I'm creating a fantasy world, which is tide locked to its star. I've done some research on this, and I'm happy with my results, so that's not up for debate.
What is though, is how the inhabitants of said planet would mark the passage of time.
Key points;
the planet is tide locked. That means the same side faces the sun constantly. For the inhabitants, the sun barely moves in the sky.
There is a small wobbly in the orbit, which means the extremes closest to the hot side and cold side experience some seasonal fluctuation. Essentially the seasonal shift means the edges of the habitable ring shift between hottest/coldest every 4 "weeks".
A "year" is the equivalent of 8 weeks on Earth. i.e. the planet goes all the way around the sun and back to its starting point in 1,344 hours. This isn't particularly significant to anything, though.
There is a moon, which would be in the same point in the sky every 24 hours, giving an easy to mark work/rest cycle.
Medieval style technology, so it's feasible that they wouldn't even know the planet is going around the sun. Also, style-wise I'm going for old-english, so place names will fit to that effect. e.g. a town at the mouth of the river Bar* would likely be called Barmouth
*randomly chosen word, read nothing into this.
So. How would these people mark the passage of time? Names for these periods of time would also be a good thing to discuss. So far, my thoughts have been on the number of times the moon has passed them. I'm thinking it would be based on the number of times the moon passes, so ten-moon, or hundred-moon, perhaps. Let the discussion begin!
What is though, is how the inhabitants of said planet would mark the passage of time.
Key points;
the planet is tide locked. That means the same side faces the sun constantly. For the inhabitants, the sun barely moves in the sky.
There is a small wobbly in the orbit, which means the extremes closest to the hot side and cold side experience some seasonal fluctuation. Essentially the seasonal shift means the edges of the habitable ring shift between hottest/coldest every 4 "weeks".
A "year" is the equivalent of 8 weeks on Earth. i.e. the planet goes all the way around the sun and back to its starting point in 1,344 hours. This isn't particularly significant to anything, though.
There is a moon, which would be in the same point in the sky every 24 hours, giving an easy to mark work/rest cycle.
Medieval style technology, so it's feasible that they wouldn't even know the planet is going around the sun. Also, style-wise I'm going for old-english, so place names will fit to that effect. e.g. a town at the mouth of the river Bar* would likely be called Barmouth
*randomly chosen word, read nothing into this.
So. How would these people mark the passage of time? Names for these periods of time would also be a good thing to discuss. So far, my thoughts have been on the number of times the moon has passed them. I'm thinking it would be based on the number of times the moon passes, so ten-moon, or hundred-moon, perhaps. Let the discussion begin!