It is clear, then, that one needs a pretty significant event to fix this internally, one that would be cataclysmic and world-altering in its magnitude. With this in mind, let's assume that Lalaith was wrong about the Downfall of Númenor not affecting the millennial deficits, and consider how much the length of the year would have to be affected to fix the solstice timings.

Firstly, thank you. I did not expect to see some of my own conjectures cited in another work, especially my very speculative ones concerning the lengths and years for the various ages (including those following the Third Age of Middle-earth).


I still stand by my own conclusions for the date of Durin's Day in TA 2941 (22 Winterfilth); however, I am interested to find out if the time of moonrise would create a problem for that. Mainly, I am uncomfortable with veering too far from Prof. Tolkien's text. I will note that Tolkien indicated that the seasons were generally not observed with equal lengths; Summer and Winter tended to be longer than Spring and Autumn. I don't know if this would have been the case with the Dwarven Calendar of Durin's Folk, of which we know little.


In Part 8 it is noted:

Quote

Could such a cataclysmic event at the end of the Fourth Age account for the geological and geographical differences between Middle-earth and the modern world? What effect might that have on changes in the Solar Year?

I'd be interested to see a citation re: seasons not being observed with equal lengths, since I don't recall reading anything of the sort.

In Middle-earth the Eldar also observed a short period or solar year, called a coranar or 'sun-round' when considered more or less astronomically., but usually called loa 'growth' (especially in the north-western lands) when the seasonal changes in vegetation were primarily considered, as was usual with Elves generally. The loa was broken up into periods that might be regarded as long months or short seasons...there were six of these 'seasons', of which the Quenya names were tuile, laire, yavie, quelle, hrive, coire, which may be translated 'spring, summer, autumn, fading, winter, stirring'. The Sindarin names were ethuil, laer, iavas, firith, rhiw, echuir. 'Fading' was also called lasse-lanta 'leaf-fall', or in Sindarin narbeleth 'sun-waning'.

Laire and hrive each contained 72 days, and the remainder 54 each. The loa began with yestare, the day immediately before tuile, and ended with mettare, the day immediately after coire. Between yavie and quelle were inserted three enderi or 'middle-days'. This provided a year of 365 days which was supplemented by doubling the enderi (adding 3 days) in every twelfth year.

A few other names may be mentioned that have a reference to time, though not used in precise reckonings. The seasons usually named were tuile spring, laire summer, yavie autumn (or harvest), hrive winter; but these had no exact definitions, and quelle (or lasselanta) was also used for the latter part of autumn and the beginning of winter.

As for me? My definition of Durin's Day if combined with the lunar ephemeris for 1864 gives exactly one possibility: 8 Blotmath. The new moon would have occurred on the 6th, corresponding to 31 October 1864; on the following day a check using Moontool or similar shows that the moon would not be visible in the region of the Lonely Mountain (central Europe). Thus, 8 Blotmath is the first day on which the moon is visible, and since the moon is nearly two days old it would be visible at sunset. Of course, none of this accounts for any lunar shifting from that year that might take place.

"Tomorrow begins the last week of autumn," said Thorin one day.