T HE C ALENDAR OF

M ORICONION
An observational lunisolar liturgical calendar

DEINIOL JONES

“Ategninum oinan māteran, berte·yo yemnou. Poteros

esāt melinodubus ac rāte wo sowonon, eti poteros esāt
blāros ac cārde tre argyon?”

I know one mother, who bore twin sons. Which one was swarthy and
ran under the sun, and which was pale and walked through snow?
 Background

That the inhabitants of pre-Roman Britain had a cycle of religious and ritual observances
governed by the passage of time- that is, a calendar of festivals, a ritual year- is undeniable.
The ritual year of modern Britain and Ireland can even provide some scanty pieces of
evidence of what that cycle was like. This basic proposition, of course, leads us to the
question of what exactly governed the occurrence of these festivals. Was it simply a matter
of the local priests or nobles deciding that the time was right? Or was the beginning of a
natural event the trigger for a festival: did the first thunderstorm of spring signal the
beginning of a festival of planting?

Classical authors make much of the Celtic interest in astrology and astronomy. Following
this, the ancient Celts also undoubtedly marked the passage of time. The Roman author
Pliny remarks that the Gauls measured their months and years by the moon, grouping them
into saeculi of thirty years: that they had formal calendars is fairly indisputable. It is
therefore logical to assume that these calendars were the organising principle behind any
annual cycle of festivals.

However, the only pre-Christian native Celtic calendar which survives is that discovered
at Coligny in 1897. Could this then serve as the basis of a ritual calendar for use in
Brythonic reconstructionism? Yes, it could. However, the Coligny calendar was used by
tribes living in the Jura Mountains of south-eastern France. It is highly unlikely that it was
a pan-Celtic calendar: only one of the months of the Coligny calendar finds a cognate
elsewhere in the Celtic lands. It is rather more likely that, like the Greeks, calendars were
localised. So, while “authentically Celtic”, the Coligny calendar is hardly “authentically
Brythonic”.

For that matter, what’s wrong with using the Gregorian calendar anyway? For one thing,
it does have the benefit (if you choose to see it that way), of aligning our annual festivals
with those of the wider neopagan community. However, we have enough evidence from
comparative and internal sources to suggest that recurring religious observences were not
only played out on an annual scale, but that there was also a cycle of observances based on
the lunar month. Reconciling this cycle with an annual festival cycle seems both logical and
elegant.

Therefore, I humbly propose the following calendar. Taking the attested Celtic calendar
of Coligny as its basic reference, this calendar is lunisolar and observational, meaning that it
follows the phases of the moon more closely than the Gregorian calendar does. It uses
attested Celtic and (where possible) Brythonic terminology and organisational patterns,
while also taking the comparative evidence into account. In what follows, we shall first
explore the background information which informs the calendar, and then discuss the
operation and organisation of the calendar itself.

The Coligny Calendar

The Coligny Calendar was engraved onto a large bronze tablet, written in Gaulish using
elegant Roman inscriptional capitals. Excellent and detailed descriptions of the calendar can
be readily found elsewhere, so in what follows I’m going to limit myself to outlining only a
few of the more salient characteristics.

The Calendar of Coligny is a lunisolar calendar, which attempts to reconcile the solar year
with the lunar month. As a lunar year of twelve lunar months only totals 354 or 355 days, a
relatively elaborate system of intercalation was used to bring this back in line with the
length of the solar year: every two and a half years an extra month was inserted into the
calendar, giving a basic intercalary cycle of five years.

The year was divided into two halves, a winter half beginning with the month of SAMON

and a summer half beginning with the month of GIAMON . Interestingly, the placement of the
intercalary month varied within the five year cycle: the first intercalary month was placed
at the beginning of the first year, before the beginning of the winter half at SAMON . The
second was placed in the third year of the cycle, at the beginning of the summer half of the
year before GIAMON.

