The Arctic Home in the Vedas c15.17

c15.17

As regards the ancient Greek calendar, Prof. Rhys has shown that the old year ended with the festival of Apaturia and the new one began with the Chalceia, an ancient feast in honour of Hephæstus and Athene, the exact date being the énu kai nea of the month of Pyanepsion, that is, approximately the last day of October. Prof. Rhys then compares the Celtic feast of the Lugnassad with the Greek festival named Panathenæa, and the feast on the Calends of May with the Athenian Thargelia, and concludes his comparison of the Celtic and the Greek calendar by observing that "a year which was common to Celts with Greeks is not unlikely to have once been common to them with some or all other branches of the Aryan family."²