Dara Happan/Pelorian calendar

[Benedict Adamson]

The Dara Happan calendar (which I guess conforms to the Pelorian climate and magical landscape) has four seasons and weeks 10 days long. What are the names of the weekdays? Do the weeks have names?

[Peter Metcalfe]

The only real name that has been given is Reed Day Two which is a spring date. Hence I imagine the weeks are based on appropriate constellations (ie Sword would be a Winter Week).
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I think from the mention of the 294 judges that the days have individual names. So rather than remember 294 different names, the Dara Happans simply refer to it by its place in the week (requiring about 30 names to remember). Of course the holy days of some important god (Shargash Day, Buserian Day) will always get remembered as the occasion of a festival.

[Harald Smith]

I agree that the weeks would be based on constellations of the Sky – something within the sector based on Buserian’s Frame. If you look at the Sky from the Guide, I’d start at the Youth and move around counter-clockwise to get week names. Might vary by city. Based on Reed Day Two, it seems like the days of the week might just run 1 to 10, though each could have its Judge and an associated name.

Weeks might include the following:
Spring: Youth, Reed (or Willow – along the bank of the Celestial River), Plough, ???, Chorus, Lake, the Forest Gatekeeper?, Lion.
Summer: Swanmaid, Hag, Dove, Stag, Hunter, Harp, Pot (or Fan or Cook), Raven
Autumn: Serpent (or Fish), Spy, Sword, Rice (or Grain), Sow, Bear, ???, Red Gate?
Winter: Oasis, …? (hard to know what to choose from the Celestial Desert)

[Joerg Baumgartner]

In the absence of suitable landmarks in the usual position, you could look the opposite way and repeat that cycle from half a year ago. Something like “desert opposite X” constellation mark (or how do you translate “landmark” to a position in the sky?).

[Harald Smith]

“how do you translate “landmark” to a position in the sky?”

The Buseri would use their frame and coordinates, and then translate that into something for the masses.

[Alex Ferguson]

>

“how do you translate “landmark” to a position in the sky?”
> The Buseri would use their frame and coordinates, and then translate that into something for the masses.

I think Joerg was referring to the metaphor-clunking aspect of a *land*mark being in the *sky*.

I’m not sure using frame “sectors” is a good fit. It’s pretty dry, even by Dara Happan standards. It’s not consistent with the “constellation” basis. It’s (even!) less clear what celestial phenomenon it would be measuring.

The constellation idea is suggestive of tracking the position of some other celestial body against the Sky Dome, presumably at some specified time of day. (Sunset, end of twilight, midnight, etc. Not sure off the top of my head which combination fits the bill.) There are no real “zodiac objects” in Glorantha, because the Sunpath and the celestial (or stellar, at least) equator are almost perpendicular, so nothing moves on an annual basis, without also moving a large amount through the night. Where there’s no handy constellation, some purely conventional name might be used, but even the Desert likely has a few faint stars, and hence obscure asterisms. For comparison there’s about 5000 stars notionally visible on Earth, which is considerably more than we have charted for Glorantha.

The idea of a ten-day week, in a world that has a year that’s suspiciously neatly factorisable by 2, 3, and 7 (twice!) is of course completely bonkers. And very, very solar. I love it. A “sensible” version would obviously just have 28 normal weeks and a 14-day Sacred Time type interlude. But “sensible” seems the antithesis to what’s called for here. The four odd days might be considered extra-weekly. Or else it might use “leap weeks”.

I think there’s much mythic grist to the mill in the calendar being such an awkward fit to the year. From a Solar POV, it’s obviously the year’s fault. Give us back our missing six (or 106, or however many) days!

[Simon Phipp]

Bear in mind, as well, that in the Golden Age, the Sky and Earth were together, so landmarks in the Sky are quite reasonable. Some of the places in the sky were also landmarks on the ground. How many of those have carried over, I am not sure.

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