Understanding the Modern Aun Cycle

King Aun, Year of Aun, Aun Year, Uppsala, Aun, 9 year cycle, Hearthside Blog

So I have seen some interesting discourse for the start of the Aun year, which started on the New Moon (according to Rune Rasmussen’s reckoning.) There seems to be a bit of confusion why the name Aun is associated with the 9 year cycle. Rune didn’t just make that up. It is likely that the story of King Aun was in part a story that taught how to reckon the 9 year cycle to the elder Heathens. (The 9 year cycle is 9 years inclusive, or by modern reckoning, which is exclusive reckoning… 8 years.)

So what is the Aun story, for those not familiar?

In Upsal's town the cruel king

Slaughtered his sons at Odin's shrine --

Slaughtered his sons with cruel knife,

To get from Odin length of life.

He lived until he had to turn

His toothless mouth to the deer's horn;

And he who shed his children's blood

Sucked through the ox's horn his food.

At length fell Death has tracked him down,

Slowly, but sure, in Upsal's town.

- Ynglinga Saga

Also in the Ynglinga saga, Odin told Aun that he would remain living as long as he sacrificed a son every 10 years. I find it interesting that the story says every 10 years, not every 9 years. This seems to be a mistake. King Aun had 10 sons but only sacrificed 9 of them, because the Swedish people stopped him from sacrificing Egil. Just as the sacrifices of Uppsala were recorded as being 9 of each animal and 9 men. The number is sacred. It is not really surprising this might occur though. It might not even be an intentional erasure since in most of the Nordic languages the words for nine and ten are just one letter different. (In Swedish nio vs tio.) It could be as simple as a spelling mistake in a copy of a manuscript. Of course we are talking about inclusive years, so again 8 years by modern reckoning.

We see as well in Historia Norwegiæ that “during the nine years before his death is said to have abandoned the consumption of solid food and only sucked milk from a horn, like a babe-in-arms.” So the 9 year pattern is still in this story.

We know for sure that the name Aun was associated with the 9 year cycle in 1689, because Swedish Scientist, Olaus Rodbeck gives us a rule he learned from a Swedish farmer for calculating the Disting Market. (This is not my translation as my Swedish is still rudimentary, but rather the translation of Andreas Zautner.)

Tungle(t) skinner tolf och tiog under Auni.

The moon strides twelve and twenty under Aun.

This refers to how you calculate the moon of the Aun year in comparison to the same solar calendar month of the previous year, a problem of adopting the Roman solar calendar and trying to overlay an older calendar on top of it. The rule states that the moon phases either move 12 days ahead or 20 back from the previous year, depending what makes sense to do in that particular year. Since these calculations were made without zero we would actually subtract 11 or add 19. (This is mathy stuff so if you are struggling, that’s okay, you don’t have to become a math wizard to celebrate the Year of Aun. I am just giving the background.)

Now the thing I find interesting in Rune’s calendar is that he is also overlaying his Runic Animist Calendar over top of the solar (Gregorian) calendar, but perhaps not in the same way. Rune is trying to keep the leap days of the Gregorian calendar, whereas the luni-solar reckoning would have had a leap week every 8 years. You may be wondering how we get to 1 week of leap days in 8 years when the Gregorian calendar only affords us 2 in that time span. The answer is that the previous calendar was reckoning in months of even length, which were also somewhat shorter than most calendar months in the Gregorian calendar.

My point is that Rune wants us to celebrate Aun, which historically would have been the leap year, but that does not fit how he is reckoning leap years in his own calendar. This is slightly confusing, but I understand where he is coming from. That it was historically the leap year doesn’t really matter to us as modern Heathens because it is pretty impossible for us to go back to a historical calendar fully in our daily lives. What is important, is that the Aun year was celebrated in places like Uppsala with a celebration that occurred every 8 years. That is what we are trying to revitalize. It had meaning for the elder Heathens, and so it makes sense it could have meaning once again in the Heathen community.

What is exciting is this is a nearly blank slate on which we can create a new and modern Heathen tradition with a new and modern meaning for the Aun cycle. We are no longer celebrating the leap year, so then, what are we celebrating? And that is exactly why Rune has opened this up to public discourse. He of course wants us to look at our climate impact as part of it, which makes sense because even if we aren’t celebrating the historical leap year, we are celebrating a resetting of sorts.

In Göran Henriksson's paper, "The pagan Great Midwinter Sacrifice and the ‘royal’ mounds at Old Uppsala.” he talks about some of the conditions for the dates of the Aun year and also some of the known historical dates it occurred. He also notes that there seems to be a way to determine the Aun year using the alignment of the mounds at Uppsala with the sunrise and sunset.

