Pr Ntr Kmt World Religious Calendar Pagan Holy Days

World Religious Calendar 94
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: Sun
Archetype: Taliesin (Celtic God of Bards)
Symbol: eagle or stag
Folk Names:
Moon of Inception
Moon of Beginning
Asatru (ancient Norse) information
Month: Snowmoon
Roman information
a.d. XIII Kal. Feb.
13 days before the Kalends of February
Month: Ianvarivs or Ianuarius or Januarius or Janus
The a.d. XIII Kal. designation means ante diem or 13 “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 January is named for Janus (Ianvs). January was sacred to Janus, the Roman
God of gates, doors, and entrances. Janus was an early Italic sky god that long predated Rome. Ovid
claimed that Janus said “The ancient called me chaos, for a being from of old am I.” Ovid also claimed
that after the world’s creation, Janus said, “It was then that I, till that time a mere ball, a shapeless lump,
assumed the face and members of a god.” Joannes of Lydia said, “Our own Philadelphia still preserves
a trace of the ancient belief. On the first day of the month there goes in procession no less a personage
than Janus himself, dressed up in a two-faced mask, and people call him Saturnus, identifying him with
Kronos.” The beginning of each day, month, and year were sacred to Janus. The Romans believed that
Janus opened the gates of heaven each day at dawn , letting out the monring, and closed the gates of
heaven each day at dusk.
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, January 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, January was added to the
beginning of the year (following February) and had 29 days. Gaius Julius Caesar, as Pontifex Maximus
(supreme bridge-builder, a religious title), reorganized the calendar on the first day of 45 BCE. In
Caesar’s calendar (the Julian Calendar), January had 31 days and February was moved to after January.
Caesar’s calendar was calculated by Sosigenes, an Egyptian astrologer/astronomer. In 8 BCE, Augustus
Caesar fixed errors by pontiffs after Julius’ death and made other minor modifications, resulting in the
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