Like the year as a whole, the month was also divided into halves. The first half was always
fifteen days, the second half either fourteen days or fifteen depending on the length of the
month. Months of thirty days were identified as MAT, and those of twenty-nine as ANM, which
are conventionally translated as “lucky” and “unlucky” respectively. Days themselves could
be accompanied by abbreviations including D, MD, NNSDS, the interpretation of which remains
controversial. These daily markings, as well as other equally obscure markings such as PRINNI
LOUDET, PRINNI LAGET , AMB and IVO have been the subject of great scholarly debate, and the

interpretation of them forms much of the academic literature written about the calendar-
notably Garret Olmsted’s works.

As well as this, scholars have also argued about when the months began (full moon, dark
moon, quarter or new moon?) and when the year itself began: most favouring the equation
of SAMON with the Irish Samhain and a consequent autumn start to the year, but a
considerable minority claim that the calendar began in spring or at midsummer. A rather
smaller portion of the academic literature attempts to correlate the calendar to
astronomical phenomena, such as the precession of the equinoxes or as a predictor of
eclipses. This aspect has been seized upon with rather more enthusiasm by groups of eager
neopagans, claiming the calendar’s more perplexing markings as indications of a complex
system of “Druidic astronomy”. Personally, I take the more mundane view that these
markings are probably more likely to resemble the markings on Roman fasti, which served
to indicate times which were appropriate and/or auspicious for legal or religious dealings.

In my opinion, the Coligny calendar bears striking resemblences in structure to the pre-
Julian calendar of Rome, as well as several instances of similarity to the Hindu and Hellenic
calendars. This could be explained as borrowing the basic calendrical system from a
common source (it is assumed that the Roman calendar is derived from those of Greek-
speaking southern Italy, which are in turn derived ultimately from Babylonian models), or it
could be explained as common Indo-European inheritance- or perhaps a mixture of both.
While it would almost certainly be preposterous to suggest that the Proto-Indo-Europeans
had a sophisticated common calendar, it is not unreasonable to assume that they too
marked the passage of time by lunar months: one of the Proto-Indo-European terms for
moon is clearly related to the verbal root meaning to measure. Similarly, a few early hymns in
the Rig Veda allude to a lunisolar calendar with intercalary months. It is perhaps worth
noting that the Roman, Hindu and Hellenic calendars, in common with the calendar of
Coligny, divide the month into two halves, with the full moon standing at the dividing point
between the two. This division is absent from the Babylonian calendar and its closest lunar
derivatives.

Modern Celtic Timekeeping

Since their conversion to Christianity at least, the modern Celtic-speaking peoples have
used various forms of the Roman calendar: first the Julian and subsequently the Gregorian
calendar, which is the calendar in common use throughout the world today. While they
adopted the reckoning of the Roman calendar wholesale, with its ties to the solar year, the
curious lengths of its month and its complex system of intercalation; some few traces of
native calendar traditions remain. This is most apparent in the names given to the months
of the year, which frequently are not simply borrowed from the Latin.

In the table below, the names of the months in all six modern Celtic languages are given.
Those names with Latin etyma have been identified by small caps, while native Celtic names
are given in boldface:
 Scottish
Welsh Cornish Breton Irish Manx
Gaelic

January Jerrey
IONAWR GENVER GENVER EANÁIR Faoilleach
geuree
Toshiaght
February CHWEFROR WHEVREL C’HWEVRER FEABHRA Gearran
arree
March MAWRTH MERTH MEURZH MÁRTA MÀRT MAYRNT
April EBRELL EBREL EBREL AIBRÉAN Giblean AVERIL
May MAI ME MAE Bealtaine Cèitean Boaldyn
Mean
June Mehefin Metheven Mezheven Meitheamh Ogmhìos
souree
Jerrey
July Gorffennaf Gortheren Gouere IÚL IUCHAR
souree
August AUST EST EOST Lúnasa Lùnasdal Luanistyn
Meán Mean
September Medi Gwyngala Gwengolo Sultain
Fómhair fouyir
Deireadh Jerrey
October Hydref Hedra Here Dàmhair
Fómhair fouyir
Mee
November Tachwedd Du Du Samhain Samhain
Houney
MEE NY
December Rhagfyr Kevardhu Kerzu NOLLAIG Dùbhlachd
NOLLICK
Table 1: Names of the months in the modern Celtic Languages

At first glance, there appears to be little commonality across the entire family (save that
all languages have borrowed the Latin name for March), let alone among the individual
branches. From this table, one cannot reconstruct a proto-Goidelic or a proto-Brythonic list
of month-names, much less anything which goes further back than that.

