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ll Soul's Day does not belong in the calendar

by jaellon: 2004-11-23 | 7 out of 10 (11 votes)

Previous Categories: Miscellaneous

I will make reference to a number of different methods of measuring a year, and although I won't explain their rules, they are out there to look up if you want. The measurements I will refer to are:

Tropical / Solar Year: Approximately 365.24219907 days (365 Days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds).

Simple year: Exactly 365 days. (Not used by any culture that I know of.)

Julian Year: Average of 365.25 days with a cycle of 4 years (365 days 6 hours).

Gregorian Year: Average of 365.2425 days with a cycle of 400 years (365 days 5 hours 49 minutes, 12 seconds).

New Era (Farede) Year: A year according to the calendar in general use in the Wheel of Time.

366 days in years divisible by 4 (Feast of Thanksgiving added). (996, 1000, 1004, etc.)

366 days in designated year within 10-year cycle, presumably the years divisible by 10, but unconfirmed within the books (All Soul's Day added) (400, 990, 1000, etc.)

367 days in years where above two conditions correspond (980, 1000, 1020, etc.)

365 days in all other years (997, 998, 999, etc.)

Average: 365.35 days per year (31566240 seconds).

Since the tropical year does not contain an exact number of calendar days, we cannot have the same number of days from year to year without the calendar year diverging from the tropical year. For instance, if our calendar year had 365 days in it every year (instead of 366 every 4 years), it would diverge from the tropical year by 5.8 hours every year. Not sound like much? If Pope Gregory XIII had championed the simple calendar in 1582 instead of the Gregorian Calendar, the first day of Winter would now be April 2.

So how much does each one diverge each year?

Simple Year: -.24219907 days (- less than 6 hours)

Gregorian Year: .00030093 days (26 sec)

Julian Year: .00780093 days (a little more than 10 minutes)

Farede Year: .10780093 days (about 2 1/2 hours)

And in a 500-year span?

Simple Year: -121.09954 days

Gregorian Year: 0.15047 days

Julian Year: 3.90047 days

Farede Year: 53.90047 days

And in a 1000-year span?

Simple Year: -242.19907 days

Gregorian Year: 0.30093 days

Julian Year: 7.80093 days

Farede Year: 107.80093 days

In the case of the Simple Year, Spring would come later every calendar year. In the case of the other three, Spring would come earlier every calendar year. And in the case of the Farede Calendar, Spring would have come earlier every calendar year until, in 1000 NE, it was arriving at approximately our equivalent of December 21.

Possible explanations

#1 - Jordan's oversight: Robert Jordan may not have carefully considered the long-term implications of the calendar used in the Wheel of Time.

#2 - Different Solar year: It is known that planets' orbits are capable of drifting over a period of millions of years. If it were to drift, the length of the tropical year would drift accordingly, and a 365.35 day year could be the most accurate.

#3 - Primitive Observation Techniques: Urin din Jubai Soaring Gull did not have the capability to accurately measure the Solar Year, and/or did not consider that the Solar Year and Tropical Year are the same. According to the measurements he did make, 365.35 days seemed the most accurate.

#4 - Calendar modified by the ignorant: If All Soul's Day had been incorrectly added by somebody ignorant in the various science fields, then the original calendar would have been the exact same as the Julian Calendar of our age, with only a divergence of 7.8 days in the 1000 years of the New Era.

Analysis of Possible Explanations

Jordan's oversight: Simplest explanation. However, with a nod to Occam's Razor, I find this answer unsatisfactory.

Different Solar Year: Remotely possible. It could even be argued that this would add a greater degree of scientific validity to the books. But why bother? It certainly won't add to the epic quality of these books for Jordan to explain all of this, especially now that the end is in sight (talk about crashing and burning).

Primitive Observation Techniques: Unlikely. The Roman Empire had no more capabilities than the Sea Folk. Neither did the ancient Egyptians, nor did the Babylonians, nor the Chinese. Neither did 16th century Europeans. All of these civilizations developed calendars remarkably accurate to the cycles of the moon or the turning of the seasons. It is far-fetched to believe that Soaring Gull, apparently respected in his field, would create a calendar so grossly flawed.

