Over the past few years, a number of neo-Celtic pagan festivals have been springing up. Some are inspired by Nordic culture, others by Celtic culture, thanks to the Coligny Calendar, an old artifact that tells us more about the celebrations of our Gallic | Celtic ancestors. We hear of Litha for the summer solstice, Imbolc for February 1st… and we read so much about everything that we don’t really know what’s real and what’s not. Runes de Chêne invites you to review the basics. And believe us, there’s a lot to talk about…
Sommaire
It all began in 1897, in the Ain region, not far from Lyon.
One November (what a coincidence!), a farmer, Alphonse Roux, finds in a field, buried under the earth, a cloth with dissolved fibers, containing bronze fragments. These were in fact the broken pieces of a calendar written in the Latin alphabet, but in the Gaulish language.
This was a major discovery, as the Gauls, the Celts of the continent, are known to have left few written traces. But this find will change all that. It’s a lunisolar calendar dating from the 2nd century. We’re in the midst of Romanized Gaul, where Celtic culture and traditions still survive, before the Gallic language is lost to Latin, favored in the cities.
This calendar is extraordinary in several ways. Firstly, it is lunisolar, with a 5-year cycle of 12 months, each month divided into 2 quinzaines.
On the Coligny Calendar, the year is divided into two parts: the dark season and the light season. Unlike us moderns, the Celtic New Year didn’t begin in mid-winter, or even in spring, but in November, when night stretched on. This notion seemed to carry over into everyday life, with the new day beginning not at midnight, but at dusk.
This calendar will also enable us to project its structure onto the world of the island Celts, and allow us to easily deduce other festivals whose fragments have not been found, such as Beltaine or Lugnasad.
If we place this calendar on our current months, we would have a layout that could be interpreted as follows :
Month Name | Lenght | Modern correlation | Associated celebration |
Samonios | 30 days, mat | November | Samhain, Samonios | Tri Nox Samoni (the 3 nights of Samonios) |
Dumannios | 29 days, anmat | December | Winter solstice (Scandinavian Yule) |
Riuros | 30 days, mat | January | |
Anagantios | 29 days, anmat | February | Imbolc | Saint Brigid |
Ogronios | 30 days, mat | March | Spring equinox (Germanic Ostara) |
Cutios | 30 days, mat | April | |
Giamonios | 29 days, anmat | May | Beltane (Fire Festival) |
Simivisonnios | 30 days, mat | June | Summer solstice |
Equos | 30 days, mat | July | |
Elembivios | 29 days, anmat | August | Lugnasad (Festival of Lug) |
Edrinios | 30 days, mat | September | Equinoxe (Mabon) |
Cantlos | 29 days, anmat | October | |
In the 18th century, a new school of thought decided to take Celtic festivals and turn them into modern Sabbats. Their aim? To reinvent a European spirituality divorced from the Christian tradition, which borrowed many key dates (Christmas, All Saints’ Day, Easter…).
However, it would be dishonest to tell you that all these festivals are authentic.
In fact, half of all neo-pagan or wiccan festivals (Mabon, Litha, Ostara)… are modern inventions that reinterpret the old in the new. Is this wrong? We don’t think so. Spirit is more important than body, content more important than form.
But be careful not to mix real history with fantasy. Both are important, but you can’t impose customs imagined in modern times on people who are over 2,000 years old. Nevertheless, they remain an incredible source of inspiration for us… and we shouldn’t deprive ourselves of that!
Pagan & Neo-Celtic festival calendar (modern interpretation)
Just for fun, we’ve included our own wheel of celebrations that we use at Runes de Chêne. Feel free to draw inspiration from it!
We’ve also written an article on the Beltaine festival.
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