Nevertheless, let us examine the names of June more closely: aside from Gaelic’s Ogmhìos,
all of the names here are cognate, going back to something like *medio-sam- “mid-summer”.
On the Brythonic side, we also have the names for July, which all etymologically mean “end
of summer”. An older native term for May exists in Welsh: Cyntefin, which is cognate to the
Gaelic Cèitean- both meaning “first [month] of summer”. The Manx names for January,
February, June, July, September and October are all in origin phrases indicating either
“middle” or “end” plus the name of the season, as do the Irish names for September and
October.

We can determine from this then a common Insular Celtic pattern of naming the months
after their position in the season. Furthermore, we can also see that the seasons were
considered to begin not with the solstices and equinoxes but with what are commonly
referred to as the “cross-quarters”: were this not the case we would expect the Manx
toshiaght arree “beginning of spring” to correspond to April, not February. Perhaps
unfortunately, the names of the months of the Coligny Calendar do not appear to have any
etymological correspondence with the Insular names, beyond the SAMON -Samhain connection
already mentioned: this may serve to underscore the point that it was highly unlike that
there was a “common Celtic” calendar.
 The Calendar

While not claiming to be an authentic reconstruction of any pre-Christian Celtic

calendar, I believe that it is not unlikely that the pre-Roman Brythons, in common with
other early Indo-European peoples, would have made use of a lunisolar calendar wherein
the month is keyed to the phases of the moon, but would have also been linked to the
seasons, neccessitating the periodic correction of an intercalary month. The evidence for
this, in my opinion, can be found in the Calendar of Coligny (for the structure), and in the
native month-names preserved in the modern Celtic languages.

Working our way upwards, unit by unit, we begin with the day. As in the Athenian and
Jewish calendars, there is ample evidence from the classical authors that the Celts
considered days to end and begin at sunset. The Moriconion Calendar therefore considers
the day to begin at sunset, a fact which should be recalled when giving correspondences to
Gregorian dates. A statement such as “the current year begins on the 27th of October”
should be understood as “after the sunset of the 27th of October”.

The month is considered to begin with the sighting of the first sliver of the new moon,
which generally occurs one or two days after the “astronomical” new moon. This first day
of the month is referred to as centulugrā first crescent. The month itself is divided into two
halves, a light half lasting from the beginning of the month to the full moon, and a dark
half lasting from the full moon to the following new moon.

Months are grouped into amsterās trimesters, comprising three months each. These
trimesters correspond to the four seasons, to which we give the names giamos winter,
wesantēnos spring, samos summer and messus autumn. Only this last presents difficulties: it
is not possible to reconstruct a Proto-Celtic term for “autumn”: the Brythonic languages
largely use words meaning “harvest”, while the Goidelic languages derive their word from
*uφo-giyamo- “before winter”. In lieu of a readily reconstructable term for the season, the
Moriconion Calendar uses the verbal noun of metet to reap, which also gives Welsh medi
“harvest, autumn, September”. Each month is named according to whether it is the first,
middle or final month of its trimester.

The trimesters are further grouped together into two rātā or semesters, which therefore
comprise six months each. The first semester, giamorāton, covers winter and spring while
the second, samorāton, covers summer and autumn. The full regular year, then, is made up
of two semesters, four trimesters and twelve lunar months. The full structure of a year is
shown in the table below:
 semester trimester month
centugiamos first of winter
middle of
giamos winter medyogiamos
winter
worpennogiamos end of winter

giamorāton winter half centus

first of spring
wesantēnī
medyos middle of
wesantēnos spring wesantēnī spring
worpennon
end of spring
wesantēnī

centusamū first of summer

middle of
samos summer medyosamū
summer
worpennosamū end of summer
samorāton summer half
centumessus first of autumn
middle of
messus autumn medyomessus
autumn
worpennomessus end of autumn
Table 2: The structure of the year

