I have been watching the clock a lot lately. This and the beginning of 2012 with all the talk of the Mayan calendar, Templar astrology, and the end of time... All of that has got me thinking about the runes and time. How did the Old Norse or Anglo-Saxons think of time? And how might the runes relate to the passing of time?
Not too long ago I did quite a lot of reading about the astrolabe. This lead to reading about the related topic of sundials as well (inquiring minds want to know). I remembered reading about a curious sundial in England. On
page 57 of The Book of Sun-Dials by H. K. F. Eden, there is a description of a dial at Aldbrough Church in England.
It is circular, about 15½ inches in diameter, and divided into eight equal parts, with a central hole for the style. In one of the spaces there is a rather elaborate fylfot. The inscription is on the outer circle, and runs thus:
+ VLF HET AERIERAN CYRICE FOR HANVM AND FOR GVNWARA SAVLA.
[Ulf bade a rear church for poor (or "for himself,") and for Gunwara (her) soul.]
. . . The inscription is a curious example of a mixed dialect, old English and Scandinavian.
. . . There is another point worth noting. Anglo-Saxon dials are usually semicircular, this one is completely circular, and exactly resembles those sun-wheels which have been found on stones and relics of the bronze age in Denmark, Ireland, and other parts of Europe, and which are considered to be sun symbols of great antiquity. On the same dial stone we find the fylfot, an Aryan emblem, representing, says Count Goblet d'Alviella, "the sun in its apparent course, the branches being rays in motion." We shall see as we go on that these little wheel dials are frequently found on churches of much later date than Aldbrough. The equal division of the circle into eight parts, though it should indicate the eight tides of the Norsemen, is a useless one for a sun-dial, where the night hours are not needed."
(Here's a University of Pennsylvania web page with pictures and more about the inscription on the dial:
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kroch/scand/aldbrough.html )
On reading this again I grew curious as to what these "eight tides of the Norsemen" could be. After a few google searches and quite a bit of reading I had my answer. There is actually quite a lot of information about this subject, but the most accessible is this article at Harvard:
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/ECT/Daymarks/
The Norse divided the horizon into eight (Aett) equal parts. The eight divisions were measured by the sun's movement. At eight different points of the horizon the Norse would assign a marker for each of the eight important times of day.
Midday
The first and most important daymark is the midday mark. This is the time of day that the sun is at its highest. If you face the sun at this time of day, you are facing south. We now call this time "noon". This point stays the same every day throughout the year. This is the warmest time of day.
Midnight
Midnight is directly opposite midday or noon. This is north.
Rise-Measure
On each equinox, the point the sun rises is the rise measure. It is roughly east.
Mid-Evening
Opposite the rise measure is the Mid-Evening measure in the West.
Day-Measure, Night-Measure, Undorn, and Otta
In the spaces between the four marks already described are four more marks. All together these marks divide the plane of the horizon into eight equal parts. The other four day marks are called Undorn, Night-Measure, Otta, and Day-Measure and are situated as in this illustration
The Names of the Day Tides
The names of the day tides varied from time to place. In one place the tides may be called noontide, undorne, eventide, nighttide, uht (otta), morning, and undernoon. Anglo-Saxons called these times of day
tíd (from whence we get the word tide) and named them
middaeg,
gelotendaeg,
aefen,
niht,
midniht,
úht,
morgen, and
undern.
Old Anglo-Saxon sundials in England are divided into four equal sections representing the four tides within daylight. They maintained the four other tides, but as Mr. Eden points out, the night hours are not needed for a sundial (in England, at least).
Oh, I just had a great idea. Let's take Ulf's sundial back home. No, really, grab it and follow me. We had better start moving now, we only have a few months to get there. . .
Good, You made it! Just in time too. Today is the summer solstice in Scandinavia. The locals tell me it is noon. Set down Ulf's sundial, place the stylus in the hole and align the sundial so the shadow points due north. That's right, when you are looking down on a sundial, the divisions are reversed. The north division is midday, not midnight. Keep that in mind as you watch the shadow on the dial for the next few hours. . .
. . . Oh, you're still here? That's great. What time is it? You look confused. Where is the shadow? Yeah, the shadow really is due south and it really is midnight!
