Nordic calendar Archives — The Rational Heathen

The Norse Calendar: Harpa or Gaukamánuður Month

April 21, 2023 The Rational Heathen Comments 0 Comment

Welcome, fellow Heathens, to the month of Harpa or Gaukamánuður. In modern times, this month roughly corresponds with the middle of April and marks the arrival of spring. In Old Norse tradition, Harpa was a time of celebration and renewal. People celebrated because winter gave way to the sun’s warmth and spring’s return.

Etymology of Harpa and Gaukamánuður

The month of Harpa takes its name from the harp. People associated this musical instrument with the goddess Eostre or Ostara, whom pagans celebrated this time of year. Eostre is a Germanic goddess of spring and fertility. Ancient Heathens often depicted her with hares or rabbits, which were symbols of fertility and rebirth.

Gaukamánuður takes its name from the cuckoo, a migratory bird that returns to Scandinavia during the spring. The cuckoo’s arrival heralded the changing season, and the bird became a symbol of spring and renewal.

Celebrating the Return of the Sun

During the month of Harpa, the Vikings celebrated the sun’s return and the longer days. In Norse mythology, the sun is personified as the goddess Sunna, who rides across the sky in a horse-drawn chariot. The Vikings celebrated the return of the sun with festivals and rituals.

The Blót of Eostre or Ostara

One of Harpa’s most important festivals is the Blót of Eostre or Ostara, It is held to honor the goddess of spring and fertility. The Blót was a sacrificial rite in which animals, usually a boar or a goat, were slaughtered and their blood was offered to the gods. The meat was then cooked and shared among the community in a feast that marked the beginning of spring.

During the Blót, offerings of eggs and flowers were also made to the goddess Eostre, as eggs symbolized new life and flowers represented the beauty of nature. The festival of Eostre was also associated with the Christian holiday of Easter, which falls around the same time of year and shares many similarities with the pagan celebration.

Walpurgis Night Festival

Walpurgis Night in Jesenice in Prague-West District, Czech Republic by Chmee2, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

Another important festival is Walpurgis Night, which is celebrated on the night of April 30th. Walpurgis Night was named after Saint Walpurga, a Christian missionary who was venerated in Scandinavia. It may sound strange to celebrate this holiday, but the festival, itself, has pagan origins. Unfortunately, the name has been lost to time.

During Walpurgis Night, the Vikings would light bonfires and dance around them. This celebrated the arrival of spring and warded off evil spirits. They believed the bonfires had purifying and healing powers, and people would jump over them for good luck and fertility.

Other Rituals and Activities

Harpa was also a time for spring cleaning and renewal. The Vikings would clean their homes and barns. Now is the time they would repair any damage caused by the winter and prepared for the planting season. They would also perform rituals to bless their crops. To ensure a good harvest, they might sprinkle the fields with holy water or ashes from the Yule log. Or they might make offerings to the land spirits.

In addition to the festivals and rituals, Harpa was also a time for outdoor activities and games. The Vikings would engage in sports such as archery, wrestling, and spear throwing, as well as horse racing and boat races. These activities were not just for entertainment, but also served as a way to train for warfare and maintain physical fitness.

Celebrating Harpa or Gaukamánuður

As modern-day Heathens, we can still honor the traditions of the month of Harpa and celebrate spring’s arrival. We can hold Blót rituals, make offerings of flowers and eggs, and hold feasts with friends and family. We can also perform spring cleaning rituals in our homes and gardens, and take part in outdoor activities that connect us with the natural world.

One way to honor the goddess Eostre is to create an altar or shrine dedicated to her. This can be as simple or elaborate as you like, and can include offerings of eggs, flowers, or other items. You may also wish to light candles or incense in her honor. Use them in meditation on her qualities of fertility, growth, and renewal.

Another way to celebrate the month of Harpa is to hold a bonfire or other outdoor gathering with friends and family. You can gather around the fire, share food and drink, and tell stories or sing songs that connect you with the natural world. You may also wish to perform a ritual or make offerings to the land spirits, asking for their blessings on the coming season.

Finally, you can connect with the spirit of the cuckoo during the month of Gaukamánuður by spending time outdoors and observing the signs of spring. You may hear the cuckoo’s call, or see other signs of wildlife returning after the winter. You can also plant seeds or tend to your garden, honoring the cycle of growth and renewal that is central to this season.

Consider Celebrating Harpa or Gaukamánuður

The month of Harpa or Gaukamánuður was a time of celebration and renewal in Old Norse tradition, marking the arrival of spring and the return of the sun’s warmth. As modern-day Heathens, we can honor this tradition by holding Blót rituals, creating altars to the goddess Eostre, holding bonfires or outdoor gatherings, and connecting with the spirit of the cuckoo and the natural world. By doing so, we can deepen our connection to the season and the cycles of nature, and honor the traditions of our ancestors in meaningful and relevant ways.

