Diarmait, it is important to notice the time of his death. It took place on the last night of the year or on the morning following. Now as the Celts were in the habit formerly of counting winters, and of giving precedence in their reckoning to night and winter over day and summer (p. 360), I should argue that the last day of the year in the Irish story of Diarmait's death meant the eve of November or All-halloween, the night before the Irish Samhain, and known in Welsh as Nos Galan-gaeaf, or the Night of the Winter Calends. But there is no occasion to rest on this alone, as we have the evidence of Cormac's Glossary that the month before the beginning of winter was the last month;[1] so that the first day of the first month of winter was also the first day of the year; and that according to the ancient Irish, it was the proper time for prophecy and the unveiling of mysteries,[2] while in Wales it was not unusual within almost recent times for women to congregate on that night in the parish churches to learn their own fortune from the flame of the candle each held in her hand, and to hear the names or see the coffins of the parishioners destined to die in the ensuing twelvemonth: it sometimes happened
- ↑ This is accepted by O'Donovan in his Introduction to the Bk. of Rights, p. lv; but in Stokes's Three Irish Glossaries, p. 20, precedence is given to another MS. which reads: Fogamur .i. donmís derid is ainm isin fogamur .i. fogham .i. gæth ⁊ mur, &c. This is rendered as follows in O'Donovan's translation, p. 74: 'Fogamur it is a name for the last month in the autumn,' &c.; but the Irish, which has been tampered with by somebody who did not understand the ancient reckoning, only means, as it stands, 'for the last month is it a name in the autumn.' I should propose to mend the original very slightly thus: Fogamur .i. donmis derid is ainm insin . fogamur .i. fogham, &c. 'Fogamur, (to wit) for the last month that is a name,' &c.
- ↑ For a few instances, see O'Curry, p. 284, and iij. 201 et seq.
