Annotation - Chapter 5, Page 28

• (28:12) "they all ready ben Shorsday Week with the sess men which they revver newit the fraction for the Ram"

Shorsday is the shortest day of the year; sess men = assessment, revver newit = renew/revenue—tax collection for the Ram. EE

This passage led to some confusion about the timeline of RW for at least one scholar: David Huisman, in his essay "'Hoap of a Tree' in Riddley Walker", stated that "the events of the novel occur during Lent—between 'Shorsday Week' and 'Rising'", which seems to mean that he assumed "Rising" was Easter and "Shorsday" was Shrove Tuesday. But in context, that isn't plausible: even if one assumed that the novel took place over a month or two in the spring, which there's no clear evidence of, there would be no reason to think that Shorsday was very recent or that Rising is very soon. Riddley is just saying that Shorsday was the last time Goodparley and Orfing had been through the area, and that their regular schedule wouldn't have brought them back around until Rising. For two itinerant puppeteers traveling on foot while also running the rest of Inland, it's hard to imagine that their regular schedule would have taken them to an unremarkable settlement like How twice in six weeks.