Note 388 — Chapter V · LUNAR SUPERSTITIONS AND FESTIVALS

The Rev. John Grant, in Sir John Sinclair’s The Statistical Account of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1794, xii, 457. See also Charles Rogers, Familiar Illustrations of Scottish Character,² London, 1865, p. 172 (as to Orkney). In the Calendar of Coligny, the most important of the Celtic inscriptions of ancient Gaul, the lunation is divided into two parts by the full moon, and nearly all the important activities of the month are crowded into the first fortnight, apparently because of the ill luck associated with a waning moon. See Sir John Rhŷs, “The Coligny Calendar,” Proceedings of the British Academy, 1909-1910, pp. 221, 265. It has been pointed out that most of the Greek festivals known to us fell in the first half of the month, and especially on the twelfth day. “Zugrunde liegt die weit verbreitete Vorstellung, dass alles, was gedeihen und zunehmen soll, während des zunehmenden Mondes vorgenommen werden soll” (M. P. Nilsson in Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, 1911, xiv, 441 sq.).