The Viking Calendar

This is very interesting and may be of good use to WRITERS, too:

Worm’s Norwegian runic calendar described in his book Fasti Danici dating back to 1643. The drawing only shows the winter season lasting from 14 October to 13 April. The summer season on the other side of the bone from a whale or big fish was never copied, and both the pendant and the calendar have unfortunately been lost.

Although contemporary Scandinavian sources for the Viking Age are few, there are indications that the Vikings probably divided the year into moon phases and only two seasons: Summer and winter.

The Vikings did not use exact years to date events, a so-called absolute chronology. Instead, they used a relative chronology with reference to the number of years after important events. One could for example date the year by saying “five winters after the Battle of Svolder”.

As far as we know, the Icelander Ari “the Wise” Þorgilsson was the first who in…

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