Artic Home of the Aryans by Lokamanya Bal ... - Mandhata Global

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gives us the exact date of the commencement of the battle between
Indra and Shambara, so Celtic myths record the exact date of the first
battle of Moytura and also of the fight between Labraid of the Swift
Hand on the Sword, king of an, Irish Hades, whom Cuchulainn goes
to assist, and his enemies called the Men of Fidga. They were fought
on the eve of November, “when the Celtic year began with the
ascendancy of the powers of darkness.”* Prof. Rhys further points out
that the ancient Norse year was similar in character. The great feast
of the Norsemen occupied three days called the Winter Nights and
began on the Saturday falling on or between the 11th and the 18th of
October; and according to Dr. Vigfusson this feast marked the
beginning of the ancient year of the Norsemen. The old Norse year
thus appears to have been shorter by a few days than the Celtic one;
but Prof. Rhys accounts for this difference on the ground “that winter,
and therefore the year commences earlier in Scandinavia than in the
continental centre from which the Celts dispersed themselves.Ӡ
As regards the ancient Greek calendar, Prof. Rhys has shown
that the old year ended with the festival of Apaturia and the new one
began with the Chalceia, an ancient feast in honor of Hephæstus and
Athene, the exact date being the ènu kai nea of the month of
Pyanepsion, that is, approximately the last day of October. Prof. Rhys
then compares the Celtic feast of the Lugnassad with the Greek
festival named Panathenæa, and the feast on the Calends of May
with the Athenian Thargelia, and concludes his comparison of the
Celtic and the Greek calendar by observing that “a year which was
common to Celts with Greeks is not unlikely to have once been
common to them with some or all other branches of the Aryan
family.”‡
This shows that the ancient Aryan races of Europe knew of six
months’ day and six months’ night, and their calendars
* Rhys’ Hibbert Lectures, p. 562.
† Ibid p. 676.
‡ Ibid p. 521.