Some Reflections on a Heathen Calendar

We in the West are all stuck with the Christianized Julian calendar – the Gregorian calendar. Clearly, this is not an optimal situation for non-Christians. We can easily correct some deficiencies, such as substituting BCE/CE for BC/AD. Another deficiency is not as much of a problem as it seems: holidays.

This is because most of the holidays on the Gregorian calendar were once Pagan holidays. It’s easy enough to take these back. Easter is a rite of spring and rebirth and can be properly returned to Eostra/Ostara, the Germanic goddess for whom it is named. Christmas is Yule, Jol, the Saturnalia or any one of a number of Pagan holidays originally assigned to the Winter Solstice. Many other lesser holidays became Saints Days.

We Heathens don’t have a great deal of information to go by in reconstructing a calendar. Snorri mentions three great festivals in the Heimskringla:

• Jöl (Yule) – sometime in December
• (Sigrblót) Summer Finding – mid-April
• (Gormánuðr) Winter Finding – mid October

It will be noted that Snorri does not mention mid-summer. However, mid-summer was clearly an important time, as this was the setting for the Thing(Assembly), which we can see from the sagas was very important. But the Thing was not so much a religious festival as a social occasion, when the people of a district would gather to have cases tried and new laws enacted as well as to trade and to visit in an era before telephones and computers. So it was not primarily a religious festival.

That did not mean that there were no religious connotations, of course. The Althing in Iceland convened on Thursday, which is sacred to Thor. Sacrificial feasts were held there, and originally there was a ban on the carrying of arms when the Thing was in progress, even if this was not always successfully enforced. (H.R. Ellis-Davidson 1988, p.16)

This gives us a bare outline, but is that enough? Much has been lost, and some cannot be recovered. If we wish more, we will have to fashion it for ourselves. I wanted to look here at one such reconstruction, that of the Ásatrú Alliance (http://www.asatru.org). The Ásatrú Alliance tells us that this calendar “has been prepared to aid members of the Asatru Faith properly schedule Feast Days and days of mandatory ritual observances.” This goal is in keeping with the purpose of a calendar, including the Gregorian, which had the purpose of successfully locating Easter.

As to mandatory, I’m of the opinion held by Bil Linzie, that strict observance of particular days is inessential. Rather, a feast would be held when it was possible according to a system I call “Viking Time”, itself based on the Native American tradition of “Indian time” – aka “the party starts when everybody gets there.” In other words, if there were things essential to survival that required doing, the feast would wait until it was done. Weather might also intervene. Then there is the problem of precisely locating a day in an era without mechanical means to do so. If you can’t see the sky due to storm or cloud, you can’t very well know precisely when the time has arrived.

But on to my review. This calendar has, sprinkled among the few actual holy days we know of, days of remembrance for various figures of history. For example, Snowmoon 9 (January 9) has “Day of Remembrance for Raud the Strong”, a landowner put to death by Olaf Tryggvason in Norway when he refused to recognize the White Christ. Unfortunately, the calendar also uses the term “kristjan” rather than Christian, which isn’t really a Norse term at all. As an Icelandic Heathen friend told me,

It looks like some American noticed that Christ is spelled with a K in Iceland, and probably saw that the proper name Christian is spelled as Kristján by us. They then thought it would be funny (or insulting, or barbaric, whatever) to spell “christian” as “kristjan”.

The actual Icelandic word for the adjective in question is “”kristinn”.

There are also days celebrating specific events out of myth, for example, Horning 2 (February 2) “the day we celebrate the wooing of Ingvi Freyr of the maiden Gerd, a symbolic marriage of the Vanir God of Fertility with the Mother Earth.” This is, obviously, a fertility festival and the calendar suggests that “those of you who garden” should “plant seed indoors, to later be transplanted to the summer garden.”

The major festivals are included, as is the Summer Solstice, which, as we have noted, Snorri leaves out. Here we have Midyear 21 (Midsummer) on June 21, which is a celebration in honor of the longest day and shortest night of the year, and which, as the calendar correctly notes, “the traditional time for holding the Althing in ancient times.”

My favorite day of remembrance is that for Radbod, King of Frisia, which this calendar assigns to Harvest 9 (August 9). The calendar suggests: “Drink a horn in memory of Radbod.” A sentiment I heartily endorse!

All things considered, I find this calendar to be of superior quality and quite suitable for use. There is no way of knowing, as I have said, every day held holy by our ancestors. Probably, Snorri didn’t even know. He offered us what information he had. So with some modification, we find we can live with the Gregorian calendar. Throw out the BCs and ADs, change back the names of the holy days that have been stolen, and sprinkle in some other days worthy of note or deemed important by the Heathen(s) in question.

I’d be curious to know if anyone out there uses this calendar or another, and what they think of it.