus, Roman Goddess of love.
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, April (the second month) had 30 days. Numa Pompilius, the second of the seven
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