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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Our conclusion is that the Germanic seasons, like the seasons in general, were not in themselves definitely limited divisions of time, and that alongside of the greater seasons smaller ones arose without there being any numerical determination of the relationship between the two. Seasons only become divisions consisting of a definite number of days when in the regulation of the calendar they are taken over as calendar divisions, as winter and summer were in Scandinavia. Where a calendar has arisen directly out of the seasons, the divisions, like the seasons, are of varying length[340]. This also shews that the Germanic seasons first attained a definite number of days through the calendar-regulation introduced from abroad. Further, when a calendar existed, the beginning of the seasons could be given with reference to this: the day varied according to circumstances, but the choice was limited in this manner, viz. that only a popular festival or saint’s day was appropriate as a distinguishing day. Here also, therefore, the calendar was the starting-point for the regulation of the seasons. A division of the year in the more accurate sense also first arose through the regulation of the calendar, since, owing to the method of calculation, the middle days of the half-year divisions became distinguishing days in the calendar. When the calendar came, the old festivals were also regulated by it.