377 – This Must Be Thursday

Summary

The Prancing Pony Podcast - Episode 377: "This Must Be Thursday"

Release Date: June 22, 2025

---

Introduction

In Episode 377 of The Prancing Pony Podcast, hosts Alan Sisto and James Tauber delve deep into the intricate calendar systems within J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth legendarium. This episode, titled "This Must Be Thursday," explores the complexities and nuances of various fictional calendars, their origins, and their implications within the lore of Middle-earth. The discussion is enriched with insightful analysis, humorous banter, and notable quotes that shed light on Tolkien’s unparalleled attention to detail.

---

Exploring Tolkien’s Calendars

Timestamp: [02:24] - [12:12]

The episode begins with Alan and James setting the stage for an in-depth examination of Tolkien’s Appendix D, which details the various calendar systems used across Middle-earth. They express excitement about uncovering the layers behind the Shire Calendar, Elvish Calendar, King’s Reckoning, and the newly introduced Reckoning system.

---

Shire Calendar: Simplicity and Precision

Timestamp: [12:12] - [19:38]

Alan introduces the Shire Reckoning, highlighting its elegant simplicity:

• Structure: 12 equal months of 30 days each.
• Additional Days: 5 extra days divided into a three-day mid-year period (Lithe) and a two-day Yule period.
• Leap Years: Every four years, an extra Lithe day (Overlithe) is added, without a weekday name.

James remarks, “it’s one of those bits of detail that for some, it's easily skipped. It doesn't necessarily add anything of substance to the narrative,” emphasizing the meticulous craftsmanship behind the Shire Calendar.

Notable Quote:

Alan Sisto [18:16]: "I love that the Mid Year's Day and the Lithe and then the Yule is that they're exactly opposite each other in the calendars."

---

Elvish Calendar: Complexity and Longevity

Timestamp: [19:38] - [35:04]

The conversation shifts to the Elvish calendar, revealing its complexity:

• Year Length: 144 of our years, divided into six seasons with names in both Quenya and Sindarin.
• Weeks: A six-day week called enqui.
• Leap Years: Every 12 years, an additional Middle Day is added to compensate for astronomical inaccuracies.

Alan humorously contemplates, “If you don’t think it makes sense, you can just figure it out over the next 177 years.”

Notable Quote:

James Tauber [23:25]: "Because we've already split things up into 24 hours. I'm trying to think of primary world stuff."

---

King’s Reckoning: Numenor’s Legacy

Timestamp: [35:04] - [57:33]

Alan and James delve into the King’s Reckoning, the calendar system used by the Numenoreans:

• Structure: 12 months with 10 having 30 days and 2 having 31 days.
• Special Days: Yestare (first day), Loende (middle day), Metare (last day) separate from the months.
• Leap Years: Every four years, except the last year of a century, similar to the Gregorian system.

They discuss Christopher Tolkien’s revisions and the influence of ancient cultures, particularly Ancient Egypt, on the Numenorean calendar.

Notable Quote:

James Tauber [56:02]: "They do have the same length of year or sun round as the elves as a 365 days."

---

Shire Reform: Stabilizing the Week

Timestamp: [57:33] - [75:58]

The hosts explore the Shire Reform, an adaptation to ensure that dates remain consistent with weekdays:

• Reform: Extra days (Mid Year’s Day and Overlithe) do not belong to any week.
• Benefit: Every date falls on the same weekday each year, simplifying planning and record-keeping for Hobbits.

Alan humorously suggests, “Let’s make it a thing,” proposing the “Sisto Reckoning” for enhanced calendar stability.

Notable Quote:

Alan Sisto [75:03]: "They stopped having to use weekdays in their letters and diaries after a Monday."

---

Footnote Fun: The Myth of Friday the 1st

Timestamp: [63:45] - [70:28]

Alan highlights a humorous footnote from Tolkien’s appendix about the impossibility of a “Friday the 1st” in the Shire calendar. This playful nod underscores the meticulous crafting of Middle-earth’s chronology.

Notable Quote:

Alan Sisto [69:02]: "I was like, are you sure? Let me double check."

---

Mailbag Segment: Celebrating Middle-earth Dates

Timestamp: [75:58] - [124:57]

Michael from California poses a question about other Middle-earth dates worth celebrating beyond Tolkien Reading Day (March 25) and Hobbit Day (September 22). Alan and James brainstorm various significant dates from the lore:

• Events to Commemorate:
  • King Elessar’s Coronation (May 1)
  • Funeral of Theoden (August 10)
  • Horn of the Mark Blowing (November 2)
  • Elrond’s Departure (September 29)
  • Secondary Celebrations: Bilbo and Frodo’s birthdays, Frodo’s pivotal moments, Aragorn and Arwen’s wedding, etc.

Notable Quote:

James Tauber [113:06]: "We have to work out whether we would actually celebrate April 6th or we would work out what the corresponding day would be."

---

Conclusion and Upcoming Content

Timestamp: [125:03] - [127:48]

The episode wraps up with the hosts teasing future discussions on Appendix E and F, promising more deep dives into Tolkien’s world-building. They also acknowledge and thank their dedicated team and patrons, encouraging listeners to engage with the community through various social media platforms.

Notable Quote:

James Tauber [127:22]: "Until next time, adopt the Sisto Reckoning, and may you rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill."

---

Final Thoughts

Episode 377 of The Prancing Pony Podcast offers a fascinating exploration of the fictional calendrical systems in Middle-earth, showcasing the depth of Tolkien’s world-building. For enthusiasts eager to understand the temporal frameworks that underpin the narratives of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, this episode is a treasure trove of information, humor, and passionate discussion.

---

Notable Quotes Summary:

1. Alan Sisto [18:16]: "I love that the Mid Year's Day and the Lithe and then the Yule is that they're exactly opposite each other in the calendars."
2. James Tauber [23:25]: "Because we've already split things up into 24 hours. I'm trying to think of primary world stuff."
3. James Tauber [56:02]: "They do have the same length of year or sun round as the elves as a 365 days."
4. James Tauber [57:33]: "Because that was the King’s reckoning, but completely forgot the meanings of the names."
5. Alan Sisto [75:03]: "They stopped having to use weekdays in their letters and diaries after a Monday."
6. Alan Sisto [69:02]: "I was like, are you sure? Let me double check."
7. James Tauber [113:06]: "We have to work out whether we would actually celebrate April 6th or we would work out what the corresponding day would be."
8. James Tauber [127:22]: "Until next time, adopt the Sisto Reckoning, and may you rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill."

---

Stay Connected

To dive deeper into the lore and join the vibrant community of Tolkien enthusiasts, visit prancingponypodcast.com. Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast platform to never miss an episode.

---

This summary is a faithful representation of Episode 377 and is intended to provide listeners with a comprehensive overview of the discussions surrounding Middle-earth's calendrical systems.

Transcript

[Alan Sisto]

Folks, I am excited to tell you about a new Middle Earth sponsor here at the Prancing Pony podcast, osha. They're a small family company based in Scotland, and they have created some of the most beautiful designs that faithfully capture the feel of both the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Their Middle Earth collection is a genuine passion project for the OSHA team. And I'm telling you, you're gonna find something to love. Their gorgeous woven accessories, things like blankets, throws, scarves. They're all made locally out of responsibly sourced yarns. And their homeware mugs, tea towels, tote bags. They are perfect gifts. Or perfect for your own home. I know I've ordered their Realm of Middle Earth and Ancients of Gondor mugs, but I'm telling you, I had a hard time just picking one or two. They are all fantastic designs, just timeless and gorgeous. Don't just take my word for it, though. I want you to visit oshaslings.com I'm going to spell that out for you. That's o s c h a slings.com they started out making baby carriers, hence the slings, which, by the way, reminds me if you're a new or expecting parent. Yes, they have Lord of the Rings themed slings and baby wraps, too. Small family business, faithfully captured Middle Earth designs, ethically made products, and free international shipping. Oh, and 10% off for new customers with Code Pony at checkout. So visit oshaslings.com that's OSH O S C H-A slings.com and use code pony to get 10% off your first order. Location, the Lab. Quinton only has 24 hours to sell his car. Is that even possible? He goes to Carvana.com. what is this, a movie trailer? He ignores the doubters, enters his license plate. Wow, that's a great offer. The car is sold, but will Carvana pick it up in time? He'll literally pick it up tomorrow morning. Done with the dramatics. Car selling in record time.

[James Tauber]

Save your time.

[Alan Sisto]

Go to Carvana.com and sell your car today. Pickup fees may apply. Good evening, little masters, and welcome to episode 377 of the Prancing Pony podcast, where our keeping of dates and calculations of time were also vague and inaccurate.

[James Tauber]

Until we settled down in the Westlands and adopted the King's reckoning.

[Alan Sisto]

Of course. Of course.

[James Tauber]

Folks, pull up a bench in the common room and join us. I'm James Tauber, the Sage of the south, and I'm here with the man of the West. Who is older than me in any calendar system.

[Alan Sisto]

Alan Sisto knew something like that was coming. Get off my lawn, James. Folks, join us as we challenge ourselves to record an episode of on the Calendars in Appendix D that is at least as exciting as our episode on the Map chapter in the Silmarillion.

[James Tauber]

Hey, don't knock off Balerion in its realms. Best chapter ever.

[Alan Sisto]

It's a great one, I will admit.

[James Tauber]

Folks, no matter how you arrived, you're all welcome. Here in the common room at the Prancing Pony Podcast, we're reading and talking our way through Middle Earth with plenty of speculation and bad jokes along the way.

[Alan Sisto]

And we do love our deep dives into the lore, discussing our favorite themes and a whole lot more.

[James Tauber]

But we try to keep it light and fun, like a couple of friends chatting at the pub. And we're glad you've joined us.

[Alan Sisto]

Do you know any friends who you'd spend two hours chatting with about calendars at the pub?

[James Tauber]

I would be that friend to many people.

[Alan Sisto]

You would be, I think. So. This is a wonderfully. I mean, I'm just gonna say this. This is a pedantic episode in the best possible way.

[James Tauber]

I'm glad you added in the best possible way. Cause I was worried that that immediate jump to pedantry.

[Alan Sisto]

No, not at all. Anyway, folks, I'm sure you're gonna be glad you joined. As get to tonight's appendix discussion, it's time to take a look at a new kingly gift that has just arrived on our shelves. James?

[James Tauber]

Yes. So to mark the centenary of Christopher Tolkien's birth last year, HarperCollins has published the Saga of King Hedrick the Wise, together with the Battle of the Goths and the Huns. Now, these are two scholarly works that Christopher Tolkien wrote in the 1950s.

[Alan Sisto]

Now you can go to the website for the Viking Society for Northern Research, I notes on my bookmarks list and download separate PDFs of these for free. But for those wanting a physical copy, this HarperCollins paperback issue is now available. It hasn't been reset or anything. It's literally just a reproduction of the original texts.

[James Tauber]

Before we say a little something about the two texts, it's worth saying a little something about Christopher's biography. Many listeners will be aware of his World War II service, his involvement in the writing of Lord of the Rings, and then, of course, his work as literary executor after his father's death. But we don't talk much about what happened in between Christopher's military service during the Second World War interrupted his studies at Oxford, but he did return after the war to complete his BA in English in 1948, going on to do a BE LIT in 1953, where he worked with the Old Norse philologist Gabriel Turville Petra, who had himself studied with J.R.R. tolkien.

[Alan Sisto]

Now, in that same year, 1953, Christopher wrote an essay entitled the Battle of the Goths and the Huns. In the opening to the essay, Christopher expl that the conclusion of the Heydrich saga, also known as the Hervarar saga, and which we'll get to shortly, is contrived from a poem, or rather the ruins of a poem, now commonly called in English the Battle of the Goths and the Huns, in which is told in moving, though much damaged verse, interspersed with prose links how Hlother, the bastard son of King Heirekr of Hgotaland. And I'll just note, by the way, that Christopher got to write these words and didn't have to pronounce them, but I'm sure he would have pronounced them perfectly by a mistress named Sifka, who he had taken from the people of the Huns, set in movement a monstrous war against his half brother Angantyr for the recovery of his portion of the Gothic inheritance. Christopher then goes on to say that the poem is commonly referred to as one of the oldest, if not the very oldest, pieces of heroic poetry in the Norse language.

[James Tauber]

But what concerns Christopher in the essay is not so much its age, but whether the events underlying it occurred in real life, or more specifically, what was the relationship between what is described and possible events that may have happened, as well as the relationship with other accounts in other texts. While alterations were considerable over time, Christopher argues that the poem may have been part of a larger narrative of the Goth Hun conflict.

[Alan Sisto]

And that would be interesting if you've got a bastard son of the king who's half Gothic but also half Hun, and then he's after his half of the Gothic inheritance against his 100% Gothic brother. But he's half Hun. I mean, this is like TV miniseries stuff right here. I love it. Absolutely love it. Though of course, they probably have to come up with more pronounceable names, because I don't think anybody's going to be sitting around the water cooler. Not that that's anything more than a proverb anymore, with names like Hlother and he.

[James Tauber]

So one of the interesting things about this and the overall saga is the names have not in any way been Latinized. So many of the texts we have now Things corresponding to similar stories have variations in the names that are influenced by Latin. That's not the case here at all, which is one of the reasons why we suspect it's so old, because that's fascinating. It's got the original Gothic names for.

[Alan Sisto]

A lot of these characters. Oh, I love that. Well, so Christopher Tolkien went on to take a position as a lecturer at St Catherine's at Oxford, and in 1960, he published his own edition and translation of the Heydrick Saga as part of the Nelson's Icelandic Text series. Now, I know that's something that fills all of your shelves, Nelson's Icelandic Text series. Everybody knows it. Everybody has a copy. Seriously, though, folks, if you've ever looked at scholarly editions of classical or medieval texts, this is fairly standard fare, Right. You've got the lengthy introduction that includes a background and a discussion of the manuscripts from which Christopher has constructed his edition. The main portion of the edition consists of the constructed Icelandic text of the Heydrick Saga on the left hand pages and Christopher's translation into English on the right. And then the footnotes focus primarily on the different readings between the manuscripts.

[James Tauber]

The main text is then followed by a series of appendices on various topics, a glossary of technical terms, and an index of people and places. It's not dissimilar to much of the history of Middle Earth.

[Alan Sisto]

No.

