Misseristal: Aukanætur

The Old Icelandic Calendar, called Misseristal (translated as semester count), was started in the 10th century, continued until the 01700s, but its shadow lives on today. The calendar was designed to have exactly 12 months of 30 days. That’s 5.25 days short of a solar year. The other unique aspect of the Old Icelandic calendar is that the months always start on the same day of the week. Sólmanuður always starts on a Monday, Heyannir always starts on Sunday. To keep the months starting on the same day of the week, a 4 day month called Aukanætur (Extra Nights) is added in the middle of the 6 months of summer. That gets us to 364 days, which is divisible by 7 without a remainder. Now the drift each year is only 1.25 days from the Gregorian calendar. To make-up for this, every few years and additional seven days called Sumarauki are added to Aukanætur. This keeps the months consistently starting on the same day and rectifies the drift from the Gregorian calendar. Next week is the start of…