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The Month of Gói or Women’s Month

March 24, 2020 The Rational Heathen Comments 0 Comment

Sorry I dropped off writing about the months. I’ll pick up now with the month of Gói, which is the fifth winter month in the Norse calendar. We don’t know a lot about the traditions of this particular month, except that the Norse named it after the daughter of Þorri, or Thorri. The month of Þorri precedes Gói, and is most known for its Thorrablot. Thorri is a winter spirit, akin to our own Jack Frost. Farmers held a blot to Gói in this month to welcome her. Tradition states that this month was the month where men took care of their women more. I can totally get behind that.

Weather During the Month of Gói

Gói runs somewhere between mid-February to mid-March, so there’s no doubt that even if the Spring Equinox is just around the corner, the weather during Gói was daunting during Viking times. The temperature in Norway was probably high 20s to low 40s Fahrenheit during the month, with occasional drops below zero. Sure, there were thaws, but the weather was too cold to consider planting, given that you could have some pretty nasty freezes. I suspect that farmers welcomes Gói because of the signs of an upcoming spring (even though they had only two seasons: winter and summer). Maybe Gói was considered a herald for summer when the farmers could plant their crops? Regardless, it’s unlikely anyone farmed during this time.

What Did People do with All that Winter?

At this point, you’re probably wondering how people didn’t go stir-crazy with all that winter. There were plenty of things to do during winter, especially crafting and repairs. People had to keep their livestock alive, which meant proper care for them in the winter so they would have wool, fiber, meat, and milk for the rest of the year. There was hunting, if you wanted fresh meat. They also played games, sang, told stories, and prepared their tools and weapons for the upcoming summer. And they had skis and ice skates to get around on the snow and lakes.

Food was what they preserved over the summer and fall. The cold, dry air allowed them to dry fish and other meats using a brine to help preserve them. The only fresh food was the meat they could hunt and catch, and perhaps milk, if their cows or goats started to calve or kid. As a side note, you know all about the Christmas fruitcake, made from dried fruit and nuts. Well, I suspect these cakes come from earlier times as a way to provide a treat with fruit, even when the fresh fruit was out of season.

New Life

About this time, the livestock would start giving birth to their offspring. I know, because that’s how my goats are, if I breed them. The Viking farmers would’ve kept their calves, kids, and lambs inside with the other livestock, possibly in a birthing pen so the little ones could stick around their mom and not get trampled by the rest of the herd. They would’ve taken the extra milk to make cheese or use in cooking after the young ones had eaten their fill.

So, the month of Gói was largely spent in preparation for summer. In a few weeks, I’ll talk about the next month, Einmánuður.

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The Month of Gormánuður or the Slaughter Month

November 26, 2019 The Rational Heathen Comments 0 Comment

By now, we’re in the midst of Gormánuður according to the old Norse calendar. It is the first month of winter according to the ancient calendar, and it is the month of slaughter or butchering. I figured that since I’ve talked about Haustmánuður, the Harvest Month, I should continue with the months…well,…monthly, so you can get a feeling of the ancient Norse year.

A Bit of History About Refrigeration (Stick with me on this)

Nowadays we have refrigeration, which is possibly why Gormánuður may be puzzling to some of you. After all, we can get meat year round and keep it in the freezer or refrigerator. And you’re probably quite aware that our ancestors didn’t have refrigeration until 1913–not that long ago–available for home use. Even then, owning a home refrigerator was expensive and it didn’t become popular until the 1930s. So, your recent ancestors probably had iceboxes–that is actual boxes that held ice to keep their food fresh. The icebox was invented and patented by a farmer in 1802. The original icebox was made from wood, rabbit skins, and lots of ice (duh!). The icebox took off, and there even was a market for harvested lake ice up until the 1930s. These required ice houses that kept the ice together even during the summer months until the lakes started freezing over again.

As an aside, as a child I did hear adults use the term “icebox” for refrigerator, even though the days of the icebox were long since gone. I assumed that they meant “freezer” because that’s where you kept the ice. Yeah, that makes me older than dirt. Deal with it.

How Did Gormánuður Get Its Name?

So, how did Gormánuður get its name? Well, if you didn’t have refrigeration or even an icebox, slaughtering an animal was a bit problematic. You had to either slaughter and prepare the

animal right there or risk spoilage, or you had to wait until the weather was cool enough to keep the meat fresh. Since it was very expensive to feed animals during the winter months (using up valuable resources of hay and grain), most farmers slaughtered all but their breeding stock for the next year. That required a way to preserve the meat so it would last during the winter and into the early part of the summer.

In many climes, Gormánuður was cold, but not brutally cold yet. Although the days were significantly shorter, there was still daylight left. And you could pretty much count on the weather keeping your food cold before you could salt it and preserve it further.

