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    294 The Calendar Stick

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    Richard Tonsing
    The calendar stick was a wooden stick used by Scandinavians to track the passage of time and mark important dates, such as religious holidays and seasonal tasks. Notches were carved into the stick, with symbols above representing feasts and fasts from the Christian calendar or pagan traditions. As Christianity was adopted, more feast days were added. Later, the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar, causing some confusion over which dates to observe. The calendar stick helped scattered rural communities know when to plant, harvest, or move livestock between seasonal pastures according to the changing seasons and church calendar.

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    294 The Calendar Stick

    Uploaded by

    Richard Tonsing
    112 views2 pages
    The calendar stick was a wooden stick used by Scandinavians to track the passage of time and mark important dates, such as religious holidays and seasonal tasks. Notches were carved into the stick, with symbols above representing feasts and fasts from the Christian calendar or pagan traditions. As Christianity was adopted, more feast days were added. Later, the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar, causing some confusion over which dates to observe. The calendar stick helped scattered rural communities know when to plant, harvest, or move livestock between seasonal pastures according to the changing seasons and church calendar.

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    294 the Calendar Stick

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    The calendar stick was a wooden stick used by Scandinavians to track the passage of time and mark important dates, such as religious holidays and seasonal tasks. Notches were carved into the stick, with symbols above representing feasts and fasts from the Christian calendar or pagan traditions. As Christianity was adopted, more feast days were added. Later, the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar, causing some confusion over which dates to observe. The calendar stick helped scattered rural communities know when to plant, harvest, or move livestock between seasonal pastures according to the changing seasons and church calendar.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    112 views2 pages

    294 The Calendar Stick

    Uploaded by

    Richard Tonsing
    The calendar stick was a wooden stick used by Scandinavians to track the passage of time and mark important dates, such as religious holidays and seasonal tasks. Notches were carved into the stick, with symbols above representing feasts and fasts from the Christian calendar or pagan traditions. As Christianity was adopted, more feast days were added. Later, the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar, causing some confusion over which dates to observe. The calendar stick helped scattered rural communities know when to plant, harvest, or move livestock between seasonal pastures according to the changing seasons and church calendar.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 2

    THE CALENDAR STICK

    In the Scandinavian Center


    Thousand Oaks, California

    Ernst F. Tonsing, Ph.D.


    26 June 2009

    We are not the only creatures that are compelled to observe time. Horses, dogs
    and goldfish are preoccupied about when the master or mistress is going to come bringing
    food; whales and birds recognize when to flee to the warmer climes when winter
    approaches; even the tiniest creatures of the sea rise to the surface and drift to the darkest
    depths in their diurnal dance.

    Those people living in modern Scandinavia, of course, are attached to their clocks
    because of train timetables, work schedules and school holidays. Some keep calendars
    on their walls, and others carry appointment books that mark off the days with notations
    of meetings, doctors' appointments and family anniversaries. Woe to the one who skips a
    page accidentally, or fails to write in an appointment in the right box of the monthly grid.

    Those living in old Scandinavia, too, had to mark time. They had to know when
    the ice would break up in the lakes, what day they could plant their crops, and at what
    time they would be ready to be gathered in. They watched for the returning of the salmon
    to their streams, the birds building nests in the forests, or the diminution of light at the
    approach of winter. The solstice and midwinter or midsummer celebrations were
    calculated by their shamans with elaborate celestial computations.

    With the introduction of Christianity to Scandinavia about A.D. 1000, the pagan
    celebrations were overwhelmed by a multitude of fast and feast days, and
    commemorations of saints and martyrs. Time needed to be measured more carefully
    because the new faith brought new requirements: no animal protein except fish was to be
    eaten on Fridays. Lent, the forty days before Easter, was to be meat free, and one had to
    exercise the greatest caution at the Feast of All Saints (All Hallows Day, November 1),
    because on All Hallows Eve, all sorts of evil spirits roamed the earth seeking to do their
    mischief upon the unwary. Cattle had to be moved inside by St. Simon's Day (October
    29), women were to commence spinning for the winter on St. Catherine's Day
    (November 25), the Christmas ale had to be brewed on St. Thomas' Day (December 21),
    and farmers had to get out their spades and hoes to till the soil for planting on St.
    Magnus' Day (April 25).

