Blót-Kalender
The Norse ring of feasts – computed live
All dates are computed live in your browser – solstices and equinoxes to the minute, plus the old calendrical feasts.
Solstices & Equinoxes
Computed with the astronomical algorithms of Jean Meeus (with correction & ΔT). The actual summer solstice is highlighted.
The Wheel of the Year
The Nine Feasts
Each feast with its real date, a countdown, the historical customs and an idea for today.
How a Blót Unfolded
The fullest account of a blót is in Snorri’s Hákonar saga góða (ch. 14). The setting is Trøndelag in the 10th century. The mighty Sigurðr Jarl of Hlaðir held the great sacrificial feasts on the king’s behalf – „a great blót-man", Snorri calls him. All the farmers around brought supplies and, above all, ale; the feast lasted as long as the ale did. A blót was first of all a banquet: the whole neighbourhood came together to eat, drink and settle its affairs.
Beasts of every kind were sacrificed, horses among them. The blood was called hlaut; it was caught in bowls (hlautbollar) and sprinkled with twigs (hlautteinar) over the altars, the temple walls and the gathered people. The meat was boiled in great kettles over the fires that burned in a long row down the middle of the hall; the crowd sat along the benches around them. The chieftain (goði) or the king hallowed the food and the drinking-horns before they went round.
Then came the fixed order of the toasts (full). First Óðinn’s toast, drained for victory and the king’s power. Then the toasts to Njörðr and Freyr – for ár ok friðr, „good harvest and peace". Those who wished drank the bragafull, the pledge-horn, over which solemn oaths were sworn. Last came the minni: horns of remembrance for departed kin. So the blót was less a grim sacrifice than a shared feast with the gods and ancestors – one ate and drank with them, binding kin, king and powers into one bond.
How serious this duty was shows in Snorri’s most famous scene (ch. 17): King Hákon the Good, raised Christian in England, would not drain the heathen horns or eat horse-flesh. The farmers pressed him, revolt loomed; Sigurðr Jarl smoothed it over with one compromise after another. When the king at last made the sign of the cross over the cup and a farmer, Kárr of Grýting, loudly asked why, Sigurðr saved the day by explaining it was the sign of Thor’s hammer. The episode is priceless: it shows that taking part in the blót was a communal and political duty – to refuse was to call the whole order of the land into question.
Snorri’s Three Great Blóts – and Their Dark Edge
Snorri hinges the whole ring of feasts on three points. In the Ynglinga saga (ch. 8) he even puts them in the mouth of the euhemerised king-god Odin as law:
„þá skyldi blóta í móti vetri til árs, en at miðjum vetri blóta til gróðrar, it þriðja at sumri, þat var sigrblót." – They should sacrifice toward winter for a good year, at midwinter for growth, the third toward summer, and that was the victory blót.Snorri Sturluson, Ynglinga saga 8 (public domain)
Behind this simple threefold order lies a deep idea: sacral kingship. The king was responsible for ár ok friðr – for good harvests and peace. If the year went well it was his „luck"; if it failed, he could pay for it. Snorri tells the consequence in harrowing images.
King Dómaldi (Ynglinga saga 15): Sweden suffered three years of famine. The first autumn the Swedes sacrificed oxen, the second men – and when nothing helped, the third autumn the king himself. They „reddened the altars with his blood" to force ár, a good year.
King Aun the Old (ch. 25): at Uppsala he sacrificed to Odin nine of his own sons, one after another, to prolong his life – for each son the god granted him ten more years. In the end he was so aged that he drank from the horn like an infant; the tenth son, Egill, the Swedes wrested from him.
King Óláfr Trételgja (ch. 43): he neglected the blóts. When the crops failed the Swedes blamed him, surrounded his house and burned him in it – „as a sacrifice to Odin", for a good year.
The other side of the coin is bright: Freyr (ch. 10) built, according to Snorri, the great temple at Uppsala, and under him „there was a good season in all lands". After his death his death was kept secret and they went on sacrificing to him til árs ok friðar – here the very phrase that carries the whole calendar takes root. So Snorri spans the arc: from feast of blessing to sacrifice of kings, from thanks for the harvest to the utmost plea when all else fails.