[James Tauber]

I definitely found a real cognitive dissonance in reading Christopher talking about different manuscripts and name changes and the relationship between different versions of the story, but never using the phrase my father like he does so often in History of Middle Earth.

[Alan Sisto]

That's a good point. You're right, because his voice is so very distinctive that you almost expect to read him saying, my father.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Because you're so used to that from his.

[James Tauber]

And it's not there at all. Because he's talking about. He's talking about them in the same way, though. And it sort of says a lot about how both how scholarly Christopher's approach in the history of Middle Earth was, but also how appropriate it is to approach Tolkien's works with that kind of.

[Alan Sisto]

Scholarly care, that same level of scholarly care, thoroughness. And it really also speaks to how that's an approach that he's developed professionally long before he became the literary executor.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Because if we're talking about something that was published in 1960, 13 years before his father died, and you know what, 17 years before any of his father's works were published posthumously. Yeah, yeah, fascinating. Well, quite apart from Christopher's own work on producing this Edition. It is noticeable for its influence on his father's works. It deals with a cursed sword forged by dwarfs, I have to say dwarfs, because that's what they are in the story, rather than dwarves, which they should be, or dwarves called Dvalin and Durin. And at one point, the sword is buried in a barrow, but is then retrieved by a shield maiden whose son is the eponymous Heirekr. And Heedricher himself ends up being killed in a riddle contest, of all things. There's even a Mirkvidr or Mirkwood.

[James Tauber]

It's quite remarkable how much Tolkien drew on this.

[Alan Sisto]

We get a few of the bones of the soup.

[James Tauber]

Exactly, exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, exactly. And it's great because, you know, we see when we see that, that they're always taking this from this, and he's taken this from this, but he's changed this and he's changed that, and then he's taken this from something else and he's taken this from something else. And you see all these sources of inspiration that go into it. How anybody can say he was just aping one or two things.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

It. You're clearly not looking at the whole scope of the work.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Because he pulled inspiration from, you know, dozens of sources.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Really is fascinating.

[James Tauber]

So it's really fun to read an edition of these texts that were an influence on Tolkien prepared by his son.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. I think it provides a lot of insight there. And it does feel very personal, too, like it's just another chance to get insight into Christopher and his work and his passion.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. You know, and as we mentioned, these texts have been available freely for some time, but it's nice to have them in paperback. And I think it's a really appropriate commemoration. It is the Centennial, and because it's.

[Alan Sisto]

A paperback, it's super affordable. I mean, I don't think there are any plans for it to be published by the U.S. publisher.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

It is a Harper Collins, only I don't think there's a William Morrow imprint. So you do have to get it from a UK source. So I think my shipping was actually more than the book, but it was still very, very affordable. So pick that up if you're interested at all in Old Norse, if you're interested in Christopher and his studies of manuscripts and, you know, kind of seeing the way that he worked in History of Middle Earth. But we're going to go ahead and move on into our discussion of the calendars. We're going to jump right in to the Shire calendar. James, would you pick up with the beginning of Appendix D Every year began.

[James Tauber]

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 years the overlive 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 at the beginning was 2 yule. The overlaid 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 record. 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 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 Dunedain, which was ultimately of Eldaran 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 Breeze, except for the Shire usage of counting as year one, the year of the colonization of the Shire, it is often difficult to discover from old tales and traditions precise information about things which people knew well and took for granted in their own day, such as the names of letters or of the days of the week, or the names and lengths of months. But owing to their general interest in genealogy and to the interest in ancient history which the learned among them developed after the War of the Ring, 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 skilled in these matters and may have made many errors, but at any rate, the chronology of the crucial years shy reckoning 1418, 1419 is so carefully set out in the Red Book that there cannot be much doubt about days and times at that point.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, man, we're going to get to that. But I love that last paragraph. Basically along aside from Tolkien himself.

[James Tauber]

Yes, I really.

[Alan Sisto]

It's such a great insight into this whole frame narrative and the whole idea of he's discovered this and he's translating these things. It's really cool. But let's go back to this just in general. I got to ask you this question. And, folks, I'm curious. I actually literally want to hear from you all. Send in your answers to the mailbag. How many times did you read the Lord of the Rings before you decided to actually read Appendix D and look at these calendar details?

[James Tauber]

I don't even remember. In my case.

[Alan Sisto]

I didn't look the first time, I don't think. I mean, I glanced and was like, well, this is over my head, or I'm not interested. I know I read Appendix A because there was story material in there, right? The tale of Aragorn and Arwen and all the stuff about the house of Aorl and Duran and all of this. But the calendars and the languages and the writing and spelling, I don't know if I really got into those until.

[James Tauber]

I just went straight to Appendix C.

[Alan Sisto]

I was gonna say, I bet you did.

[James Tauber]

I saw that Tengguar, and I thought, this is for me.

[Alan Sisto]

I was very fascinated by it, but I was also a little bit intimidated by it and the calendars. It was the same sort of thing, like, oh, that's interesting. Oh, you know, I'm just. Let me enjoy the story. So there is a part of me that understands, certainly listeners, those of you checking in the show, you know, maybe you've never looked at this in depth before. We hope that this will give you a chance to do that.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, it's one of those bits of detail that for some, it's easily skipped. It doesn't necessarily add anything of substance to the narrative.

[Alan Sisto]

No.

[James Tauber]

But like all the other systems that Tolkien built, like the languages, of course.

[Alan Sisto]

Yes.

[James Tauber]

Studying this reveals, again, the level of incredible detail and effort that the professor puts poured into the sub creation of Middle Earth.

[Alan Sisto]

That's exactly why we're doing this, folks. I mean, we think that you're going to find this interesting enough to justify an entire episode of the ppp. I mean, I got to tell you, I found it a lot more interesting than I thought I would in putting it together. Like, ooh, oh, that's interesting. Oh, that's unique. Well, look at that, you know, so break out your calendars and do your best to follow along. The appendix starts with the Shire calendar, as one might expect. Right. I mean, the story, even though it features elves and men and dwarves, it is a Hobbit centric story.

[James Tauber]

Indeed. And you noted something Similar. Back during your discussion of the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen with Sarah Brown, you noted Tolkien writing in letter 181 that the reason he put it in an appendix was, quote, because it could not be worked into the main narrative without destroying its structure. It's Hobbit centered structure, in other words.

[Alan Sisto]

Absolutely. The story is focused on the experience of the Hobbits. So of course the first calendar system explained is calendar, even though, as we'll soon see, it was based in turn on the Numenorean system, which he says was also Eldadteran in nature. But I think we'll see it's a pretty big change.

[James Tauber]

Yes, indeed. And while we'll look at each system in turn, there are a lot of connections that we need to point out as we're going through them.

[Alan Sisto]

That is true.

[James Tauber]

Not to mention several references to the drafts of Appendix D that Christopher Tolkien gives us in Peoples Part 1, Chapter 4, covering this appendix.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. So let's go ahead and dive first into the Shire calendar. I love it because it's remarkably elegant in its simplicity. You have 12 equal months of 30 days each, and the extra five days that are needed are divided between a three day period at mid year and a two day period at Yule. Nice and easy. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Yep, nice and easy. Of course, a leap day every four years, except every hundred, just like ours. And that was an extra midday year, basically.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

So you had two Yule starting the year on a Saturday, as we read before, and one Yule ending the year on a Friday. Then at the end of the six month period, one Live was on a Friday, followed by Mid Year's Day, which didn't have a weekday name, and then two Live on a Saturday.

[Alan Sisto]

Now that part, I admit, is the hardest part for me to wrap my head around. A day that doesn't have a weekday name. So you're on a Friday, right? You're on one Live and you say tomorrow, meaning Saturday. But on one Live it would mean the unnamed Mid Year's Day, not actually Saturday, which is two days later. Of course, that gets even wilder in leap years because there would be a second Mid Year's Day called Overlive that would also not have a weekday name. So when I say tomorrow on one Live, do I mean Mid Year's Day or do I mean Saturday? Two Live, Right? That's.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, I guess you just say Saturday if you mean the next actual day.

[James Tauber]

The actual. Well, the named.

[Alan Sisto]

The next actual named day.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah. But of course you need to do that. Otherwise, if you want to retain that consistency of the day of the day of the week that it is at the start of the year.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, yeah, and we'll get to that, especially as we get further into the explanations.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, so note that Overlive and so on was a special holiday, unlike February 29, which just confuses most of us.

[Alan Sisto]

It does, doesn't it?

[James Tauber]

That didn't impact the story because as we already read, it didn't take place in any of the important years. Years. Until, of course, the famous 1420.

[Alan Sisto]

I do kind of like the idea, by the way, of making that Leap Day an actual holiday. You know, just let's not stick it in at a random month. Let's make it a day in the middle of the year and party, you know. But I will say that there's a certain elegance in this weird Skip the weekday name for the Mid Year's Day, because what that meant was that every month was exactly the same regardless of what year you were in. I mean, Solmuth9 was always a Tuesday or a Truesday as the case may be. We'll get to the names of the months and days later.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah. I remember noticing in the Tale of Years that there are certain events that happen, for example, on February 30th as well. So the for example takes place on.

[Alan Sisto]

February 30th days that don't happen in our calendar.

[James Tauber]

Exactly, exactly. But yeah. So, you know, as we've been discussing, if your birthday was on a Thursday, it's always on a Thursday.

[Alan Sisto]

And it's also nice because Yule always took place on a Friday and Saturday, just like live would take place on a Friday, Saturday.

[James Tauber]

And every month, as I said, was 30 days long.

[Alan Sisto]

Perfect.

[James Tauber]

So we adopt this system.

[Alan Sisto]

I know. That's kind of what I'm thinking. Like, can we please start a movement to adopt the Shire calendar worldwide, Everybody gets holidays in the middle. The nice thing about having the Mid Year's Day and the Lithe and then the Yule is that because they're exactly opposite each other in the calendars, even the southern hemisphere still gets to celebrate in the same way with the same sort of weather, you know, like, I mean, sure, the southern hemisphere's lithe is going to be wintry and our. Or yeah, it's going to be wintry and their Yule will be summery, but at least they get a celebration in the middle of the year and they're separated by six months. I just. I love the idea.

[James Tauber]

So there is a notion in Australia of Christmas in July. It's often referred to as to take advantage of the thing. But we wouldn't need to do that in a shy calendar, because we've got to.

[Alan Sisto]

Because you'd have it. And in fact, we could even make it a little better because there's already three days in the middle of the year. The one modification I would make is make the overlith an extra yule day so that instead of having three and sometimes four mid year's days, but always only two yule days, you would every four years get a third yulet.

[James Tauber]

The Sisto Reckoning.

[Alan Sisto]

The Sisto Reckoning. There you go. I like that.

[James Tauber]

All right, take note, everyone.

[Alan Sisto]

Let's make it a thing. All right. Tolkien then steps out of explaining the calendar itself. And like I pointed out when you finished the reading, I love this. He shifts to a discussion about how it came to be. And I love that it starts out by the fact that the Hobbits just weren't great timekeepers early on. Vague and inaccurate. Which totally fits everything I can imagine about hobbits.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. They didn't need to be.

[Alan Sisto]

No.

[James Tauber]

So they settled down. Not necessarily 1601, when the Shire was founded, but likely earlier, as they began settling in Bree, they took the King's reckoning system as their own. We'll get to the King's reckoning later, but the text here tells us that even that was ultimately of Eldaran origin. So we'll talk about the Elves calendar.

[Alan Sisto]

First, which is to say next. But not yet. Okay, we're talking about. We're going to finish up the Shire calendar discussion, then we'll move on to the Elves calendar and then to the King's reckoning. So more on the Shire reckoning, as it came to be called. This had a few changes and we'll go over those from the King's Reckoning. It was also used in Bree, but in Bree they didn't change the year. So for them, third age 1602 was still third age 1602. Whereas in the Shire Reckoning 2, of course, only the hobbits of the Shire followed that. I'm sure the hobbits and Bree were a little like, what is with you? You think you're special?

[James Tauber]

It's a calculation, though.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, it is. I mean, thank goodness.

[James Tauber]

Round number, I know.

[Alan Sisto]

Like, what if. What if they got the Shire in 1647 all of a sudden? That makes the math a lot more frustrating.

[James Tauber]

Then we get a bit of the frame narrative here, as Tolkien himself talks about the process by which he obtained and laid out all this information. And he talked about the challenge of finding any precision when dealing with, quote, old tales and traditions, even if they're.

[Alan Sisto]

Old tales and traditions he made up.

[James Tauber]

He's not letting on.

[Alan Sisto]

Right? He's not letting on. And I absolutely love that consistency. The Hobbits are now careful to write this stuff all down. And it's thanks to two things that he tells us. One is their interest in family trees, which, of course, we see from the very beginning. We see that in the Prologue, and I think we even see a little bit of it in the Hobbit. But also their newfound interest in history after the War of the Ring, which you and I just talked about in Appendix B, the Tale of Years recently.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Now, Tolkien's own admission and excuse is that he's not good at this. Clearly a lie.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I was going to say.

[James Tauber]

And might have made mistakes, quite possibly. And the final bit about how the chronology of the, quote, crucial years, that's third age, 30, 18, 19, or shy reckoning, 14, 18, 19, is provided in such detail that at least those can be considered accurate.

[Alan Sisto]

I love that these two years, I've got my dates right. I guarantee you these are right. And they're right because I made them up. They're all rights because I made them up. But, yeah, these are particularly right. But there might be some errors elsewhere. And I love that, you know, because of that, he doesn't really give us a lot of dates outside of those two years.

[James Tauber]

Right. And I do love the way he sort of feigns that uncertainty.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

As things get further away from the people that are actually recording it.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. And that's the point, right? I mean, we get the Red Book of Westmarch, and it's going to be based on these records written by Frodo and by these, by Merry and Pippin as well, and Sam, too. And, of course, those years are going to be very precise, but as you said, as you get further and further out, it's. Why, a lot of times, when you're looking at some things in the Tale of Years, it's more like circa this, Right. You know, like TA1000, the Astari arrive. Hey, whatever. It might have been 987, it might have been 10, 13, who knows?

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

You know, but here we can rest assured that the dates, the very precise dates, are correct.

[James Tauber]

Yep. Ty, do you want to continue reading for us?

