Today’s date in the Old Icelandic Calendar:
The Old Icelandic Calendar is a unique calendar that was used as the civil calendar in Iceland from the 10th to the 18th century. It is a “leap week” solar calendar, which means that, instead of adding a day periodically to keep it in synchronisation with the seasons, an extra week is added. In most years there are 12 months of 30 days, and an extra four days in the middle of summer, called Sumarauki, giving a year of 364 days, i.e. exactly 52 weeks. In leap years an extra seven days are added to Sumarauki to make the year 53 weeks long.
Having an exact number of weeks in the year means that each year begins on the same day of the week. This is also true of the months as well as each month is always the same length. The year is divided into two “seasons”, summer and winter, with 6 months in each season. In 1700 the starting dates of each month were fixed to certain ranges in the Gregorian Calendar and if we start with the first month of summer, Harpa, this always begins on a Thursday between 19th and 25th April. The next month, Skerpla, always begins on a Saturday, and so on. The extra “leap week” is added to Sumarauki as required to keep the year starting on a date in this range, between the third and fourth months of summer.
The following table shows the arrangement of the months with the day of the week that each month starts and the starting dates in the Gregorian calendar for a range of years in the current period.
| Month / *Year-> | 2018-19† | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24† | 2024-25 |
| Harpa (Thu) | 19 Apr | 25 Apr | 23 Apr | 22 Apr | 21 Apr | 20 Apr | 25 Apr |
| Skerpla (Sat) | 19 May | 25 May | 23 May | 22 May | 21 May | 20 May | 25 May |
| Sólmánuðr (Mon) | 18 Jun | 24 Jun | 22 Jun | 21 Jun | 20 Jun | 19 Jun | 24 Jun |
| Sumarauki (Wed) | 18 Jul | 24 Jul | 22 Jul | 21 Jul | 20 Jul | 19 Jul | 24 Jul |
| Heyannir (Sun) | 29 Jul | 28 Jul | 26 Jul | 25 Jul | 24 Jul | 30 Jul | 28 Jul |
| Tvímánuðr (Tue) | 28 Aug | 27 Aug | 25 Aug | 24 Aug | 23 Aug | 29 Aug | 27 Aug |
| Haustmánuðr (Thu) | 27 Sep | 26 Sep | 24 Sep | 23 Sep | 22 Sep | 28 Sep | 26 Sep |
| Gormánuðr (Sat) | 27 Oct | 26 Oct | 24 Oct | 23 Oct | 22 Oct | 28 Oct | 26 Oct |
| Ýlir (Mon) | 26 Nov | 25 Nov | 23 Nov | 22 Nov | 21 Nov | 27 Nov | 25 Nov |
| Mörsugr (Wed) | 26 Dec | 25 Dec | 23 Dec | 22 Dec | 21 Dec | 27 Dec | 25 Dec |
| Þorri (Fri) | 25 Jan | 24 Jan | 22 Jan | 21 Jan | 20 Jan | 26 Jan | 24 Jan |
| Góa (Sun) | 24 Feb | 23 Feb | 21 Feb | 20 Feb | 19 Feb | 25 Feb | 23 Feb |
| Einmánuðr (Tue) | 26 Mar | 24 Mar | 23 Mar | 22 Mar | 21 Mar | 26 Mar | 25 Mar |
† Leap year in Old Icelandic calendar.
There is no special numbering of the years used in the Icelandic calendar, so the year may be omitted or the current Gregorian year used.
Days of the Week
The days of the week in the Icelandic calendar are as shown in the table below.
| – c. 1200 | modern Icelandic | English |
| sunnudagr | sunnudagur | Sunday |
| mánadagr | mánudagur | Monday |
| týrsdagr | þriðjudagur | Tuesday |
| óðinsdagr | miðvikudagur | Wednesday |
| þorsdagr | fimmtudagur | Thursday |
| frjádagr | föstudagur | Friday |
| laugardagr | laugardagur | Saturday |
This description of the Icelandic Calendar is not comprehensive. A more detailed account of the structure, usage and history of the calendar can be found here.