In a land that lived off the soil, time was read less from the calendar leaf on the wall than from the state of the field, the vineyard and the flock. For the farmers and herdsmen of Amasya, too, the turning of the seasons was for many centuries described in the language of the folk calendar before that of the official one: people asked which day of Kasım it was, whether the cemre had fallen, whether the "ninth of March" had passed, and sowing, pruning, the mating of rams and the harvest were all timed by this reckoning. This knowledge, which survives with small variations in almost every part of Anatolia, was handed down orally from generation to generation, and part of it acquired a written form by finding its way into the pocket almanacs of the Ottoman and early Republican periods. Since no comprehensive study of the folk calendar has been compiled specifically for Amasya, the account below rests on reckonings documented across Anatolia as a whole; information on the city's own climate and agriculture is presented separately, on the basis of measured data and registration documents.

What Is the Folk Calendar

The folk calendar is a body of knowledge about time, distilled from the long observation of nature by the people of a given region, who recorded the events that recur at the same periods each year and arranged their daily work accordingly. Among the people it goes by names such as "the old reckoning", "the forefathers' reckoning", "the shepherd's reckoning", "the counted days" or "the reckoned days". The folklorist Gülten Erginer defines it as "a system of the time-life pair", acquired by the people of a region as cultural heritage and based on long experience. The periods and days of the calendar are recognized throughout the country, yet in each region they are lived with shifts of a few days according to the climate. For this reason folk calendars compiled in Kayseri, Gümüşhane, Uşak or Thrace share the same framework while differing in detail.

The days of the folk calendar are mostly counted by the old Rumi reckoning. Based on the Julian calendar, this reckoning runs thirteen days behind the Gregorian calendar in use today; that is why the "ninth of March" of popular speech falls on 21-22 March in the Gregorian calendar, and the "fifth of Abrul" on 18 April. The Ottoman treasury had begun using the fiscal (mali) calendar, whose year began on 1 March, under Mehmed IV, by a decree dated 1677. The 1 March of this calendar corresponded to 13 March in the 1800s and to 14 March in the 1900s. The Gregorian calendar was adopted as the official calendar only in 1926. In the villages, however, the old reckoning lived on much longer on the lips of grandfathers who consulted the calendar leaf in their pockets.

The names people in Anatolia gave to the months are also part of this calendar. Starting from December, names such as Karakış, Zemheri, Gücük, Mart, Abrul, Mayıs, Kiraz, Orak, Harman, Haç, Avara and Koç have been recorded in the Sivas region. February is called the "gücük" (stunted) month because it is shorter than the others. The name of the month of Koç (ram) comes from the season when the rams are put in with the flock. "Avara", between October and November, describes a brief breathing space when the harvest is over and preparations for winter begin. These names show that the calendar was built as much around the order of the field and the fold as around the sky.

The Days of Kasım and the Days of Hızır

In the folk calendar the year is divided into two great periods of unequal length. The winter period, the days of Kasım, begins on 8 November, ends on 5 May and lasts about 179 days. The summer period, the days of Hızır, begins on 6 May with the day of Hıdrellez and covers about 186 days, running until 7 November. The day counts vary slightly from source to source; some compilations take the days of Kasım as a round 180, while a study based on Ottoman pocket almanacs gives the days of Hızır as 189. In old calendar texts the two periods appear under the names "eyyâm-ı Kasım" or "rûz-ı Kasım" and "eyyâm-ı Hızır" or "rûz-ı Hızır".

This twofold division has a basis in the sky. As Ahmet Yaşar Ocak explains, on the night between 5 and 6 May the sun enters the section of the sky where the Pleiades (Ülker) lie, and from then until 7-8 November the Pleiades cannot be seen in the sky after sunset. During the rest of the year they are visible for a short while in the evenings. In this way the year was divided into summer and winter according to an observable celestial event, and 8 November came to be regarded as the true beginning of winter and 6 May as the true beginning of summer. Compilations also relate how shepherds and farmers protected their sheep and tried to estimate the yield of their crops by watching the rising of the Pleiades.

