Scarlet Vamporium: Vamporium #2 (30 page)

BOOK: Scarlet Vamporium: Vamporium #2

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Background

It is worth noting two facts here about the Celtic calendar. Firstly the Celtic people reckoned their days from
dusk to dusk
. Therefore if you were born during the day of the change over day to the next zodiac sign then you will fall into the previous category.
Only if you were born in the evening of the first day of the new sign will you fall into the new sign
.

The other fact is that the Celtic druids followed a lunar calendar and not a solar calendar. Today we follow the solar Gregorian calendar. This is the reason for the different dates compared to modern astrology.

In the lunar calendar some months have thirty days and some months have twenty-nine days. The order of the number of days in a month varies from year to year. The lunar year has 354.36 days in a year and not 365.25 days like we follow today.

Sometimes the druids would have an extra month in a year due to the “blue moon”. However as they did not follow a solar calendar they did not celebrate the second moon in a month, instead it just fell into a new month. Thus the precise dates would vary from year to year.

However the dates I have used here are the most commonly used and accepted version of the calendar. The earliest reference of this lunar calendar comes from the Sequani (or Coligny) calendar that dates back to the first century AD. It was the first recording by the Romans of the Celtic names for the months of the year.

In the past few years a number of new Celtic zodiac calendars have become available listing a number of trees. Those that I have studied do not seem to correspond to either the Druidic tree system, nor to the lunar calendar. As such I have discarded those references as I do not believe them to be historically accurate.

The Poem of the Nine Woods

Nine woods in the cauldron go, burn these fast and burn them slow

Birch into the fire goes, to represent what the Lady knows

Oak gives the forest might, in the fire brings the God’s insight

Rowan is the tree of power, causing life and magic to flower

Willows at the waterside stand, to aid the journey to summerland

Hawthorn is burned to purify, and draw faery to your eye

Hazel, the tree of wisdom and learning, add its strength to the bright fire burning

White are the flowers of the apple tree, that brings us the fruits of fertility

Grapes that grow upon the vine, giving us both joy and wine

Fir does mark the evergreen, to represent immortality unseen

Elder is the Lady’s tree, burn it not, or cursed you’ll be