Note 603 — Chapter VI · LUNAR CALENDARS AND THE WEEK

R. Thurneysen, “Die Namen der Wochentage in den keltischen Dialecten,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Wortforschung, 1901, i, 191. J. Loth, however, regards the Celtic periods as having been employed as ordinary weeks (“L’année celtique d’après les textes irlandais, gallois, bretons, et le calendrier de Coligny,” Revue celtique, 1904, xxv, 136). He accepts Roscher’s theory of the sidereal month having furnished the basis for such nine-day periods as are found among the Celts, and argues that subsequently, when the sidereal month had been abandoned for the synodic month, the nine-day periods became artificial units, independent of any connection with the moon. But so strange a transition as that from the sidereal to the synodic month cannot be supported by any Celtic evidence and has no analogy among other peoples. For another theory see Sir John Rhŷs, Celtic Heathendom,³ London, 1898, pp. 361-366.