Common Practice Even into the 20th Century

Surprisingly, the idea of butchering meat in the fall was common practice until fairly recently. It wasn’t that uncommon for farms to slaughter pigs in the fall and store to have “pork sales” in the months leading up to Christmas and Yule. If you ever wondered why it’s still popular for people to have a Christmas ham, there you go. That, and our ancestors had a ham to celebrate Freyr during Yule and the increasing daylight. In fact, after hunting season, I’m going to be slaughtering goats and geese to reduce the herd. I suspect other farmers and ranchers out here do that out of necessity, too.

Nowadays, we see some of the remnants of this, but in the age of factory farming and a global economy, we can get foods we like anytime and don’t have to wait to get our favorite foods. All we have to do is shell out a bit more money to get what we want. When I buy foods, I tend to choose local, so the seasons are more apparent to me.

Ways to Celebrate Gormánuður

With Thanksgiving or Harvest coming up, celebrating Gormánuður is easy. Farmers and ranchers have raised turkeys to be slaughtered during the fall just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas. While they’re not pigs, goats, or cattle, you can certainly go with the intent of the season. Here are some other ways to celebrate Gormánuður:

Look for deep deals on local pork.
Choose foods which would have been harvested in October and November as part of your Harvest meal.
Choose local foods over those imported from the gods know where.
Learn all you can about local farming and slaughter practices. Find those farmers who use sustainable methods and patronize them.
Hunt for your meat. You’ll have a learning curve if you don’t hunt, so if you can find a knowledgeable and ethical hunter who will let you tag along this year just to help them (and maybe get some yummy venison), do that.
Get your pantry stocked up for Yule.

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The Month of Haustmánuður

September 20, 2019 The Rational Heathen Comments 0 Comment

I was checking out a site on the Viking Age and ran across an old Norse calendar. For all intents and purposes, the month we’re in is Haustmánuður, and it was considered the last month of summer. Apparently our Nordic ancestors divided the year into summer and winter, rather than the four seasons like we do now. They also followed the lunar calendar, going either from new moon to new moon or full moon to full moon. This month, Haustmánuður, is the Harvest Month. It is considered the last month of the Nordic calendar.

When Did the Harvest Month Haustmánuður Occur?

According to the Icelandic Wikipedia, Haustmánuður comes on the 23rd week of summer on a Thursday, which puts it roughly between the 21st and the 27th of September. In 2019, that puts Haustmánuður on September 26th. If we go with the full moon lunar cycle, that would put the full moon in September at September 14th. The new moon lunar cycle starts Haustmánuður on September 28th, which would make Yule that much closer to the Winter Solstice.

Why the Harvest Month?

You may have noticed that the Viking Age Norse tended to put a lot of stock in harvests and planting. Despite the Vikings’ fearsome reputation, most Nordic peoples were farmers, looking to eek out a living in a very harsh climate. Since the weather was either warm or cold, they needed to grow all their crops during the “summer” months to prepare for the brutally hard winter. Harvest was important to the Northern peoples because if you didn’t get enough put up for the winter, chances are you would starve. So, harvest became an important time, and our harvest gods were just as important. A good harvest meant everyone could eat and hopefully survive the winter. A bad harvest meant that you’d be lucky enough to see the spring. So, harvest festivals were important because they celebrated a good harvest and gave thanks to the deities who blessed the farmer with the harvest’s bounty.

Making Harvest Relevant Today

At this point, you’re probably thinking that harvest isn’t as applicable as it was even 100 years ago. And to a certain extent, you’d be right. Most people can go to their local supermarket and buy whatever it is they need, regardless of whether or not it’s in season where they live. The economy has become global, with being able to buy just about anything from anywhere. It might be fall in the Northern Hemisphere, but in the Summer Hemisphere, it’s Spring. Hothouses allow growing plants throughout the year. You no longer have to wait for slaughter time to get meat to put up. Hel, you don’t even have to store food for the upcoming winter months. So, how can we make Haustmánuður and Winter Finding relevant?

If you grow even some of your own food, you may have a sense as to when it’s time to harvest your garden before the upcoming frost. Don’t let that food go to waste; can, freeze, or dehydrate it so that you can use it in the upcoming winter months. If you don’t have a garden, you can still buy local foods from your farmer’s market and celebrate their harvest with your own feast. Be glad that there are farmers who provide food for you, because without them, you would starve. Even if you can’t have a feast that is made up of local foods, just having some in your meal will put you in touch with both the seasons and your ancestors.

Don’t Forget to Thank the Harvest Gods and Goddesses in Haustmánuður

During Haustmánuður, hold a blot for those gods and goddesses who blessed the harvest. Freyr, Freyja, Sif, Thor, and Gerðr are all deities of the harvest and we should thank them for the bounty. We should also thank the wights and the farmers; without them, there would be no harvest. We should also thank our ancestors for their knowledge and their perseverance in growing crops, because without their skills, they would not have survived and we would not be here.

Enjoy Haustmánuður and Winter Finding, my friends!