This explanation is opposed by the statement of Tille that in primitive Germanic times there were sixty-day divisions[999] from which the pairs of months have arisen, and that the fluctuation in the names of months is due to the fact that these divisions of time began in the middle of the Julian month[1000]. The fluctuation in the names of months is shewn by the frequent asterisks in the above list, and the pairs of months are:--big and little _Horn_[1001], the first and second ploughing month, the first and second May, the first and second _Augst_, or _Augst_ and _Augstin_ or _Haberaugst_, and first and second autumn. Our researches ought to make a special refutation of Tille’s thesis unnecessary. Obviously the seasons never had a definite number of days before they became names of months; both phenomena find their explanation in the indeterminate length and position of the seasons upon which the scheme of the Julian months was superimposed. Accordingly, where the name of the month was taken from a longer season, the people counted three or four months with the same name. Thus October and November are called respectively third and last autumn month, December is fourth autumn month, February third or last winter month. The German names of months were in great measure genuinely popular,--their very multiplicity, which has its roots in the life of the people, suffices to prove that--but they have had to give way to the Latin names in spite of the attempts made in modern times in the popular calendars, and especially under the influence of Romanticism, to establish them throughout. In our own day they persist in popular usage chiefly in Switzerland.