however, that place must have been reserved for another. No less than three of the names seem to refer to the nights of the week as the time for eating and carousing; but one seems to reflect the idea that night cools the head and gives room for deliberation and good counsel: I allude to Mynach Nawmon, where Mynach is the Welsh for 'monk,' and Nawmon is a word partly derived from naw, the Welsh for 'nine;' while the remainder of the word Nawmon challenges comparison with the Irish Maine, so that Nawmon might be interpreted to mean a Maine who was in some way nine or possessed of some ninely attribute. This, it will be seen, takes us back beyond the seven and a half of the later week to the nineness, so to say, of the more ancient one. The Christian week as a period of eight nights is also represented in the Arthurian romances, namely, by the eight officers of Arthur's court who acted as his porters and watchmen: they are said to have divided the year between them, and seven of them served as the subordinates of one of their number, who bore a name which suggests comparison between him and the Maine that contained the others, for he was Glewlwyd Gavaelvawr, 'Brave Grey of the Great Grip.'[1]
So Celtic mythology probably indulged in a two-fold treatment of the ancient week: it was made either the basis of nine distinct personifications of a more or less uniform character, or else of a single personification with the attribute of nine in some way attaching to it. Of the former, one may give as an instance the nine porters at
- ↑ R. B. Mab. p. 245; Guest, ij. 6; but in two other passages (R. B. Mab. pp. 103, 138; Guest, ij. 254, 312) he and his make only five, representing the half-week.
