The Anglo-Saxon Calendar
I think it’s safe to say that everybody reading this will agree that the world is becoming worse off for increased homogenisation and the differences between peoples gradually being ironed out.
In an era of aeroplanes and instant telecommunications it’s perhaps not realistic to go back to a world where each people had a completely different concept of time unique to their situation, but seeming as it’s New Year it’s worth having a look at how things could be done differently.
In the early Anglo-Saxon period before the Christianisation of England began in around 600, the year was split into 12 months of roughly 29 days based on the cycles of the moon. The Old English word for month ‘monath’ comes from the word for moon, ‘mona’.