Midwinter is the middle of the winter. The term is attested in the early Germanic calendars.

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Midwinter is attested in the early Germanic calendars, where it appears to have been a specific day or a number of days during the winter half of the year. Before the adoption of the church calendar, the date of midwinter may have varied due to the use of a

lunisolar calendar A lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures, combining lunar calendars and solar calendars. The date of Lunisolar calendars therefore indicates both the Moon phase and the time of the solar year, that is the position of the Sun in the Ea ...

, or it may have been based on a week system tied to the astronomical winter solstice. In the medieval

Icelandic 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 nam ...

it was the first day of

Þorri Þorri () is the Icelandic name of the personification of frost or winter in Norse mythology, and also the name of the fourth winter month (mid January to mid February) in the Icelandic calendar. In the '' Orkneyinga saga'' (written in the 13th ce ...

, the fourth winter month, which corresponds to the middle of January in the Gregorian calendar. According to

Snorri Sturluson Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of the ...

's '' Heimskringla'' ( 1230), the pre-Christian holiday Yule was originally celebrated at midwinter, but in the 10th century, the king Haakon the Good moved it to the same day as Christmas, about three weeks earlier. Beginning in the 18th century, the term midwinter has sometimes been misunderstood as synonymous with the winter solstice.

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