Calendar

A calendar is a system for taking records of time and events.

Eldar's immortality made them estimate in yen (Quenya). The yen is 144 years, which is divided into six-days a week to give 8766 days, called enquier. The Eldarin Calendar also acknowledges Solar year, given in coranar or loa. In the Elven Realm of Rivendell, the coranar would begin in vernal equinox, and had seasons (also month) as shown below:


To make the calendar days count to 365 days, Enderi (three days between yavie and hrive) entered the counting; Mettare and Yestare (two days between coire and tuile) also entered. Finally, to ensure coherence, an addition of three days occurs once in twelve years, and only the final year for a yen would be an exemption. The Solar year commences from the 21st of March (Yestare). The following day commences the new tuile season. Tuile ends on every 14th of May. Laire commences on the 15th of May; it ends on the 25th of July. Yavie commences on the 26th of July; and ends 17th of September. The days 18th to 20th of September marks the enteri. Quelle goes from September 21st to November 13th. hrive then goes from November 14th to January 24th. For Coire, it goes from January 25th to March 19th. Then Mettare follows the following day. The Eldar don't have a leap year and would rather have another Enderi when twelve years pass. Dates are only effective when enderi has not occurred twice.

The Dunedain use the King's Estimation or Reckoning system. This fictional date for men is similar to the real world's Gregorian Calendar with seven days in a week and 365 days of the Eldarin year divided into 12 months (called Astar); two Astar of the twelve have 31 days and the rest are 30 days. King's Estimation begins in the middle of winter and has Mettare and Yestare from one year-end to another year's beginning. However, days of mid-year reduce to one. A leap year would have two days in mid-year. The King's Estimation changed to counting in the Age's beginning from mid-year counting. After the fall of the Dunedain Kingdoms in exile, their calendar began to have irregularities that necessitated the amendment in 2060 TA. Mardil Voronwe amended their calendar, changing it to Steward's Reckoning. In this new version, all months counted 30 days with two days additional more to account for the equinoxes. The extra days that now counted to five were regarded as holidays. King Elessar's all-inclusive kingdom devised a new calendar for their reckoning. In this version, the year commences from spring. In this estimation, the months appeared in Quenya, and for the Dunedain, it appeared in Sindarin. These are:

The Halflings that previously adopted the Dunedain's King's Reckoning, applied changes that differed from the new Steward's Reckoning. The months were twelve and the days were thirty. Their holidays counted five and were excluded from the months. Halflings also have three extra mid-summer days (Lithedays) and two mid-winter days (Yuledays). In times of leap year, one more day is added to Lithedays to have Overlithe. Other changes in the Shire’s estimation include making the Overlithe and the mid-summer days to be out of the week and the month. This means that the weekdays will not be affected by year days. Shire’s estimation was the adopted time system for events of The LOTR, as it was used in the Red Book of Periannath. Since Shire’s estimation began in 1600 TA, its time would be 1600 years removed for the Eldarin Calendar. Shire Calendar is the system adopted in The LOTR as it is the calendar for the events in the Red Book of Periannath. It counted 1600 TA from the creation of Shire. To convert a time in the Elvish calendar to Shire-reckoning, you would remove 1600 years from the Elvish system. The Halflings months had a rather old and ambiguous origin, so their actual meaning was lost. They include:


The words in these reckonings sounded like Old English. It is possibly Tolkien's usage of ancient Westron. Leap years features Overlithe with two Yule corresponding to the 22nd of December.