Perpetual calendar based on the 19-year-long Metonic cycle of the Moon
A Runic calendar (also Rune staff or Runic almanac) is a perpetual calendar, variants of which were used in Northern Europe until the 19thcentury. A typical runic calendar consisted of several horizontal lines of symbols, one above the other. Special days like solstices, equinoxes, and celebrations (including Christian holidays and feasts) were marked with additional lines of symbols.
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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 13thcentury. Most of the several thousand which survive are wooden calendars dating from the 16th and the 17thcenturies. During the 18thcentury, 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 19year-long Metonic cycle, correlating the Sun and the Moon, but the calendar does not prove knowledge of the length of the tropical year or of the occurrence of leap years. The two sliding halves are aligned and set at the beginning of each year by observing the first full moon after the first new moon after the winter solstice. The first full moon also marked the date of Disting, a pagan feast and a fair day also known as Thing of all Swedes.
Marks
On one line, 52weeks of 7days were laid out using 52repetitions of the first seven runes of the Younger Futhark. The runes corresponding to each weekday varied from year to year.
On another line, many of the days were marked with one of 19symbols representing the 19Golden numbers, for the years of the Metonic cycle. In early calendars, each of the 19years in the cycle was represented by a rune; the first 16 were the 16runes 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 18thyear of the cycle, the new moons would fall on all the dates marked with tvimadur, the symbol for year18. Later calendars used Pentadic numerals for the values1–19.
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 19runes to represent the 19golden numbers which stood for the 19years of the perpetual calendar's cycle, the Younger Futhark was insufficient, having only 16characters. The solution devised was to add three special runes to represent the remaining numbers: (arlaug; Golden Number17), (tvimadur or tvímaður; Golden Number18), and (belgthor; Golden Number19). 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 primstav is the ancient Norwegian 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.
Modern use
Adherents of the Estonian ethnic religion (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]
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.
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]
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