Note 21 — Chapter IV · Manx Folklore

The remaining great day in the Celtic year is called Sauin or Laa Houney: in Irish, Samhain, genitive Samhna. The Manx call it in English Hollantide, a word derived from the English All hallowen tide, ‘the Season of All Saints21.’ This day is also reckoned in Man according to the Old Style, so that it is our twelfth of November. That is the day when the tenure of land terminates, and when servant men go to their places. In other words, it is the beginning of a new year; and Kelly, in his Manx-English Dictionary, has, under the word blein, ‘year,’ the following note:—‘Vallancey says the Celts began their year with January; yet in the Isle of Man the first of November is called New Year’s day by the Mummers, who, on the eve, begin their petition in these words: To-night is New Year’s night, Hog-unnaa22, &c.’ It is a pity that Kelly, whilst he was on this subject, did not give the rhyme in Manx, and all the more so, as the mummers of the present day, if he is right, must have changed their words into Noght oie Houney, that is to say, To-night is Sauin Night or Halloween. So I had despaired of finding anybody who could corroborate Kelly in his statement, when I happened last summer to find a man at Kirk Michael who was quite familiar with this way of treating the year. I asked him if he could explain Kelly’s absurd statement—I put my question designedly in that form. He said he could, but that there was nothing absurd in it. He then told me how he had heard some old people talk of it: he is himself now about sixty-seven. He had been a farm servant from the age of sixteen till he was twenty-six to the same man, near Regaby, in the parish of Andreas, and he remembers his master and a near neighbour of his discussing the term New Year’s Day as applied to the first of November, and explaining to the younger men that it had always been so in old times. In fact, it seemed to him natural enough, as all tenure of land ends at that time, and as all servant men begin their service then. I cross-examined him, without succeeding in any way in shaking his evidence. I should have been glad a few years ago to have come across this piece of information, or even Kelly’s note, when I was discussing the Celtic year and trying to prove23 that it began at the beginning of winter, with May-day as the beginning of its second half.