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, now we're going to get to talk about the Elves, who are very concerned about precision, but who also count. Really funny. Let's get into that. It seems clear that the Eldar in Middle Earth, who had, as Samwise remarked, more time at their disposal, reckoned in long periods. And the Quenya word yin, often translated year, really means 144 of our years. The Eldar preferred to reckon in sixes and twelves as far as possible. A day of the sun, they called Re and reckoned from sunset to sunset. The yen contained 52,596 days for ritual rather than practical purposes. The Eldar observed a week or enquie of six days, and the yen contained 8,766 of these. And Queer reckoned continuously throughout the period. Folks, I hope you're still with me, because I get to keep going. So we've got 52,000 days in a year, because the year is actually 144 years. This is. This is wild. We'll get more into this in a bit. But let's.

[James Tauber]

If you're an elf, it makes sense. Of course you are completely natural.

[Alan Sisto]

Because if it doesn't make sense, you can just figure it out over the next 177 years.

[James Tauber]

That's right. You've got plenty of time to work your time.

[Alan Sisto]

You got time to work it out.

[James Tauber]

Out.

[Alan Sisto]

I'm in my 213th year of studying the calendar. I'll figure it out eventually. In Middle Earth, the Eldar also observed a short period or solar year called a coronar or sun, round when considered more or less astronomically, but usually called loa growth, especially in the northwestern lands, when the seasonal changes in vegetation were primarily considered, as was usual with the elves. Generally, the loa was broken up into periods that might be regarded either as long months or short seasons. These no doubt varied in different regions, but the Hobbits only provide information concerning the calendar of Imladris. In that calendar, there were six of these seasons, of which the Quenya names were Tuile, Lyre, Yavie, Quelle, Rivet, Koire, which may be translated spring, summer, autumn, fading, winter, stirring. The Sindarin names were Ethwil, Lyr, Yavas, Firith, Ru, Ehwyr, Fading was also called Lasse, Lanta, leaf, fall, or in Sindarin, Narbeleth, sun, waning, Lyre and rive. Each contained 72 days and the remainder 54 each. The LOA begin with Yestare, the day immediately before tuile, and ended with metare, the day immediately after Koere. Between Javier and quelle were inserted three enderi, or middle days. This provided a year of 365 days, which was supplemented by doubling the inderi, adding three days in every 12th year. How any resulting inaccuracy was dealt with is uncertain. If the year was then of the same length as now, the yen would have been more than a day too long. That there was an inaccuracy is shown by a note in the calendars of the Red Book to the effect that in the reckoning of Rivendell, the last year of every third yen was shortened by three days. The doubling of the three enderi due in that year was omitted quote. But that has not happened in our time. Of the adjustment of any remaining inaccuracy, there is no record.

[James Tauber]

So what strikes me as interesting about this is it seems so based on agriculture.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

This notion of seasons that are of differing lengths and it. Depending on where you are and so on is a much. It's a much more agriculturally derived calendar system than an astronomical one.

[Alan Sisto]

Yes, absolutely. Which is interesting, given the Elves focus on the stars.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, that sort of threw me like I expected it to be very astronomical. And like you said, it's agricultural.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, very much.

[Alan Sisto]

Even the names of the seasons. Right. The spring, summer, autumn, fading winter and stirring. It's really interesting, those two extra seasons.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah. It's also interesting, you know, any calendar system is dealing with this problem that the various astronomical things don't line up. Right. The fact that the moon and the sun and the Earth's rotation, everything like that don't neatly fit into one another.

[Alan Sisto]

And it's why we need leap years, but not leap years on the century, except for every fourth century.

[James Tauber]

And even then we need to add leap seconds and stuff like that. Just these additional refinements to get more and more accurate. And of course the Elves would have dealt with that as well. But it's interesting that Tolkien suggests that we don't have any evidence of how they dealt with some of those things.

[Alan Sisto]

How any resulting in accuracy was dealt with is uncertain. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

So, I mean, it's no surprise though that the Elves system has to be really complicated and based on an entirely different reckoning than the shy calendar.

[Alan Sisto]

Totally different.

[James Tauber]

Let alone our own calendar here in the primary world.

[Alan Sisto]

I know it's wild, this idea of 54 and 72 day months, but as we'll see, that's related to how they like to think. In fairness to the Elves, as complex as it is, they live a really, really long time, Samwise remarked. And I love that there's actually a mention of that. And of course they would take the long view. I am curious though, if you can identify for me any particular reason in the text why they prefer to reckon in sixes and twelves?

[James Tauber]

I don't know, other than to say that it's somewhat arbitrary. Any, that's true. Any number system that we adopt and, and, you know, different cultures in, in the primary world have, have adopted different things. Right. Of course, famously, we've got a lot of cultures, starting with the Babylonians being very focused on 60.

[Alan Sisto]

Right. Which is why we have 60 seconds.

[James Tauber]

And that's why we have 60 seconds and 60 minutes and 360 degrees in a circle and all of that sort of stuff.

[Alan Sisto]

It's such a highly divisible number. It makes sense.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And similarly, with the, you know, they being 24 hours in a day, again, that's very, very divisible, which is probably a big motivation for it because you can obviously halve it, you can third it, you can quarter it.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, you can't do that with fives and tens. I mean, you can basically only have tens and things like that, you know.

[James Tauber]

So it's entirely, it's entirely possible that that's one of the benefits that the elves would, why the elves would pick six and 12 because they also, you know, six. Six obviously can be halved or split into thirds. Twelves can also be split into quarters and be a reason. I, I, I don't know. I can't think of.

[Alan Sisto]

I was trying to think like, are there six valar? Nope, there are, you know, eight valar. There are, are there 12? No. The only thing I could think of was that there was allegedly 144 of them originally awoken at Lake Cuivienen.

[James Tauber]

There's two things there. Yeah. So in Cuivie Ann, there, of course, were. The original three were in pairs. Right. So you get the male and female. So you get six.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

And then you also, as you mentioned, get the 144 that those six then eventually found, which, if we had to guess, I would say that's probably the strongest.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, that's about the only thing I could think of. And actually that only came to my mind as we were talking about it today when I was writing this. I didn't originally think of that, but then I was like, wait a minute, 144. Because that's how many years are in their yen. That's how many elves were awakened at Cuivien. And so maybe that's connected. Let's go ahead and dive into that system. We'll start with the Elvish Year. That's the yen. The 144 years. I want to point out the footnote here refers back to Galadriel's Lament, because it's the only place where yen is mentioned. And the first two lines of that are a Laurie, lantar, lassi surnen geniunotome veraldron, which is translated as ah, like gold fall, the leaves in the wind. Long years. Numberless as the wings of trees. Yep.

[James Tauber]

Long years. Yep. So in this case, yeni is plural, the long years. Yen is the singular, of course, is a great example of the way that Quenya nouns, if they end in a consonant, are pluralized by adding an I.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. And if they end in a vowel, they're pluralized by adding the R. Right, Yep.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, Exactly. Exactly. And just out of interest, preempting some of the stuff we're going to talk about, perhaps in Appendix E, Sindarin has a slightly different way of making things plural. It doesn't add an I anymore because there's been some sound changes, but what it actually does is makes the vowels more I. Like.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. So like amon to Emin.

[James Tauber]

Exactly, yeah. What's actually going on there is each of the vowels, because it originally had an eye at the end in primitive Eldaran. What happened? And the same thing happened in English. It's why we have the plural of goose is geese and foot is feet and so on. Man is men. All of those are examples where the vowel has been influenced by an eye that used to be there and then dropped out. So Sindarin does that. The Quenya has the eye still there.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, which makes sense. It's the older language.

[James Tauber]

Right, Exactly. A lot more conservative. Yeah. But of course, this. This yen that gets glossed as year isn't really a year. Right. We're talking about the elves perception of what we would think of as. As maybe a year. But in. In their case, it's 144of. Of our years, because as we've discussed, they reckon in sixes and twelves, and 144is, of course, 12. Course, we also get their name for a day called Rare. And it's not from midnight to midnight, like we do, or even sunrise to sunrise, but sunset to sunset.

[Alan Sisto]

I thought that was interesting.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, of course, that's another arbitrary thing. There's no reason, like, we take for granted that it would be midnight to.

[Alan Sisto]

Midnight, but that's hasn't always been the case.

[James Tauber]

That's almost the tail wagging the dog because.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, it is.

[James Tauber]

We only know about midnight because we've already split things up into 24 hours.

[Alan Sisto]

Because we've decided the clock starts at 00 in the middle of the night. I'm trying to think of primary world stuff. I know that the Jewish calendar marks the days from sunset to sunset.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. The Islamic calendar might as well. I'm not sure. I was wondering about that.

[Alan Sisto]

Medieval Europe did though. I mean that's actually why, you know, we have like these vestigial holidays like Christmas Eve or even Halloween. They're actually just remnants of the time when the holidays began the prior evening because the, the day went sunset to sunset.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

So it's very interesting, we'll see later that I think it's the Numenoreans that end up taking it sunrise to sunrise instead because they make so many changes. They really do. But it's just, it's just really interesting to see. And like you said, it is arbitrary. So you know, Again, of course, 144 years, that means it has 52,596 days. When you do the math that works out to 365 and a quarter days per year. That is very close to the real astronomical days, which is 365.2422.

[James Tauber]

Right. And of course that, that 0.25, if that's what it actually was, then you could get away with a leap year before years.

[Alan Sisto]

Right. And you wouldn't have to change it.

[James Tauber]

Wouldn'T, you wouldn't have to do that every hundred except when it's a multiple of 400 and all that sort of stuff to get closer and closer to the point two four two two. But that's about all the similarities with our calendar.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

Because the, the elves observed, as we discussed, a six day week or enquir, giving them precisely 8,766 of these weird weeks in a yen six day week. And the next couple of paragraphs describe how the elves observe their solar year. So this is when they're bringing in something that's obviously a lot more natural to us, but it's unavoidable because it's astronomical. Right. The sun's the Earth still revolving, going around the sun.

[Alan Sisto]

Earth does what it does. Elves. Exactly.

[James Tauber]

Which they call kor Anar, which literally means sun Round.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, anar. Right.

[James Tauber]

I just put anar sun. But even the core is found in the word for ring.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Tauber]

The sun round the ring.

[Alan Sisto]

Sun round.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, exactly. And this is really different from the shy calendar with one interesting similarity.

[Alan Sisto]

And we'll start with what's the same, right? They have a similar year end and mid year arrangement. There's A single day ending the year, special day outside of the months, and a single day starting the year, and some days in the middle. Now, unlike the whole Shire calendar that we just looked at, where you've always got three days and sometimes it's four, their middle days were also usually three. But instead of doing an extra day every four years, they would simply double the middle days to six. But they would do it every 12th year.

[James Tauber]

Right, because. Why not?

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, why not? Where else?

[James Tauber]

But notice again then, that it's every 12th year.

[Alan Sisto]

Right, because it's in multiples of 12. They have to think in multiples of six and 12. And they couldn't do it at six, because that would be one and a half days.

[James Tauber]

Right, right, exactly. But also, it means that the number of those special days is either three or six, never four.

[Alan Sisto]

Right, which isn't part of a multiple. It's a multiple of 12. Or 12 is divisible by it, but not by six. Six isn't divisible by four.

[James Tauber]

Right, yeah, exactly, Exactly. So it's interesting. They've got a leap day every 12 years instead of every four years. But then they have to add three, of course, because 12 is three times four. So it's the same math. But they end up with the same problem that we have.

[Alan Sisto]

Right, which is that the year isn't 365, and a quarter days, but 365.2422. That's why in the primary world, we don't observe leap years on the century year. Like 1900 was not a leap year. Ironically, 2000 was 2100. 2200. 2300 won't be, but 2400 will be.

[James Tauber]

Right, exactly. And ironically, that's still not quite right. Our calendar is still one day too slow for every 3231 years. So we'll have to skip a day somewhere in the distant future.

[Alan Sisto]

Fortunately, that's not in our lifetimes. But here's the thing. Elves live so long. This is a problem they'd have to solve.

[James Tauber]

Yes.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, their calendars would be out of date in their lifetimes, because their lifetimes are so long. So they get closer to it by skipping the doubling of those middle days in the last year of every third yen. Now, that means that every 432 sun rounds or solar years, they would skip those extra three days.

[James Tauber]

So while our Gregorian calendar skips three leap days every 400 years, the elves calendar skips three leap days every 432 years.

[Alan Sisto]

Okay, so interesting. I mean, there's still going to be a fix to be made.

[James Tauber]

But that's in either case.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, yeah, that's true. Because our calendar is definitely not exactly correct. Now that leap day, leap year digression aside, and I don't apologize for it, I stand by it. We own it. We needed to talk through that. While Elves calendars may have been different in different places and man, that just opens the doors for like what did it look like in Lorien? Right. Or what did it look like in Thranduil's court? We're looking here at the reckoning of Rivendell. It's the calendar used in Imladris. And of course that makes sense because we get the Red Book from the Hobbits and that's the only Elvish calendar that they would have had the details for. Gimli might have the reckoning of Lorien. Right? Yes, but he didn't write this, so.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. And this is where things really deviate from our typical months in a year. Yeah, right. They have six seasons of varying length though again, all multiples of six or 12. So first up is Tuile, their spring, which was a 54 day. No, that's nine times six day weeks. It's a season roughly corresponding to April 7th to May 30th. And in Sindarin this was called Ethuil.

[Alan Sisto]

And that's their spring. So their, their summer lyra corresponded to June 1st to August 9th. It was a 72 day season. So that's 12, six day weeks, very much in that six and 12 vein. And that was Sindarin Laer. Next up was Javier, their autumn. Now we're back to a 54 day season and that was August 10th to October 3rd, Sindarin Javas.

[James Tauber]

After that was their middle days known as enderi, corresponding to October 4th to 6th. And then their fading season known as Quella, which was another 54 day season running from October 7 to November 30. In Sindarin that was called Firith.

[Alan Sisto]

This was also referred to though as La Salanta or leaf fall, or in Sindarin Narbeleth, sun waning, which we will see again by the way. So hold on to that. And basically there's a symmetry to this. So it mirrors the 54, 72, 54 day structure that we saw in the first half of the year. So now they have a 72 day winter prevey that ran from December 1st to February 10th. That was Sindarin. I'm going to mess this up again, folks. RU R H I W that's such a weird one for Me to try to pronounce James. Can you do it better? It's just ru.

[James Tauber]

Pronounce it as if it was hr. Oh, and trill it.

[Alan Sisto]

Okay, True. All right. There we go.

