The Old Icelandic calendar: why summer starts in April
Every April, Iceland celebrates the First Day of Summer - a public holiday, with parades, while sleet is falling. The explanation is the Old Icelandic calendar: a Norse-rooted reckoning shaped in Iceland in the first centuries of settlement, which divided the year into just two seasons - summer and winter. Iceland switched to the Gregorian calendar long ago, but the old system's key days never left the almanac.
Twelve months, two seasons
The old year had twelve months of thirty nights each, plus four extra nights - and, in some years, an added “summer bonus” week (sumarauki) to keep the whole thing aligned with the sun. The winter months were Gormánuður, Ýlir, Mörsugur, Þorri, Góa and Einmánuður; the summer months Harpa, Skerpla, Sólmánuður, Heyannir, Tvímánuður and Haustmánuður. Months began not on a fixed date but on a fixed weekday - which is why the surviving days still wander across a few dates.
The days that survive
- Husband's Day (Bóndadagur) - first day of Þorri, the Friday between 19 and 25 January; opening day of the þorrablót feasting season.
- Women's Day (Konudagur) - first day of Góa, the Sunday between 18 and 24 February.
- First Day of Summer - first day of Harpa, the Thursday after 18 April; a public holiday and flag day celebrated since the Middle Ages.
- First Day of Winter - start of Gormánuður, the Saturday between 21 and 27 October.
When summer and winter freeze together
Folklore still watches the turning points: if there is frost on the night before the First Day of Summer - if “summer and winter freeze together” - the summer ahead will be a good one. The weather on the First Day of Winter was likewise read as an omen for the season to come.
The old days sit alongside the church feasts and modern holidays in the calendar - and the þorrablót season they anchor gets its own deep-dive in Þorrablót: Iceland's midwinter feast.