Now, I am not sure exactly why Rune picked this particular year as an Aun year. I know he had some reasoning but I have not seen it in any of his videos that I have watched, which admittedly are not all of them. I suspect he has read Henriksson’s paper, although I don’t know whether or not he used that proposed reckoning method or not. Now this is not a criticism, it is an observation that is crucial to my next point. Rune created the Runic Animist Calendar using the Swedish Rune poem to help set the tone for each year based on the rune that aligns with New Moons for that year, or Golden Number runes. Rune Rasmussen chose to make this year an Aun year, and the rune for this year is Ar, or Jera. The Year rune. If we look at the Swedish Rune Poem:

År i blade vidast. i.e. Åhr öfwer alt godt.

Year is richest in leaves. i.e. Year makes all well.

This fits exactly with the purpose for the Aun year that Rune is hoping to create, a year of resetting cycles to improve prosperity.

I, of course, went to the other Rune Poems to see what other information could be gained from them.

Norwegian:

ᛅ Ár er gumna góðe;

get ek at ǫrr var Fróðe.

Ar - Plenty is a boon to men;

I say that Frodi was generous.

Here we see that this year is also associated with prosperity and the historical figure Frodi. Now Frodi is associated with Freyr and agriculture so this suggests a good crop year. (Understand there are several Frodi’s historically, rabbit-hole alert, but the context tells us this is Frodi III, who made the lands so prosperous that even in death gold was heaped in his mound to ensure continued prosperity of the land. Which is also said to happen to Freyr.) In the sense of the Aun year though, we could say this particular Aun year should be about planting metaphorical seeds and growing them for the future. We also could perhaps think about including Freyr as part of the focus of this year’s festivities.

Icelandic:

ᛅ Ár er gumna góði

ok gott sumar

algróinn akr.

annus allvaldr.

Ár - Plenty

Boon to men

and good summer

and thriving crops.

Again we see the repeated themes of a good agricultural year and a good summer. Not really anything new in this particular poem, but we can see we are on the right track.

Anglo-Saxon:

ᛄ Ger byþ gumena hiht, ðonne God læteþ,

halig heofones cyning, hrusan syllan

beorhte bleda beornum ond ðearfum.

Ger

Summer is a joy to men, when God, the holy King of Heaven,

suffers the earth to bring forth shining fruits

for rich and poor alike.

Here we can see, as often happens in the Anglo-Saxon poem, that Heathen figures get replaced with the Christian god. We see again that it will be a good year for agriculture, but what is most interesting is the final line. This prosperity is for rich and poor alike. All people will have a good year. This means our Aun celebration this year should probably also have an aspect of community building, and of people coming together.

It was truly a very good year choice for the first modern Year of Aun. The other interesting thing about this choice is if we count 8 years in the future we see the Aun year will fall on the Twe year. The Swedish Rune poem says this:

Twe sämmer bäst. i.e. Dubbelt gyllen åhr.

Two agree best. i.e. Double Golden Year.

Now, I don’t want to delve too much into that as it is so far in the future, but it appears Rune is setting it up very intentionally for the second Year of Aun as well. The “Golden Year” brings to mind the Golden Number runes, and it being a “Double Golden Year” suggests that like the previous Aun year it will bring prosperity. I also will note I am not sure on the origin of this twe rune. The only English version of the Swedish Rune poem I am aware of is in Rune’s book and my Swedish is just not good enough unfortunately to delve deeper. There does not seem to be an equivalent rune in the other Rune Poems and there also does not appear to be a representation of this symbol readily available online when looking up Swedish Runes. The symbol itself looks like a bindrune of sorts which is combining 2 runes, Man and another rune called “Aur” which I think may be Yew, although the poem is very different. Unfortunately the Swedish runes seem to diverge heavily from other rune sets in shape, order, and name, so I may be mistaken. The Norwegian and Icelandic rune poems only go as far as the Yew rune. The Anglo-Saxon poem has more, but also diverges in order from the Swedish poem. (Something to look into deeper as we get closer to the second Aun year.)

So the story of the cruel King Aun is a cautionary tale about what happens if we think about ourselves only, and not our community. We are not prosperous when we do not work together for the common good. Understand that the sagas are always greatly embellished, so what amount of truth there is to Aun’s story is uncertain. However, the sagas are still used as teaching tools and their incredible nature is actually what makes them so good at that. This story tells us not only how to reckon this 9 year cycle but also what not to do if we want our communities to flourish, and these communities include all the beings on Midgard, and perhaps all the beings in the 9 worlds. We see historically that this was a time of assembly. As Göran Henriksson states, “[It] is easy to understand as all the important decisions were [made] at the general assembly that took place every eighth year.”

The other interesting thing worth noting is that Aun, and his successor Egil were of the Yngling line (called the Scylding line in Beowulf), which is said to be descended from Freyr, so here again we have another connect to Freyr with the Year of Aun, which I am sure Rune Rasmussen did not miss. This does make the Ar year somewhat fitting as a time to revitalize this cycle.

My take is that as we restart the Aun cycle in an Ar year, we need to plant seeds, and extend hands. This about building grith between people in the Heathen community and outside of it as well. Outreach will be key to our prosperity.

Edit: I just wanted to add Rune Rasmussen's new video about the Aun Year where he explains it in his own words.

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