{"id":5320,"date":"2017-01-16T17:58:28","date_gmt":"2017-01-16T17:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/?p=5320"},"modified":"2017-01-16T23:30:24","modified_gmt":"2017-01-16T23:30:24","slug":"quirks-of-the-old-icelandic-calendar-thorri-bondadagur-and-hopping-on-one-foot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/2017\/01\/16\/quirks-of-the-old-icelandic-calendar-thorri-bondadagur-and-hopping-on-one-foot\/","title":{"rendered":"Quirks of the Old Icelandic Calendar: \u00deorri, B\u00f3ndadagur, and Hopping On One Foot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00deorri<\/em>\u00a0is the name of the fourth month of winter, according to the old Icelandic calendar (more on this later). It starts on a Friday \u2013 falling between the 19th<\/sup> and 26th<\/sup> of January, this year the 20th<\/sup> \u2013 and ends on the Saturday before the month known as G\u00f3a<\/em> commences.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Many of you may recognize the word \u00feorri,<\/em> which is the root of the word \u00feorrabl\u00f3t<\/em>, a day of feasting on traditional Icelandic foods introduced around the late 19th<\/sup> century (the sacrifice dedicated to the god Thor may be its namesake). On this particular occasion, national foods are called \u00feorramatur (<\/em>that word is only about 30 years old).<\/p>\n

But today, I\u2019m going to gloss over that day of feasting, nationalism, and revelry in lieu of its predecessor– a slightly more obscure tradition that takes place on the first day of \u00feorri, called b\u00f3ndadagur. <\/em>Again, you may recognize the word b<\/em>\u00f3nda <\/em>as a declined form of the word b\u00f3ndi<\/em>, which typically means farmer, but can also mean \u2018husband<\/em>,\u2019 \u2018man of the house,\u2019 or \u2018boyfriend.\u2019 Thus the first day of the month of \u00feorri is the day of the farmer\/husband\/boyfriend<\/em>. The word itself doesn\u2019t appear in text form until the 20th<\/sup> century \u2013 though that may be partly because of a reluctance to record what was only in talm<\/em>\u00e1l<\/em> \u2013 spoken language, colloquialism.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One year, give or take a (leap) week.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Traditionally, on that day, the farmer\/head of house would rise before everyone else. He would go outside without his shirt on. And he\u2019d only have one leg in his pants, while the other pant leg flapped in the air behind him. Then he\u2019d hop around on one foot, completing three circles around the farm before returning to the house. This tradition was one way of greeting the month of \u00feorri. His wife would prepare him a veritable feast of whatever was on hand \u2013 in this case, what\u2019s now thought of as traditional Icelandic fare\u2014and she\u2019d invite all the neighbors to join in the festivities. (Pssst– Information on b<\/em>\u00f3ndadagur<\/em> was compiled by J\u00f3n \u00c1rnasson; the Icelandic website V\u00edsindavefur reports that no other written account of this tradition has been confirmed.)<\/p>\n

…and the sheep looked on in bewilderment<\/p><\/div>\n

The surviving form of this tradition is, of course, \u00feorrabl\u00f3t \u2013 feasts all around Iceland in the first weeks of \u00feorri. But it\u2019s perhaps most common to give b\u00f3ndadagurbl\u00f3min <\/em>(b\u00f3ndadagur flowers), a practice that appeared around 1980, to your partner, spouse, friendly neighborhood farmer.<\/p>\n

The complementary form of this tradition is konudagurinn<\/em> \u2013 women\u2019s day\u2014which takes place on the first day of the winter month of g<\/em>\u00f3a<\/em>, which I\u2019ll say more about as the time approaches.<\/p>\n

But the question remains<\/a>: should one hop around one\u2019s homestead in one pant leg, barefoot, and bare chested on this day, or should one jump into a pair of boxers and make a quick dash\u00a0around the house?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

\u00deorri\u00a0is the name of the fourth month of winter, according to the old Icelandic calendar (more on this later). It starts on a Friday \u2013 falling between the 19th and 26th of January, this year the 20th \u2013 and ends on the Saturday before the month known as G\u00f3a commences.   Many of you may…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":5322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[90791,91379,91060],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5320","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-icelandic-culture","category-icelandic-customs","category-icelandic-history"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5320"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5327,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5320\/revisions\/5327"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}