The Erlands

The Calendar

The reckoning of time in Erland is the conquerors' work. The Northmen imposed their own calendar across the valley, naming the days for the New Gods and the months in their own tongue, so that even the passing of the year is counted in the manner of the Futurus. The Ffolk keep the old observances still, hidden inside the new ones.

The shape of the year. The year runs 336 days: twelve months of 28 days, each month four weeks of seven days. The year is quartered into four seasons of three months apiece, Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, each season twelve weeks long. The whole makes 48 weeks exactly. Because 336 divides evenly by seven, the calendar is perennial: every date falls on the same weekday every year.

The God-Week. Seven days, named by the Northmen for seven of the New Gods.

  • Alcarsdag (Alcar, the Morninglord). A day for healing and new beginnings.

  • Ciarsdag (Ciaran, the Warlord). The week's labor and the drilling of arms begin.

  • Elarsdag (Elara, the Queen). The day of the hearth and the household.

  • Tarsdag (Tarkus, the King). The chief day; courts sit, oaths are sworn, and the New Gods are honored. The day of rest and worship.

  • Sendsdag (Sendra, the Earthmother). Market day.

  • Velksdag (Velka, the Huntress). The wild; a day of leave and the hunt.

  • Maersdag (Maerath, the Keeper). The week's somber close, when the dead are remembered.

The Twelve Months.

Spring: Thawmund (the breaking ice, the first month of the year), Seedmund (the sowing), Bloommund (first blossom and green).

Summer: Sunmund (the high sun), Haymund (the haymaking), Warmund (the campaigning month, when the Northmen take the field for Ciaran).

Fall: Reapmund (the harvest), Vintmund (the vintage and the wine-pressing, the great labor of the Halfling shire), Bloodmund (the slaughter-month, when the herds are culled before the cold).

Winter: Yulmund (deep midwinter), Frostmund (the hard frost), Wolfmund (the hungry end of winter and the last month of the year).

The Four Festivals. Each season opens with a feast the Northmen brought with them, kept on the first days of its first month: Ostartide opens Spring and the year in Thawmund, the feast of renewal and Alcar's returning light; Sunntide opens Summer in Sunmund, when the war-host musters and the sun stands highest; Hervesttide opens Fall in Reapmund, the harvest-home and Sendra's bounty; and Yuletide opens Winter in Yulmund, the longest nights given over to the New Gods. Beneath each of these the Ffolk keep an older feast alive, the true spring and harvest rites of the Powers of the Earth folded into the conquerors' holidays and carried in the Bards' ballads, observed in plain sight where no Strawhead thinks to look.

The Reckoning of Years. The Northmen count time from the Revelation, the day the Futurus first revealed themselves to humanity. Years since that day are reckoned After the Revelation (AR), and the years before it Before the Revelation (BR). The present year is 331 AR.

  • 2,400 BR — The Dwarven kingdom is torn apart by civil war over the Kingship of the Mountain and shatters into feuding holds.

  • 2,300 BR — The Goblin wars. The tribes pour out of the Wyrmsmokes, the Elves are devastated and withdraw, and the last of the broken Dwarven realm is undone.

  • 2,000 BR — The Ffolk come into Erland.

  • In the last age of the Ffolk kingdom — The Ffolk giant war ends in ruin: Lindwater is sunk beneath the Lind, and the Druids' last great curse reduces the giants to lumbering brutes. The realm shatters and is never rejoined.

  • The Revelation (Year 1) — The New Gods reveal themselves to the Rothari.

  • 66 AR — The Northmen arrive and begin the conquest of the valley.

  • 331 AR — The present day.

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