The Peoples of Middle-earth (22 page)

1. Sterrendei that is Stars' day

2. Sunnendei Sun's day

3. Monendei Moon's day

4. Treowesdei Tree's day

5. Heovenesdei Heaven's (Sky's) day

6. Meresdei Sea's day

7. Hihdei High day

But in the language of the date of the Red Book these names had become written: Sterday (or Stirday), Sunday, Munday, Trewsday, Hevensday, Mersday, Hiday; and Hevensday was universally pronounced Hensdy and often written He'nsday. The spelling Stirday (usual in the Red Book) was due to the fact that, the old meaning being forgotten, Stirday, which began the week again, after the holiday of Hiday, was popularly supposed to be connected with Stirring.

Since the Hobbit-names are accidentally somewhat like our own, and two are identical (in spoken form)(6) I thought it would be inconvenient to translate them according to their order. I have therefore translated them according to their sound. But it must be remembered that the associations in the Shire were different. Translated the week runs: Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. But Saturday was the first day of the week, and Friday the last. In associations Saturday was more like our Monday and Friday like our Sunday.

The month names I have, as explained above, translated. But for fear of getting into confusion I have left Bilbo's and Frodo's dates unchanged: that is, I have kept the Hobbit lengths of month. This only closely concerns this book at the turn of the years 1418 - 19. It must then be remembered by those who wish to follow the various movements of the characters that while December 1418 and January 1419 have (because of the addition of a Yule-day to each) the same length as ours, February has 30, so that e.g. March 25 would be March 27 in our reckoning.

The Leapday or Overlithe does not concern the Red Book, as it did not occur in any of the important years for the story of the Ring. It occurred in the year before Bilbo went to the Lonely Mountain, 1340; it had been missed in 1400 being the end of a century (just before Bilbo's Farewell Party in 1401), and so had not occurred from 1396 until 1404. The only years dealt with in the Red Book in which it occurred were 1420, the famous Harvest, and 1436. But though no doubt the feasting at Overlithe in 1420 was tremendous it is not mentioned specially.(7) The Book ends before the Lithe of 1.436.

It will be seen that the account of the Eldarin calendar in Middle-earth given in D1 bears no relation to that in the published text. Moreover, while the Shire Calendar as described in D 1 was preserved without change, it is much more closely based on the Numenorean system than in Appendix D. In D 1 both calendars had a year of 12 months of 30

days each, and the only difference in that of the Shire was the distribution of the five Summer Days of Gondor into two Yuledays and three Summer Days or Lithedays (the leap-year day of Overlithe or fourth Litheday corresponding to the sixth Summer Day in Gondor).

In Appendix D, on the other hand, the Numenorean calendar had ten months of 30 days and two of 31 (making 362), with the three 'extra days' being yestare (the beginning of the year), loende (the mid-day), and mettare (the ending of the year).

In writing of the names of the months and days of the week my father used the word 'translation'. He was referring, of course, to the substitution of e.g. Thursday for Mersday or March for Rethe. But it is to be remembered that Mersday, Rethe, etc. were themselves feigned to be 'translations' of the true Hobbit names. We do not know what the 'real' translation of the Numenorean name Oraearon (RK p. 388) was; the theory is that my father devised a translation of the Hobbit name, which he knew, in archaic English form, Meresdei later Mersday, and then substituted Thursday in the narrative. The rhyming of

'Trewsday, Hensday, Mersday, Hiday' with our 'Tuesday, Wednesday (Wensday), Thursday, Friday' he naturally called an accidental likeness; but it was an astonishing coincidence! I am much inclined to think that the Hobbit calendar was the original conception, and that the names of the days were in fact devised precisely in order to provide this 'accidental likeness'. If this is so, then of course the earlier history of the names of the week (going back to the six-day week of the Eldar) was a further evolution in this extraordinarily ingenious and attractive conception. It is notable, I think, that the Elvish names do not appear until the text D 2 (where the Sindarin names are called, as is to be expected, Noldorin).

This second text now follows (with certain omissions, which are noted). It is a very carefully written manuscript, bearing the title The Calendar. I believe it to have been written soon after D 1.

The Calendar.

The Calendar in the Shire differed in several features from ours.

The year seems to have been of the same length, for long ago as those times are now, reckoned in years and lives of men, they were not, I suppose, very remote according to the memory of the Earth. It is recorded by the Hobbits that they had no 'week'

when they were still a wandering people, and though they had

'months', governed more or less by the Moon, their keeping of dates and calculations of time were vague and inaccurate. In the west-lands of Eriador, when they had begun to settle down, they adopted the reckoning of the Dunedain of the North-kingdom, which was ultimately of Elvish origin; but the Hobbits of the Shire introduced several minor alterations. This calendar, or

'Shire-reckoning' as it was called, was eventually adopted also in Bree, except for the Shire-usage of counting as Year 1 the year of the foundation or colonization of the Shire.

It is often difficult to discover from old tales and traditions precise information about those things which people knew well and took for granted in their own day, like the names of letters, or of the days of the week, or the names and lengths of months.

I have done as well as I could, and have looked into some of the surviving works on chronology. Owing to their general interest in genealogy, and to the [added: later] interest of the learned among them in ancient history, the Shire-hobbits seem to have concerned themselves a good deal with dates; and they even drew up complicated tables showing the relations of their own system with others. I am not learned or skilled in these abstruse matters, and may have made many mistakes; but at any rate the chronology of the crucial years (Shire-reckoning 1418, 1419) is so carefully set out in the Red Book that there cannot be much doubt about days and times at this point.