[James Tauber]

And then a season called stirring or coite. Now, we've been told, remember that re means day.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

And koi we saw before in the context of the languages. Remember when we talked about the living language?

[Alan Sisto]

Yes.

[James Tauber]

Koi came up. It also appeared in the Kunya word for lembas. So it's to do with life. Right. Stirring is literally kind of a day that's alive. The day of living.

[Alan Sisto]

Ooh, I love that name.

[James Tauber]

Which was 54 days corresponding to February 11th to April 4th. And that in Sindarin was Ekur. Then the year would end on Metare, or last day, April 5, before beginning again on yestare, April 6.

[Alan Sisto]

Now, all of this, as fascinating as it is, is radically different from how Tolkien originally envisioned the Eldar calendar in the first draft found in the peoples of Middle Earth.

[James Tauber]

There we read normally, the Eldar divided their year of 366 days into 12 months, 6 of 31 and 6 of 30 days. They alternated from January to June, 3130, from July to December, 30, 31. It will be observed that their months thus had the same length as ours, except for February 30 and July 30. Every eighth year, they got rid of their excess of six days and by reducing all months to 30 days. And these years were called 60 week years or short years.

[Alan Sisto]

Now, that would be confusing, right? To have a year that's a full week shorter every eight years or every. Yeah, every eight years. That's just. I don't know how to even. That one really confused me, I have to admit. But even in this version, the Elves week still had six days. So it meant they had 61 weeks most of the time. But every eight years they'd only have 60 weeks.

[James Tauber]

Yep. Although it's interesting, again, the. I don't know the historical reason for dividing our week into seven.

[Alan Sisto]

That's a very good question.

[James Tauber]

Is it just purely the Genesis account, or are there other cultures that adopted the division into seven? I'm not sure because I don't think there's an astronomical reason.

[Alan Sisto]

The only thing I can think of is that it's closer to the 28 day cycle of the moon.

[James Tauber]

It does fit reasonably nicely into the lunar cycle cycle.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, that's the only thing I can think of. But then why didn't we keep the moon cycle and then figure out how to make that fit into the year. I don't know. That's a good one. Maybe I'll look into that in the P5. I know we've got another two or three things that we've marked for discussion there, but that might be something to look at.

[James Tauber]

Definitely. But I think the main thing here, which I'm sure Tolkien really enjoyed exploring, was not all of the things in our primary world need necessarily be the case. There are certain things that are somewhat like that.

[Alan Sisto]

They could be different. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

There's certainly constraints astronomically and we've talked about agriculturally as well. But within that there's different ways of solving these challenges. And I'm sure Tolkien loved this idea.

[Alan Sisto]

Of exploring and I love that he did it through all these different calendar systems that Even still, maybe 10% of the people who've read the Lord of the Rings have read.

[James Tauber]

But I almost wonder if it's like him constantly wanting to try different poetic forms and coming up with new ways of rhyming and things and then doing.

[Alan Sisto]

It better, better than anybody else had ever done it.

[James Tauber]

And I wonder if it's the same thing. It's like, oh, it's not enough just to come up with my calendar system, but I'm going to come up with another calendar system and another calendar system.

[Alan Sisto]

And they're all going to work explain.

[James Tauber]

In world how they relate to one another.

[Alan Sisto]

And it's all about that inner consistency of reality.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah. So, so this, this whole idea of that the elves having having the 61 weeks and then the 60 weeks every eight years, this still resulted in an extra day every hundred years. So they dropped the last day of December completely, even skipping the sixth day of the week before starting the new year.

[Alan Sisto]

That would be confusing. But fortunately you'd only have to deal with that every 100 years.

[James Tauber]

But as we've discussed, it's not like we don't do the same. It's just. It's a different solution to a problem. It is that we all have living on this planet.

[Alan Sisto]

That's a good point. Now lately I've had a chance to tell you all about Mando, the whole body deodorant. I still use it, I still like it. And I especially like that my 13 year old son uses it. Now Mando is clinically proven to block odors all day long and to control them for up to 72 hours even. And one of the things I really like about Mando's stuff is that it's whole body deodorant. You don't just throw some on your armpits. You really can use it any place on your body that could use a bit of odor control. And yeah, it includes there too. Mando products come in solids, creams and sprays and some really fresh scents too like Pro Sport, Clover woods and Bourbon Leather. Mando's starter pack is perfect for new customers. It comes with a solid stick deodorant cream tube deodorant 22 free products of your choice like a mini body wash or deodorant wipes which are perfect for travel and free shipping. As a special offer for our listeners, new customers get $5 off a starter pack with our exclusive code that equates to over 40% off your starter pack when you use code [e-mail] that's s h o p m a n d o.com Please support our show and tell them we sent you smell fresher, stay drier and boost your confidence from head to toe. With Mando. You know, I've dealt with enough back pain that the last thing I want is an old leather wallet the size of a small brick making me sit all lumpy and sideways. That's one of the reasons I'm happy to tell you about Ridge Wallets. Their slick modern wallet holds plenty of cards and cash too, when I'm lucky enough to actually have some. And they're made out of some really cool materials too. We got a little aluminum, titanium, leather or the one I got carbon fiber because you know, makes me faster. They've got over 50 styles, materials and colors to pick from and they all come with a lifetime warranty. This is quite literally the last wallet you'll have to buy. Now I want a wallet that keeps my cards safe. Ridge Wallets all have ARFID blocking technology built in to keep you safe from digital pickpockets. I also got their carbon fiber key case, but they've got all sorts of good stuff. Phone cases, pens, even suitcases and other travel goodies. All high quality materials, all slick modern design and all with lifetime warranties. Everything comes with free shipping and a 99 day risk free trial. So head over to ridge.com now for a limited time, our listeners get 10% off at Ridge by using Code Pony at checkout. So go to ridge.com and use code pony and you're all set. Now after you buy, they're going to ask where you heard about them. Please support the Prancing Pony podcast by telling them our show sent you. All right, soon we're going to get back to what the Numenoreans did with the Elvish Calendar. But before we do, we want to remind you that there's a lot more talk going on at the Prancing Pony Podcast than just us.

[James Tauber]

The PPP has an amazing listener community. They're always coming up with great questions and discussions across all our social media spaces. Check out our Common Room on Facebook, our dedicated subreddit, Twitter and more now on Facebook.

[Alan Sisto]

Just look for the Prancing Pony podcast. Follow the page to get the news and episode drops, but join the group to get involved in some great discussions.

[James Tauber]

On Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, Twitch, TikTok, and YouTube. We're PrancingPony or if you prefer Reddit, find us there at R prancicponypod.

[Alan Sisto]

And if you want daily Tolkien content, check out today's Tolkien times on the PPP YouTube channel and on all your favorite podcast apps. That's my short format Daily Show. It's got everything from Middle Earth Map Mondays to Fandom Fridays. And there's my new twice weekly streaming of all fun things Middle Earth on the PPP plays. Be sure to check both of them out on the YouTube channel for all the PPP productions at YouTube.com prancingponypod James let's get into the King's Reckoning.

[James Tauber]

Okay, the Numenoreans altered these arrangements. They divided the lower into shorter periods of more regular length, and they adhered to the custom of beginning the year in midwinter, which had been used by men of the Northwest, from whom they were derived in the First Age. Later they also made their week one of seven days, and they reckoned the day from sunrise out of the Eastern Sea to sunrise. The Numenorean system, as used in Numenor and in Arnor and Gondor until the end of the Kings was called Kings Reckoning. The normal year had 365 days. It was divided into 12 ASTAR, or months, of which 10 had 30 days and 2 had 31. The long ASTAR were those on either side of the mid year, approximately our June and July. The first day of the year was called Yestare, the middle day, the 183rd was called lo Ende, and the last day Metare. These three days belonged to no month in every fourth year except the last of a century. Haranye. Two enderi, or middle days were substituted for the loende in Numenor. Calculations started with second age 1. The deficit caused by deducting one day from the last year of a century was not adjusted until the last year of a millennium, leaving a millennial deficit of 4 hours, 46 minutes, 40 seconds. This addition was made in Numenor in second age. 1000, 2000 and 3000.

[Alan Sisto]

Fascinating. I love what they've done. We get to the king's reckoning, and this is a system that's around for a very long time because it's. It's not only used in Numenor throughout the Second Age, but even in the realms in exile in Arnor and Gondor until the end of the line of the Kings.

[James Tauber]

And this is the one that the Shire calendar is more clearly connected to, as we'll see.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right.

[James Tauber]

I love the way that this started. The Numenoreans altered these arrangements.

[Alan Sisto]

Pray I do not alter them any further. That was literally the first thing I heard in my head that the elves like. But you changed our calendar. Pray I do not alter them any further. Oh, man. Good stuff. So they make four really big changes.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

First, they divided the year into shorter, more regular lengths, what we would see as months rather than seasons. And second, they begin the year in midwinter. And for them, that was a tradition dating back to men of the First Age.

[James Tauber]

Third, they changed the week length from six days to seven days. And we'll talk about. But what they called that seventh day later.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

And finally they changed the day itself to go from sunrise to sunrise, which the ancient Egyptians did as well.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. I was looking that up. I was like, okay, you know, we talked about the sunset to sunset. So I'm, like, looking and doing my research, like, what cultures did sunrise to sunrise. I thought it was interesting that Ancient Egypt did, because that's not the only connection to Ancient Egypt we get with the Numenoreans.

[James Tauber]

And I am wondering whether it's that sort of sun worship.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

I think it's significant that the Numenoreans.

[Alan Sisto]

I think it is, because it's a change. It's definitely significant. And the fact that we see Tolkien explicitly connecting them to ancient Egypt in his letters, and then we see all the themes of the struggle for immortality and basically turns into mummification, the building of these massive monuments to the dead. What Faramir talks about how the lines of your ancestors are more important than your children.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

Which coming from Faramir is obviously true because Denethor doesn't care. It's just really interesting that we see yet another connection to Ancient Egypt. And it's just a subtle one, but they still, of course, had the same length of year or sun round as the elves as a 365 days. But in their case, they divided it into 12 months. Those were called ASTAR, with 10 of those 12 having 30 days and then two, the two on either side of mid year having 31.

[James Tauber]

And you can see the similarity with the Shire calendar, where they had all 12 months of 30 days with a 3 day long mid year.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I mean, pretty much the same thing, really.

[James Tauber]

Right. You can see the trajectory that it's following. And like the Shire calendar, the king's reckoning special days belonged to no month.

[Alan Sisto]

I love that phrase. I am no month. You do not look upon a month, you look upon a day. So they kept the names of the first and last days from the Elves calendar, Ystarre and Metare, which literally mean first day and last day. So of course they're going to keep those names. They did go with the singular for middle day, which was Lowende.

[James Tauber]

Except for their leap years, of course, when they'd have two mid year days.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

And then they were called Enderi, just like in the reckoning of Rivendell.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

And like with their own Gregorian calendar, they skipped the leap year at the end of every century. They're called Haranye.

[Alan Sisto]

And then we get an explanation of the millennial deficit, the whole reason why we do observe a leap year at the end of every fourth century. This deficit, instead of being fixed every 400 years, was added in second age 1000, 2000 and 3000. We also, in the part that we skipped, learned that Elendil and the exiles kept this calendar when they established Gondor and Arnor, but that the change in years at the end of the Second Age kind of messed them up.

[James Tauber]

Because of course, if you're trying to go on an exact boundary, like the 1000 millennium mark. Exactly. Then if you don't start the next age on the millennium mark, then your millennial boundaries, your millennial correction is off. Right, exactly. So specifically, second age 3442 became third age 1. So when they made third age 4 a leap year, instead of third age 3, which would have corresponded to second age 3 4, which would have had.

[Alan Sisto]

A leap year then.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. They created an additional deficit.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Similarly, the millennial fixes were made 441 years late.

[Alan Sisto]

Each time, it's a little late, because.

[James Tauber]

Third age 1000 and 2000, what would have been second age 4441 and 5441. Yeah, and we'll get to how that got fixed in the next section.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. But before we do, a quick aside on the changes in the drafts to the Numenorean calendar, Christopher Tolkien summarizes, in the first draft of Appendix D, there were 12 months of 30 days each in a year of 365 days, with a period of five days standing outside the months called the summer days, between June 30 and July 1, the third of these being called Mid Year's Day. Every fourth year was a leap year with six summer days, including two Mid Year's Days. From this calendar, that of the Hobbits was derived with the five extra days dispersed into three summer days and two Yule days, the leap year day being overlaith. Now, set this to the side, folks, because this D1 version of the Numenorean calendar is what ends up being the Steward's reckoning.

[James Tauber]

So in the second draft, created very shortly after the first one, according to Christopher, the Numenorean calendar had eight months of 30 days and four months of 31. January, June, July, December, requiring only one extra day media day standing outside the months. This, as in the first draft, being doubled every fourth year. This is connected to how the Shire calendar followed the king's reckoning, as Christopher says. My father explained that they did in effect retain the four 31 day months in the two Yule days, January and December, and two live days, June, July, on either side of the Mid Year's day. Although these in the Hobbit calendar were not counted in the months.

[Alan Sisto]

And that comes back to their whole idea of keeping the weekdays square.

[James Tauber]

Exactly, exactly. So the structure is very similar. They just took them out of the month, they said.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly.

[James Tauber]

Rather than having 31 day months, we're going to have 30 day months, but there's going to be extra.

[Alan Sisto]

And they won't belong to any month.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

You know, it's really interesting. It's so elegant to see these little pieces moving as they solve different problems that each culture wants. You know, the Hobbits want the simplicity of every month being the same length and having the weeks start on the same day and all that stuff. And they're able to achieve it, but they have to do some violence to the calendar to make it work.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

And yet here we've got this King's reckoning. In the draft version, for instance, there's no mention of any sort of Yule at all. It's just, let's put all those five days in the middle of the year and take them out of the month. Right. They're not between June 30 and July 1. There's a five day period or six days in a leap year that are in no month at all. But there's still some. There's got some observance of Yule, but there's nothing. It's not outside of a month like it is in the Shire. So the Shire's like, I like the party idea, but let's have two parties. We'll have a shorter party in the middle and one in the winter as well instead of one five day party in the middle of the year. So, you know, again, it's just tweaking it, little small tweaks. And you can see Tolkien sort of like, I like this calendar. But what if we did this? Okay, let's give that to the Kings, let's give this one to the Stewards, and let's give this one to the Shire.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. Now, speaking of the Stewards, Alan, would you like to continue to read the next pot for us?

