This Month in Randland: Adar

Author: Atarah al'Norahn
Published: April 10 2020 Tar Valon Times Blog Link

In just a few days, on April 12, the Randland month of Adar will begin. The fifth month of the year in the Farede Calendar[1], Adar possesses 28 days and corresponds to our own dates of April 12 – May 9.

There are several known feasts that take place during the month of Adar, although very little are known about them. On the ninth day of Adar (April 20), the Feast of Neman is celebrated throughout the Borderlands as well as in Andor, Cairhien, and Tear. Meanwhile, nearer to the end of the month, on the twenty-first day of Adar (May 2), the Feast of Freia is observed in the countries of Altara, Arad Doman, Ghealdan, Illian, Murandy, and Tear (Companion).

A little harder to pin down is Tirish Adar, which takes place from “The rise of the first full moon in Adar until the rise of the next moon” (Companion). Tirish Adar appears to have been celebrated only in the northern countries, or else to have been celebrated differently in northern countries and southern countries, as The World of Robert Jordan’s “The Wheel of Time” specifies that “In most northern countries, no one sleeps more than an hour or two” throughout Tirish Adar. Since moon phases in Randland are unknown, it is impossible to tell the dates with which Tirish Adar would correspond in our own world. There is, in fact, no full moon that will take place between April 12 and May 9 in the year 2020.

Finally, of interest is the fact that in the year 1000 NE, Adar falls during the inexorable lead-up to Tarmon Gai’don. The epigraph to The Gathering Storm contains an entry from a scholar’s journal, made on the Feast of Freia, which describes how “The ordinary” had become “twisted and strange,” with “the dead […] beginning to walk.”

• [1] The Farede Calendar came into use after the end of the War of the Hundred Years. There are thirteen months with twenty-eight days each.