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By 1934, the cautious wording by Herbert is the last time any qualifying statement regarding Samhain's relationship to the beginning of the Celtic year was provided. In this unedited text, the words presented here in bold, if extracted as in the main text, fully form the now orthodox view. Additionally, the concept of an eight-fold division of the year marked by the solstices, equinoxes and cross-quarter feasts, very popular today, can find its origins in this text.

From: The Greatness and Decline of the Celts
Henri Herbert
1934: Kegan Paul, Trench, Truber & Co. Ltd, London

pages 241-243, quoted in full:

"Religion and the Druids
VIII
FESTIVALS

The Irish tribes normally lived in a dispersed manner, and the sanctuaries were also fair-grounds, without anything implying permanent worship. The population met at the political and religious centre of the tribes, which was the place where the tombs of its ancestors stood, and it did this on the feast-days.

There were four chief feasts. Samhain (1st November) marked the end of summer (samos) and probably the beginning of the year. Six months later, on the 1st of May, at the beginning of summer (cét-saman), came Beltane, the feast of the fire (tein) of Bel or Bile. Between these two, at intervals of three months, there were the feasts of Lugnassad, the marriage of Lugh, which is the best described of all, on the 1st of August, and Oimelc or Imbolc, on the 1st of February, which survived in the feast of St. Brigid. Samhain was held cheifly at Tara, Beltane at Uisnech, and Lugnassad at Tailtiu (these three towns were in the central kingdom of Meath). But Lugnassad was also celebrated at Emain Macha in Ulster and at Carman in Leinster. These four festivals divided the year into four seasons of three months or eighty-five days, which seem to have been subdivided by other feasts each into two periods of forty-five days. There is no record of these other feasts save in those of certain Irish saints, which sometimes fall on the same dates - St. Finnian's in December and, above all, St. Patrick's on the 15th, 16th and 17th March.

These feasts stood in the very forefront of the life and thoughts of the Irish. We are always coming upon them in their tradition, which is very historical, and in their epic literature. Moreover, all legend or mythology revolves round the dates of festivals and a large numer of the myths are festival-myths. These feasts were fairs, political or judicial assemblies, and also an occasion for amusement and games, some of which, such as the races, were of religious origin (the horse-races at Tailtiu and Emain Macha, the races of women at Carman). Above all, they were religious assemblies.

They were conducted in an atmosphere of myth and legend. The day of Beltane commemorated the landing of the first invaders of Ireland, the sons of Partholan; the first fire, that of Uisnech, was lit by their last successors. Later on, about the middle of the sixth century, in the plain of Uisnech, King Diarmait mac Cearbhail laid seige to the house of one Flann, who drowned himself in a vat while his house was burning; the feast was a commemoration and expiation of his death. At Lugnassad the wives of Lugh or his foster-mother Tailtiu died. Carman the sorceress who came from Greece like the Fomorians, the people of the other world, also perished on this day, a captive of the Goidels, and in Conchobar's time the goddess Macha, who had beaten the King's horses at the races, died in giving birth to two children. At Samahin the great battle of the gods was fought at Moytura, between the Formorians and the Tuatha Dé Danann. On this day, too, King Muirchertach mac Erea, having broken the prohibitions laid on him by a fairy whom he had married, was attacked by the ghosts and while the fairy set fire to his palace drowned himself in a barrel like Flann. Cuchulainn himself died on the first day of autumn. The times of the feasts were the times when spirits were let loose and wonders were expected and normally happened.

In Wales the year was divided in the same way as in Ireland, at the Calends of May and of November. It was the same way in Gaul; in the Coligny Calendar we can distinguish the two great seasons Samonos and Giamonos. The great solitary sanctuaries in the mountains, those of Donon and the Puy-de-Dôme, show that similar festivals were held in Gaul at one period in it history. For a long time there were no permanent shrines in Gaul."

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