The Anglo-Saxon Runestav Calendar is a working reconstruction of the medieval runestav calendars found in Scandinavia, adapted through an Anglo-Saxon lens. The month names, feast days, runes, and visual design all reflect an English cultural tradition.
4
Although the surviving runestav calendars date to around the 1300s, they preserve a much older system of timekeeping. It is very likely that early English, Norse, and Germanic peoples used similar calendrical frameworks long before the Christian era.
Historically, these calendars were used by clergy to track both solar and lunar cycles—especially to calculate the date of Easter. At the same time, they were practical tools for everyday life, used by laypeople to follow the days, months, seasonal rhythms, and feast days throughout the year.
The month names used here come from Old English sources, recorded by Bede in the 8th century, while the visual ornamentation draws inspiration from the Lindisfarne Gospels (c. 700 CE).
At its core, the calendar is built on the Metonic cycle—a 19-year period in which the solar year (365 days) and lunar year (354 days) realign.
Step 1 — Determine the Year
Start with the modern Gregorian date you want to find.
Example: March 1, 2026
Divide the year by 19 and take the remainder.
2026 ÷ 19 = remainder 12
Then add 1:
12 + 1 = 13
This places 2026 in Year 13 of the Metonic cycle, which corresponds to the rune Eóh.
On the calendar, the innermost ring shows the Gregorian months and days. Find March 1 on that inner ring. From there, move straight outward through the calendar rings. Each ring represents one year in the 19-year Metonic cycle. Stop at the 13th ring. This is the year Eóh.
Step 2 — Determine the Month
Once the year is known, you can identify the Anglo-Saxon month.
The ring just inside the Gregorian calendar ring contains the Old English month names. For March 1, 2026, in the year Eóh, the month is Hrēþmōnaþ.
These month names come to us from Bede and reflect an older seasonal way of reckoning time.
In lunisolar calendar systems, a leap month is added every two or three years to make up the gap between the 365-day solar year and the 354-day lunar year.
The Anglo-Saxons called this leap month Þriliða, or “Third Liða,” and placed it between Ærra Liða and Æfterra Liða.
Step 3 — Determine the Lunar Phase
Each lunar month begins on a new moon and is marked on the calendar by a band of color.
The beginning of the colored band marks the new moon. The middle of the band marks the full moon.
Because March 1, 2026 falls near the middle of its colored band in the year Eóh, it falls near the full moon.
Step 4 — Determine the Weekday
The weekday cycle is shown in one of the inner rings of the calendar.
In the traditional runestav calendar, this line is made from the first seven runes of the Younger Futhark repeated 52 times to form the weeks of the year. In this reconstructed version, that same principle is carried into the circular design.
By locating your date and reading across to the weekday ring, you can determine the day of the week.
Step 5 — Find Feast Days and Seasonal Markers
The calendar also shows the proximity of your date to feast days, seasonal observances, and other important markers in the year.
Historically, runestav calendars were used not only to calculate Easter and other movable feasts, but also to keep track of agricultural, liturgical, and seasonal rhythms.
This reconstruction continues that tradition by bringing solar, lunar, and cultural timekeeping together in one design.
Understanding the Runes
The meanings of the runes are not always fixed. They are best understood by reading across the surviving rune poems.
The Anglo-Saxon rune poem is the earliest recorded, dating from at least the 800s. The Norwegian rune poem follows around the 1200s, and the Icelandic rune poem dates to the 1300s.
Taken together, these sources give a fuller sense of each rune’s symbolic character. Cross-referencing them can help you form your own understanding of the runes and how they speak within the calendar.
The runestav calendars were used by Christian clergy to track the solar and lunar dates simultaneously particularly to determine the date of easter. But they were also used by laypersons to track the days, months and years as well as holidays.
The month names come from Anglo Saxon times and are in old English. The border and embellishments are from the Lindisfarne Gospels, created around 700 CE.
The runestav calendar like many other luni-solar calendar systems tracks time using the Metonic cycle, 19-year amount of time it takes for the 365 day solar year to realign with the 354 day “lunar year.”
On the Anglo Saxon Runic Calendar, the innermost ring shows the familiar Gregorian months and days.
Locate March 1 on that inner ring.
From that date, move straight outward through the calendar rings.
Each ring represents one year in the 19-year Metonic cycle. Stop when you get to the 13th ring. This is the year Eóh. So you have found the year!
