To the twentieth day their father explains you to pet commonly allowed regarding the venture where they live

Susan Cooper, The Dark is Rising . Thanks for the suggestion but that isn’t the one. Setting is a world other than our own. The boy is being pursued through much of the book and the symbol on the staff(?) is evidence of his destiny. I think his pursuers sought to kill him initially and failed. Limited on how much I could put in the original post by PayPal though honestly my memory is the biggest limitation here. Patricia McKillip, Riddlemaster of Hed , 1976. Some details don’t match exactly, but it sounds like McKillip ‘s Riddlemaster trilogy.