The names of the two periods are meaningful as well. The word "Kasım" is explained from an Arabic root meaning "breaking, crushing", and expresses the harshness of winter. The name Hızır, for its part, is related to the Arabic root meaning "green, a place abounding in verdure". Popular belief holds that the ground where Hızır (Khidr) treads turns green and that he attained immortality by drinking the water of life; it is therefore fitting that spring and summer should bear his name. The day of Hıdrellez, which opens the summer period, is the day on which Hızır and İlyas (Elijah) are believed to meet once a year. The celebrations of this day are a separate subject; what matters for the folk calendar is that Hıdrellez, as a threshold, closes winter and opens summer.

These two periods did not remain only in the speech of villagers but entered the affairs of state as well. Many archival documents, above all the registers of imperial decrees (mühimme defterleri), show that in the Ottoman period even matters at state level were planned according to the two periods running "from rûz-ı Hızır to rûz-ı Kasım" or "from rûz-ı Kasım to rûz-ı Hızır". The reckoning of the folk calendar that split the year in two thus became the common language of correspondence and orders as well. Seamen used the same reckoning. The saying current among old sailors, "On the sixtieth of Kasım lay up, on the seventieth caulk, on the eightieth put to water, on the ninetieth fit out, on the hundredth sail, at Kasım one hundred and fifty summer is certain", ties the hauling of boats into harbour during the winter storms, their caulking, their relaunching and fitting out, and the setting out to sea on the hundredth day to the count of the days of Kasım.

The real working of the folk calendar lies in this very counting. Throughout the winter the days were counted one by one, and people would ask "which day of Kasım is it today". In the Çankırı region, on reaching the hundredth day of Kasım, that is, mid-February, people would point to the abundance of snow by saying "Kasım one hundred, valley and hill level", and the breaking of winter was expressed with the saying "Kasım one hundred and fifty, summer is certain". An account recorded in Uşak divides the year into two halves of six months each and counts the winter in slices of forty-five days: "We count 45 kasım, 45 zemheri, 45 hamsin, 45 doksanbaşı. Once you say Hıdırellez, summer comes." That the same framework is filled with different divisions from region to region shows that the folk calendar is a living and adaptable body of knowledge.

The Divisions of Winter: Zemheri and Hamsin

Within the days of Kasım, winter does not pass with the same severity throughout. The folk calendar gives separate names to the ninety harshest days. The first of these is the "erbain", that is, the forty days, known among the people as zemheri or karakış (black winter). The erbain begins immediately after the winter solstice; pocket almanacs place it between 22-23 December and 31 January. It is followed by the "hamsin", which lasts fifty days. Beginning on 1 February, the hamsin ends around 21-22 March, when day and night become equal. The rest of the days of Kasım, that is, November and early December together with late March and April, are considered milder. In a reckoning recorded in the Gümüşhane region, the fifty-day period running from the twentieth day of karakış, 4 January in the Gregorian calendar, to the ninth of gücük, 22 February, is called "the merciless fifty"; the hardest part of winter is said to last ninety days and to end on the ninth of March.

Zemheri also means black winter in its dictionary sense. The longest of the long nights falls at the beginning of this period, and old calendars mark 18 December as the start of "şeb-i yeldâ", the long nights. Within the zemheri there are also cold days with names of their own. In Thrace, 8 January is called "Bocuk" and 18 January "Tahta atımı" (the casting of the board). In the old folk calendar the end of the erbain was regarded as a threshold, and it is related that in some regions sacrificial animals were slaughtered in gratitude for having come through these days without illness, and feasts were given for friends and kin. The expression "zemheri zürefası" was used for a person who dressed thinly for show in the middle of winter.

For a village living by animal husbandry, these periods were a matter of reckoning the fodder in the barn and the animals in the stable. In the days before farming was mechanized, winter was spent largely consuming what had been laid by in autumn. The time when the ram was put in with the flock was also set by this count, so that the young would not be born in the harshest days of winter and perish. A saying recorded in Uşak relates that the rams were released into the flock five months before the cemre. By this reckoning the births were timed to coincide with the cemre, with days when the worst of winter was over and the young could feed in the open.

