Scholar's Series: Ancient Druidic Celtic Calendering with Days starting at Sunset

Our Day starts on the Sun's Setting.


This article with many Old Irish and other Nations/Races/Tribes name and customs. Is excellent commentary one why the Druid's and others may have used Sunset instead of Sunrise for starting the new day. I think you will find it worth saving to your own Lebor-Druidic.

While I tried to transcribe it into new text from the OCR scan and visual correction. I found that I was just too unsure of some of the Italics Words to finish it with any confidence.

So I recommend you use the original scan. But here is part of my effort to give you a taste of it.

 On the Oriental Emigration of the Irish Druids (Continued)

Author(s): Lieutenant General Vallancey
Source: The Belfast Monthly Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Nov. 1, 1808), pp. 176-181

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30072063

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 [1808] On the Oriental Emigration of the Irish Druids
The smallest cycle of the Hbernian Druids was that of the apparent daily revolution of the sun, reckoning fromn sunset to sunset. This they termed lilai, from liladh, to turn round, to turn any way; as go ros lil, from the beginning of that turn or day, from thence forward; ro ril an foraimn dhe, they turned his name, i.e. they gave him a nick-name; name, i.e. they gave him a nick-name; and hence lile, the flower called turn-cap lily; and pursued closely, through windings and turnings, round and about. Lilai was at lentgth corrupted to la, Ii, lavi, a day; plural, lavina a laoth*, whence the Greek
 geneth-lion, a birth day; and the Ehiopic lathath a day; as in wmathath wa lathath years and days. (Scalig. Emend. temp. p. 324.
 This space between sunset:and sunset was again divided into iuglh, labour or day; whence an iugh, t:his day, from Chaldean yaga, to labolur; and hence it was named dua, du, dae, dia, words betokening labour, and also light. Greek 

labour; Chal. Duah, languid; which the pcilosophic Druids named also jfigh-in t,, or a turn of faigh or faic, the horizoin (Arabic flak, the horizon and among the poets the world (Gol.) which poetic:ally signities the day,. at the end of w. hich man laid himself down to noiche or nuiche, rest; Chaldean nouch, rest, firom nacha, to cease from labour; wherace cornhhniug/, rest in a house or dwelling, Iiindostau ; comh a house, Chaldean chora ; and the sun nocht, niiacht, that is, descended below the horizon; whence niacchatar, the lower lart of the globe, in the former chapter; and hence nochl, the night.
 And God called the day yom, i. e. the hustler, the time of action and of labour, and the darkness he called laila, Arabic leil, and there was evening, and there was morning on the first day, Gen. i. 3. Hence iom in Irishis prefixed to nouns to signify action; as from raidh, motion, iomruidh to put in, motion; lan, full, iom-lanadh, to fill, &c.
 'The mode of reckoning time from nacht, the night, or descent of the sun, was practised by all the eastern nations. The Egyptians began their dayat midnight; from them Hippocrates introduced that way of reckoning into Astronomy, and Copernicus and others have followed him, because the  disappearance of the sun happened at different hours, according to the seasons. This method prevails also in Great Britain, France, Spain, and most part of Europe. T'he African Numidians did the same. (Bochart vol. i.p. 1184). But in several parts of Germany they still begin their days at sun-setting, and reckon on till it sets again. Nutt night, the civil day (lhre.) Caesar says of the Gauls; they determine the duration of time, not by the numbeer of the days but of the nights.
 The Jews also began their Nychthemeron at sun-setting; but then they divided it into twice txelve hours, as we do, reckoning twelve for the day, be it long or short, and twelve for the night: so that their hours continually varying with the day and night, the hours of the day were longer than those of the night for one half year, and the contrary the other: whence their hours are called temporary: those at the time of the equinoxes became equal, because then those of the day and night are so.
Hence the space of fourteen days is called a fortnight ; but the Irish still preserve the original word la, a night  as ccathar la deag, fourteen nights, a fortnight. All which tend to confirm the words of the inspired penman Moses, as quoted in the preceding paragraph. But to what extravagant and wicked ideas has not this text carried the idolatrous phlosopher! The Chinese begin their days at midnight, because, say they, the chaos was unfolded at that hour. Hesiod says that chaos was the son of Erebus, and night the mother of the Gods: and that is the reason the day is reckoned from midnight, as if to perpetuate the remembrance of the renovation of the world, says a modern French plhilosopher, half Brahmin, half Christian.

OF GREATER CYCLES.
 The fragments of Irish Astronomy abound with names for cycles, periods, &c, which admit of the strongest proof, whence thie Hibernian Drunids drew their knowledge of Astronomy.

 1. BAR. The cycle of a Month whence Gion-bar or Gionvar, January; Faoi-bhar, February, and hentce September, October, &c. And this is probably the Ilindoo war, a day, signifyig a revolution of the sun; Eswara, the cyclic Isa, the moon. (Eas, in Irish the moon. Bar, a month, proceeds firom the Chaldee, bara, to renewr, applied to the renewal of the; moon, synonymous to Chudas
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