[Alan Sisto]

I will indeed. The revised calendar introduced by Mardil was called Steward's Reckoning and was adopted eventually by most of the users of the Westeron language, except the Hobbits. That wasn't an aside from me, folks. That was an aside in the text. I just want to make the reading very clear. Coming back to the text, the months were all of 30 days and two days outside the months were introduced. One between the third and fourth months, March, April, and one between the ninth and the tenth, September, October. These five days outside the months Yestare, Tuilere, Loende, Llaviere and Metere were holidays. The Hobbits were 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 each. But they had three summer days called in the Shire the Lithe, or the Lithe days between June and July, the last day of the year and the first of the next year were called the Yule Days. The Yule days and the Lithe days remained outside the months so that January 1st was the second and not the first day of the year. So Happy New Year's doesn't happen on January 1st. It happens on 2 Yule, which isn't a month at all.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

But it is a day. It's just not a month. It's a day of the week because it's a Saturday.

[James Tauber]

Saturday because only you could say the month is Yule, I guess. Right?

[Alan Sisto]

I suppose. The two months. The two day long month. Anyway, coming back to the Reading, every fourth year, except in the last year of the century, there were four Lithe days, the Lithe days and the Yule days were the chief holidays and times of feasting. The additional Lithe day was added after Mid Year's Day. And so the 184th day of the leap years was called, called Overlithe, and was a day of special merrymaking in full Yule tide was six days long, including the last three and first three days of each year. The Shire folk introduced one small innovation of their own, eventually also adopted in Bree, which they called Shire Reform. They found the shifting of the weekday names in relation to dates from year to year untidy and inconvenient. So in the time of Isengrim ii, they arranged that the odd day which put the succession out should have no weekday name after that Mid Year's Day. And the Overlith was known only by its name and belonged to no week. In consequence of this reform, the year always began on the first day of the week and ended on the last day. And the same date in any one year had the same weekday name in all other years. So that Shire folk no longer bothered to put the weekday in their letters or diaries. They found this quite convenient at home, but not so convenient if they ever traveled further than Bree.

[James Tauber]

You can imagine awkward situations where, you know, somebody sort of says, oh, I'll meet you next Monday, Monday the third.

[Alan Sisto]

And you're like, wait a minute.

[James Tauber]

No, no, no, hang on a sec. No, wait. What?

[Alan Sisto]

That's not Monday. What are you talking about? Yeah, that would be confusing.

[James Tauber]

But I love the fact that Tolkien considers the practical.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, yeah, yeah. They don't have to put in their letters or diaries.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Just saving them time because they do write a lot of letters. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

As we know now, we skipped the first little bit of this section that explains the reason for this revised calendar known as the Stewards Reckoning. It's what we wrapped up the last section with. The correction of the errors that took place when they shifted from the Second age to the Third Age, as well as the so called millennial deficits.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. Mardel fixed the calendar rather like Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, fixing the calendar that Julius Caesar had created in 45 BC. So Mardel did this fix by adding two days to the current year at the time. That was third age 2059, which would have been second age 5500. And then he issued a new calendar for third age 2060 and beyond.

[James Tauber]

This reminds me, of course, what happened. I can't remember the year now, but there was a period of time in the early modern era for us, where the dates changed.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, it skipped an entire week. Right.

[James Tauber]

And so if you look at, you know, when was Isaac Newton born? Or that's a bad example because we don't know for sure. But things where we have specific dates, they'll often have to give it him two reckonings even in the primary world, the old style versus the new style of dates. So it's fun that we get the same sort of thing going on with Mardel's.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Corrections. And we'll probably have another correction. Unlikely in our lifetimes.

[James Tauber]

But. Yeah, well, speak for yourself. Not that I'm a younger.

[Alan Sisto]

Don Marshall. On the other hand, he might. It might happen in his lifetime.

[James Tauber]

That's true. But all these models, reforms, all these reforms still left an eight hour deficit. Yeah. So in third age 2360, the steward hador added one day. Interestingly, he added it a bit early. The deficit hadn't reached a full day yet. He pre.

[Alan Sisto]

Why not get ahead of yourself a bit yourself?

[James Tauber]

Exactly. The text tells us no more adjustments were made after that, partly because of the threat of war. By third age 3000 still the deficit hadn't added up to a full day by the end of the third age.

[Alan Sisto]

Easy enough. And yeah, I mean nobody's going to sit down and do the math when you're threatened by Sauron and the destruction of your entire. We've got more important things Burner issue. Exactly. Now, in the part we did read, we learned that the stewards reckoning was widely adopted. Pretty much anywhere the Westeron language went, the calendar went, went with it. Except the Hobbits, because they're the hobbits. I love it.

[James Tauber]

Of course. Of course. Finally we get a layout of the calendar. No more 31 day months. Instead 12 times 30 day months with two more monthless days added, one between March and April and one between September and October.

[Alan Sisto]

And I thought that was an interesting solution rather than having a longer mid year or adding the yule.

[James Tauber]

Spread them out a bit.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly, exactly. I like that. Right. I mean instead of. Of two longer parties, you now spread them out. So of course you do have the monthless days have names. I want to make sure you know that folks. Some of which you already know. Right. Yesterday, first day, Lowende middle day and Metare last day. But the two new ones were named Tuilere, which means Spring day, and Javiere which means Autumn day. So you had a holiday at the beginning of the year, you had one at the start of spring, the middle of the year, the start of fall and the end of the year. Year. That's nice.

[James Tauber]

Yep. And that's followed by an explanation of how the Shire calendar, which we started this episode looking at, differed from this Stewards reckoning, as it was more based on the king's reckoning.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

It's what we said before. Yule days two and Life days three outside of the months, with a fourth live day serving as the leap day every four years. We do get a little bit extra about Yule. Sure. There are only two official Yule days, as in not outside the months.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

But the Shire celebrated, of course. Why wouldn't they? For six full days, the last three days of the year and the first three days of the next year.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. You know, I gotta say, that feels very primary World. I don't know about you, but does anything happen between Christmas and New Year's?

[James Tauber]

Right. Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

We also get an explanation of the whole shifting of the days to the dates of the month, known as the Shire reform. They didn't like how let's say January 2nd was a Tuesday one year and a Friday a few years later. They found that untidy and inconvenient.

[James Tauber]

So they simply decided that the one day which knocks this out of order would simply not be a day of the week.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right.

[James Tauber]

That's when a Mid Year's Day and the Overlaith every fourth year became known only as those days. They did not belong to a month as with the rest of Live and Yule, but they belong to no week either.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

That meant that the year always began on the first day of the week and ended on the last day. Just shift when the week starts to solve.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. Make it fix.

[James Tauber]

They stopped having to use weekdays in their letters and diaries after a Monday. The sixth of Solmarth was redundant. The sixth of Solmarth was always a Monday.

[Alan Sisto]

I gotta say, folks, there's a footnote, right? I mean, when you get a footnote to an appendix, that's. That's arguably pretty pedantic. The footnote to this is absolutely hilarious. And it's a perfect example of Tolkien's humor, especially from the perspective of the Hobbits. He points out that if you look at the calendar at the front of the appendix, none of the months begin on a Friday. All of the other days have at least one month that starts on that day. And I was like, are you sure? Let me double check. And so I scroll. Sure enough, he's right. None of them start on a Friday. As a result, Tolkien writes, it thus became a jesting idiom in the Shire to speak of on Friday the 1st, 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. Now, the full version of the idiom Tolkien writes was actually on Friday the 1st of Summerfield, which is hilarious not only because there is no Friday the 1st, because there's also no Summerfield. That's a made up month. That's like, like, I don't know, the. I'm trying to think of a made up month that's like the sixth Tuesday of some month that doesn't exist.

[James Tauber]

Come up Pentober.

[Alan Sisto]

Sure, why not? It's doubly hilarious. The first of Summerfield.

[James Tauber]

I'm going to use that next time I'm suggesting. I'm not going to do something, I'll say, oh, yeah, I'll solve that on Friday the 1st of Summerfield. We'll get to that. On Friday the 1st of Summer.

[Alan Sisto]

I feel, yeah. When somebody reaches out to me and says, you know, I really want to get on the show. How do I get an interview with you? Yeah, you know, let's, let's talk about summer filth. Yeah, I'm kidding. All right, well, you know, speaking of summer filth, since that's not actually a month, let's talk about the actual names of months. James, could you pick up.

[James Tauber]

Absolutely. In the above notes, as in the narrative, I've used our modern names for both months and weekdays, though of course neither the Eldar, nor the Dunedain, nor the Hobbits actually did so. Translation of the Westron names seemed to be essential to avoid confusion, while the seasonal implications of our names are more or less the same, at any rate in the Shire. It appears, however, that Mid Year's Day was intended to correspond as nearly as possible to the summer solstice. In that case, the Shire dates were actually in advance of ours by some 10 days, and our New Year's Day corresponded more or to the Shire January 9th. And I'll actually talk about that in a little bit because it's quite, it's quite significant that comment. But continuing in the Westrun, the Quenya names of the months were usually retained, as the Latin names are now widely used in alien languages. They were Narvinye, Nenimi, Sulime, Virese, Lotesse, Narye, Kurmi, Urime, Yavanni, Naquelli, Hisme, Ringare. The Sindarin names used only by the Dunedain were Narwain, Ninwi, Gwiron, Gwyrith, Lothron, Norri, Kerveth, Uri, Ivaneth, Nabaleth, Hithui, Girithron.

[Alan Sisto]

Well done, sir. Well, 24 names.

[James Tauber]

That I've never read before, to be honest, out loud. Anyway, in this nomenclature, the Hobbits, however, both of the Shire and of Bree diverged from the Westeron usage and adhered to old fashioned local names of their own, which they seem to have picked up in antiquity from the Men of the Vales of Anduin. At any rate, similar names were found in Dale and Rohan. The meanings of these names devised by men had as a rule long been forgotten by the Hobbits, even in cases where they had originally known what their significance was. And the forms of the names were much obscured in consequence. Muth, for instance, at the end of some of them is a reduction of month.

[Alan Sisto]

That makes sense. Well, here we get a big clue at the beginning of this about how to synchronize our calendars. Mid year's day was supposed to be to correspond to the summer solstice, but which summer solstice? James, you've done a video on this. Can you help us get our heads around this?

[James Tauber]

Yeah. So amidst all of the discussion that we've had about the calendars, one of the things that I think we might accidentally take for granted is that the start of the year is the same as the start of our year, right?

[Alan Sisto]

Our January 1st is their January 1st or whatever.

[James Tauber]

We've already talked about the fact that they have the Yule day, that two Yule is actually the first day of the year. But it gets a bit more complicated than that. That. Because there's no reason for the start of the year to be the point at which our system is synchronized with with theirs, because the start of the year is somewhat arbitrary. But we're told in the passage that we just read that Mid Year's day was intended to correspond roughly to the summer solstice. So that's actually the point that has astronomical significance and should be the point that we synchronize. Right? So in other words, whatever the summer solstice is should be the Mid Year's day. And you kind of work out everything else from that. Now, interestingly, if you work it out, we're actually told in what we read that New Year's day corresponded more or less to the Shire January 9th.

[Alan Sisto]

Okay, so shift eight days, right?

[James Tauber]

So for that to work, what we actually have to use for the summer solstice is the traditional summer solstice in the Middle Ages, which was June 23rd. That works. If you equate June 23rd with Midsummer's Day, the Mid Year's Day, then it all works out. You get that matching with the 9th of January, the Shire calendar being the first.

[Alan Sisto]

Because isn't it like the 20th or 21st for the most part? I mean, I guess.

[James Tauber]

Yes, it's normally the 21st. Depends on if it's a leap year. It's a day earlier. But yes, essentially the true astronomical is the 21st, typically. But Tolkien seems to be using the 23rd, which was the more traditional medieval date, in order for this to work out. But one of the implications of this that I just want to mention is that that means when we pick certain dates, like March 25th.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, no.

[James Tauber]

Or September 22nd.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, boy. Yeah. It's not really those dates.

[James Tauber]

That's just the label that they give to it. It doesn't correspond in terms of how many days into the year we are to our March 25th or September 22nd. Oh, boy. So if we want to celebrate Bilbo's birthday the same number of days after Mid Year's Day as the Hobbits did.

[Alan Sisto]

Right. The same number of days into the year. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Then we shouldn't celebrate it on September 27th.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, no.

[James Tauber]

Similarly with March 25th. So all those dates are actually off if we wanted to celebrate it in terms of the right day of the year.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, we're going to have to include a link to that video in the show notes so that folks can watch that and kind of dig into those details, because I took a look at it myself. And you shared a really useful spreadsheet that sort of clarifies this and shows visually how that synchronization works and what dates then sync up. It's really interesting. But, yeah, I mean, Tolkien does give us. Okay, if our New Year's Day corresponds to the Shire January 9th. Well, then, like you said, that must mean that Mid Year's Day is not on our summer solstice, but on the medieval summer solstice 23rd.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And the fact that they can't line up exactly is obvious as well when you consider that There was a February 30th, for example.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

So imagine that what we want to celebrate. And I know we've got a mailbag question coming up that relates to this. Imagine we wanted to celebrate the Entmoot. Well, the Entmoot took place on February 30th. So what day are we gonna. What day in our calendar would we celebrate? We can't. If we're just simply Matching up the.

[Alan Sisto]

Names of the name of the month and the date.

[James Tauber]

But of course, you could work out, oh, it's a certain number of days into the year. We can quickly work it out because the 30th of February would be the 60th day after second Yule. So the 61st day. The 61st day of the year would be when the Entmut was. And so we can work it out what the corresponding day would be in our calendar. Or you could do it from the summer solstice. But yeah, we need to do something to allow for dates like the 30th of February. And it turns out the same is true for March 25th or September 22nd as well.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, my goodness. Just to confuse things even further.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, exactly. We get the obvious point as well that the Westron names for both the months and the days in the Shire calendar have been translated English.

[Alan Sisto]

Right. Pretty clear. Right.

[James Tauber]

They don't call them Friday and Saturday.

[Alan Sisto]

No, no.

[James Tauber]

And that gives us a little glimpse into the translation stuff that we'll be talking about more at length in, in a few weeks when we spend two episodes on Appendix F. That's going to.