The Cemres

The herald of the warming of the weather once the coldest days of winter are past is the cemre. This word of Arabic origin means an ember, a piece of fire; in popular speech it is also pronounced "cemile". According to belief the cemres fall a week apart, first into the air, then into the water, and last into the earth. The first cemre falls into the air on the 105th day of Kasım, 20 February, the second into the water on the 112th day, 26-27 February, and the third into the earth on the 119th day, at the beginning of March. The date of the third cemre varies in the sources between 4-5 March and 6 March. Once the cemre has fallen into the earth, it is believed that winter is definitely over, that there will be no more lasting cold, and that even if snow falls it will not settle.

A story explaining the name of the cemre also appears in Erginer's compilations. According to it, nomadic Arab tribes would join their tents together in winter, shelter their animals and themselves in this great tent, and light fires in three separate sections. At the first cemre they put out the fire that warmed the cattle, at the second the one for the sheep and goats, and at the third the fire that warmed the people, and then they moved on. In an account recorded in the Banaz district of Uşak, it is said that the cemile falls first into the sky and then into the water, that when it falls into the water chain-like stirrings are seen in the lake, that with the last cemile the earth grows warm, and that the storks and swallows arrive.

People do not fully trust these days. In the Osmancık area, Amasya's neighbour, the expression "Mad Cemile" is used to convey that the weather can turn at any moment. Talat Koç's comparison in Thrace likewise shows that the cemres acquire meaning only when treated as a period. In seventy years of temperature measurements, the temperature curve, which begins to rise after the lowest values at the end of January, steepens markedly on the cemre days. On the other hand, it is difficult to establish a meaningful link between the individual dates given and the measurements. The habit of greeting the cemre as good news while staying on guard against the colds to come is itself a product of this experience.

The Counted Days of March and April

Although spring is considered to have arrived after the cemres, March and April contain counted days dreaded by the owners of vineyards, gardens and livestock. The first of these is the "old woman's cold" (kocakarı soğukları). Appearing in old calendars under the Arabic name "berdü'l-acûz", these colds are placed between 11 and 17 March in the Gregorian calendar; by the Rumi reckoning they fall between the 26th of gücük and the 4th of March. In some regions they are known as the "Beldir Aciz storm" and remembered with the saying "Beldir aciz, earth and sky in distress". According to one tradition explaining the name, the goats of an old woman who once had seven goats froze to death one after another in the course of these eight days. The "husûm" storm, which falls on 12 March in old calendars, is also mentioned together with these colds; because of this word, meaning "ill omen" in Arabic, the period is also called "eyyâm-ı husûm". The common proverb "March makes you look out of the door and burn your pickaxe and shovel" is a product of the same experience.

Next comes the ninth of March. The ninth of the Rumi March corresponds to 21-22 March in the Gregorian calendar, that is, to the day when day and night become equal. In the Kayseri region it is related that on this day the night temperature drops to twenty or twenty-five degrees below zero, and that frost, snowstorms or the sleet called "şıvgın" occur. Nine days after the ninth of March comes "the ninth of the ninth"; storms and snow are expected on that day too, and the cold strikes trees that have just woken or come into blossom. In the reckoning recorded in Gümüşhane there are three "nines": the first falls on 21 March, the second on 30 March and the third on 9 April. Among the people the saying "The ninth of March, the ninth of the ninth, and if not that, the thirtieth" expresses the belief that if no storm broke on the earlier nines, one will surely break on a later one. In Thrace the same colds are also called "Babo days". In a family story related by Dursun Ayan, an old woman, deceived by a few fine days in March, set off for the high pastures with her animals, saying "the fifth of Abrul under my foot, the ninth of March as my staff", and could not withstand the colds that followed.

The most dreaded day of April is the "fifth of Abrul". The fifth of the Rumi April falls on 18 April in the Gregorian calendar; in Thrace these colds spread over 13-18 April. The saying "Fear the fifth of Abrul, it parts the ox from its mate" conveys that the cold coming in these days, when field work begins, can kill even the ox yoked to the plough. In Kayseri the saying is extended to "it parts the buffalo from its mate, and above all on the fifteenth", and people are advised that on the fifth of Abrul the seed should be either in the hand or in the ground; seed sown earlier and already sprouting is sure to be nipped by the cold. "Sitte-i sevr", which coincides with the days when the sun is in Taurus and might be rendered as "the six-day ox storm", is also among the dreaded days that bring cold between 20 and 25 April. In the Gümüşhane region it is believed that summer will not come until the fifth of Abrul is past, and that the seventh of May is the last cold of winter.