It seems clear that the Eldar, who had, as Samwise remarks, more time at their disposal, reckoned in centuries, and the Quenya word yen, often translated 'year', really means a hundred of our years, sometimes called quantien or 'full year'. Now they observed - I do not know how or when: but the Eldar have many powers, and they had observed many centuries - that the century or quantien contained, exactly or exactly enough for practical purposes, 36524 days. They therefore divided it into 100 coranari * (sun-rounds or years) of 366 days. This would have given them 36600 days, or 76 too many; and they dealt with the inaccuracy, not as we do by inserting at intervals an additional day to make up for a deficit, but by ejecting a few days at stated times to reduce the surplus. Every four years they would have had (very nearly) three days too many, if they had done nothing to correct this. Their method of correction may seem complicated to us, but they favoured the numbers six and twelve, and they were chiefly concerned to make things work out properly at the end of their 'full year' or century.

Normally they divided their coranar of 366 days into twelve months, six of 31 days and six of 30 days. The lengths alternated from January + to June 31, 30; and from July to December 30, 31. It will be observed that their months thus had the same lengths as ours, except for February, 30 (usual in all the calendars of this period), and July, 30. Every eighth year they (* Also called in less astronomical contexts loa 'time of growth', sc.

of plants, etc.)

(+ The month-names are here translated to avoid confusion.) got rid of the excess of 6 days by reducing all the months to 30

days and thus having a year (or coranar) of only 360 days.

These years they called 'Short Years' or 'Sixty-week Years'.

The Eldarin week had only six days, so normal years had 61

weeks, and every eighth year had 60 weeks. The first day of the coranar always began on the first day of the week. In the Short Years every month also began with the first day.

These eight-year cycles ran on regularly until the end of the 96th year of the quantien or century. There then remained four more years to deal with, and 1460 days were required to complete the full tale of 36524. Four years of 365 days would have done this, but that would not have fitted the Elves' six-day week. Their actual arrangement, rounding off the quantien neatly, was this: at the end of the century they had a half-cycle of three long years of 366 days (total 1098), and one short year (the last of the century) of 360: making 1458 and exactly completing the weeks. The two more days still required (8) were added at the end and the beginning of the quantien; they had no weekday name nor month, but only their names: Quantarie Day of Completion, Oldyear's Day, and Vinyarie Newyear's Day; they were times of festival. Thus the year 1 of the Eldarin century had 367 days; Years 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 72, 80, 88, 96 had 360 days; Year 100 had 361; and the remainder had 366. It is thus impossible to translate an Eldarin date into our terms without a possible error of some days, unless one knows at what point in an Eldarin century a given year stands, and whether that century did in fact begin on what we should call January 1.*

(* I believe that the Elves observe the Sun and stars closely, and make occasional corrections. Their quantieni are arranged, I am told, to begin as nearly as possible with the first sunset after the Winter Solstice. The Eldarin 'day' or are was reckoned not from midnight, but from the moment of the disappearance of the sun below the horizon as observed from the shores of the sea. Among other peoples the reckoning of the year's beginning had varied much at different times, though it was usually at mid-winter, or at a date taken as the beginning of Spring, and occasionally after Harvest. The beginning after Yule (taken as at or near the Winter Solstice) was used by the Dunedain in the North-kingdom, and eventually was adopted by the Hobbits. The Wild Hobbits were said to have begun their year with the New Moon nearest the beginning of Spring. The settled Hobbits for some time began their year after Harvest, or after the introduction of regular fixed months on October the first. A trace of this was left in the keeping of October 1 as a minor festival m the Shire and Bree.) The Dunedain altered these arrangements. Being mortal if long-lived the actual 'sunround' or year was their natural unit.

They required therefore a system in which months had the same length from year to year. Also they much favoured the number seven. The following was the system used in Numenor, and after the Downfall in the North-kingdom, and also in Gondor until the end of the line of Kings: it is called, therefore, King's Reckoning.

The year had 365 days; there were 12 months, normally of 30

days each; but the months on either side of the mid-year and the year's-end had 31 (in our terms January, June, July, December).

The 183rd day or Midyear Day belonged to no month. Every fourth year, except in the last year of a century, there were two Midyear Days. From this system the Shire-reckoning, described below, was derived.

But in Gondor later, in the time of the Stewards, the length of the months was equalized. Each month had 30 days, but between June 30 and July 1 were inserted 5 days, called the Summer Days. These were usually a time of holiday. The middle or third of these days, the 183rd of the year, was called Midyear Day and was a festival. As before, it was doubled in every fourth year (except the hundredth year of a century). This was called the Steward's Reckoning, and was usual in nearly all countries where the Common Speech was used (except among Elves, who used it only in their dealings with Men).

The Hobbits, however, remained conservative, and continued to use a form of King's Reckoning adapted to fit their own customs. Their months were all equal and had 30 days, but they had three Summer Days, called in the Shire the Lithe or the Lithedays between June and July; and two Yuledays, the last of the old year. and the first of the new year. So that in effect January, June, July, December still had 31 days, but the Lithedays and Yuledays were not counted in the month (January 1st was the second and not the first day of the year). Every fourth year, except in the last year of the century,* there were four Lithedays. The Lithedays and the Yuledays were the chief holi-