Читать книгу Primitive Time-reckoning. A study in the origins and first development of the art of counting time among the primitive and early culture peoples онлайн

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Under the influence of the popular lay astrology the week was early spread among the Germanic peoples: on it and on an approximate knowledge of the length of the year, such as could easily be acquired in the lively intercourse with Christian lands during the Viking period, the system of the Icelandic calendar is built up. An indigenous element however appears, the half-year reckoning, and indeed the great probability is that the limitation of the half-year to a fixed number of days was first achieved as a result of this systematising of the calendar. Winter and summer, like all natural seasons, had at first no fixed limits. The quarters arose in the course of the reckoning, the people counting forwards in the first half of the half-year and backwards in the other half. The middle points of the half-year, mid-winter and midsummer, fell where both reckonings met. This agrees with the popular objection to high numbers. The Germanic tribes of the south, in accordance with their milder climate, commonly reckoned five months for winter. In the north the dead season is longer, about six months, and this fact has contributed to the half-year reckoning which, as has already been remarked, is widely characteristic of northern peoples. That the limits between both seasons were unstable and could be moved forward according to circumstances is in my opinion shewn by the names of the initial days of the half-year—sumarmál (plural) and vetrnaetr, ‘the winter nights’. Where a definitely determined day is in question the plural is out of place: it is used to describe a period, for instance jol (plur.) denotes Christmas-time[338].