When Mr. Eden wrote, "The equal division of the circle into eight parts, though it should
indicate the eight tides of the Norsemen, is a useless one for a
sun-dial,
where the night hours are not needed." Well, he did not take into account where Ulf came from. It seems that summer in these parts doesn't include many sunsets. If you come back in winter you may find you can still read the dial after sunset. Even with the sun below the horizon, the light will often be enough to cast a shadow on the dial. Ulf isn't looking so silly now is he?
But I'm not Scandinavian and I don't use sundials. I want a system of time keeping that feels authentic and modern and makes sense in MY world. I want a system that reminds me of the runes and daytides and can still get me to work on time.
These days most of the world uses clocks and watches that measure time the same way. One day is 24 hours. One hour is 60 minutes. Every day is measured the same no matter what the sun is doing. Some clocks count the hours from 1 to 12 and we make the distinction of A.M. or P.M. Other clocks count all 24 hours of a day. If there were only a way of marking these times with runes. I mean, every clock, watch, phone, computer widget, and bank sign uses Arabic or Roman numerals, but how in the world could we mark those times with runes?
Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic all used the same characters to write their words as they used to write their numbers. So, it should come as no surprise that the runes of the Elder Futhark also have numerical values.
The runes and their values are as follows:
The runes have values of 1 to 24. Since there are 24 hours in a day, this means we can assign one rune to each hour of the day. Ideally we would make 24 equal divisions, each with a rune, on a clock face and have the clock run at half speed. Since I have only seen one clock that runs at half speed, we will need to make a new face for a standard 12 hour clock. Modeling my clock after a military clock, here is my design:
As you can see, I have placed the runes where their Roman or Arabic numeral equivalents would normally go. The Old Norse would probably rotate this clock one position to the left so the count starts nearer the noon daymark, but no matter how you hang the clock, I suggest you set it so you will not be late for work or school. If you do not know how to use a 24 hour clock, you can ignore the runes in the center ring.
This arrangement places three runes in each day tide. In noontide we have Isa, Jera, and Ihwaz. If we turn the clock one position to the left noontide contains the runes Jera, Fehu, and Perthro. The following table shows which runic hours are in each of the daytides.
| Jera at Midday Mark |
| Noontide | Undorne | Eventide | Nighttide | Midnight | Otta | Morning | Undernoon |
| Isa, Jera, Ihwaz | Perthro, Elhaz, Sowilo | Tiwaz, Berkana, Ehwaz | Mannaz, Laguz, Ingwaz | Dagaz, Othala, Fehu | Uruz, Thurisaz, Ansuz | Raidho, Kenaz, Gebo | Wunyo, Hagalaz, Nauthiz |
| Fehu at Midday Mark |
| Noontide | Undorne | Eventide | Nighttide | Midnight | Otta | Morning | Undernoon |
| Jera, Fehu, Perthro | Elhaz, Sowilo, Tiwaz | Berkana, Ehwaz, Mannaz | Laguz, Ingwaz, Dagaz | Othala, Fehu, Uruz | Thurisaz, Ansuz, Raidho | Kenaz, Gebo, Wunyo | Hagalaz, Nauthiz, Isa |
If I were more crafty with a compass and brush, I would buy a clock from the store and modify it. But I am not that crafty and do not want to spend money just so I can ruin a clock. So, in order to fill the spot on the wall above the table where I start fires with my poor soldering skills, I have uploaded my modern runic clock design to cafepress.com.
I would like to hear your feedback on any part of this article. If I made a mistake in describing the eight tides or daymarks or if you have a suggestion for a better clock design, please let me know.
As a side note: The positions of the daymarks requires the observation of the sun over the course of an entire year. The sun is highest above the midday mark on midsummer. Likewise, the other seven dividing marks land on the solstices, equinoxes, and so-called cross-quarter days. I find the
Wikipedia page on the Wheel of the Year needs serious revision.
Rune Time: Making A Modern Runic Clock by
Jason Bales is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at
greybookofrunes.blogspot.com.
Addenda:
It has come to my attention that my work above may be similar to ideas in Nigel Pennick's "Practical Magic in the Northern Tradition". I have not read this book, but it is now on my
wish list.
