The Shire Calendar
Nov. 5th, 2006 03:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamflowerSHIRE CALENDAR
(All quotations from
The Lord of the Rings, Appendix D, "The Calendars")
"The Calendar in the Shire differed in several features from ours. The year no doubt was of the same length, for long ago as those times are now reckoned in years and lives of men, they were not 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 westlands of Eriador, when they had begun to settle down, they adopted the King's reckoning of the Dúnadain, which was ultimately of Eldarin 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 colonisation of the Shire."
"In this nomenclature the Hobbits, both of the Shire and of Bree, diverged from the Westron usage, and adhered to old-fashioned local names of their own, which they seem to have picked up from the Men of the Vales of the Anduin; at any rate, similar names were found in Dale and Rohan…The Shire names are set out in the Calendar. It may be noted that Solmath was usually pronounced, and sometimes written, Somath; Thrimidge was often written Thrimich (archaically Thrimilch) and Blotmath was pronounced Blodmath or Blommath. In Bree the names differed, being Frery, Solmath, Rethe, Chithing, Thrimidge, Lithe, the Summerdays, Mede Wedmath, Harvestmath, Wintry, Blooting and Yulemath. Frery, Chithing and Yulemath were also used in the Eastfarthing."
"At the end of the Third Age, the most notable…[surviving document]…was the Yellowskin, or the Yearbook of Tuckborough. Its earliest entries seem to have begun at least nine hundred years before Frodo's time…In these the weekday names appear in archaic forms, of which the following are the oldest: (1)Sterrendei, (2) Sunnendei, (3) Monendei, (4) Trewesdei, (5) Hevensdei, (6) Meresdei, (7) Highdei. In the language of the time of the War of the Ring these had become Sterday, Sunday, Monday, Trewsday, Hevensday (or Hensday), Mersday, Highday…It must be noted that the associations of the names were quite different in the Shire. The last day of the week, Friday (Highday) was the chief days, and one of holiday (after noon) and evening feasts. Saturday thus corresponds more to our Monday, and Thursday to our Saturday."
"Every year began on the first day of the week, Saturday, and ended on the last day of the week, Friday. The Mid- year's Day, and in Leap Year, Overlithe, had no weekday name. The Lithe before Mid-year's Day was called 1 Lithe, and the one after was called 2 Lithe. The Yule at the
end of the year was 1 Yule, and that at the beginning was 2 Yule."
(1) Afteryule
|
(2) Solmath
|
(3) Rethe
|
(4) Astron
|
(5) Thrimidge
|
(6) Forelithe
|
Midyear's Day
Midyear's Day falls outside the week, and has no weekday name, nor is it numbered.
(Overlithe)
Leap Year's Day (Occurs every
four years except the last year of the century. 1420 was a Leap
Year. During a Leap Year, there were four Lithedays instead of
three.
"The Overlithe was a
day of special holiday, but it did not occur in any of the years important
to the history of the Great Ring. It occurred in 1420, the year
of the famous harvest and wonderful summer, and the merrymaking in that
year is said to have been the greatest in memory or on record."
(7) Afterlithe
|
(8) Wedmath
|
(9) Halimath
|
(10) Winterfilth
|
(11) Blotmath
|
(12) Foreyule
|
The last day of the year (First Yule) is always a Highday.
No month ever begins on a Highday (Friday).
"It will be noted if one glances at a Shire Calendar, that the only weekday on which no month began was a Friday. It thus became a jesting idiom in the Shire to speak of 'on Friday the first' when referring to a day that did not exist, or to a day on which very unlikely events such as the
flying of pigs or (in the Shire) the walking of trees might occur. In full the expression was 'on Friday the first of Summerfilth'."
My ever-lasting thanks to
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
danachan, who very kindly helped me post this when the formatting was 