Little Almanac

Germanic

Where
the Germanic-speaking regions of northern continental Europe and England
When
roughly the first millennium CE
What survives
Outsider reports, place names, and post-conversion writing; very little of it is contemporary insider testimony.

8 entries

Every entry here carries an evidence grade, because the distance between the evidence and the subject is the first thing to know about this material.

  • Bede and the Old English MonthsPrimary textEvidence grade B of five, A strongest, E weakest: Near-contemporary outsider report

    One chapter of an eighth-century textbook on time-reckoning is the only surviving account of the pre-Christian English calendar. What it does not say.

  • Midsummer and St John's EveFestivalEvidence grade D of five, A strongest, E weakest: Later collection at a substantial remove

    The best-documented seasonal fire custom in Europe is medieval and Christian, attached to 23 June, and it drifts against the solstice it is named for.

  • OstaraFestivalEvidence grade E of five, A strongest, E weakest: Modern reconstruction or coinage

    A spring-equinox festival named in 1974 after a goddess inferred in 1835 from a month name recorded in 725. The three steps come apart cleanly.

  • Solstices and EquinoxesConceptEvidence grade A of five, A strongest, E weakest: Contemporary insider document, or a dated object

    Four instants, not four dates. What they are, why the calendar date moves between years, and what pre-Christian Europe is recorded as having marked.

  • The maypolePracticeEvidence grade D of five, A strongest, E weakest: Later collection at a substantial remove

    An English and Germanic custom with several centuries of records, routinely filed under an Irish festival it has no attested connection to.

  • The Old Icelandic Misseri CalendarConceptEvidence grade A of five, A strongest, E weakest: Contemporary insider document, or a dated object

    A week-based two-season year with a leap week instead of a leap day, described by the people who used it and computable to the day for any year.

  • The Wheel of the YearFestivalEvidence grade E of five, A strongest, E weakest: Modern reconstruction or coinage

    The eight-festival cycle has three separate provenances, no historical community kept all eight, and it was assembled in Hertfordshire around 1958.

  • YuleFestivalEvidence grade B of five, A strongest, E weakest: Near-contemporary outsider report

    A midwinter season rather than a solstice-day festival, and the reason the Christmas and Sol Invictus story is weaker than it is usually told.