The Skalan Year
I. WINTER SOLSTICE—Mourning Night and Festival of Sakor; observance of the longest night and celebration of the lengthening of days to come.
- Sarisin: Calving.
- Dostin: Hedges and ditches seen to. Peas and beans sown for cattle food.
- Klesin: Sowing of oats, wheat, barley (for malting), rye. Beginning of fishing season. Open water sailing resumes.
II. VERNAL EQUINOX—Festival of the Flowers in Mycena. Preparation for planting, celebration of fertility.
- Lithion: Butter and cheese making (sheep’s milk pref.) Hemp and flax sown.
- Nythin: Fallow ground ploughed.
- Gorathin: Corn weeded. Sheep washed and sheared.
III. SUMMER SOLSTICE
- Shemin: Beginning of the month—hay mowing. End and into Lenthin—grain harvest in full swing.
- Lenthin: Grain harvest.
- Rhythin: Harvest brought in. Fields plowed and planted with winter wheat or rye.
IV. HARVEST HOME—finish of harvest, time of thankfulness.
- Erasin: Pigs turned out into the woods to forage for acorns and beechnuts.
- Kemmin: More plowing for spring. Oxen and other meat animals slaughtered and cured. End of the fishing season. Storms make open water sailing dangerous.
- Cinrin: Indoor work, including threshing.