296 



NA TURE 



[July 25, 1907 



It is the clear truth of the setthig of the story that 

 strikes us most. What Patrick attacked was a pagan 

 (iorsedd, and the incident is of fjreat value as showinjj 

 the use of the stone circle in the fifth century. We 

 .seem to see it in use in the earliest of Welsh tales, but 

 we cannot assign definite periods to the incidents re- 

 corded. Here, however, we have a fairly historical 

 episode, which should be read with Geoffrey of Mon- 

 mouth's account of the May festival at .Stonehenge, 

 also in the fifth century. The .Slecht Gorsedd was the 

 same in plan as the present Welsh one- a large stone 

 surrounded by twelve other stones. The disappear- 

 ance of the former goes far to prove the truth of the 

 history. In Wales the (iorsedd was not suppressed in 

 the interests of Christianity. It actually received 

 Christian baptism. The first Gorsedd after the intro- 

 duction of Christianity among the Welsh is called in 

 the bardic records " Cadair Fedydd," baptismal 

 chair.. It is an expression (h.it e.xplains how in 



z».. 



-<( i^iCu^ 



's- . "If 



'3i 



Fig. I.— Diagram showing changes of the equinox-solstice date. 



Wales it is unreasonable to look for any gap in the 

 history of the Gorsedd there. 



.Our author has. narrowed the inquiry into the birth- 

 place of Patrick to the Severn est'uarv. Had he 

 used some W'elsh traditions about Patrick in Glamor- 

 gan he might have settled the question for good. 

 There is a persistent tradition that Patrick was kid- 

 napped by " pike-bearing " Irishmen from Ll.mtwit- 

 Major, in that county, and Mr. T. C. Evans (Cadrawd) 

 has found three Banwens in that neighbourhood, either 

 of which would suit for the Bannaventa mentioned as 

 Patrick's home. 



The accompanying diagram, (Fig. i) embodies the 

 metJiod by mean.s. of which Sir Norman L()cky.er w.is 

 able.to note the equinoctial significance of St. Patrick's 

 Day, before the facts mentioned by the present writer 

 Vk-ere avail.-ible. Such a di;igram mav prove very 

 useful to the historian. The changes in date have 

 been calculated as from the Council of Nice, and each 



NO. 1969, VOL. 76] 



change represents an error of a day in 129 years. By 

 a similar calculation as from B.C. 46, the beginning 

 of the Julian Year, the 17th was an equinox date 

 from A.I). 72S to iS5i), covering the whole period dur- 

 ing which the p.irliculars about Patrick were put 

 together for an ecclesiastical purpose. 



The present writer has found the following work- 

 ing hypothesis very useful in determining the signifi- 

 cance of anomalous or irregular fair days. .Vny dates 

 between the loth .md the 20th in March, June, Sep- 

 tember, and December may be suspected to be arrested 

 solar davs. When other evidence confirms such a 

 supposition, the period of the institution of the fair or 

 festival mav be found by means of the above diagram. 

 The process of arrest referred to is very evident in the 

 case of fairs. In 1824 there were two three-days' fairs 

 held at Bradford. One was on December q, 10, 

 and II, being the dates of the fair before the change 

 of style. The other fair was on June 17, 18, and 

 i(). If the last figure is to be regarded as the 

 solstice, we are taken back to 600 .\.D. But it would 

 be safer to regard the 17th as being the first of the 

 three solstitial days, and that in the ninth century. 

 The i7tli is .an important fair d.i\ , and it happens that 

 .St. -Mban's D.iv is given in English calendars as 

 June 17. The W'elsh h.irds have somehow intro- 

 duced the name .\lb.an as that of a solstitial quarter 

 day. That would natur.ally be suggested if .Xlban's 

 Dav at anv lime fell on the solstice, which may very 

 well have happened in the ninth century. In an old 

 Welsh calendar of about 1471 A.n., .Mban's Day is 

 June 22, when the date of the solstice was the 13th. 

 That, however, does not dispose of our theory. By 

 regarding the 22nd as the middle solstice day pre- 

 ceding the Council of Nice, we get the very period of 

 the British prolo-m.irtyr. It was when the 21st was 

 a solstice dale that the earliest Christian calendar in 

 the West was compiled, and it is possible that Alban's 

 Day was fixed from the very first on the 22nd. The 

 2ist is still called .St. .Mban's Eve. The question, 

 therefore, is. Have we in the case of .Alban's Day 

 two arrested sol.-ir dates ? 



John Griffith. 



NOTES. 



Sir Hksrv Roscok, F.R.S., and Sir William Ramsay, 

 K.r.B., F.R.S., have been nomin.ilfd U>rc\jin members 

 nf I he .Accadeniia dei Lincei, Rome. 



The \'ienna Academy of .Sciences has awarded the 

 Baumgarten prize to Prof. E. Riller v. Schweidler, for 

 his work on the phenomena of dielectrics ; the Lieben 

 prize to Prof. H. Henndorf, for his work on the trans- 

 mission of earlhquaki' waves in the interior of the earth ; 

 and the Hailinfjer prize 10 Dr. Robert Kremann, for his 

 work on the cslers. 



\\'e learn with regret of the dealh of Prof. Kgon von 

 Oppolzer at the early age of thirty-seven. Dr. von 

 Oppolzer, who was a son of the celebrated Theodor 

 von Oppolzer, was born at Vienna in i86q, and was 

 educated at the universities of Vienna and Munich. In 

 i8q7 he became an assistant in the observatory at Prague, 

 where he discovered in root the variability in the bright- 

 ness of the planet Eros. In the latter year he was 

 appointed extraordinary profcs.sor of astronomy at Inns- 

 bruck, where he remained until his death. Among the 

 subjects on which he wrote are astronomical refraction, 

 solar physics, and the application of physical theory to 

 stellar problems. He also made contributions to meteor- 

 ology. A new form of zenith telescope was constructed 

 by him, as well as .1 photometer of novel design. The 



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