Calendar modified by the ignorant: Likely. Although Soaring Gull developed this calendar, it was Farede, the then-Panarch of Tarabon who promoted it, and it was the unwashed masses who adopted it. Anyone could have monkeyed with it, and nobody would have noticed the divergence for 50 - 200 years, except for those few who also made a serious study. At that point, it would just be accepted and adapted.

Conclusion

The Farede calendar did not contain All Soul's Day. Someone else added it.
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Comments

1

Tamyrlin: 2005-02-02

Jaellon, you spent a bunch of time crafting this thing, and I am not sure I followed you the whole way through, but this much work is due its place in the section; I am sure more will have something to say.

2

a dragonburned fool: 2005-02-03

Good work, Jaellon! It is really strange that days are added to the standard number of days of a Julian calendar, since the Gregorian correction to the Julian calendar consised in excluding some dates...

However, if the options of ignorant modification of the Calender or of poor observation was true, then the shift in calendar dates in comparison to real months would really happen. The Farede Calendar was introduced 1000 years before the current moment. So, if it worked all these 1000 years, it should create a shift for more than three months, i.e. a shift of a whole season. But the Feasts we see in the books match the supposed seasons.

E.g. Feast of Lights is supposed to be the shortest day of the year. We see this feast in LoC - it's the day wheh Perrin is beginning his quest from Cairhien for to rescue Rand. About this time it's said that it must be already in the middle of winter and there must be snow since a long time. But if the date shift of the calendar existed, this Feast should happen in the first days of September, i.e. no snow should be expected yet at this time... This is only one of many possible examples.

Feast of Lights is more interesting though, because it is a date in the month and it is attached to one of the 4 turnpoints of the year. All other Feasts attached to all the other turnpoints of years, are extraordinal days not included in the month dates. This is too much a pattern for to be not part of the original design of the Calendar. And this makes unlikely the option that dates of the months are not attached to the real seasons, and that the season-related feasts are actually floating (in that case the date of Feast of Lights ought to change with the years and it had to be not so well matching the last day of month Danu...)

btw against the option of Primitive observation we have the fact that Urin din Jubai is an Ata'an Miere, and these people use in their navigation sextants (and maybe also other tools of observation) and they have special attention to sextants keeping them in top secret from all non-Seafolk people; i.e. they are very pride of having these sextants and consider them as decisive advantage of their people against all other world. I.e. Seafolk have quite advanced observation techniques, not less advanced then the navigation techniques in the times of introduction of the Gregorian Calendar.

Panarch Farede who promoted the Calendar could be ignorant or not (however more likely she was not, because Tanchico posesses one of the richest libraries in Westlands, i.e. Farede's Tanchiko had it's own scholars), the putting in of a 10-years-cycle Feast is making the Calendar more complicite without any visible reason, while an ignorant reformer would rather make the Calendar more simple.

But in any way, if Farede made the fatal change, the three-month shift would occur until now, and such shift apparently doesn't exist now.

So, infortunately the options #1 and #2 remain as more likely.

3

ranman38: 2005-02-04

Impressive deductions. It matters why? ;)

4

Satin alEllien Moonsong: 2005-02-04

Surely this is all moot? regardless of the reasons behind it, this is the length of a Farede year. It seems to be working fine, so, therefore, it must be correct. In my opinion, Jordan's world simply has a slightly longer year. Nothing more, nothing less. Stop making a mountain out of a molehill!

5

: 2005-02-10

From the BWB: The calendar's named months are used almost exclusively in official documents. In everyday life, everyone from nobles to commoners reckons time by the seasons, and fixes dates by days or weeks from or to this or that feastday, usually the major holidays.

And considering there are different festivals and observances in different parts of the world... there is a lot of room for error.

6

Frenzy: 2005-02-10

Sorry. That bwb quote was from me.

7

SteelBlaidd: 2005-02-11

I agree one of the reasons that Easter wanders around like it does is that it's date is calculated useing the old Hebrew lunar calander. I would suspect that Feast days are calculated based on some readaly observable Astronomical markers. Farmers dont realy care about the date jut the weather.