[Alan Sisto]

Be a lot of fun. And this also is the section where we get the glorious Quenya and Sindarin names of the months. That was fantastic. A reminder though, folks, the Eldar didn't actually use these Elvish names because their calendar had that odd 54, 72, 54 day mini seasons instead of months. These are instead Quenya names given to the months by the Numenoreans when they created the King's reckoning. And that led me to this interesting question, James. What did the King's men call the months once Quenya had been banned in Numenor?

[James Tauber]

Well, okay, here's an interesting thing that just occurred to me. We didn't change our day of the week names from their pagan association.

[Alan Sisto]

No, that's true.

[James Tauber]

We did not even after Christianity came in. So it's interesting how conservative things like our Latin based month names, our month names are based on Roman gods and Roman emperors and our weekday names are based on Norse gods and planets that are worshipped.

[Alan Sisto]

Sun, moon. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

And then.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Thor and Odin and Exactly Freya.

[James Tauber]

And the fact that they weren't changed tells you that there's something deeply conservative about those names that change.

[Alan Sisto]

Something kind of root. Right. I mean, you're changing something very deep when you change a calendar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they would have just still called it what they called it, even if Konya, as a spoken Language to communicate was banned.

[James Tauber]

I wonder if there's a certain sense in which the origins may have been obscured as well. In the reading we saw about that, the sort of names being obscured, things being forgotten by the Hobbits and so on.

[Alan Sisto]

Right, yeah. We forgot what the. Well, of course the Hobbits would. Somehow that doesn't surprise me. Right. It's the same thing about their vague and inaccurate timekeeping. We never really bothered to learn what that month meant. But even if we had, we'd have forgotten it by now.

[James Tauber]

Right, right.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, interesting.

[James Tauber]

So maybe a little more surprising that Numenoreans would do it. But still, I think again, I just think of the primary world example of our own month and weekday names.

[Alan Sisto]

They just don't change.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, let's do some quick word nerdery on. On those names.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Because Tolkien's attention to detail is breathtaking.

[Alan Sisto]

It really is. I mean, these names are amazing.

[James Tauber]

So Narvinje comes from nar, meaning fire, and vigne for young, new, also new, fire, sun. And as with all of these, the Sindarin name Narwain has the same meaning. The month corresponds to After Yule in the Shire calendar and runs from our December 23rd to January 21st. Nenime means wetness, nen, water, as in Kwivienen or Nenya. The Sindarin name Ninwi has the same meaning. And this corresponds to Shaiman month Solmath, and runs from January 22nd to February 20th.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. Now, Sulaime's meaning might be something that you can guess if you remember Manwe's title, Suleimo, Lord of the Breath of Arda. Sulaim comes from the root Sule, which means breath or wind. So the month name means windy one Sindarin. Gwairon means the exact same. You'll recognize an element from that. We see it in Gwaihir's name, Windlord. The month corresponds to Reed in the Shire calendar and runs from our February 21st to March 22nd. Then we get Virese, that comes from the root W I r wir or vir, meaning new, fresh or young. Thus, Verese means freshness. It's the same with Gwyrith. In Sindarin, the month corresponds to Astron, in the Shire calendar, runs from March 23rd to April 21st. And now I'm thinking about soaps and deodorants promising lots of Verese, the new Verese scent. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Lotese includes the word for blossom, Lotte, which we also see in Vincelote. Foam flower. So this is a flower month or blossom month. Its Sindarin name Lothron means the same. The month corresponds to the Shire calendar month of Thrimage and runs from April 22 to May 21. And the last month before the mid year's break is Nadia, which uses the element nar, meaning fire. Narya, ring of fire. So it's the fiery month or the sunny month. The Sindarin name Norui means the same. The element there is the same as in Samath Naar. The month corresponds to the month of four life plus one life in the Shah calendar and runs from May 22 to June 20.

[Alan Sisto]

So then we get the middle day or the middle days, and after that we get. Now that and its Sindarin equivalent Kerveth are both glossed as the seventh month. We weren't able to find any more on the word. I dug as deep as I could. In eldamo.org there is a Noldorin noun C E, R, C H, kerch meaning sickle. And so maybe if we're using that CER from that, maybe it means harvest because it doesn't seem connected to the other words that start with that cer like. Like karen for mound or ker for rune. So I'm. It kind of fits. Maybe. I don't know. That's just a total guess on my part. The month corresponds to the Shire month after lithe, with two lithe added at the beginning. So it runs from June 24 to July 23. After Kermie comes Urume with the element ure meaning heat. So hot one. And then anybody who knows August, late July and into August knows for sure.

[James Tauber]

Happens to be. Happens to be my nickname.

[Alan Sisto]

Too Hot one Urwe now co hosting the PPP Urwi. The Sindran name means the same thing. It corresponds to the month of Wedmouth in the Shire calendar. Runs from July 24 to August 22.

[James Tauber]

Next up is Yavani. And I think you can all hear the name of Yavanna in that. So we have the giver of fruits, literally fruit, gift. It's Sindarin equivalent. Ivaneth means the same and it also references Yavanna. It corresponds to Shire month Halimath and runs from August 23rd to September 21st. Then we get Naqueli, which might sound similar to one of the elvish months, seasons Quelle. That's because they both contain the element quelli, meaning fading. Na Qeli simply adds the naar element fire. So sun fading. The Sindarin name Narboleth means the same and it was used by the elves for the same time of year. It was also called by the elves La Cellanta Leaf Fall. It corresponds to Winterfilth and runs from September 22nd to October 21st.

[Alan Sisto]

Now, next up is Hisime, and I'm sure you recognize the element hise, meaning mist. We see that in Hisilomy Land of mist, or its cinder incognate Hith, like in Hithyglir, the Misty Mountains, or Hithlain, the mist thread, literally. But it's the Elvish rock rope. This means month of mist, or misty one, with Hithwi, its sindern equivalent, meaning the exact same thing. The month corresponds to Blameth in the Shire calendar and runs from October 22 to November 20. And then the year ends with the month of Ringer, which uses the element Ringa for cold. Here, the Sindarin name Girithron has a slightly different meaning, interestingly enough, because the Sindarin name is always meant the same in all of the other months. But here, Girithron, Girith is the element that means shuddering, so it's shuddering or shivering month for them. Cold month in Quenia, obviously still the same thing, but not literally the same thing like it has been with the other words. This corresponds to the month of Forjul and runs from November 21 to December 20.

[James Tauber]

But what about the Shire calendar names? Well, we've mentioned each one already, but we learn here that their month names were picked up up in antiquity from Men in the Vales of Anduin, and that some similar names were found in both Dale and Rohan. We don't know the meanings of the names anymore, but we are told at least that math is a reduction of month.

[Alan Sisto]

Now, fortunately, we're also given some pronunciation tips, which helps, along with a list of where the names differed in Bree, because we've got to have different names everywhere. Some were the same, to make it even more confusing, but there were quite a few changes in Bree. After Yule became Freire, Astron became Chithing, for Lithe was just Lithe, and Afterlith was Mead. Hallamath became Harvest Math. Winter Filth was Wintering, Blameth became Bluting, and for Yule was simply Yule Math.

[James Tauber]

Some of these, especially Freire, Chiting and Yule Mouth, were also used in the East Farthing. Interestingly, that is interesting.

[Alan Sisto]

So the breeding influence on the East Farthing Also, I have to note, by the way, Harvest Math, isn't that what they call the Fall Festival in Lord of the Rings online?

[James Tauber]

Yes. Yes, it is.

[Alan Sisto]

So we're actually using The Bree name for that rather than the Shire name for that. I love it.

[James Tauber]

Good point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This sort of dialect variation, of course, makes me think so much of Tolkien's mentor, Joseph Wright, who did a lot of work in English dialects and. And he would have done things like cataloged the different names that different towns in Yorkshire had for different things and so on. It's very much.

[Alan Sisto]

I love that. It's so interesting. And the fact that Tolkien not only decided to say that it was different in Bree, he then gives us the Bree dialect versions, and then he shows the influence of Bree on the East Farthing by saying some of these. It's just fascinating. And it is. I know it's crazy sort of irrelevant detail. Like we said at the beginning of the episode. None of this has an impact on the story, on the narrative of the Lord of the Rings. But it is so fascinating to see, yet again, so much attention to detail to create a world that has that inner consistency of reality.

[James Tauber]

And it obviously meant a lot to him.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, yeah, he loved it. Obviously, pouring this sort of detail in. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

One other interesting tidbit worth observing about Winterfelt. Christopher Tolkien explains in a footnote in Peter Peoples that Winter Phyllith was the Old English name for the month of October. He writes its meaning was discussed by Bede, who died in 735, who explained the name by reference to the Ancient English division of the year into two parts of six months each summer and winter. Winterfilith was so called because it was the first month of winter. But Fileth Bede supposed, referred to the full moon of October marking the beginning of that period of the year.

[Alan Sisto]

Now, this is where it gets interesting, because Tolkien, of course, had other ideas. You know, that bead, he was pretty good, pretty sharp, but I think it was different. Christopher explains my father's interpretation of the name in the first draft. The filling completion of the year, winter being used in the sense year is at variance both with bead and apparently with that in the published text, which read the filling or completion of the year before winter. In either case, it must be supposed that the true words underlying translated filth and winter filth could make the same pun. Gee, Tolkien making a pun with an obscure Old English name of a month buried in an appendix. I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you. What am I going to do? My whole world is just shattered. Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today.

[James Tauber]

Well, I'm letting go of the worry.

[Alan Sisto]

That I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast. And breathe.

[James Tauber]

Oh sorry.

[Alan Sisto]

I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order.

[James Tauber]

Oh sorry. Namaste.

[Alan Sisto]

Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-contacts. I think you're on mute Workday starting to sound the same. I think you're on mute. Find something that sounds better for your career on LinkedIn. With LinkedIn job collections, you can browse curated collections by relevant industries and benefits like Flag, Flexpto or Hybrid Workplaces so you can find the right job for you. Get [e-mail] jobs finding where you fit LinkedIn knows how folks, if you're enjoying the PPP, please consider supporting the show by joining the Fellowship of the Podcast. That's what gives me the time and resources I need to work on making the show the best that it can be. When you join, you become part of an amazing discord community that includes live episode recordings and hangouts every month. You also get episode postscripts, ad free episodes, free merch, and more.

[James Tauber]

You can also become part of our Questions After Nightfall episodes or even join us as a guest in the North Wing. So Please go to patreon.com prancingponypod to show your support and join the Fellowship of the Podcast.

[Alan Sisto]

And you can always help us out by giving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and a rating on Spotify. And please recommend us to your friends.

[James Tauber]

Okay, so we have some more names to read. I'm going to hand this one over to you, Alan, if you want to continue reading for us.

[Alan Sisto]

I will indeed. So we're going to move from month names to the day names and the season names. Here the Hobbit Week was taken from the Dunedin, and the names were translations of those given to the days in the Old North Kingdom, which in their turn were derived from the Eldar, the six day week of the Eldar. Remember, their week had six days, not seven had days dedicated to or named after the stars, the sun, the Moon, the two trees, the Heavens, and the Valar or powers, in that order, the last day being the chief day of the week. Their names in Quenya were Elenya, Anaria, Issilia, Alduya, Menelia, Valanya, or Tarrion. The Sindarin names were Orgilion, Oronor, Orithyll, Orgaladad, Ormenel, Orbelein, or Rodin. The Numenoreans retained the dedications and order, but altered the fourth day to Aldea Orgalad. Now, just. I'm doing an aside to remind you. The Eldar version of that was Alduya. They changed it to Aldea. The Sindarin for Alduya was Orgalad. The Sindarin for Aldea just became Orgala. Then we'll talk about that difference in a little bit. Back to the text with reference to the White Tree only, of which Nimloth that grew in the king's court in Numenor was believed to be a descendant. Also desiring a seventh day, and being great mariners, they inserted a sea day or Airon after the Heaven's Day. The Hobbits took over this arrangement, but the meanings of their translated names were soon forgotten or no longer attended to, and the forms were much reduced, especially in everyday pronunciation. Then I'm going to skip a bit, and I want to get to the way those names looked in the Shire Council calendar. In these sources, the weekday names appear in archaic forms, of which the following are the Sterenday, Sunen, dai Monen, dai Truizdai, Hevendsday, Meresdai Haidai. In the language of the time of the War of the Ring, these had become Sterday. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Heaven's Day, or Hensday, Mare's Day, High Day. I have translated these names also into our own names, naturally beginning with Sunday and Monday, which occur in the Shire week, with the same names as ours and renaming the others in order. It must be noted, however, that the associations of the names were quite different in the Shire. The last day of the week, Friday High Day, was the chief day and one of holiday afternoon and evening feasts. Saturday thus corresponds more nearly to our Monday and Thursday to our Saturday. There's our day names. And you know what? We actually skipped the season names that we'll talk about them in the discussion.

[James Tauber]

Okay, so we move from the name of the months to the names of the days, and these are interesting. First, we get the names of the week in the six day Eldar week, or in Queer Alenya, consisting of the quenya element for star, Ellen, and the adjectival suffix. So Day of the Stars, or in Sindarin or Gileon, with the element gil for star, bright spark, like in Gil Galad.

[Alan Sisto]

I'm just going to tell you all now, folks. All the Sindarin names start with that or element, because that's just the element for day. Similarly, all the Quenya names end with the ya element which is just the adjectival suffix, because that makes it of the. So after Alenya comes Anaria, day of the sun, or Orno in Sindarin. And you see the elements, they're pretty obvious, like anar for sun, as in an, or Sindarin, anor for sun, as in Minas Anor. So very clearly the sun.

[James Tauber]

Yep. And then we have Asilia, day of the moon, Orithil in Sindarin. Again, the familiar Quenya element isil for moon, as in Isildur. And the Sindarin cognate Ithil, as in Minas Ithil or Ithildin.

[Alan Sisto]

And now we get to one of the interesting ones. That's the day dedicated to the two trees in the Eldaran calendar, Alduya or Orgaradhar in Sindarin. And this one is a bit more interesting because there is a specific inflection of the base root alda, meaning tree. Aldu is specifically two trees. It's not one, but it's also not plural in general. It's like the word pair. It's a specific word meaning two, as opposed to multiple in general. So the one that's plural in general is Aldar, like in Aldarien, son of tree.

[James Tauber]

Trees.

[Alan Sisto]

So it's not Al Daria, which would be day of the trees in general plural, but Alduya, the day dedicated to two trees, or the pair of trees.