Other signs are scattered among these days on the leaves of old calendars. They record that the sap rises in the trees on 5 March, that the time for pruning vines and grafting comes on 8 March, that the swallows appear on 13 March and the storks on 28 February, that the flowers open on 1 April, and that the bees swarm on 26 April. Some of the storms are also named after birds: the swallow storm, the kite storm, the swan storm. These names show that those who built the calendar watched the migrating bird and the waking tree as closely as the sky.

Summer, Threshing and Autumn in the Days of Hızır

After Hıdrellez the language of the calendar changes; the concern shifts from cold to heat and drought. In old calendars mid-May is marked by the "shoot-breaker" storm, 18 May by the rose season, 28 May by sheep shearing and 7 June by the season for reaping grain. The June rains unsettle the farmer because they fall in the harvest season, as grain that has been reaped but not yet gathered goes mouldy when it gets wet. The summer solstice is considered the limit for planting out seedlings; in Uşak they say "Whatever you are going to plant as seedlings, plant them by the solstice, after that it will not do". In Gümüşhane it is related that by the old reckoning the solstice falls on the 12th of June, 25 June in the Gregorian calendar, and that the coming of mowing time is announced with the saying "the turning of the day, the cutting of the grass".

The peak of summer is the "eyyâm-ı bâhûr". These days, whose name means "very hot" in Arabic, are placed between 31 July and 7 August in pocket almanacs, and are pronounced "eyamboor" in popular speech. The people, however, extend these eight days and call the period from 15 July to 15 August the "August heat" or "threshing heat". In Talat Koç's comparison with measurements, it was found that the highest temperatures really are spread over this wider span, that the short period in the almanacs does not fully reflect reality, and that the local people's observation is the more accurate. The saying "The fifteenth of August is summer, the fifteenth is winter" was also confirmed by the same measurements, which showed a marked drop in temperatures after 15 August.

Autumn is the last part of the days of Hızır and passes in preparation for the new winter. Old calendars give 8 September as the time for separating the rams, and early October and mid-November as the time for putting them to the ewes. Keeping the rams apart from the flock through the summer serves to time the births for the right season. It has been recorded in Uşak that the plough was yoked once the soil had been well soaked by rain in mid-October, with the saying "When it is the fifteenth of October and you find the right weather, yoke up". In the same region it is also related that some ten or fifteen days after Hıdrellez millet, chickpeas and poppies were sown as a crop taking the place of fallow. The unseasonable warmth that falls in November is called "pastırma yazı" (Indian summer); pocket almanacs place it between 11 and 27 November.

The Folk Calendar and the Climate of Amasya

Amasya lies in a transition zone between the humid Black Sea climate and the semi-arid climate of Central Anatolia. Built in the valley of the Yeşilırmak, the city lies about 80 kilometres inland from the coast as the crow flies, at an elevation of 409 metres; while the mountains to the north cut off the moist air of the sea, the heights to the south make it harder for the severe cold of Central Anatolia to reach the city. According to measurements for 1961-2019, the mean annual temperature is 13.5 degrees. The coldest month is January, with an average of 2.5 degrees, and the hottest is August, with an average of 23.8 degrees. No month of the year has an average below zero. This picture matches the general reckoning of the folk calendar, in which the zemheri is concentrated in January and the threshing heat in late July and August.

The measurements also show why the counted days are feared. The lowest temperature ever recorded in Amasya is minus 21 degrees, on 15 January 2008. Temperatures have been seen to fall below minus 10 degrees in December, January, February and March; the lowest value measured in March is minus 15.3, in April minus 5.1 and in May minus 0.1 degrees. On average there are 54 days of frost a year. The number of days with snowfall averages 8.5 a year, January is the month with the most snow, and 14 per cent of snowy days fall in spring. The highest temperature measured in the city, on the other hand, is 45 degrees, on 30 July 2000; this date falls one day before the start of the eyyâm-ı bâhûr in the old calendars. These figures make it plain that the old woman's cold and the ninth of March, the fifth of Abrul and the sitte-i sevr are no empty words in Amasya either.