The Great Blót of Uppsala
A second, often-quoted account comes not from Snorri but from Adam of Bremen (c. 1075). He describes the temple of Uppsala with the images of Thor, Wodan and Fricco and a feast held every nine years: nine males of each kind, humans included, were said to be sacrificed and hung in a sacred grove. The account is striking – but caution: Adam wrote at second hand, with clearly missionary intent, to paint heathenism as cruel. We name him because he is famous, but mark him for what he is: a hostile outside view, not an eyewitness report.
Snorri Sturluson – Our Chief Source, Read Critically
Nearly everything we „know" about how the blóts unfolded we owe to one man: Snorri Sturluson (c. 1179–1241), Icelandic chieftain, poet and politician at Reykholt. Around 1220 he wrote the Prose Edda, around 1230 the Heimskringla, the sagas of the Norwegian kings. He thus wrote more than two hundred years after Iceland’s conversion – as a Christian, about a religion long sunk in his own day.
That calls for a critical eye. Snorri reads the old gods euhemeristically: in his prologue Odin and the Æsir are not gods but clever human kings who migrated from Asia (which he links to Troy, „Ásíá") and were later taken for gods. The Heimskringla is history-writing and great literature, not a liturgical manual. Snorri’s ritual descriptions are therefore plausible reconstructions, coloured by his age and resting on older skaldic verse that he quotes. Where archaeology and skaldic poetry confirm him – as with the toasts and the phrase ár ok friðr – we stand on firm ground; where he stands alone, we read with care. That very honesty is what makes the feasts worth keeping: we celebrate no invented Middle Ages, but what can be shown.
How to Celebrate Today
The old ring of feasts is no museum piece – it is still kept alive. In Iceland the Ásatrúarfélagið was founded in 1972, state-recognised since 1973, and is now the island’s largest non-Christian religious body; in Reykjavík (on Öskjuhlíð) the first purpose-built hof since the conversion around the year 1000 is taking shape. In the German-speaking world there are heathen communities such as the Eldaring. This revival is modern and diverse – a reconstruction, honestly, not an unbroken inheritance.
The blót today: animals are no longer sacrificed. A modern blót is at heart a shared drink with a gift: usually outdoors, one pours out a little beer, ale or mead as an offering to the gods, land-wights and ancestors – and then the company feasts together. It is held at the four turning points (Yule, spring, midsummer, winter nights) or whenever the community wishes.
The sumbel: the living descendant of the old full and minni. People form a circle, often around a fire, and pass a horn – classically in three rounds: first to the gods, then to ancestors and heroes, last a free round for personal thanks, resolutions or oaths. Whoever holds the horn speaks; the others listen and drink along.
With no society or dogma at all it works just the same at home. Jól – bring greenery and light indoors, light a lantern or candle on the longest night, raise the cup to the returning sun and to your kin, speak a good resolution (the distant heir of the pledge-horn). Þorrablót – a hearty winter meal with music, poems and stories, as the Icelandic students revived it in Copenhagen in 1873. Miðsumar – a fire in the open on the brightest night, staying up while it barely darkens (the Scandinavian midsummer and Jónsmessa custom). Vetrnætr – honour the ancestors and house-wights: a plate set aside, a candle, a quiet remembrance.
You need not „believe" in anything or join anything. It is enough to know the real turning point of the sun (this calendar computes it for you to the minute), to step outside mindfully and to honour your own people. And as with the old feasts themselves: they were a feast of community, a toast to ár ok friðr – good harvest and peace – open to all at the fire.
Celebrating Each Feast Today – with a Verse
For each of the nine feasts, a practical idea – and a small, purpose-written verse to read aloud by the fire, at the sumbel, or for yourself alone. And the finest honour for a feast? Write your own short verse and recite it – four or five lines are enough, it need not rhyme. Our verses are only a spark; your own words warm the most.
Jól · Midwinter Blót
Bring fir-green indoors and, on the longest night, light a lantern that burns till morning – a light to call back the sun. A long, warm feast with your dearest; a full to the returning sun, a minni to all who passed this year, and a resolution over the pledge-horn for the year to come.
when the light burns low,
I carry the candle
toward what will come.
What fell now rests –
what rests returns:
the spark keeps watch
till the morning holds.
