The Swedish calendar

I got up for a wee, and there was already -- could it be? -- Yes, just the faintest light outside, a blue above the roofs of the estate. Back in my room, I looked at the phone: coming up to 0410.

  Sommarsolståndet. 

Well, just about. It is June 20 today. 

I had been glancing through my Swedish "weather calendar". 

Sommarståndsregn är vanligen långvariga.

Rain on midsummer day is usually long-lasting.

But if there's sunshine today it means Christmas Day will be very cold (clear skies). That's because they are dagbröder ("brother days") and have the same weather as each other.  (But the weather on Christmas Day foretells the weather in January; the 26th December foretells February; and so on through the twelve days of Christmas.)

Som väderlek är på midsommardag, blir den under den följande del av sommaren.

Whatever the weather does on midsummer's day, it will be like that for the rest of the summer.

"Sommarstånd" is short for "sommarsolstånd", which means (and is cognate with) "summer solstice": summer sun stand. The day the sun comes to a standstill. Now it has reached its frontier of early light. It stands there reflecting, perhaps, on what it sees. And then, very slowly, it starts to wander back. 

I thought of how, to get more of the magical summer light than this, I needed to head for the far north, without delay. Rise up and leave now! I took a sip of my glass of water, and went back to sleep.

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The iron nights (järnnätter) are certain nights in late spring or late summer that were supposed to be particularly liable to frost, and hence a threat to crops. 

My weather calendar (Väderkalendar) specifies the 1-2 June (with the abbreviation "AC", impenetrable to me), the 6-9 June in Jämtland, the 8-10 June in Lappland, the 14-18 June in Västergötland. 

And then 9-12 August (Västmanland). 11 August (Hälsingland). 11-13 August (Jämtland) -- but if there's no frost on those nights, then one can be confident there'll be none until the 24th. More pessimistically, 17-28 August (Västergötland)

Wikipedia says the name for these proverbially risky nights may have arisen originally from a mistranslation of German Eismän (ice men) as Eisenmän (iron men). [The men in question being saints of specific days.]

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The originally German 1508 book called Bondepraktikan in its Swedish version (1662) was, along with the bible, catechism and psalms, the basic reading matter of ordinary Swedish people until the end of the 19th century. It went through about 50 editions, the lore unaffected, I think, by the eleven-day shift in 1753 when switching from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian one. 

As a result of that book, further accreted with local lore, nearly every day in Sweden was a St Swithins day in someone's eyes, its weather a sign or having some proverbial application. 

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Some of this lore was practical. No doubt it's sensible for Norrbotten coastlanders to be cautious about planting their potatoes before the end of the "iron nights" (8 June in their reckoning). 

But what was the point in remarking, e.g. on 20 June, "Sunshine today means a cold Christmas"? There must have been a social function, perhaps a sense of security or community-forming arising from a shared and sharable hoard of not-really-facts. 

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It was via Germany, too, that the name's day tradition came to Nordic lands. It's still usual to include the names of the day in modern Swedish calendars, though I don't know how many modern Swedes make anything of it. In my own family, my mother Eva's name's day happened to fall on Christmas Eve and this was an annual talking point. Because it was such a special day for other reasons, we were more apt to remember and sometimes there was a child's drawing or an extra hug "because it's your name's day". But this was exceptional. We children might have looked up when our own name's days fell, out of curiosity, but that was as far as it went. My name's day is September 29th (the name's day being usually the same as the eponymous saint's day, when there is one). But sixty-two September 29ths have come and gone without me once thinking "Oh, it's my name's day today!" 

January 5: Hanna, Hannele. Trettondagsafton. A thirteenth-thaw is as good as 100 loads of hay (Dalarna). [January 5th is the twelfth day of Christmas and thus "Thirteenth Night" (Trettondagsafton).]

January 6: Kasper, Melker, Baltsar. Trettondedag. A thirteenth-day-thaw means a bad summer and sour hay (Skåne). A snowstorm today means thirteen snowstorms this winter. A thirteenth-day thaw is better than 20 loads of hay.  

January 13: Knut. Tjugondedag. If it's chilly from Yule to Knut, so shall it be the whole winter out. The twenty-day conifer-needles lie in the middle of the snow (Dalarna). [The twentieth day of Christmas, celebrated in Sweden by julgransplundring, stripping the Christmas tree of its decorations -- a social occasion, with visits and children's games and treats. I don't really get the last saying, but I suppose it's saying that half the snow falls before this date and half after.]

January 29: Diana. Sunshine today means a good berry year. 

A mild and wet January means a dry summer. 

If the animals are out and moving about, expect lovely cold weather. [In winter, Swedes prefer cold weather: clear skies and the brightening of the ground with snow or frost. Nobody likes the depressing darkness of a barvinter (bare winter).]

June 3: Ingemar, Gudmar. If it rains today it will rain at harvest-time.

Thunder in June means a rainy summer but a rich harvest. 

If a wet June follows a wet May, it's most likely going to be a wet summer. 

June 29 Peter, Petra. There is gold in the bottom of Petersmas rain (Medelpad) [Feast of St Peter]. If today is very warm, it will be extremely cold on Christmas Day. Final day of the year for collecting medicinal herbs. 

July 26: Jesper. If it rains today there will be a good hop harvest. 

Aftonrodnad -- klar natt, morgonrodnad -- våt hatt. (Evening red, clear night. Morning red, wet hat. )

When the black grouse lek in the autumn it's seven weeks to the first snow.