The 5 "Lost Days" are considered unlucky and people do very little. Work will be cancelled, theatres will shut and battles will be re-scheduled. Foreign visitors would be shocked at how fervently the citizens of Vornheim shut themselves away and avoid eye contact or even basic acknowledgement of anyone. On these days the herds of the Kairnlaws govern themselves.
Both Vornheim and the Kairnlaw claim the origins of the calendar as their own but less politically minded scholars look to the distant Empires and note the convenient similarities.
The month is marked by a number and a symbol, ensuring even the lowliest unwashed mass keeps good time. When discussing the date they would say "1 Crow", "2 Pigs", "5 Soldiers", and so on. Each month has folk associations that can vary from place to place, superstitions and observances specific to certain people. Where there are agreed upon elements they have been noted.
The 5 Lost Days don't have names or numbers and people try their hardest to ignore them. Fortunately both peoples are painfully superstitious so they don't spend much energy questioning the reasoning behind it.
Seasons
In the tundra and steppes there's not much subtlety to their seasons. They have brief scorching summers followed by interminable autumns and a capricious winter. Spring barely registers as the winter falls like a loosed curtain. Only the herdsmen of the Kairnlaw differentiate it from Father Summer as their herds grow.
Spring
- Crown (this is depicted as a royal crown in Vornheim and a heavily pregnant cow in the Kairnlaw)
- Cottage
Summer
- Tower (a proud tower in Vornheim, it is considered in a negative and somewhat pompous light in the Kairnlaw)
- Rut
- Pig
- Soldier
Autumn
- Crow
- Moth
- Lover
- Bear
- Death's Head
- Stick
- Beast (the beast depicted is unrecognisable as anything. It has legs and arms, maybe a head. The odd thing is that everyone agrees on how it looks)
- Lunatic (Since the 476th cycle this has been a rough depiction of Lord Zyklon, the mad old Duke of Vornheim)
Winter
- Finger
- Toe
- Mountain
- Wolf (both nations agree this is an ominous month, both for its associations and as the last month before the Lost Days)
Years
Years work in cycles, batches of years of variable length (typically between 27 and 56 years long) that can tick over at any point in the appropriate year. They are measured by astrologers and other interested parties, though some suspect that they choose new cycles based on when a national holiday is needed.
The details of the system are so awfully dull and, as is generally opined, a waste of time that very few people outside of dedicated historical societies bother to pay much attention to it. If it weren't for the holidays involved people would likely forget they existed entirely. Both the Kairnlaw and Vornheim agree that we are currently on the 478th cycle, though what they have been counting from is hotly debated amongst those with little better to do.
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