The distribution of rainfall also follows the rhythm of the calendar. Of the mean annual rainfall of 463.8 millimetres, 33.8 per cent falls in spring, 30.7 per cent in winter, 21.3 per cent in autumn and only 14.2 per cent in summer. The wettest month is December, followed by April and May. In August the average rainfall drops to 10.4 millimetres, and this drought, combined with the high summer temperatures, gives rise to irrigation problems in farming. The most frequent wind in the city throughout the year is the karayel, blowing from the north-west. It has been established that, especially in spring, the karayel and the north wind (yıldız), blowing together with below-normal temperatures, can damage fruit trees in blossom. The care the folk calendar takes over spring storms and late colds remains a live concern for the orchards of Amasya today.

The Amasya Apple in the Agricultural Calendar

The product that best illustrates Amasya's agricultural calendar is the Amasya misket apple, which received geographical indication registration as a designation of origin in 2019. According to the registration document, a Roman-period mosaic with an apple-tree motif found in the village of Yavru suggests that apple growing in the region has a history of about two thousand years. The misket apple is grown at elevations between 411 and 1150 metres in the districts of Merkez, Suluova, Merzifon, Gümüşhacıköy, Hamamözü, Taşova and Göynücek. The document attributes the apple's distinctive scent and aroma to the microclimate created by the Yeşilırmak valley and to the breeze funnelled through the gorge.

The apple's yearly cycle fits remarkably well into the two periods of the folk calendar. The misket apple is a variety with a high need for winter dormancy, that is, for chilling; its chilling requirement is 2536 hours, and trees that fail to complete this period do not put out leaf buds. Amasya's average chilling period for 1970-2014 is 2526 hours. In this respect the cold of the days of Kasım is as much a necessity for the orchard as a burden. Flowering takes place between 20 and 30 April, and these dates fall in the same week as the sitte-i sevr colds of the folk calendar. Considering that open blossoms can withstand only minus 2.2-2.3 degrees and small fruits minus 1.1 to minus 2.2 degrees, it becomes clear that a frost at the end of April can carry off the labour of a whole year. The people's unease about the fifth of Abrul and the ox storm finds a concrete counterpart in the calendar of the apple orchard.

The end of the days of Hızır, in turn, is the harvest season. According to the registration document, the period from 15 September to 30 October is when the colour and firmness of the fruit become pronounced; dew falling on the apple and the sunlight that follows give it its distinctive bright red colour. In Amasya the number of days with dew reaches its yearly peak in October. That old calendars mark 9 November as the "season of falling dew" is consistent with this observation. The misket is a late variety and is picked in October; the inspection calendar sets the harvest period at 10-30 October. Fruit picked in late September or early October keeps until May under good conditions. Farmers store the apples in places called "kara depo" on the ground floor of their houses. Thus the crop gathered in autumn stays in the household store throughout the days of Kasım, and runs out just as the days of Hızır begin.

The Folk Calendar and Measurement

Whether the folk calendar is a remnant of belief or a body of knowledge based on centuries of observation has also attracted the interest of geographers. Necdet Tunçdilek in 1967 for Isparta, and Ertüre with the observations of the Kandilli Observatory for the counted days in calendars, carried out comparisons, and Sırrı Erinç noted that the days and periods people use for weather forecasting could be put to use in climate research. Talat Koç and Nazan Keskin compared the folk calendar they had recorded in villages around Uzunköprü with the daily temperature measurements of the Edirne station for 1929-1998. The result showed that the zemheri period runs clearly parallel to the measurements and that high temperatures rise markedly after Hıdrellez; in other words, the measurements also support the view of Hıdrellez as the beginning of summer.

The same study also shows the limits of the folk calendar. Bocuk, known in Thrace as the coldest day, falls fourteen days before the lowest temperature measured; the name is thought to have arisen from the sudden intrusions of cold air at the beginning of the cold period. The old woman's cold and the ninth of March, by contrast, appear in the graphs as temporary pauses within the warming curve. It was also found that during the fifth of Abrul the rise in temperature halts briefly and even reverses. On the basis of these results the researchers recommend using folk calendar data alongside measured results when studying the climate of a region. No comparable published comparison for Amasya could be found; the meteorological measurements kept in the city since 1961 lend themselves well to such a study.

