Swainmote Court,
also requiring _three_ witnesses, held _three_ times a year, and
subordinate to the Court of Eyre held once in _three_ years;
to which should be added the perambulation of the Forest
bounds at the same triennial visit in Eyre, when the king's
officers were accompanied by nine foresters in fee (_three
threes_) and twenty-four jurors (_eight threes_).

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. It is this
Roman custom of _inclusive_ reckoning which has led to the
French calling a week _huit jours_, and a fortnight, _une
quinzaine_.

** The word week comes from _wika_ (= Norsk _vika_) to bend or
_turn_. The idea connected with it was no doubt that of the
moon's turning from one of its quarters to the next. I can
remember when some of the people in "the Island" in Gloucester
always made a point of _turning_ any coins they had in their
pockets when it was new moon and repeating a sort of invocation
to the moon! How or when the nine day week was exchanged
by western nations for the seven day one, we do not know;
but it is likely that it may have been brought about by the
Phoenicians and Jews, who regarded the number _seven