by Brian Kunde
The setting of L. Sprague de Camp’s Novarian novels is, like that of The Lord of the Rings, a fully-realized fantasy world with its own well-developed history, geography and cosmology. Unlike the archetypal Tolkien work, however, its background is presented almost wholly on the fly, without the buttressing provided by lengthy appendices. While de Camp’s approach serves the author’s purpose of adding verisimilitude to his invented world, an inattentive reader might never realize its depths; it’s a case of “blink and you miss it.” In this series of essays on Novaria, I attempt to concentrate and explore some of the material de Camp broadcasts. This article will focus on the calendar.
Even a cursory glance at the stories reveals that inhabitants of the Prime Plane, as the world of the stories is known to its denizens, reckon time much as we do, in years that are divided into months, that are divided into days, that are divided into hours.
The reckoning of time: eras and groups of years.
There appears to be no general era in which years are numbered. The empires of Kuromon and Mulvan both seem to have seem to have kept accurate track of their own histories, but the means are not detailed. We know only that Kuromon resorts to recurring named cycles of years and uses dynasties as historical eras, a la the Chinese. In smaller polities such as the Novarian city-states and Salimor, the sense of the past is much more chaotic. Thus, Jorian provides contradictory indications of when Vindium became a republic — had it this form of government already in the reign of Forimar the Esthete in Kortoli, as indicated in his tale of the Sophi’s Tower, or was it newly-founded in the reign of Forimar’s great-great nephew Filoman the Well-Meaning, as stated in his story of the Golem General? For that matter, when did these kings reign? Did Forimar flourish just over a century ago, as Princess Nogiri of Salimor tells us in The Honorable Barbarian, or many centuries in the past, per the dating Jorian gives the old boy’s great-great-great nephew Fusinian the Fox in “The Teeth of Grimnor”?
In regard to smaller units of time, we have a relative wealth of information from Novaria, but almost none from elsewhere. We have one date from Kuromon: “the sixth month of the Year of the Camel, in the Cycle of the Tortoise.” From this we can infer that the Kurmonians number their months while naming their years and the broader units in which these are organized. In contrast, as will be seen, Novaria names its months but evidently not its years. We also know that in Novaria years are reckoned differently in different city-states. In Kortoli and Xylar it is by the years of the reigning king of the respective polis. From the evidence of The Fallible Fiend, the Xylar years, coming as they do in regular groups of five, are also used to date events throughout Novaria, much as in our world Olympiads were used throughout Greece. Unlike Olympiads, however, the Xylarian reigns do not appear to have been numbered; hence, while no doubt serving well as a rough and ready dating system for contemporaries, they would be of use to historians only with the aid of eponym lists similar to those the Assyrians and Romans maintained in regard to single years. Note that years are numbered within reigns, as in “the fifth year of King Tonio of Xylar” (The Fallible Fiend) or “the twelfth year of King Fealin the Second of Kortoli” (The Goblin Tower, The Clocks of Iraz).
The year and its subdivisions.
Months within the year are named after animals, some real and a few, at least to us, mythical, though all are evidently real in the context of the stories. We have the Novarian names of twelve months, and when all the evidence is put together it appears there are only twelve; hence, the Novarians have the same number that we do. The system is likely derived from the Novarian zodiac; four of its months (Bull, Ram, Pike and Lion) correspond to constellations in our own zodiac (Taurus, Aries, Pisces, Leo), though the sequence is different. Nowhere are we told what months start or end the year, or whether Novarians distinguish a civil from a religious year. In this essay I assume the year to begin with spring rather than at midwinter, as in most pre-modern societies. From the evidence, no months begin at the obvious points of the year’s solstices or equinoxes, any more than they do in our system; rather, these seasonal changes occur within months.
