वेदों की प्राचीनता एवं काल-निर्णय / ओरायन (लोकमान्य बाल गंगाधर तिलक - खगोलीय वैदिक शोध)

396 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. accounts for the absence of common names for the months of the year in different Aryan languages. The evidence regarding the ancient year of Celts, Teutons and Greeks is not however so definite, though it may be clear- ly shown that in each case the year was marked by a certain period of cold and darkness, indicating the Arctic origin of the ancient calendar. Speaking of the ancient Celtic year Prof. Rhys observes, "Now as the Celts were in the habit formerly of counting winters, and of giving precedence in their reckoning to night and winter over day and summer, I should argue that the last day of the year in the Irish story of Diar- mait's death meant the eve of November or All-halloween, the night before the Irish Samhain, and known in Welsh as Nos Galan-gaeaf, or the Night of the winter Calends. But there is no occasion to rest on this alone, for we have the evidence of Cormac's Glossary that the month before the be- ginning of winter was the last month, so that the first day of the first month of winter was also the first day of the year."* Various superstitious customs are then alluded to, showing that the eve of November was considered to be the proper time for prophecy or the appearance of goblins; and the Pro- fessor then closes the discussion regarding the above-mention- ed last day of the Celtic year with the remark that "It had been fixed upon as the time of all others, when the Sun-god whose power had been gradually falling off since the great feast associated with him on the first of August, succumbed to his enemies, the powers of darkness and winter. It was their first hour of triumph after an interval of subjection, and the popular imagination pictured them stalking abroad with more than ordinary insolence and aggressiveness; and if it comes to giving individuality and form to the deformity of darkness, to describe it as a sow, black or grisly, with neither ears nor tail, is not perhaps very readily surpassed as

• Rhys' Hibbert Lectures, p. 514.