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What is the time period for The Eye of the World?



Over how many months (or maybe a year?) does The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan take place?


I know it starts in spring, since the Bel Tine festival is celebrating that, but how long does it actually take them to get from Emond's Field to the Eye of the World?



Answer



The beginning of The Eye of the World happens in the mid to late spring of 998 NE. Bel Tine is not a specific day, but rather celebrates the "arrival" of spring to whatever local village is celebrating. The further north you go, the later that festival happens. The book ends early that summer, so the entire novel takes perhaps two months in all. As we later find out, only the most formal scholars and documents bother with things like calendars and months in the Westlands, so it's hard to be any more precise than that when none of the members of the Eye of the World party could even tell you what day it was.


The entire series (all 14 novels) have only covered about 2 full years of time. A Memory Of Light will begin sometime in the early summer of 1000 NE. Here is a Timeline of the Wheel of Time. Some highlights:



  • 998NE: The Eye of the world - The Dragon Reborn

  • 999NE: The Dragon Reborn - Lord of Chaos

  • 1000NE: Lord of Chaos - A Memory of Light



The Wheel of Time calendar year begins with the start of winter (approximately Dec 22 in our modern calendar) on the Feast of Lights. So, for example, in Lord of Chaos we reach winter of the year 1000NE, which lasts through A Crown of Swords, The Path of Daggers, Winter's Heart, and Crossroads of Twilight (some of which have overlapping timelines); in Crossroads of Twilight we move into the spring of 1000 NE which is about where we were when Towers of Midnight ended.


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