[James Tauber]

Yep. Similarly, the Sindarin is an example of a dual noun Tolkien actually tells us in a letter, letter 347 to Richard Jeffrey, where he explains the Sindarin jewels of nouns or pronouns early became obsolete, except in written works. A case occurs in Orgalavad, Day of the Two Trees. But since these Sindarin nouns were all derived from Quenya names of the six day week brought from Valinor, it may be due to an attempt to imitate Quenya jewels, such as Kiryat Two ships. In any case, the final D was later lost. And so we have Argonath, the group of two noble stones, instead of Argonad.

[Alan Sisto]

Interesting. So if we had kept that Sindarin dual noun for a pair, we would have had Argonad instead of Argonath, but we got rid of that.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, we still get the ATH ending in a bunch of places where we have a collective group, not just Arganada.

[Alan Sisto]

But we've just lost the D. We just lost the thing that means pair as opposed to group. Exactly, because the th would be the group ending, just like Aldar would be a group of trees, multiple trees, plural trees. But Aldu is Specifically, just the pair.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

Anyway, moving on. We then have the day dedicated to the heavens, Menelia or Ormenel in Sindarin. And here the element Menel is actually the same in both Quenya and Sindarin, meaning the heavens. We see that in Meneltarma, the Pillar of heaven, Tarmenel, High Heaven, or Menelmekar, the swordsman of the sky, which is the name for the constellation Arachnid.

[James Tauber]

Yep. And finally, the day dedicated to the Valar. This day has two names in each Quenya, Valanya, referencing Bala, angelic Power or Taryon, with the element Tara for lofty, tall, high. This later one actually breaks with that pattern of days ending in ya.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I found that really surprising. Like, wait a minute, that's.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And then the Sindarin Orbaline. And here we get the Sindarin word Balan, the plural Vala, with the alternative word rodin, breaking the pattern of day starting with or, which appears to be another Sindarin word for the plural Balar.

[Alan Sisto]

So the Numenoreans based their weekday names on these, but they did make two changes. One, they changed the fourth day of Alduya or Orgalavad to Aldea or Orgalad, referencing only the singular white tree rather than the two trees. And that's how you get that singular versus dual noun discussion with we talked about earlier.

[James Tauber]

But we also know they added a seventh day to the week. And thank goodness for that. A one day weekend would be brutal though.

[Alan Sisto]

What if it was a four day work week and a two day weekend? Maybe I could go with that.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, maybe we should adopt that as well as some other.

[Alan Sisto]

That's the Shire. That's the Shire Reckoning.

[James Tauber]

Sisto reckoning.

[Alan Sisto]

The sister reckoning.

[James Tauber]

Sisto reckoning for sure that seventh day. Since they were pretty incredible mariners, they named after the sea, with Eren being the great. Sea alone is sea, but with the on suffix it means great. So Eirenya is day of the great sea. And the Sindarin word for this was orairon, meaning the same thing.

[Alan Sisto]

We actually see the Sinneran word Aaron in the text. In many meetings, even as they stepped over the threshold, a single clear voice rose in song. Ah, Elbereth, Gilthoniel Silivrin Penna Miriel o menel aglar Elenath nachaired Palandiriel o galadh remen ennarath fanuilos leilinnathon neph avar si neph Aaron. And there's those last two lines of the Hymn to Elbereth that are translated as here, beyond the sea, beyond the wide and sundering sea. Aeron.

[James Tauber]

And it's interesting, actually. We get a bunch of elements that we. I know.

[Alan Sisto]

I was like, they're popping through those. Like, wait a minute. We just.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. The Menel is there.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

The Gala Reman. We get a bunch of things ending in ATH as well. All appear there.

[Alan Sisto]

That's so amazing, because the more you study this, the more you start to see those patterns and those structures in the way the language is built.

[James Tauber]

I should teach a whole class about this. I think you have, and I am as well. We're doing another. Another run.

[Alan Sisto]

Good, good, good.

[James Tauber]

So we learned the Hobbits took the Numenorean arrangement, of course, since they based their calendar on the king's reckoning, but completely forgot the meanings of the names.

[Alan Sisto]

Very Hobbity.

[James Tauber]

After all, it had been thousands of years since these names were originally translated. And they don't live very long.

[Alan Sisto]

No, they don't.

[James Tauber]

In the part we skipped, we learned that the Hobbits stuck to the translations, but the Quenya names were actually used in some other areas where Westron was spoken.

[Alan Sisto]

That's kind of interesting, the idea that the Quenia name is the month as opposed to the Westron names. Again, it just goes back to the conservative nature of changing these things, that somehow, even when the Westron language came along, we didn't change the Koine names of the month. And that suggests what you mentioned earlier, which is that they basically just forgot about that being Quenya. That's just the name of the month.

[James Tauber]

Right. I don't think many people think of Wednesday as being.

[Alan Sisto]

No.

[James Tauber]

An Old Norse.

[Alan Sisto]

No. Odin's Day.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. We also skipped a bit about the sources, which, I mean, I didn't want to skip it, but we have to skip something. We learned that, not surprisingly, there wasn't a lot of ancient history written down in the Shire by the end of the Third Age. And the book that had the oldest stuff in it, which is the Yearbook of Tuckborough, that had entries dating back 900 years before Frodo. But that's simply not old enough to capture the loss of these names.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. However, we do get to see the archaic names of the early Shire weekdays. And that's where we picked up, too. So Starende becomes Stir Day. Sunand Day becomes Sunday Morning Day becomes Monday.

[Alan Sisto]

Right. Truesday becomes True. Hevenous Day becomes Heaven's Day. Or just Hen's Day. I love that because it sort of also even addresses the weird Wedness day. Spelling of Wednesday.

[James Tauber]

Exactly way.

[Alan Sisto]

That's so good. Marday becomes Marday. High day becomes high day. But instead of H I, H, D, E I, it's H I, G, H day. D A Y day. High day.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Tolkien then speaks as a translator, explaining that he started with the two names that are identical to our own English names, Sunday and Monday. He also explains that the week was a bit different. Their chief day was Friday, so their Saturday is the start of their work week, equivalent to our Monday. And their Thursday compares to our Saturday.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, man, I hate Saturdays.

[James Tauber]

So what do we do in the system?

[Alan Sisto]

Reckoning.

[James Tauber]

Yes.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, man. Thursday compares to our Saturday. So Thursday Friday becomes the weekend. Nah, let's keep the weekend the same. Let's keep weekend the same. All right, I'll develop the Sisto reckoning. We'll talk about P5. Yeah. So we did skip quite a bit after this, mostly so that we could set aside the new reckoning as its own topic. And that included the season names, which we kind of covered in the Eldar calendar. But it did also include mention of the elves paying closer attention to Twilight and not the vampire movies, I'm guessing.

[James Tauber]

I hope not.

[Alan Sisto]

Seriously? Please.

[James Tauber]

Tolkien writes chiefly as the times of star fading and star opening because, of course, the elves were gonna vary star centric way.

[Alan Sisto]

That's interesting.

[James Tauber]

He gives the most usual names for these periods which might sound familiar. Tindome and Undome. Think about Luthien, Tinuvial daughter of Twilight and Arwen, Undomia, even Star.

[Alan Sisto]

Right. And he provides the Sindarin versions of those words as well. Minuial and Aduial, which were referred to in the Shire as Morodim and Evendim, hence Lake Evendim as a translation of of Nanuiel.

[James Tauber]

We also skipped a summary of the places where the differences between our calendar and the Shire calendar are important to the story, along with important mention that it's only the Shire reckoning that matters for the narrative of the War of the Ring. Again, why go through such painstaking work to create calendars that don't even impact the story? So Tolkien, in a consistency of reality.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. I mean, he could have just created the Shire reckoning and left it at that. But he had to explain, well, well, the Shire reckoning comes from the king's reckoning, which comes from the Ildaran calendar. But then the king's reckoning also became the steward's reckoning later. Wow, that's just amazing. So the differences, though, between our calendar and the Shire calendar that are relevant include the fact that their October only has 30 days. February has 30 days, which we talked about, and that January 1st is actually the second day of Third Age 3019, or Shire Reckoning 1419. Hence Tolkien says, and this is interesting because this conflicts with what we Talked about earlier. March 25, the date of the downfall of the Barad Dur and the date we observed Tolkien reading day on would correspond to our March 27th if our years began at the same seasonal point. But James, this was what we talked about earlier when it comes to synchronizing our calendar. He kind of forgot the whole mid year's is supposed to be the summer solstice. Can. Can you talk us through this?

[James Tauber]

Yeah, I have a lot of trouble reconciling this because it's clearly reconciled. It's clearly contradicted to his comment before about January 9th being the equivalent to our year. And I mean, what it comes down to is, do you start the year, do you start our years at the same time?

[Alan Sisto]

January 1st, January 1st.

[James Tauber]

Well, January 1st second. Yule.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, right.

[James Tauber]

Or do you try to align the.

[Alan Sisto]

The actual number of days into the year?

[James Tauber]

Yeah, well, do you align the mid year's day is.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

If you do start the year at the same point, you get one set of results. And if you align the mid year's day, you get a different set of results. This calculation he's doing here about March 25th corresponding to our March 27th, that works if you assume the first day of the year equals the first day of the year.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

But that would mean that mid year's day would not correspond to the summer solstice.

[Alan Sisto]

Right, Right. So then we lose that.

[James Tauber]

You can't have both ways. So I'm not sure why this inconsistency crept in here. The only thing I can think of is he does say if our years began at the same seasonal point. Not that they do. So he's potentially entertaining the fact that if you just consider those points that you mentioned, that October has only 30 days, that January 1st is the second day, and that February.

[Alan Sisto]

February has 30 days.

[James Tauber]

So if you just consider the structure of the calendar and don't worry about synchronizing the summer solstice, then that if you do that, then you would result in this discrepancy of March 25th actually.

[Alan Sisto]

Being March 20th, the extra January day because it starts a day later, and then February having 30 days. Exactly, that pushes two days out.

[James Tauber]

That's how you get those. But if you do want to keep the mid year's day corresponding to the summer solstice, then that's.

[Alan Sisto]

That changes entirely.

[James Tauber]

That's not the date that you end up with.

[Alan Sisto]

And it's interesting because, you know, typically Christopher Tolkien in the history of Middle Earth, you know, dives deep into these things and points out these sort of contradictions and then tries to either explain them away or say, I cannot explain why my father made this error. Right. He doesn't actually bring this up at all. It's not mentioned that I could find.

[James Tauber]

So I would love to hear if people are aware of scholarship that looks into this. I'd love to hear about it because I've not come across anything that would be interesting that reconciles this, other than to say. I mean, the only thing I can say about this is that that the way that you synchronize the. You know, there are multiple ways of synchronizing the two calendars. I think the synchronizing at the mid year's day with summer solstice kind of makes sense because that's an astronomical feature. It's not an arbitrary calendar. But there are potentially other ways you could do it. And he's. Maybe he was exploring one way or another way in the same. It's odd that he does that in the same text, though kind of explanation that does.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, all of these calendars are moot now because we have a new one. James, can you tell us about the new reckoning?

[James Tauber]

Absolutely. In the new reckoning, the year began on March 25, old style, in commemoration of the fall of Sauron and the deeds of the ring bearers. The months retained their former names, beginning now with Virese, April, but referred to periods beginning generally five days earlier than previous. Previously, all the months had 30 days. There were three enderi, or middle days, of which the second was called Loende, between Yovanye, September, Naquielie, October, that corresponded with September 23, 24, 25, old style. But in honor of Frodo Yvan 30, which corresponded with former September 22, his birthday was made a festival and the leap year was provided for by doubling this feast called Komare, or Ring Day, and then skipping one paragraph. This reckoning was in the course of the reign of King Elessar, adopted in all his lands except the Shire, where the old calendar was retained, except over.

[Alan Sisto]

Here, we Hobbits are going to keep our own thing. Dang it. How many times has it been except for the Hobbits or except the shark? Anyway, Sorry, I didn't mean interruption.

[James Tauber]

That's quite all right. Wait till The Sisto reckoning comes.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right.

[James Tauber]

Our fourth age one was thus called 1422. Insofar as the Hobbits took any account of the change of age, they maintained that it began with two Yule, 1422, and not the previous march. There is no record of the shy folk commemorating either March 25 or September 22. But in the West Farthing, especially in the the country round Hobbiton Hill, there grew up a custom of making holiday and dancing in the party field when weather permitted on April 6. Some said it was old Sam Gardner's birthday, some that it was the day on which the Golden Tree first flowered in 1420, and some that it was the Elves new year in the Buckland. The Horn of the Mark was blown at sundown every November 2, and bonfires and feasts followed.

[Alan Sisto]

All right, I love that we've gotten through appendix D. We get to the last of the systems, the new reckoning. It's set forth by Aragorn King Elessar in the restored Kingdom.

[James Tauber]

As Tolkien explains, it goes back to something more like the king's reckoning, but changed to fit a new year in the spring. And while that's to commemorate the fall of Sauron, it really just goes back to the Eldaran calendar, which begins approximately April.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I mean, it's the idea of a springtime new year instead of a midwinter. Now, the month names remain the same, but they are shifted, and they would need to be, since the year now starts in what was the old March 25, as opposed to March 1 or April 1, in which case you wouldn't have to shift the month dates. So there are still three Inheri, or middle days, but they've got to be moved because they won't be mid year anymore if we leave them where they used to be. So now we put them between Yavani and Narquelia, basically September or October, those.

[James Tauber]

Middle days corresponding with the old September 23rd to 25th. But we learned that in honor of Frodo, 30 Yvanje, which was his old September 22nd birthday, was a festival day. And in leap years the extra day was added there, doubling the feast and calling it Cormare.

[Alan Sisto]

I love that. I love that that the leap day, the special day of feasting in Gondor, is a celebration of Frodo and what he did with the ring. I love it.

[James Tauber]

A reminder that the fourth age started when Elrond left. But for calendar purposes, fourth age one begins on what was March 25, 3021 six months before Elrond actually left.

[Alan Sisto]

That is confusing. Yeah, you got to start the calendar somewhere and you're like, you know, going back and saying, all right, well, now we've got this new calendar. Oh, Elrond's left. Well, you know what? Let's go back and call this instead of third age 30, 20. Well, it's the new year. Just call it fourth age one. So third age 3021 is a very short year. It only lasted less than three months.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

I love this bit about how the new reckoning spread everywhere except for the Shire, because they're just keeping on, keeping on. And they are the Hobbits. Fourth age one was just 1422, thank you very much. The Hobbits did still commemorate some things, just not the big picture. Things like March 25, the fall of Sauron, the destruction of the Ring, the fall of Badadour. They didn't even celebrate September 22nd, the birthday of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins.

