Runic calendar

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]

• An article on rune calendars Archived 2007-07-07 at the Wayback Machine