262
NOTES AND QUERIES. tns.v. APRIL <>, 1912.
off by quatrefoils. January
tinguished from July thus :
January begins
may
be dis-
The last, and odd, day of the year will be
represented by W if this character
denoted the 1st of January, as is usual ; so that to follow on the next year without a break the 1st of January would have
to be represented by pj This arrange- ment would have the advantage that the same day of the week is always represented by the same symbol ; but at the same time it would involve a set of seven entirely dis- tinct calendars, which is avoided by the simple expedient of changing the Sunday letter from year to year, and always starting
with /^ on the 1st of January.
Suppose it is found, by ascertaining the date of Sunday in the current week and then counting it out on the calendar, that
h
V
Their meaning is apparent. If the Sunday
letter for any year is known, that for the
ensuing year is the next one to it, reading
in the usual direction from left to right.
Where two runes occur, one vertically above
the other, the upper one denotes the Sunday
letter of the first two months of a leap year,
and the lower one that for the remainder
of the year. It will be seen that the cycle
requires twenty-eight years for its comple-
tion.
Before the adoption of the Gregorian, or New Style, calendar, the solar cycle of twenty-eight years could be used inde- finitely ; but now that three out of every four centurial years are not leap years, the cycle is not complete until after four hundred years. It would not be practicable to represent such a cycle in the way that has
the Sunday letter for some particular year
is b then, instead of continuing to use
this symbol in the next year, the one which precedes it in the futhork must be taken. Taking the following seven runes as the first week in January,
it is seen that Sunday, in the first year of
the example, is on 3 January, and in the
second year on 2 January, which is in
accordance with common knowledge.
This change will hold good for any whole
year in the case of a common year ; but
since leap - year day cannot conveniently
i be represented on the calendar, 1 March
j will in reality be two days ahead of 28
, February, although the calendar represents
| them as consecutive dates. This means
j that the Sunday letter must now be moved
back one character more. Thus the Sunday
i letter never changes otherwise than to the
| preceding letter ; but whereas common
I years have only one letter for the whole
year, leap years have two one to be used
j from 1 January to 28 February, and the
other from 1 March to 31 December, all
dates being inclusive. The sequence of
Sunday letters is given by a group of runes
at the end near the ferrule, which are as
follows :
>
been discussed, but a jump would have
to be made once a century for three cen-
turies in succession. E. CHAPPELL.
(To be continued.)
CHARLES DICKENS.
FEBRUARY TTH, 1812 JTJNTS 9TH, 1870-.
(See ante, pp. 81, 101, 121, 141, 161, 182, 203, 223, 243.)
DICKENS was now hard at work on 'Our Mutual Friend,' the first number of which was published May, 1864, the last, No. 20, appearing November, 1865. It will be remembered by many what disputes there have been as to this title, but Dickens had; chosen it four years before its publication, and he held to it. As early as 1861 he was-
