Book 4, Chapter 1: From A Mustard Seed
Pre-Norse Germanic and Early Norse calendars were highly regional in use, with significant differences in practice and even names for months between different areas, with some using leap days, leap weeks, leap months, pure lunar reckoning with no adjustments for precession, or 12 months of 30 days each, with five or six additional days inserted as needed. Post-Reformation Norse calendars, however, are universally based on the calendar established by the Hooligans of Berk, which was itself restructured eighty years prior to the Reformation by the Jewish teacher Dror ben Ezra. Dror essentially used the Jewish calendar as a direct model, simply renaming the Jewish months for the Norse months, but keeping the general underlying structure of calculations the same, with months beginning with the new crescent phase of the moon.
As a result, the modern Norse calendar is a luni-solar calendar, structured around the Mahzor 19-year lunar cycle, with leap months added in the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th, and 19th years of the cycle, thus keeping the calendar from precessing excessively from the seasons. Like the Jewish calendar, it does have the singular flaw that the lunar Mazhor cycle does not perfectly match up with the mean solar calendar over time, and falls one day behind per 216 years. This is a point of discussion among the Norse on possible methods to compensate, due to the fact that, as the beginning and ending of the months are tied to the natural cycle of the moon, skipping days to bring the calendar in line with the mean solar year, as was done with Julian calendar in the mid-1700s AD, is not practical.
The era used for the Norse calendar is År Odin (Year of Odin), abbreviated as ÅrO; as with Anno Mundi (In the Year of the World) or Anno Domini (In The Year of Our Lord), the words or abbreviation should precede the date rather than follow it. The epoch of this era is based on the historical Norse Reformation, beginning with the publication of the Norse holy texts in Harpa ÅrO 0.
—Norse Calendar (n.d.) In Wikikenna. Retrieved March 30, 1856
Tropes that appear in this chapter:
- Alternative Calendar: The chapter epigraph explains the calendar that is used by the Hooligans of Berk. Dates in the chapter include the equivalent date in this calendar.
- Anti-Climax: The reunion between Rolf and Roswynn is this from the perspective of the watching crowd, since most of them were likely expecting something more dramatic then a reconciliation to happen.
- Did Not See That Coming: All onlookers are stunned when Roswynn and Rolf reconcile upon their first time seeing each other in decades.
- Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: Most people, for the most part, accept that Hiccup spared Dagur and they are not actively trying to kill him for his crimes. However, Jacob, Fishlegs and Heather make clear that they don't like him and Stoick tells Jacob he could make sure Dagur never forgets that it is only Hiccup's mercy keeping him alive.
- Literal Metaphor:
- Spitelout tells Hiccup that a proper standing army can put out fires, sometimes literal ones such as the one on Eire that Hazelnut spotted.
- Mulan thinks Shang brandishing a sword against the Pechenegs Dragon Riders is pointless as he is literally and figuratively beneath them.
- Mundane Luxury: Inverted. William becomes so used to the speed of the Dragon Mail that he forgets that without it, a message from Normandy to Berk would normally take weeks.
- Mythology Gag: Shang picks up Mulan's load while they and their companions are on a hiking trail like in the movie. Unlike the movie, this is not done because Shang gave up on "Ping" as a soldier, but to help his charge out.
- Precedent Excuse: Because Hooligan children were initially allowed to adopt dragons from as young as twelve back when they first tamed dragons and before they had proper procedures in place, the annexed Meathead and Bog Burglar tribes say their kids deserve equal treatment. Hiccup admits they don't have a leg to stand on with trying to stop it and allows it, but he, Astrid and Fishlegs agrees to place fifteen as the cut-off for all future dragon adoptions.
- Obvious Rule Patch: In order to keep dragon adoption by human minors under control, Hiccup, Astrid and Fishlegs agree to placing a minimum age of fifteen before one can adopt a dragon after allowing that year's batch through due to previous precedent.
- Regent for Life: Godefroy becomes Duke Conan's regent as the latter is only ten, with William realising his and Henry's plan is to control Brittany with Conan as a puppet ruler.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Turns out Duke Conan and his sister Havoise survived Henry's Engineered Heroics and were under his and his father's custody.