From Calendar Leaves to the Present

Oral tradition was not the only thing that carried the folk calendar from generation to generation. Pocket almanacs such as the Ebüzziya almanac published in the Ottoman period, provincial yearbooks (salname) and the Uluğ, Hayat and Saatli Maarif calendars of the early Republic wrote down leaf by leaf the storm and the cold falling on each day, the time for sowing and pruning, the coming and going of the birds. The reckoning of popular speech was fed by these leaves, and the leaves in turn recorded the people's observations. The forecasts that many elderly villagers made, though unable to read or write, by looking at the direction of the wind, the colour of the evening sky and the mark on the calendar leaf, were the product of this mutual relationship.

With urbanization and the entry of meteorological forecasts into daily life, the use of the folk calendar has steadily declined. Today the generation that knows the counted days by name is mostly elderly; the falling of the cemre and the old woman's cold, however, are still mentioned in everyday conversation. For the owners of vineyards and orchards in Amasya, the frost of the fifth of Abrul, the drought of the August heat and the colour that the autumn dew gives the apple are realities lived anew every year, even when they are not described in the language of the old reckoning.

Principal Days of the Year in the Folk Calendar

8 November: Beginning of the days of Kasım, that is, of winter in the folk calendar.

11-27 November: Pastırma yazı (Indian summer) according to the pocket almanacs.

22-23 December - 31 January: The erbain, popularly called zemheri or karakış.

1 February - 21/22 March: The fifty-day hamsin.

20 February: The first cemre falls into the air (the 105th day of Kasım).

26-27 February: The second cemre falls into the water (112th day).

4-6 March: The third cemre falls into the earth (119th day).

11-17 March: The old woman's cold (berdü'l-acûz).

21-22 March: The ninth of March; day and night become equal.

29-30 March: The ninth of the ninth.

18 April: The fifth of Abrul (Rumi 5 April).

20-25 April: The sitte-i sevr colds; flowering period of the Amasya misket apple (20-30 April).

6 May: Hıdrellez; beginning of the days of Hızır, that is, of summer.

21 June: Summer solstice.

31 July - 7 August: Eyyâm-ı bâhûr; in the folk calendar the August heat runs from 15 July to 15 August.

10-30 October: Harvest period of the Amasya misket apple.

7 November: End of the days of Hızır.

1677: The Ottoman fiscal calendar, with its year beginning on 1 March, was introduced by decree.

1926: The Gregorian calendar was adopted as the official calendar.

2019: The Amasya misket apple received geographical indication registration as a designation of origin.

Bibliography

Academic studies

  • Dursun Ayan, "Astronomik Düzenlilikten Sosyo-Matematik Uylaşıma Takvim", Osmanlı Bilimi Araştırmaları, IX/1-2 (2007-2008).
  • Talat Koç - Nazan Keskin, "Uzunköprü'de Halk Takvimi ve Sıcaklık İlişkisi", Journal of the Institute of Social Sciences, Balıkesir University, no. 5, May 2001.
  • Yusuf Yılmaz, "Amasya Şehri'nin İklim Yapısı ve Özellikleri", Journal of the Institute of Social Sciences, Atatürk University, 24 (December Special Issue), 2020, pp. 167-186.
  • "Anadolu Halk Takvimine Göre Kasım Günleri" (academia.edu).

Official sources

  • Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Kültür Portalı, "Amasya Misket Elması".
  • Governorship of Kayseri, "Halk Takvimi". kayseri.gov.tr

Other sources

  • Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, "Hıdrellez", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Istanbul 1998. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • İlyas Çelebi, "Hızır", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi.
  • "Takvim", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi.
  • Gülten Erginer, compilations on the Uşak folk calendar (as quoted in Ayan's article).
  • Turkish Patent and Trademark Office, geographical indication registration document "Amasya Misket Elması", Registration No. 424, 14.03.2019.
  • Eastern Black Sea Cultural Inventory Project, "Halk Takvimi ve Meteorolojisi" (Gümüşhane compilation).
  • Kaya Temel, "Geleneksel Takvimde Hızır ve Kasım Günleri: Eski Gemicilerin Fırtına ve Sefer Takvimi", İstiklal, 5 September 2026.

Online sources