The week does not seem to be known in Novaria, though the term fiftnight frequently appears, used much like our time fortnight to represent half a month. But while a fortnight (fourteen days) is actually a unit indicating a period of two weeks, fiftnight (fifteen days), being indivisible by two, implies the nonexistence of a Novarian week, and must therefore literally represent a half month. Assuming this to be the case, it would also imply a normal month length of thirty days.
Days within the months are numbered, and from various dates we are quoted there appear to be a similar number of days in each Novarian month as there are in ours (the highest date we are quoted in a Novarian month is the 26th of the Month of the Stag). Presumably, therefore, their years are also roughly equivalent to ours in length; perhaps identical, given the myriad other ways the two worlds resemble each other. Extrapolating from the existence of the term fiftnight, Novarian months are presumably thirty days in length, with five months perhaps given an extra day to fill out the year, since there is no indication that the extra days are grouped together outside of the months, as in some earthly calendars. Or perhaps the extra days are distributed throughout the year between months as “feast days.” We do know some days are feasts sacred to particular deities, though these could as easily be days within months as outside them; we are not provided with specific dates for these feast days.
The months of the year.
The following is a summary of the evidence for the names of the months, their sequence as provided in the novels, and the highest dates attested from those months for such information is given. As noted above, I have presumed the year to commence with spring.
The Month of the Ram. Attested in The Goblin Tower and The Unbeheaded King. Follows three unnamed months collectively preceded by the Month of the Wolf per GT; follows the Month of the Bull (which must therefore be the last of the three unnamed months) per UK. Precedes the Month of the Crow per GT, and (by some unspecified length of time) the Month of the Lion per UK; from the evidence of GT it is apparent that Lion does not immediately follow Ram. Towards the end of winter per GT, but since the month before is stated to be “almost springtime” per UK, the implication is that the division between winter and spring occurs during this month.
The Month of the Crow. Attested in The Goblin Tower and The Fallible Fiend. Per GT, follows the Month of the Ram and precedes the Month of the Pike. Presumably the second month of spring. The highest date attested in this month is the 19th per GT.
The Month of the Pike. Attested in The Goblin Tower and The Clocks of Iraz. Follows the Month of the Crow per GT. Spring in full tide during this month per GT. The time span between the Month of the Pike and the Month of the Unicorn in the year following is more than a year per CI. Presumably the third month of spring. The highest date attested in this month is the 5th per GT.
The Month of the Lion. Attested in The Goblin Tower, The Clocks of Iraz and The Unbeheaded King. Follows the Month of the Ram per UK, presumably after intermediary months (see argument under The Month of the Ram, above) and precedes the Month of the Dragon per UK. Presumably the spring/summer split occurs during this month. The highest date attested in this month (in GT and CI) is the 15th — which is Jorian’s birthday!
The Month of the Dragon. Attested in The Unbeheaded King. Follows the Month of the Lion per UK. Half a year after the Month of the Boar per UK. Presumably the second month of summer.
The Month of the Unicorn. Attested in The Clocks of Iraz. Precedes the Month of the Stag per CI. The time span between the Month of the Unicorn and the Month of the Pike in the year preceding is more than a year per CI. Not commonly hot, but can get “unseasonably” so per CI. That sounds like a month just outside summer, but other evidence strongly implies this must actually be the third month of summer. The highest date attested in this month is the 24th per CI.
The Month of the Stag. Attested in The Clocks of Iraz. Follows the Month of the Unicorn per CI. Presumably the summer/autumn split occurs during this month. The highest date attested in this month is the 26th per CI.
The Month of the Bear. Attested in The Goblin Tower. Precedes the Month of the Wolf per GT. Presumably the second month of autumn.
The Month of the Wolf. Attested in The Goblin Tower. Follows the Month of the Bear per GT and precedes three unnamed months and then the Month of the Ram per GT. Presumably the third month of autumn. The highest date attested in this month is the 1st per GT.
