Note 89 — Chapter VII · ALL HALLOW TIDE TO MARTINMAS

The prominence of “Eves” in festival customs is a point specially to be noticed; it is often to them rather than to the actual feast days that old practices cling. This is perhaps connected with the ancient Celtic and Teutonic habit of reckoning by nights instead of days—a trace of this is left in our word “fortnight”—but it must be remembered that the Church encouraged the same tendency by her solemn services on the Eves of festivals, and that the Jewish Sabbath begins on Friday evening.