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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/7990
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Once a physics professor told me that we, in daily life, measure distance with time. In fact he is right. If somebody aks - "how far away is the mall?", we answer "It's fifteen minutes away". That means that measures are always relative to normal everyday standards, not scientific ones.

In old days, moon or sun was a good way to measure time: "It will happen in three moons". Also horse and walk speed are good for distances: "Castle Rock is two days from here".

You need to keep in mind that the knowledge of time was somewhat well developed even in ancient societies. Celts, Mayans, Egyptians, they all were quite skilled in it and could predict even solar events. Please check the Jewish calendar ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew\_calendar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar)) Also, note that meal times are not something that every society has. Brazilians Indians eat when they were hungry, not in specific times.

Your problem is how normal people use time, since they lack the knowledge and means scholars did. Like I said, they would rather use common nature to do that. The best approach for me is to separate scholar from normal context. A sage would know and measure time in a more technical way, a normal person would express it in daily units.

Looking at CLockeWork answer, a priest would more complex ways to know at what times the bell should be ringed, and could talk among other priests according such more accurate standards. The salesman from the street, could just say "by the third bell".

When I do write, I try not to use normal measuring units for a fantasy world and apply what I wrote before. Castle rock is not fifty kilometers away, it's a day away. There's an book (or a movie, I don't remember quite right) where the lord of the realm conduces a lot of candle burning experiments to try to determine what is the best way to determine time measuring.

One thing I suggest is to look the Net for such kind of standards. This page talks about horse travelling times[http://voices.yahoo.com/realistic-horse-travel-fantasy-fiction-novels-455939.html](http://voices.yahoo.com/realistic-horse-travel-fantasy-fiction-novels-455939.html)

Original score: 11