The Swedish list of months is therefore largely of foreign or learned origin. The only popular names are _Tor_ and _Göje_, which also often occur without the addition of ‘month’. The Icelanders have made Thorri and Goi into mythological figures[1022]. In Sweden the people have personified these names. When it snows, Goja shakes her robe. Thor (= March), with the long beard, entices the children outside the wall, they say in the north of Skåne,--in the south the same thing is said of _Bliel_ (_Blidel_ = February)--and then _Far Fäjeskinn_ (= April) comes and drives them in again. The latter month is conceived of as ‘Father Sweep-skin’: but it is possible that in _far_ the month-name _Fare-maaned_ (= April) appears. In Norway the names of the same three months--_Thorre_, _Gjö_, and _Krikla_--were the only ones in common use, and so in Iceland, _þorri_, _Goi_, and _Einmánaðr_. The beginning of these three months was hailed with popular celebrations both in Iceland and elsewhere in Scandinavia[1023]. And now attempts have been made to prove that these Norwegian months are old lunar months. In Aasen’s Norwegian Dictionary it is stated that the country people even to-day still count and name the moons, so that e. g. the moon which is in the heavens during the Yuletide-festival is termed the Yule moon if it continues until the end of the festival, the day of Epiphany: and if it does not last till the end of this period, then the next following moon is the Yule moon, i. e. the Yule moon is in reality the moon which is in the heavens on the day of Epiphany. The terms and the calculation of the following moons are regulated accordingly. Certainly the heathen Germans must have been acquainted with the lunar month, and the existence of the lunisolar calendar among the Anglo-Saxons is not to be denied, but in this case we must unreservedly agree with Bilfinger[1024] that this lunar reckoning is of Christian origin. Then in order to fix the date of the important movable festivals the most convenient practical means was to begin from the first new moon after the day of Epiphany, i. e. after the Yule moon. The old rule says:--“Count the moon which is in the sky on the day of Epiphany as long as it lasts, and then ten days onward from the new moon, and you have the _terminus Septuagesimæ_.” Hence is derived the Swedish peasant rule:--“The moon which is in the sky at the day of Epiphany shall be the Christmas moon, whether it be young or old.” After this follows the _disting_-moon[1025]. On account of the ecclesiastically prescribed period of Lent and the Easter festival it was absolutely necessary to be able to calculate this time, and the calculation was most simply performed in the fashion just described, although the phenomena of the heavens did not exactly agree with the rule of computation. The third of these moons was followed by the Easter festival. For this reason these three months have stamped themselves upon the minds of the people