Практическая народная астрономия – об исчислении времени в архивных текстах

Time can be determined by observation of astronomical objects. For determination of time, various phenological signs as well as the position of the heavenly bodies were used. To tell the time of the day (or night), the most useful constellations are Big and Little Dipper, the Orion and the Sieve. The North Star is the center of the clock and due to its immobility an important landmark. The best known time teller is the Wain, also used for fortune telling and meteorological forecasts. The Orion was the winter-time time-telling constellation and provider of omens. We know, that earlier time we did not had the clocks... At the morning, if host wanted to wake up his workers, he went outside, looked, where is Big Dipper, where is Sieve and where is Orion, and over his head he looked every important star … and where they were, he knew, what the time was, must he wake up the workers or let them sleep more, because he knew the stars and could say the time as from clock. E 20980/1 (3) < Tõstamaa khk. The majority of Estonian folk calendar holidays are related to solar or lunisolar system, but there are some constellation names, directly connected with folk calendar. The article is based on materials from the manuscripts of the Estonian Foklore Archives, digitized and analyzed by the Department of Folkloristics.