the reader to construe mó epert to mean that this Maine was one over and above the proper reckoning of secht (or seven) Maini, with which he had begun the allusion to them. If that was his idea,[1] I should be inclined to think that he was mistaken, and that Maine mó Epert's name is to be explained by reference to the nine-night week, and the habit of reckoning it as two noindens or half-weeks of five nights each.[2]
The Welsh treatment of the new week closely resembled that already mentioned as Irish; but as the Welsh did not borrow the Latin term, they called it wythnos, that is to say, 'a (period of) eight nights.' This week of nominally eight nights and seven days might be said to consist of seven and a half days, in our sense of the word day of twenty-four hours; and in this form we have a most remarkable reference to it in one of the Welsh Triads, which I must now mention, as it incidentally discloses a trace of the older week. The triad in question, i. 93 = ij. 11, speaks of the Three Horse-loads of the Isle of Britain, one of which it describes as borne by Du Moro[3] or the Black of Moro, the horse of Elidyr Mwynvawr,
- ↑ This, however, could not be said of the scribe of the Táin in the Bk. of Leinster, who mentions, at 55a, Mane Condamóepert last, though his group consists, owing probably to his carelessness, of only six, no mention being made of M. Andóe or M. Milscothach.
- ↑ Possibly other nines in Irish myths are to be similarly explained by means of the ancient week, such as the nine chariots always required by Medb on the Táin (Bk. of the Dun, 56b), and the nine doors of the palace called Bruden Da Derga (ib. 91b), in which Conaire was slain. It may likewise be that the four winged kisses of Aengus, that haunted the youths of Erinn (p. 151), were but the four intervals of daylight in the Goidelic half-week.
- ↑ In the Red Book version (see R. B. Mab. p. 300), this horse is called Du y Moroeᵭ, 'the Black One of the Seas;' but the older and
