To go fully into the role of the number three in British
traditions would require a profound study; but it may be
useful briefly to note its influence on the Bardic poetry--
the Triads, where the subjects are all grouped in threes.
Nor was this predilection confined to the Island. We find
it affecting the earliest history of Rome itself, with its _nine_
gods ("By the nine gods he swore") and the _nine_ books which
the Sibyl destroyed by _threes,_ till the last _three_ were
saved. Then we have the evidence in the name _nundina_*
for a market, that the week was originally a cycle not of
seven, but of _nine_ days; and our own saying that a given
thing is a _"nine days wonder"_ is undoubtedly a survival
from the period when the nine days made a week,** for such
a phrase expresses a round number or unit of time; not nine
_separate_ days.
[Footnotes]
* The Romans meant by _nundinae_ periods that were really of
eight days; but they made them nine by counting in the one _from_
which they started. So accustomed were they to this method
of notation that the priests who had the control of the calendar,
upset Julius Caesar's plan for intercalating a day once in
_four_ years ("Bissextile") by insisting that the interval
intended was _three_ years! Augustus was obliged to rectify
this by dropping the overplus day it occasioned.
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