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Original Post:
by: Mechtavolk on May 31, 2013

Most of our lives, we've lived with the dating systems of B.C. (Before Christ,) and A.D. ( Anno Domini "In the Year of Our Lord") with "Year 0" as Jesus' alleged birth. Then secular notions began to gain some ground, and very recently the wording was changed from B.C.E. (Before Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era.) Yet "Year 0" is still this arbitrary date of a man supposedly being born, even if there is no recognition given to the notion. So the whole thing seemed rather silly to me.

Then I found the Runic Era.

Runic Era (R.E.) is a dating calendar used by Norse and Germanic Pagans, as well as a few other Heathenism-based beliefs. "Year 0" is placed on when the first rune stones found were dated to, which is about 250 B.C.E. This is theologically seen as the moment that Odin gave the Runes to mankind to use.

So following this, and to illustrate, the year 2000 C.E. would be 2250 R.E.

With a Runic Calendar, the months and days are also different. It still follows a Gregorian outline (breaking from that is rather hard to do, it seems,) but we use more "traditional" Germanic names.

  • Snowmoon (January)
  • Horning (February)
  • Lenting (March)
  • Ostara (April)
  • Merrymoon (May)
  • Midyear (June)
  • Haymoon (July)
  • Harvest (August)
  • Shedding (September)
  • Hunting (October)
  • Fogmoon (November)
  • Yule (December)

  • Manadagr (Monday) - Manni's Day
  • Tysdagr (Tuesday) - Tyr's Day
  • Odinsdagr/Wotansdagr (Wednesday) - Odin/Wotan's Day
  • Thorsdagr (Thursday) - Thor's Day
  • Frjadagr (Friday) - Frigga's Day (some associate it as Frejya's Day)
  • Laugardagr (Saturday) - Wash Day
  • Sunnudagr (Sunday) - Sunna's Day
    • Following this calendar (that I wish someone would make a computer application for,) today is Frjadagr, the 31st of Merrymoon, in the year 2263 of the Runic Era .