    Where the Church's priests had their Latin books to keep track of the days, the
    Scandinavians soon found their own way to mark time. Using symbols and their runic
    alphabet, they carved 365 notches on long, wood sticks, half on one side for summer, and
    half on the other for winter. Above these marks were symbols representing the feasts and
    fasts. The priests could inform the people of the moveable festivals like Lent and Easter,
    but the widely scattered flock often relied upon a primstav (Norwegian, for the Latin,
    primatron or "golden numbers" which were used to calculate the variable feasts), or
    "weather stick," because with it they could anticipate changes in the seasons. Possibly
    made soon after the countries were converted to Christianity, the "sticks" were used up to
    the middle of the nineteenth century by farmers in the fjords and mountains.

    There was some consternation, however, when the old Julian calendar, which had
    been introduced by the Roman emperor, Julius Caesar, in B.C. 45, was reformed by Pope
    Gregory XIII in 1582. The old one was badly out of sync, and Easter on the calendar did
    not coincide with the spring equinox. Sweden and Norway were slow to adopt the new
    one, and used a modified Julian calendar until 1753, when they adopted the Gregorian
    calendar. But, that created a dilemma whether to commemorate a saint or feast according
    to the old calendar or the new. Gradually, however, the old one was forgotten and the
    new one is used today.

    The old primstav in the Scandinavian Center hangs from a nail as it would have in
    the old days, within reach for consultation. One side was for calculating the dates of
    winter, the other side for summer. There are chip marks on the edges for the days and
    symbols for the commemorations. Thus, one looked for the symbol of St. Paul's Day
    (January 25) to determine the weather. If it was good on that date, it would be good the
    rest of the year. If the winds blew hard on St. Blasius day (February 3), they would blow
    hard throughout the year. Fences had to be repaired by Holy Cross Day (May 3), because
    the cattle were let out to pasture then. But, beware! On St. Bernard's day (May 22),
    bears awoke from their winter's nap and left their dens to find food. At Midsummer's
    Day (St. John's Day, June 24), the longest day of the year, bonfires were lighted and the
    cattle were led up the mountains to the summer pastures.

    One could begin putting up hay on St. Mary Magdalene's Day (July 22), but this
    task had to be completed by St. Olaf s Day (July 29), as the weather on that date was an
    indication of what it was to be during the fall. If grain in the fields had not ripened by St.
    Matthew's Day (September 21), it would not be good enough to eat. By Michaelmas
    (September 29), enough food had to be stored to last the long winter, at least until
    Cuckoo Mass (May 1), when the notes of the cuckoo bird echoed through the forests for
    the first time in spring, and the frost disappeared from the fields at last. By St. Birgitta's
    Day (October 7), commemorating the Swedish saint who founded the Birgittine Order at
    Vadstena in the fourteenth century, or Cabbage Day, as it is also known, all of the
    cabbages had to be harvested, or, for certain, they would freeze in the fields. At this time,
    too, the bears returned to their dens to sleep on their nests of dried heather.1

    Not all calendar sticks contained the same days: some followed the old Julian
    pattern and some the Gregorian. Different saints were celebrated in various villages, and
    spring thaws and winter frosts occurred at other times as one moved north or up into the
    mountains. However, the primstav carries the unspoken warning that the yearly chores
    must be performed without fail and on time, because, according to the Swedish proverb:
    "He who lies idle when the wind is mild, must row when the wind blows against him."

    1
    Information concerning the Scandinavian observances of these days are from F. E. Ekstrand, The Ancient
    Norwegian Calendar Stick (Seattle, Washington: Welcome Press, nd.).

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