Runic calendar
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Runic calendars (or Rune staffs) appear to have been a medieval Swedish invention. They were written on parchment or carved on staves of wood, bone, or horn.
The Runic calendar was a perpetual calendar based on a 19 year long moon cycle. Each of the 19 years in the cycle was designated with one of 19 runes or "golden numbers," written with the 16 runes of the futhark (or Runic alphabet) plus three special additional runes: Arlaug (Golden Number 17), Tvimadur (Golden Number 18), and Belgthor (Golden Number 19).
The days of the year were arranged in a long line, using 52 repetitions of the first seven runes of the futhark to represent 52 weeks of 7 days each.
On a second line, one of the 19 runes representing each year of the cycle marked most dates, indicating that the new moon would fall on that date during that year. For example, in the 18th year of the cycle, the new moons would fall on the dates marked with Tvimadur, the symbol for year 18.
Solstices, equinoxes, and celebrations (and eventually Christian holidays) were marked with additional lines of symbols.
The oldest known Runic alamanac, the Nyköping staff, has been dated to the 13th century, but most of the several thousand known wooden calendars date from the 16th and the 17th centuries. During the 18th century, the Runic calendars had a renaissance and around 1800, such calendars were made in the form of tobacco boxes in brass.
Germanic neopaganism
Some modern Germanic pagans number years as the Gregorian year + 250. This refers to evidence that the runic alphabets, an important cultural element of Germanic paganism, emerged between the 4th century BCE and the 1st century BCE.
