have read of, and without doubt had a faint tradition of the real meaning of the word. If he had been satisfied with giving foṫa gaiṁ as the solution, without dragging in mís, he would have been still nearer the truth, but yet at a considerable distance from it. In the first place, it must be remembered that the sam, saṁraḋ, or summer-half, was reckoned from May to October inclusive; and the gam, geiṁreaḋ, or winter-half, from November to April inclusive. Later on, the second half of this saṁraḋ—including August, September and October—was called foġṁar. The first of August, to this day, is still considered the first day of harvest. But why was the latter half of the summer called foġṁar? The oldest forms of the word are fogmar and fogamar. Now, to me nothing is clearer than that this word fogamar is only fo-gamar, for fo-gamra, and means simply sub-winter. In saṁraḋ and geiṁreaḋ the aspirated d has not been pronounced for centuries; and so the former is pronounced and sometimes written “saṁra” and the latter “geiṁre.” We have seen that geiṁreaḋ was formed from a primitive gaim or gem; but from gam we should have expected *gaṁ-raḋ, as from sam we have saṁraḋ. Perhaps there was a gam-rad at first which was displaced by the collateral form gem-red. If this does not sufficiently explain the gamra in *fo-gamra, then the influence of the broad vowel in fo-, and the law of leaṫan le leaṫan would account for it. As to the difference between fogamra and fogamar, the transposition of a vowel in the last part of a trisyllable is an easy matter; besides we still have such double forms as galar and galra (disease), iolar and iolra (eagle), seomra and seomar (room), etc.
The prefix fo- not only means sub (under, near, towards), but is identical with it. For it has been shown—I think by Zeuss—that fo represents a prehistoric Celtic *vo or *uo, which was for an original *upo—the p between two vowels regularly disappearing in the Celtic dialects. This upo is, of course, identical with the Greek ὑπο, and this with the Latin sub. So that the Irish Celts who at first looked upon the harvest months as part of their summer, came also to look upon them as the ‘sub-winter,’ the near or fore-winter. This explanation is not only confirmed, but, to my mind, completely established by a Welsh analogy. One of the Welsh names for autumn—though not exactly ours, as said before—is strikingly parallel, viz., Cynauaf, which is clearly for Cynt-gauaf= first winter, from cyntaf, first (in compounds cynt and cyn-), and gauaf, winter, which loses the g in composition.
Dr. O’Donovan, in the essay already quoted from, speaking of the old Irish divisions of the year, says: “The fact seems to be that we cannot yet determine the season with which the pagan Irish year commenced.” I do not know if O’Donovan ever gave any further consideration to the point, or altered his mind on the subject. He ridiculed Dr. Charles O’Conor for stating his belief that the old Irish year commenced with May, and that the seasons went in the order—saṁraḋ, foġṁar, geiṁreaḋ, earraċ; but it was chiefly because of O’Conor’s forced (and, indeed, impossible) derivation of earraċ (spring), from “iar-ráṫa,” which he rendered “last quarter.” Now, though this derivation of earraċ will certainly not do, Dr. O’Conor had probably other evidence for his main statement; and even if it was only a surmise, it was a very shrewd one. In itself, there was nothing at all strange or irrational in thinking that the pagan Irish began not only their summer with May-day, but also their new year. The ancient Romans began their year with the first of March, and the Jews began their civil year with Tishri, in autumn, somewhere about the equinox; whilst the religious year, to them more important, began with Nisan, about the time of the spring equinox. If the ancient Irish, who began their summer on May-day, and made it a great festival, began also their year on that day—if May-day was their new year’s day—nothing would be more natural. Are there any facts to prove it?
Dr. Charles O’Conor certainly did not give any convincing argument on the subject. Mr. David Comyn, in his edition of the Macgnímarṫa Finn, has also hazarded the statement that May-day was the Old Irish “Jour de l’An,” but he gives no evidence. Now, whatever other facts or presumptions may exist in favour of this view—and I dare say there are many—I will bring forward here two bits of evidence which seem to indicate that the ancient Irish year began on May-day; but which seem to have been strangely overlooked.
The first is the well-known quotation from Cormac’s Glossary on the explanation of Bealtaine, the Irish name for May-day—a quotation of which hitherto we do not seem to have made the most. It is as follows:—“Belltaine i. billtene i. teine bil i. teine roinmeċ i. dá ṫenid ṡoinmeċa do gnítís na draide con tincetlaib móraib forra combertír na ceṫrae etarra ar ṫedmannaib ceċa bliadna,” i.e., Belltaine = billtene = tene bil = fire of luck, i.e., two fires of luck the druids used to make [on May-day], with great incantations pronounced over them, and they used to drive the cattle between them against the plagues of the year. The cattle then were driven between the two fires as a safeguard against the plagues of the year. What year? Evidently the ensuing year—the coming year. Neither was it for three months, nor six months; there was only one Lá Bealtaine in the whole year, and on this day cattle were driven between two fires as a safeguard against all the plagues of the ensuing twelve months. If this is not conclusive, it at least proves that for some purposes Lá Bealtaine was considered the opening day of a new year.*
*Bealtaine. I believe the explanation of this word, given above from Cormac’s Glossary, is substantially the true one. ‘Baal-tine,’ or the fire of Baal, will have to be given up. There is no good authority to prove that any god, Bél or Baal, was ever worshipped in ancient Ireland. The oldest form of the name is Beltene, or Beltine; the e in the first syllable is short, and there is generally only one l. The first word, however, is not any adjective meaning good; but more probably a form of Bal = luck, now bail, doubtless allied to the English weal, Lat. val- in valor, Gr. βελ in βελτίων, &c. Bel-tene, now Bealtaine, is therefore the “luck fire,” and Lá Bealtaine = the day of the luck-fire. Many words have double forms, especially in composition, as ban, ben (woman); dag, deg (good); gam, gem (winter), &c. As for the May-day fires, Dr. O’Donovan himself witnessed them in County Dublin in his own time, and they are still kindled in the Highlands, and for the same old superstitious purposes.
The next piece of evidence I have to offer is in connection with earraċ, the Irish name for spring; a word which I have put first at the head of this paper, but which I deal with last. All the explanations I have as yet seen or heard of this word are unsatisfactory. Hitherto classical analogies have been the only ones sought for. The Greek ἔαρ, εἶαρ, ἦρ, spring, has been very tempting, and too many have lightly followed O'Donovan in making this equation. Cormac’s Glossary connected earraċ with the Latin vēr, spring. No doubt the Greek ἦρ and the Latin vēr are identical; the former was probably ϝηρ at
