The early Britons’ survival relied on their livestock. Shared pastures meant you had to know how many you put in (in order to take back out) and taxes were later applied per head of stock. A stock count… Read More
And say a flock of (say) 43 sheep would result in two scores and three fingers – two score and three.When you consider the evolution of counting, it seems obvious that even the earliest societies could have conceived… Read More
The Gregorian calendar (‘Western’ calendar or ‘Christian’ calendar) that most of us know so well is strictly a solar calendar — meaning it generally disregards what the moon is doing and focusses more on the patterns of the sun… Read More
Welsh literature is full of very casually used examples of time keeping termed ‘a year and a day’. As in a curse that must be borne for a year and a day after which it expires or is… Read More
View image | gettyimages.com Celts tracked the passage of days in terms of ‘nights’. But a Celtic 24-hour period seems to have begun and finished at the distinct marker that is ‘disappearance’ (sunset) rather than at the… Read More
The Celtic calendar has been estimated by scholars based (amongst other evidence) on the re-assembled remains of a 5ft wide, beaten copper, ‘perpetual’ calendar buried in the ground in Coligny, Gaul, to protect it after it was destroyed,… Read More
Experts are divided on what phase of the moon the Celts started their month. Modern, western society starts ours on the ‘new’ moon (when it’s fully dark). Some think the Celts started on the full moon because that’s… Read More
Pre-Christian Celts counted the passage of time in nights (starting and finishing at sunset) rather than days, with longer periods being se’nnight (seven nights) and fortnights (forten-night or fourteen night). The concept of fortnights is much older but the… Read More
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