Þorrablót
Host a hearty winter meal – with music, poems and stories, as the Icelandic students revived it in 1873. Honour those who carry the household through winter, and raise the horn to endurance. Winter is a guest to be honoured, not cursed.
a guest at the hearth;
we hand him
the brimming horn.
No curse on the frost –
a greeting to frost:
who honours him
outlasts the storm.
Góa · Konudagur
Konudagur, the „woman’s day", honoured the keeper of the house. A day to thank those who carried you through the dark: small gifts, the first flowers if you can find them, a shared breakfast – and the first look at the buds.
yet under the snow
the bud is stirring,
the year awakes.
Thanks to the hand
that bore the winter –
soon the green
breaks through the hard time.
Spring Equinox · Ostara
The point of balance: open the windows, clear out the old, plant something, sow seeds. Mark the equal day and night; a small fire or a candle at dawn. A feast of new beginnings.
the light and the night,
on the scales
the year hangs poised.
Scatter the seed,
open the gate:
what you sow
you will reap.
Sigrblót · Sumarmál
The setting-out. Plan the year’s ventures and journeys, raise the cup to success and courage, and over the pledge-horn name a goal you mean to carry through. A fire opens the light half of the year.
the sails fill out,
we drink to the
good succeeding.
Not victory in strife –
victory over self:
who sets out
has half already won.
Miðsumar · Summer Solstice
The peak of the light. A fire in the open on the shortest night; stay awake until the sky barely darkens; garlands, water, dancing (Scandinavian midsummer, Jónsmessa). This feast belongs outdoors.
the sun stands still,
one long breath
of gold and glow.
Kindle the fire,
stay awake with her –
once in the year
no light goes out.
Freyfaxi · Harvest Start
The first harvest: bake bread from new grain, share the first fruits, give thanks for the plenty. A table laid full – and a portion set aside for the land and its wights. Share what comes to you.
falls to the hand,
summer lays
its gold on the field.
What comes to you richly,
pass it on:
shared plenty
fills back up.
Autumn Equinox · Winter-finding
The scales tip toward the dark. Bring in the harvest, lay up stores; a feast of thanks – and of letting go what the year has spent. Balance once more: a candle at dusk.
but now the light sinks,
the barn fills up,
the leaves fall still.
Take what is ripe,
let go what withers:
in the letting-go
lies the thanks.
Vetrnætr · Winter Nights
The threshold into the dark half and into the new year of the old calendar. Honour the ancestors and house-wights: set a plate aside, light a candle, name those who went before you (in the echo of Dísablót and Álfablót). A quiet, domestic holiday.
of the dark year
I set the plate,
I light the flame.
You who have gone,
today are guests –
the fire burns
for you as well.
What Does „Blót" Mean?
Old Norse blót (verb blóta) means „to sacrifice, worship, honour" – at heart, to strengthen a deity through worship. Related are blœti (idol, sacred object) and blótmaðr (a keen sacrificer, like Sigurðr Jarl). The often-heard link to „blood" is folk-etymology – blood did play a part in the rite – but not linguistically secure; the core is worship itself, not blood. A blót was the feast by which one honoured the powers of the year and, at the same time, reassured itself as a community.
Sources & Basis
Astronomy (solstices & equinoxes) live in the browser after the algorithms of Jean Meeus (Astronomical Algorithms, ch. 27), including the periodic correction and ΔT – hence accurate to the minute. Feasts & customs after Snorri Sturluson: Ynglinga saga 8 (the three blóts), 10 (Freyr & Uppsala, ár ok friðr), 15 (Dómaldi), 25 (Aun), 43 (Óláfr Trételgja); Hákonar saga góða 14–17 (the course of the blót, Hákon & the sign of the cross) – all in Heimskringla, public domain. Plus Bede (De temporum ratione, ch. 15), Tacitus (Germania 9–11, 40: the Nerthus procession), Sigvatr Þórðarson (Austrfaravísur, Álfablót) and – as a hostile outside view – Adam of Bremen (Uppsala). Calendrical feasts after the Old Icelandic calendar. On present-day practice: the Icelandic Ásatrúarfélagið (founded 1972, state-recognised 1973) and the Þorrablót tradition revived in Copenhagen in 1873. Much is reconstruction; where evidence is thin or disputed (e.g. Éostre) or a source polemical (Adam) we say so honestly.