A
Runic
Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...
calendar (also Rune staff or Runic Almanac) is a
perpetual calendar
A perpetual calendar is a calendar valid for many years, usually designed to look up the day of the week for a given date in the past or future.
For the Gregorian and Julian calendars, a perpetual calendar typically consists of one of three ...
, variants of which were used in Northern Europe until the 19th century. A typical runic calendar consisted of several horizontal lines of symbols, one above the other. Special days like
solstices
A solstice is an event that occurs when the Sun appears to reach its most northerly or southerly excursion relative to the celestial equator on the celestial sphere. Two solstices occur annually, around June 21 and December 21. In many countrie ...
,
equinoxes
A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun crosses the Earth's equator, which is to say, appears directly above the equator, rather than north or south of the equator. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise "due east" and set ...
, and celebrations (including
Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
holidays and
feasts
A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival co ...
) were marked with additional lines of symbols.
Runic calendars were written on
parchment
Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins of ...
or carved onto
staves of wood, bone, or horn. The oldest one known, and the only one from the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
, is a staff from
Nyköping
Nyköping () is a Urban areas in Sweden, locality and the seat of Nyköping Municipality, Södermanland County, Sweden with 32,759 inhabitants as of 2017. The city is also the capital of Södermanland County.
Including Arnö, the locality on the ...
,
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
, 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
Metonic cycle
The Metonic cycle or enneadecaeteris (from grc, ἐννεακαιδεκαετηρίς, from ἐννεακαίδεκα, "nineteen") is a period of almost exactly 19 years after which the lunar phases recur at the same time of the year. The recu ...
, correlating the Sun and the Moon, but the calendar does not prove knowledge of the length of the
tropical year
A tropical year or solar year (or tropical period) is the time that the Sun takes to return to the same position in the sky of a celestial body of the Solar System such as the Earth, completing a full cycle of seasons; for example, the time fro ...
or of the occurrence of
leap year
A leap year (also known as an intercalary year or bissextile year) is a calendar year that contains an additional day (or, in the case of a lunisolar calendar, a month) added to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical year or s ...
s. The two sliding halves are aligned and set at the beginning of each year by observing the first
full moon
The full moon is the lunar phase when the Moon appears fully illuminated from Earth's perspective. This occurs when Earth is located between the Sun and the Moon (when the ecliptic coordinate system, ecliptic longitudes of the Sun and Moon opp ...
after the first new moon after the
winter solstice
The winter solstice, also called the hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth's poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the winte ...
. The first full moon also marked the date of ''
Disting
The Disting () is an annual market which has been held in Uppsala, Sweden, since pre-historic times. The name ( Old Swedish: ''Disæþing'' '', a
pagan
Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. ...
feast and a
fair
A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks.
Types
Variations of fairs incl ...
day also known as
Thing of all Swedes
The Thing of all Swedes (''allra Svía þing'', ''Þing allra Svía'', ''Disaþing'',The article ''Distingen'', in the encyclopedia ''Nationalencyklopedin''. or ''Kyndilþing'' .
Marks
On one line, 52 weeks of 7 days were laid out using 52 repetitions of the first seven runes of the
Younger Futhark
The Younger Futhark, also called Scandinavian runes, is a runic alphabet and a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, with only 16 characters, in use from about the 9th century, after a "transitional period" during the 7th and 8th centuries.
The r ...
. The runes corresponding to each
weekday
The weekdays and weekend are the complementary parts of the week devoted to labour and rest, respectively. The legal weekdays (British English), or workweek (American English), is the part of the seven-day week devoted to working. In most of th ...
varied from year to year.
On another line, many of the days were marked with one of 19 symbols representing the 19
Golden numbers
Golden means made of, or relating to gold.
Golden may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
*Golden, in the parish of Probus, Cornwall
*Golden Cap, Dorset
*Golden Square, Soho, London
*Golden Valley, a valley on the River Frome, Stroud#Golden Val ...
, for the years of the
Metonic cycle
The Metonic cycle or enneadecaeteris (from grc, ἐννεακαιδεκαετηρίς, from ἐννεακαίδεκα, "nineteen") is a period of almost exactly 19 years after which the lunar phases recur at the same time of the year. The recu ...