The Month of the Eagle. Attested in The Unbeheaded King. Precedes the Month of the Boar per UK. The snows “still lie heavy on the mountains” in this month, per UK; the word “still” implies the season is post-winter, but since per the same source the second month following (The Month of the Bull) is “almost springtime” the observation must actually reference an early snowfall, before winter’s actual onset. As spring apparently begins during the Month of the Ram (see argument under the Month of the Ram, above), the fall/winter split must occur, on the evidence, during this month.
The Month of the Boar. Attested in The Unbeheaded King. Follows the Month of the Eagle per UK and precedes the Month of the Bull per UK. Half a year before the Month of the Dragon per UK. Presumably the second month of winter.
The Month of the Bull. Attested in The Unbeheaded King. Follows the Month of the Boar per UK and precedes the Month of the Ram per UK. “Almost springtime” per UK, which would make it the third month of winter. The actual split between winter and spring must fall during the following Month of the Ram (see argument under The Month of the Ram, above).
The day and its subdivisions.
Novarians reckon twenty-four hours in a day, as we do. They are named for animals, as the months are, but also numbered in ordinal fashion. While the evidence is scanty, it is indicative of a numbering that runs to twelve for hours of the day and then repeats for the hours of the night, similar to our own normal reckoning. Alternatively, the day and night might be divided into four repeating groups of six hours, or six repeating groups of four hours. Any of these schemes would fit the existing evidence, since the highest ordinal hour number quoted is a fourth hour, and the only indication of ordinal grouping we are given is the third hour of the morning (not day). Assuming the least complex system (two groupings of twelve hours), the changeover is most likely at dawn and dusk rather than noon and midnight. Terms such as morning, fornoon, noon, afternoon , evening and midnight are also used to indicate time of day.
Kuromonians also reckon their days in hours, which they subdivide into tenths of an hour. We are not informed whether or not they name the hours. Other terms they use to indicate time of day or night include sunrise, sunset, and the watches of the night.
The hours of the day.
In regard to the named Novarian hours we do not have complete information as to their animal names or their sequencing, as only five animal hours are attested out of a presumed twenty-four, and only one of these is linked to its ordinal. Hours attested in the novels are as follows.
The third hour of the morning, equivalent to The Hour of the Otter. Attested in The Clocks of Iraz.
The fourth hour, time of day unknown. Attested in The Goblin Tower.
The Hour of the Goat, apparently in the middle of the day. Attested in The Clocks of Iraz.
The Hour of the Owl, in the evening or early night. Attested in The Clocks of Iraz.
The Hour of the Turtle, time of day unknown. Attested in The Clocks of Iraz.
The Hour of the Hare, time of day unknown. Attested in The Clocks of Iraz.
It will be apprehended that in contrast to the case for the months, there is insufficient evidence to fully reconstruct the Novarian sequence of hours, either the ordinals or their matching animal-named equivalents. At a guess, the postulated twelve hours of the morning/day might run from about our 6:00 AM – 5:00 PM, and the twelve hours of the evening/night from 6:00 PM – 5:00 AM; the Hour of the Otter would then correspond to our 8:00 AM, and the Hour of the Goat and the Hour of the Owl perhaps to 12:00 PM and 8:00 PM, respectively. The Hour of the Turtle and the Hour of the Hare cannot be placed given the present state of the evidence.
–-BPK, 1/21/2015.
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Sources.
De Camp, L. Sprague. The Goblin Tower. — New York : Pyramid, 1968.
–. The Clocks of Iraz. — New York : Pyramid, 1971.
–. The Fallible Fiend. — New York : Signet, 1973.
–. “The Emperor’s Fan,” in The Best of L. Sprague de Camp. — Garden City, NY : Doubleday, 1978.
–. The Unbeheaded King. — New York : Del Rey, 1983.
–. The Honorable Barbarian. — New York : Del Rey, 1989.
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(2/12,14,18-20,28, 3/4-5,7, 12/11, 15/14, 1/18, 21-22/15; rv.5/6, 8/12/21)
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