{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1743",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1743,
    "subject": "Lunar madness!",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-08-13T10:42:20+00:00",
    "last": "1999-08-13T10:42:20+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0053@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at sirius.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-08-13T10:42:20+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Lunar madness!",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Whoops--I left out more steps than I thought.\n\nRe: Lunar reckoning and calendars, my sense of it is (and I probably got\nthis from some comic book) . . .\n\nAt the earliest stage people reckon by the lunar phases, which yeilds a\nmonth of 29.5 days, which is rounded down to 29 days--but still, nothing is\nwritten down, the Moon is just like a calendar in the sky.  The system has\nno anchor to the solar year, cannot adequately cope with even 360 days to a\nyear, and has an inherent fuzziness due to the fraction.\n\nAt a later stage the system of alternating long months (30 days) and short\nmonths (29 days) adjusts the system to phase reality (accounts for the\nfraction).  It does a better job of approximating the solar year.\n\nAt some stage, the Lunar college figures out that the revolution period is\naround 28 days (27.332).\n\nThen the astronomers and/or cultural administrators hit upon the seven day\nweek (other numbers are possible, of course--ancient Egyptians at some\npoint had a ten day week with a 30 day month), in part due to counting\ncelestial bodies, in part due to some mystical weirdness.  (It is\ninteresting to see how different civilizations have used or ignored the\nconcept of the seven day week--likewise, it seems to be just an\nadministrative unit in the Commonwealth: the days do not have names.  I\nbelieve this was the situation in medieval Japan, and much later, when they\nfinally got around to giving names to the days, they put the Western system\nthrough their now-famous reverse engineering process.)\n\nThe seven day week and the 28 day month fit together quite well.  You can\nget quite close to a solar year with a little tinkering; plus you take away\nthe power from the peasants and make them rely upon administrators to make\ncalendars, since the phases no longer signify.\n\nFrom there the evolution of the calendar goes on and on.\n\nSo!  Wolfe, in giving the month as 28 days, is either using a ballpark\nfigure (in which case Urth Lunar months are impossible as they seem to be\ndescribed) or an exact number (in which case the system works like the\nearliest 29.5 day system, with the advantages of fitting into a solar year\nand having exactly four weeks per month).\n\nI didn't mean to be arguing with John Bishop--I was juggling apples and\noranges at the time.  The Urth calendar (if the month really is exactly 28\ndays) is a blend of the earliest Lunar reckoning and the final\nadministrative model Lunar calendar (13 months), this second thing being a\nbeast which was probably never used anywhere in history (hard to guess\nabout prehistory), yet might account for 13-o-phobia, and it still crops up\nas \"new calendar\" model from time to time.\n\nRegarding \"years used to be longer\" as a physical reality.  Well, seems to\nme that if we can't shift Urth's orbit a tad closer to Verthandi, then\nyears can only be longer in a subjective way by having shorter days, which\nleads to \"more\" days in a solar year.\n\nRe: collection of Moons--great haul, Roy!  Alas, Spading Moon continues to\nellude us.\n\nRe: agricultural behavior.  Well, my limited observation was of a monsoon\nfed rice culture, so I don't know how much bearing this has upon Western\nquasi-medieval (and the agricultural technology really has to be =much=\nbetter than that to support Nessus) agricultural behavior in an imaginary\ncontinent, but!\n\nIIRC, after the autumn harvest and stubble burning, the former rice paddy\nwas plowed and a \"winter\" crop of barley was sown.  That is to say: the\nfield is not allowed to be unproductive for the period between autumn\nharvest and spring sowing; the farmer works it as much as seasonally\npossible (and I don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure they harvested\nwhatever barley they had before the winter snows came--almost certainly\nbefore astronomical winter began).\n\nSo in my very limited experience I can see how a Spading Moon could come\nafter a Harvest Moon.\n\nThen again, why are they spading at night?  That is: Harvest Moon gives the\nfarmer extra hours of light in which to gather up the crops before rain\nand/or early snow ruin everything.  Harvest Moon is therefore something\nlike \"Indian Summer\" with just light and not heat; a happy little bonus\njust when you need it.  Likewise, \"Hunter's Moon\" gives the hunter a boost\nin hunting.  But why spade at night--what's the rush?  Well, this might be\na case of the Moon being just a symbol for\n\"month-when-said-activity-takes-place\" rather than any kind of\n\"light-source-for-said-activity.\"\n\nFinally, I previously mentioned Halloween-like holidays not located in\nAutumn.  More specific:\n\nLemuria (ancient Roman) in May\nSetsubun (Japanese) in Feb (now but previously \"beginning of Spring\")\n\n=====\nASTRON. EVENT     DATE      SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE EVENT\nVernal Equinox    Mar 20    Southern Hemisphere Autumn begins\n+Setsubun (then)  Mar 20-ish\nmid-Spring        May  1    mid-Autumn\n+Lemuria          May\nSummer Solstice   Jun 21    S. Hemisphere Winter begins\nmid-Summer        Aug  1    mid-Winter\nAutumnal Equinox  Sep 23    S. Hemisphere Spring begins\nmid-Autumn        Nov  1    mid-Spring\nFeast of Cath. A. Nov 25    last quarter of Spring\nWinter Solstice   Dec 22    S. Hemisphere Summer begins\nmid-Winter        Feb  1    mid-Summer\n+Setsubun (now)   Feb\n====\n\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}