it's september...

and the Beard was wondering about the illogicality of our months, days and possibly our hours.... as we all know, food is Saxon in the field, but french on the table... but how many of us have realised the fundamentalish dichotomy that has left our days english and our months roman.....??? to illustrate, we have a day of the sun, a dat of the moon, a day each for Tiw, Woden, Thunor and Frey, where our months are named for a roman dictator and his imperial nephew, a god of fever and someone two-faced... and some are rather unimaginatively the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth months..... now, i here some of you saying, one of our days is Roman too... is Saturday not named after Saturn..... well, sorry to disillusion you classical buffs out there... its named after Saetere, who was possibly Loki.... who deserve kudos for teaching us how to grow grain.... admittedly, that was so that we could turn it into beer, but still..... nd I digress.... even the Germans, notoriously non adept at using latin, have stoopped to latin months.... despite the empire of Rome not actually conquering them... but then i lay the blame for tht squarely at the feet of the Church..... but my wondering was along the lines of not why did we change the months, but why did we not end up with latin days... the french got them after all..... Mars and Mercuri rule the days there.... personally i'm glad that we kept our good saxon days, and I must admit to hankering after our old months too.... and wondering why our Classical forebears, who we have been told ad nauseam were far more intelligent and cultured that our Saxon ancestors, seemed to run out of ideas when it came to naming months.... now, the Beard would far rather be celebrating his birthday at the beginning of Winterfylth, the time of felling trees for winter, rather than in the confusingly named Eighth Month (which of course is the tenth.....) at least the saxon names still have relevance to the time of year to which they apply.... Hot Month.... Easter Month.... Wolf Month.... Blood Month..... and they quite sensibly went from new moon to new moon, which is what a month should do..... and where the romans solved the problem of their 12 months not quite fitting the solar year by making their months unevn, the saxons and vikings simply had 13 of them every year, and kept the months and years eveer so slightly separate.... which to the Beard's eyes seems to suggest that they were ever so slightly cleverer.... but there we go.... suffice it to say, the Beard is not the only one that wishes for proper english months again..... and is also mulling over the idea of using paragraphs, a suggestion made to him by several aavid readers.... the problem being that such a stream of consciousness.... well.... brook of semi consciousness anyway.. doess not seem to lend itself to paragraphisation... although I did dabble with the idea of simply inserting a few line breaks in an attempt to imitate paragraphs..... but thought better of it.... but it does beg the question as to whether paragraphs would improve or disprove the beardiness.... and now, all that remains to be said is that Beard junior has started his gcses, a certain young lady is now filming in Dorset and Somerset, and the CYL's eldest will be soon off to the land of the Reconquista..... which leaves the Beard pondering on distance.... but of that, more later... the road is calling, and it just remains to be said that until all our months are as long as we would wish, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

its that time of the month....

Its been a strange year for me... starting on new years eve (which to you is last year, but not to me... more of that later...) and carrying through to today.... its a topsy turvy twisty turny life I lead.... apparently.... but back to years.... I well remember the "end of te world " mania around the so-called "millenium" with those Christian groups, and others who should have known better worrying about God's second coming.... even I, as a non-Christian got a little worried... not about God, as such, but about some loon trying to do God's work and stirring up armageddon.... but when all is said and done (as ABBA so famously said) its all just numbers.... I mean, some of us pagans number this year 1007 after the discovery of Vinland.... some of us use the Christian years... and I, along with many others, don't use numbers at all.... I name the years after significant events... so therefore I don't know what year I'm in until after its over... and to explain more about New Year.... the secular year begins Jan 1st, at midnight... the tax year on April 4th if i remember correctly... then we have Chinese new year, Jewish new year, Islamic new year... but I still get weird looks when, in October, I tell people to have a happy new year.... that's right, our year begins in October... technically it begins with the first frost, but to make it easier we begin it at sundown on the day of the new moon nearest the end of October, or on the day usually called Hallowe'en.... sundown?? Yes, as our tales tell that the world began in the cold and dark.... so our day begins in the dark, once the sun goes down, and continues to the next sundown... and then the year begins in winter... and we have thirteen months....as there are thirteen new moons in every year, and a month is literally a "moon..." which can get confusing, especially as pagans themselves don't really agree how many we have, and what they're called.... for example, to me, we are in Hred month.... the month sacred to Hred... new year falls in Winterfilth, or the time of tree felling for winter... but to some , we are in Barren Moon.... mind i always find it strange that, although we live in a supposedly Christian country, and the secular calendar has Latin months, we have kept a tight hold on the days.... our Monandaeg, Tirsdaeg, Odinsdaeg, Thorsdaeg, Freyrsdaeg, Saetaresdaeg and Sonndaeg are recognisable to all... but I digress.... I think what I'm trying to say is that it doesn't really matter what we call the days... or the months, or the years.... we all, as Philip Larkin would have said, live in the same ones..... regardless of the International Date Line.... but there we are.... the only alendar that really worries me is that one that counts downwards.... lets hope they're not right... until all our days become nights Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!