strongholds of whose influence was doubtless the ancient calendar. Thus we find among the Taliessin-like boasts of Amorgin, the seer and poet of the Milesian invaders of Erinn, the challenge who but he could tell them the age of the moon.[1] But to return to the practice of counting on the fingers, we have evidence of it elsewhere among the Aryans, and I need, for instance, only remind you of the Greek word πεμπάζω, 'I count, reckon or cast up,' or, still better, of an old Norse word connoting the application of finger-counting to time: I allude to fimt, a legal term derived from the fifth numeral, which was in old Norse fimm. The former meant a summoning to a court of law with five days' notice, all Norse notices of the kind being given for either five days or some small multiple of five days. At first this would seem as if five days had been an incorrect translation of an older habit of giving notices of five nights, that is to say of four days, which would yield a welcome equivalent to the Irish noinden; but that can hardly be, for the Norsemen gave five days' notice, exclusive of the day of serving the summons, so that in Christian times no summons would be served on a Tuesday, as no court sat on Sundays.[2] Thus the shortest notice intended by the law would, in term of nights, be either six or seven, and not five. There is, however, no lack of allusions in Norse mythology to the nine-night week. Among the most remarkable, Heimdal's nine maiden-mothers have been mentioned as symbolic of time under its weekly aspects (p. 85), and Woden's gold ring Draupnir, regarded as
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IV. THE CULTURE HERO.
365