Intercalation

The beginning of each semester is to be the second new moon after an equinox. In
normal years, this means that the first month of one semester should follow the final
month of the preceding semester. However, given that the lunar year and the solar year do
not match up, in some years the final month of a semester will begin on an equinox full
moon, leaving a full lunar month between the end of one semester and the beginning of the
next. These “extra” months are counted as intercalary months belonging to the following
semester, but do not affect the naming of the months in that semester (they are in the
semester, but not of it). The name given to the intercalary month is ambantaronos
(ambantaronos wo samon where it occurs before samorāton and wo giamon where it occurs
before giamorāton), a name taken from the Coligny Calendar. These embolismic semesters
(those including an intercalary month) occur roughly every two and a half years, the
systematisation of which reoccurrence forms the basis of the Coligny Calendar.

Tables of correspondence

In the two table below, the start dates of each month between 2010 and 2020 are shown,
along with the presence or otherwise of intercalary months.
 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14
ambantaronos - - - 16.10.12 -
centugiamos 18.11.09 07.11.10 27.10.11 14.11.12 04.11.13
medyogiamos 17.12.09 06.12.10 26.11.11 14.12.12 04.12.13
worpennogiamos 16.01.10 05.01.11 25.12.11 12.01.13 02.01.14
centus wesantēnī 15.02.10 04.02.11 23.01.12 11.02.13 01.02.14
medyos wesantēnī 16.03.10 05.03.11 22.02.12 11.03.13 02.03.14
worpennon wesantēnī 15.04.10 04.04.11 22.03.12 11.04.13 31.03.14
ambantaronos - - - - -
centusamū 15.05.10 04.05.11 22.04.12 11.05.13 30.04.14
medyosamū 13.06.10 02.06.11 21.05.12 09.06.13 29.05.14
worpennosamū 12.07.10 01.07.11 20.06.12 09.07.13 28.06.14
centumessus 11.08.10 31.07.11 20.07.12 07.08.13 27.07.14
medyomessus 09.09.10 30.08.11 18.08.12 06.09.13 26.08.14
worpennomessus 08.10.10 28.09.11 17.09.12 06.10.13 25.09.14
Table 3a: 2009-2014

2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19

ambantaronos - 14.10.15 - - -
centugiamos 24.10.14 11.11.15 31.10.16 20.10.17 08.11.18
medyogiamos 23.11.14 12.12.15 30.11.16 19.11.17 08.12.18
worpennogiamos 23.12.14 11.01.16 30.12.16 19.12.17 07.01.19
centus wesantēnī 21.01.15 09.02.16 29.01.17 17.01.18 05.02.19
medyos wesantēnī 19.02.15 10.03.16 27.02.17 16.02.18 07.03.19
worpennon wesantēnī 21.03.15 08.04.16 29.03.17 18.03.18 06.04.19
ambantaronos - - - 17.04.18 -
centusamū 19.04.15 08.05.16 27.04.17 16.05.18 06.05.19
medyosamū 19.05.15 06.06.16 27.05.17 14.06.18 04.06.19
worpennosamū 17.06.15 05.07.16 25.06.17 15.07.18 03.07.19
centumessus 17.07.15 03.08.16 24.07.17 12.08.18 02.08.19
medyomessus 15.08.15 02.09.16 22.08.17 10.09.18 31.08.19
worpennomessus 14.09.15 02.10.16 21.09.17 10.10.18 29.09.19
Table 3b: 2014-2019
 Appendix 1 - Coligny and Moriconion

In the following table, the months of the Moriconion Calendar are given with their
Coligny correspondents:

Coligny Moriconion
1 SAMON centugiamos
2 DUMAN medyogiamos
3 RIUROS worpennogiamos
4 ANAGANT centus wesantēnī
5 OGRON medyos wesantēnī
worpennon
6 CUTIOS
wesantēnī
7 GIAMON centusamū
8 SIMIUISON medyosamū
9 EQUOS worpennosamū
10 ELEMBIU centumessus
11 AEDRIN medyomessus
12 CANTLOS worpennomessus
Table 4: Coligny and Moriconion month names