[James Tauber]

No, they celebrated April 6th. And we're not quite sure why. And I'm not sure they did either.

[Alan Sisto]

No, that's what it seems like. Some say this and some say that.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, it could be that it was Sam's birthday. It could be that it was the day that the melon first flowered in the party field. Because we read in the party field a beautiful young sapling leaped up. It had silver bark and long leaves and burst into golden flowers in April.

[Alan Sisto]

And Sam's birthday is April 6th. So that's certainly possible. So is the Elves New Year, which is yet another reason that's given. So maybe it's all three. Though I have to admit, the Elves New Year. I don't. I don't think. I don't see the Hobbits.

[James Tauber]

That seems the least likely.

[Alan Sisto]

That seems the least likely reason. I mean, most of the Hobbits are like, why would I celebrate an Elvish New Year? We're also told that they observed November 2nd by blowing the Horn of the Mark in Buckland at sundown. That's the anniversary of this reading. Ted gaped. For at that moment he first caught sight of the escort that at a sign from Mary now marched over the bridge. Dashing back into the mill, he ran out with a horn and blew it loudly. Save your breath, laughed Mary. I've a better. Then lifting up his silver horn, he winded it and its clear call rang over the hill and out of the holes and sheds and shabby houses of Hobbitzon, the Hobbits answered and came Pouring out. And with cheers and loud cries, they followed the company up the road to Bag End. I love that they observed that.

[James Tauber]

Yes.

[Alan Sisto]

Not just the day of all of these things happening, but the. The moment of the horn blowing at sundown. That's fantastic.

[James Tauber]

Yep. The time. And we'll talk more about whether we should do that in. In light of the question in the mail.

[Alan Sisto]

The mailbag question. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

The new reckoning in the final version differs dramatically from that in the draft.

[Alan Sisto]

Very dramatic. Too dramatically for us to talk at length about, I'm afraid. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Indeed, as Christopher writes in Appendix D, this elegantly balanced structure had been abandoned and replaced by a different system. System. Somewhat obscurely recounted. The year had been divided into five seasons. Two long seasons, summer and winter, three months each, and three short seasons, spring, autumn and stirring. Two months each.

[Alan Sisto]

I love that there's an additional season. The table recreated by Christopher in Peoples of Middle Earth is detailed and complex, but like he said, the final version got simplified and we'll see about covering this in the postscript. If nothing else, the extra names, which include a whole slew of alternative names for the months that Tolkien came up with, are worth looking at. For now, though, we'll end with Christopher's concluding words from this section of Peoples of Middle Earth. I am inclined to think that my father was still developing and refining his theory of the calendars when the need to submit his text to the publishers became imperative and urgent of the final form. I believe that what I said of Appendix F, that that had circumstances been otherwise, the form of that appendix would have been markedly different, can be repeated of Appendix D with greater force.

[James Tauber]

And I'm sure we'll talk about that when we get to Appendix F as well.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I'm sure we will. Now, there is no record of the Bree folk commemorating either March 25 or September 22. But in the Prancing Pony there grew up a custom of making holiday and dancing in the common room on April 6th. Some said it was Old Knob's birthday, some that it was the day on which Bill Fernie finally left town, and some that it was the day Old Barlow and finally remembered the mail. James, what does Parliament have for us tonight besides more terrible segues?

[James Tauber]

Well, we've got a great question that is entirely appropriate for this episode. Michael in California asks, besides Tolkien reading day on March 25, which of course commemorates the destruction of the Ring and the downfall of Baradur, and Hobbit Day on September 22, which celebrates the shared birthdays of Bilbo and Frodo what other Middle Earth dates or Tolkien dates are you aware of that people celebrate? And are there any you think we should celebrate?

[Alan Sisto]

Ooh, I like that second point.

[James Tauber]

We've touched on some of them.

[Alan Sisto]

We have.

[James Tauber]

Let's get into it a bit more.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, well, let's talk about the real ones first. The ones that people do celebrate. I think. I know you and I have done this. Much of the Tolkien fandom does this. We celebrate Tolkien's birthday with a toast to the professor on January 3rd every year. I also often see memes pop up on social media around 10 o' clock in the morning. October 24th, if you'd like to know. So, Frodo waking up in Rivendell is a date and very specific time celebrated in the primary world. Are there any other ones that are actually observed? James? Those are the two that come to mind.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. I can't think of any others that I've seen in any big way. Of course, within things like Lotro festivals and stuff like that, as we've mentioned, correspond quite nicely to things. We get the Harvest Month, we get the Yule. Yule festival and so on. But I'm not sure if any. I mean, I guess there are occasionally things that get done around Tolkien's death.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Commemorations or.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, commemorations. But let's get to the fun part. What dates should we observe?

[Alan Sisto]

Okay.

[James Tauber]

How do we celebrate things in the Sister in the Sisto reckoning?

[Alan Sisto]

I love that this is becoming a thing. We definitely celebrate King elessar's coronation on May 1st.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

I think, because I absolutely love Theoden, I think we honor either. There's a part of me that thinks the Battle of the Pollennor should get its own thing. So let's do the funeral of Theoden. That would be August 10th.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

So those would be a couple that come to my mind.

[James Tauber]

Definitely. That's definitely up there in terms of the. Not celebration so much as commemoration.

[Alan Sisto]

No, it's a commemoration. Right. Honoring. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. So we've already. We've already talked about the Hobbit celebrating April 6th.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, that'd be a date.

[James Tauber]

I mean, we would maybe pick the reason for it. Maybe because of the flowering of the Mallorn tree in the party field. I've got to believe that the flowering of the Mallorn tree in the party field might have some connection with the Elvish. It being a significant day for Elvesh New Year.

[Alan Sisto]

I also think that Sam's birthday being that day is interesting. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

It's almost that combination of the two. So I think that would Be. Be a great day to celebrate.

[Alan Sisto]

That would be a good one.

[James Tauber]

I mean, we have to work out whether we would actually celebrate April 6th or we would work out what the corresponding.

[Alan Sisto]

What the actual day would be. Well, yeah, that's true. We have to change the calendar.

[James Tauber]

April 6, I think, would be a wonderful day. On a more somber note, it's interesting that there are two dates that do get mentioned multiple times as anniversaries in the Tale of Years.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Tauber]

Frodo's poisoning by shelon on March 13th.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, that gets mentioned at least twice about.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And of course, Frodo's piercing by the Morgul Blade on October 6th. That's a very significant repeating anniversary in the talent Years. And so that's. That's another possible thing that we could. We could commemorate. Obviously not necessarily celebrate, but. But commemorate.

[Alan Sisto]

No, that's a good point. On a shyer note, I'll add that I think March 25th is still a great day to celebrate. I'm glad we celebrated. But I think we should include it because it's the birthday of Eleanor the Fair. I mean, without her, we don't have the Red Book of Westmarch. She is the reason that this book gets beyond just Frodo and Sam and gets, you know, copied and kept and, you know, the Fairbairns of Westmarch. The whole story there. Not to mention the fact that my daughter's name is Eleanor anyway.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

I also know that we kind of already have a holiday of sorts on December 25th. Some people might observe a holiday on that day, but that is the day the Company leaves Rivendell on the quest. So that's another very relevant day to celebrate. But I think also March 15th comes to mind. That's the Battle of the Blendor. So many things connected with that. Eowyn's defeat of the Witch King, Theoden's death, which then, of course also means Eomer's ascent to the kingship. You've got all of the. You've got Aragorn showing up, revealing the banner of kings for the first time in a thousand years. There's so much stuff going on that.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah. We also mentioned November 2nd.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, yeah, yeah. The Horn of Buck, or the. Not the Horn of Buckland. The Mary's Horn, The Horn of Rohan that was given him. The Horn of the Mark.

[James Tauber]

I think that's. That's the day. I think we should be blowing a horn on that day.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, heck, yeah. That is a day to blow the horn for sure.

[James Tauber]

I think we should definitely do that. I mean, there's other things as well. June 25th, when Ellis is finds the sapling of the white tree.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh yes.

[James Tauber]

Mid Year's Day for the wedding of.

[Alan Sisto]

Elessar and Arwen, which is also observed in Lord of the Rings online.

[James Tauber]

Yes.

[Alan Sisto]

There's a special instance that you can go and be a part of.

[James Tauber]

There's September 29th, which is when the ring bearers depart the Grey Havens. And the third agenda. That seems a pretty significant calendar day. What about primary world Tolkien related dates? Any that we've seen, we've missed.

[Alan Sisto]

I think it's high time that we do a toast to Christopher Tolkien on his birthday too. I mean it absolutely.

[James Tauber]

November 21st.

[Alan Sisto]

November 21st. I mean that's. We owe such a debt to Christopher in terms of the light that he shone on his father's work and the works that we never would have seen without his efforts. So.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

And then let's be honest, the professor would not have had time to subcreate any of this without Edith holding down the home front. So maybe we ought to honor her birthday, which is January 21st, as a way of sort of like acknowledging thank you for making it possible for him to do all this. Those would be those two that come to my mind.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, I guess there's, I mean, also potentially publication dates which tend to get announced on social media.

[Alan Sisto]

That's true. We see those on social media. Yeah. Especially when they're anniversary dates like 25 years ago or 50 years ago.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. There's also we haven't talked at all about significant other than building Bilbo's birthday, significant dates in. In the Hobbit. And I mean, I think one of the reasons for that is.

[Alan Sisto]

That's a good point.

[James Tauber]

They're a little more obscure. Tolkien didn't work out the date.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, Durin's Day.

[James Tauber]

So Durin's Day is a really interesting one.

[Alan Sisto]

You mentioned Hobbit. That's the first thing that came to my mind.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And. And it's interesting because a lot of other dates like the. The other thing that comes to mind worthy of celebration is that the death of Smaug.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Tauber]

But all we, all we know about in the text is that the death of Smaug, if you work it out, takes place one day after Durin's Day. So you have to know what Durin's Day is. So that's interesting because the text just says the first day of the last moon of autumn on the threshold of winter. Right. So it's based On a lunar.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Which means it's going to change every year. But. What.

[James Tauber]

Right. There are people that have tried to work it out. However, one of the things that came out in the second edition of Ratliff's History of the Hobbit was a note where Tolkien actually did explicitly say that Durin's day is the 19th of October.

[Alan Sisto]

Okay. At least I love that we have that answer. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

So. And therefore October 20th would be the October 20th. Exactly. So anyway, Michael, I hope that was an interesting discussion. It seems like we've got a whole ton of holidays.

[Alan Sisto]

There's a holiday every week. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

We should put together. This should be incorporated in calendar reckoning. We should. Reckoning. I'm kidding about that. I'm thinking like a calendar without an actual wall calendar. We could talk to Jeremy Edmonds or.

[Alan Sisto]

Something about where we combine both real world Tolkien things like publication dates or birth dates, death dates as well. But then also the important dates in Middle Earth.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Because there's a lot of them. We should be celebrating Tolkien every week.

[Alan Sisto]

Every. We could probably do it every day. I bet we could do a day by day tear off calendar. And there's something cool.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. We'll see what we can do about that. Well, folks, that wraps it up for another episode of the Prancing Pony Podcast. Join us next week though, as the Sage of the south administers our placement exams for writing and spelling as we dive into Appendix E. You may regret.

[James Tauber]

Asking me to do that.

[Alan Sisto]

I doubt that. But I'm not putting it completely in the realm of the impossible.

[James Tauber]

I'm. I'm having fun putting things together.

[Alan Sisto]

I can't wait.

[James Tauber]

Okay, Alan and I want to thank the members of Team PPP Editor Jordan Renels Barleyman, Becca Davis, Social media manager Casey Hilsey, event and Patreon community coordinator Katie McKenna, graphic artist Megan Collins, and website guru Phil Dane.

[Alan Sisto]

Please take a minute to check out the prancingponypodcast.com that's where you'll find show notes, outtakes, prancing pony ponderings, and our online storefront where you can get PPP merch featuring all the great episode artwork that Megan's been doing for the show since the start of season seven.

[James Tauber]

You'll also want to visit our library page. The Prancing Pony Podcast is, after all, a podcast about the books. So if you're interested in a book we've mentioned on the show, you'll find a link for it in our library. We do get a small amount of compensation when you make your purchase and we thank you for that.

[Alan Sisto]

Indeed we do. We also want to thank our patrons at the Cirdan's contribution tier. Also start with Demay in Alaska, Chad in Texas, Lance in New Jersey, Joseph in Michigan, Kathy from North Carolina, Carlos in California, Brian in the uk, Jerry from Washington, Joe in Washington, Irwin from the Netherlands, Ben in Minnesota, Anthony in Texas, Zaksu in Illinois, Sarah in New Jersey, Joshua in Massachusetts, Lucy in Texas, Keith in Alabama, Erica in Texas, Vivian in California, and Jane in Massachusetts.

[James Tauber]

There's also Ann in Kentucky, Sean in New Jersey, Mason in California, Maureen from Massachusetts, Olivia in London, Robert in Arizona, Nick in Wisconsin, Lewis in South Carolina, Thomas in Germany, Craig in California, Bailey in Texas, Kevin in Massachusetts, Julie in Washington, Bruce in California, Joe in Maryland, Nathan in Arizona, Kevin in Pennsylvania, Tom in Pennsylvania, and Jeff in Michigan. Thank you all so very much for your support.

[Alan Sisto]

Indeed. Thank you.

[James Tauber]

Make sure you don't miss any episodes of the Prancing Pony Podcast. Subscribe now through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app.

[Alan Sisto]

And one last thing. As always, don't forget to send your thoughts, comments, and most of all, what calendar system you'll be using now to Parliament at the prancing pony po podcast.com.

[James Tauber]

And if you want your voice literally heard, well, just send us audio of your question. Visit podinbox.com prancingponypod and record your question for us. Please be sure to still email the question to barliman.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. Now, even though Barlow's been a lot more reliable lately, there is still a lot of mail to sort through. We'll try to get to you just as soon as we're able. As always, though, this has been far too short a time to spend a month among such excellent and admirable listeners.

[James Tauber]

But until next time, adopt the Sisto Reckoning, and may you rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill.