Runic calendar

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Younger furthark runic calendar.
Runic calendar from the Estonian island of Saaremaa with each month on a separate wooden board.

A

feasts
) were marked with additional lines of symbols.

Runic calendars were written on parchment or carved onto staves of wood, bone, or horn. The oldest one known, and the only one from the Middle Ages, is a staff from Nyköping, Sweden, believed to date from the 13th century. Most of the several thousand which survive are wooden calendars dating from the 16th and the 17th centuries. During the 18th century, Runic calendars had a renaissance, and calendars dating from around 1800 were made in the form of brass tobacco boxes.

The calendar is based on the 19 year-long

pagan feast and a fair day also known as Thing of all Swedes
.

Marks

On one line, 52 weeks of 7 days were laid out using 52 repetitions of the first seven runes of the

weekday
varied from year to year.

On another line, many of the days were marked with one of 19 symbols representing the 19 

Golden numbers, for the years of the Metonic cycle. In early calendars, each of the 19 years in the cycle was represented by a rune; the first 16 were the 16 runes of the Younger Futhark, plus three special runes improvised for the remaining three years. The new moon would fall on that day during that year of the cycle. For example, in the 18th year of the cycle, the new moons would fall on all the dates marked with tvimadur, the symbol for year 18. Later calendars used Pentadic numerals
for the values 1–19.

Arabic 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Golden Numbers ᚠ ᚢ ᚦ ᚬ ᚱ ᚴ ᚼ ᚾ ᛁ ᛅ ᛋ ᛏ ᛒ ᛚ ᛘ ᛦ ᛮ ᛯ ᛰ

Because this system needed 19 

golden numbers which stood for the 19 years of the perpetual calendar's cycle, the Younger Futhark was insufficient, having only 16 characters. The solution devised was to add three special runes to represent the remaining numbers: (arlaug; Golden Number 17), (tvimadur or tvímaður; Golden Number 18), and (belgthor; Golden Number 19). In 1636, Ole Worm documented the Younger Futhark numeral system, including these three characters, in his Runir seu Danica literatura antiquissima (Runes: the oldest Danish literature).[1]

A version using the

was printed in 1498 as part of the Breviarium Scarense.[2]

Primstav

Primstav from Hallingdal with coat of arms of Norway, 17th century.

A primstav is the ancient

Norsk Folkemuseum
.

Modern use

Adherents of the

Maausk) have published Runic calendars (Estonian: sirvilauad) every year since 1978. Until 1991, the calendar was an illegal samizdat publication under the Soviet government. [3]

See also

References

  1. ^ Worm, Ole (1636). "XVIII: Literarum Danicarum potestas ac valor in numeris" [The Numerical Power and Value of Danish Letters]. Runir seu Danica literatura antiquissima [Runes: The Oldest Danish Literature] (in Latin). Copenhagen (Hafniæ), Denmark: Typis Melchioris Martzan. pp. 102–103. Retrieved 24 November 2020.
  2. ^ Brinolf Gerlaksson, bishop of Skara (commissioned by) (1498). Breviarium Scarense. Nuremberg: Georg Stuchs. pp. 2–13. Archived from the original on 2012-09-06. Retrieved 2010-06-20.
  3. ^ "Sirvilauad loevad aega". Archived from the original on September 4, 2012.

Further reading

  • Becker, Alfred (2006). "A magic spell "powered by" a lunisolar calendar". Asterisk, A Quarterly Journal of Historical English Studies. 15.[full citation needed]
  • Becker, Alfred (1973). Franks Casket. Zu den Bildern und Inschriften des Runenkästchens von Auzon. Regensburg.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)[full citation needed]

External links

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