. 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
The Younger Futhark, also called Scandinavian runes, is a runic alphabet and a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, with only 16 characters, in use from about the 9th century, after a "transitional period" during the 7th and 8th centuries.
The r ...
, 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.
Because this system needed 19
runes
Runes are the letter (alphabet), letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, a ...
to represent the 19
golden numbers
Golden means made of, or relating to gold.
Golden may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
*Golden, in the parish of Probus, Cornwall
*Golden Cap, Dorset
*Golden Square, Soho, London
*Golden Valley, a valley on the River Frome, Stroud#Golden Val ...
which stood for the 19 years of the perpetual calendar's cycle, the
Younger Futhark
The Younger Futhark, also called Scandinavian runes, is a runic alphabet and a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, with only 16 characters, in use from about the 9th century, after a "transitional period" during the 7th and 8th centuries.
The r ...
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
Ole Worm (13 May 1588 – 31 August 1654), who often went by the Latinized form of his name Olaus Wormius, was a Danish physician, natural historian and antiquary. He was a professor at the University of Copenhagen where he taught Greek, Latin ...
documented the Younger Futhark numeral system, including these three characters, in his ''Runir seu Danica literatura antiquissima'' (''Runes: the oldest Danish literature'').
A version using the
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...
for weekdays and
Arabic numerals
Arabic numerals are the ten numerical digits: , , , , , , , , and . They are the most commonly used symbols to write Decimal, decimal numbers. They are also used for writing numbers in other systems such as octal, and for writing identifiers ...
for the golden numbers
was printed in 1498 as part of the ''Breviarium Scarense''.
Primstav
A primstav is the ancient
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
*Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
*Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including the ...
calendar stick. These were engraved with images instead of runes. The images depicted the different nonmoving religious holidays. The oldest primstav still in existence is from 1457 and is exhibited at
Norsk Folkemuseum
Norsk Folkemuseum (Norwegian Museum of Cultural History), at Bygdøy, Oslo, Norway, is a museum of cultural history with extensive collections of artifacts from all social groups and all regions of the country. It also incorporates a large open- ...
.
Modern use
Adherents of the
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
n ethnic religion (''
Maausk
Estonian Neopaganism, or the Estonian native faith ( Estonian: ''maausk'', literally "Land faith"), is the name, in English, for a grouping of contemporary revivals (often called "Neopagan", although adherents of Estonian native religion general ...
'') have published Runic calendars ( et, sirvilauad) every year since 1978. Until 1991, the calendar was an illegal ''
samizdat
Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...
'' publication under the
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
government.
See also
*
Computus Runicus
The Computus Runicus was a runic calendar produced in 1328 and found on the Swedish island of Gotland. A transcription/description of the text - called ''Computus Runicus'' - was published in 1626 by the Danish physician and antiquarian Ole Worm ...
*
Germanic calendar
The early Germanic calendars were the regional calendars used among the early Germanic peoples before they adopted the Julian calendar in the Early Middle Ages. The calendars were an element of early Germanic culture.
The Germanic peoples had name ...
*
List of runestones
There are about 3,000 runestones in Scandinavia (out of a total of about 6,000 runic inscriptions). p. 38.
The runestones are unevenly distributed in Scandinavia:
The majority is found in Sweden, estimated at between 1,700 and 2,500 (depending o ...
*
Nationalencyklopedin
''Nationalencyklopedin'' (; "The National Encyclopedia" in English), abbreviated NE, is a comprehensive contemporary Swedish-language encyclopedia, initiated by a favourable loan from the Government of Sweden of 17 million Swedish kronor in 19 ...
*
Scythe sword
The scythe sword (''Sensenschwert'') was a type of single-edged sword of the German Renaissance, related to the Dussack. It consisted of the blade of a scythe to which a sword hilt was attached. Like the ''falx'' or ''falcata'' of antiquity, it ...
*
Dominical letter
Dominical letters or Sunday letters are a method used to determine the day of the week for particular dates. When using this method, each year is assigned a letter (or pair of letters for leap years) depending on which day of the week the year star ...
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
*
*
{{Germanic peoples
Obsolete calendars
Specific calendars
Calendar
A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physi ...
Medieval runes
Modern runic writing