Runic calendar
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The Runic calendar, also known as a Rune staff or Runic Almanac, is a perpetual calendar used in Northern Europe until the 19th century.[1] It is called a runstav in Sweden, a primstav in Norway, or a clog almanac in England.[2] t is a calendar based on the Moon's 19-year cycle (known as the metonic cycle). People used these to keep track of weeks in a year, the phases of the moon, and important holidays. [3]
These calendars were helpful for farmers and people in the countryside who might not have known how to read or write, as the calendar used simple runes or symbols rather than long words. The calendars were typically carved into staves of wood, bone, or horn, though later versions were printed on paper.[4][5]
These were very helpful for farmers and people in the countryside who might not have known how to read or write, as the calendar used simple runes or symbols rather than long words.
A typical runic calendar consisted of several rows of symbols, one above the other. The symbols were usually split into three rows. The middle row showed the days of the week using the first seven letters of the runic alphabet. The top row featured pictures representing special holidays. The bottom row helped people track the moon so they could figure out when the next new moon would happen. Special days like solstices, equinoxes, and celebrations (including Christian holidays and feasts) were marked with additional lines of symbols.[1]
Even though the runes themselves are very old, these wooden calendars mostly started appearing in Northern Europe including in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania during the late 1200s. The oldest known example is the Nyköping staff from Sweden, dated to the 13th century.[6] Thousands of them have been documented across Scandinavia, the Baltic states, and Finland.[1]
References
[change | change source]- 1 2 3 Cucina, Carla (2016). "Runes in Peripheral Swedish Areas: The Early Ethnographic Literature on Calendar Staves in the Baltic Islands" (PDF). Apice. 18: 189–210. Retrieved 2026-04-07.
- ↑ "Cracking the Code of the Clog Almanac". The Auckland Project. Retrieved 2026-04-07.
- ↑ "Metonic cycle". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2026-04-07.
- ↑ Cucina, Carla (2018). "A Runic Calendar in the Vatican Library". Futhark: International Journal of Runic Studies. 9–10. Retrieved 2026-04-07.
- ↑ "Clog Almanack". Chetham's Library. Retrieved 2026-04-07.
- ↑ "Runes". Swedish History Museum. Archived from the original on 2026-04-07. Retrieved 2026-04-07.
Other websites
[change | change source]- An article on rune calendars Archived 2007-07-07 at the Wayback Machine
