The Moon and Durin's Day, 2941 TA

by Lalaith <andreas.moehn@wiesbaden.netsurf.de>

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Synchronising calendars with the real astronomical events is already a sophisticated problem. In Middle-earth, it was worsened by the fact that different nations and species used individual calendars that were difficult to correlate with each other. The Dwarves, for example, once had a lunar calendar that was replaced by a solar one. But since the moon does not orbit Earth within an exact fraction of a solar year, the lunar calendar shifts against the solar one by a couple of days. Locating an important lunar holiday in a solar calendar system therefore poses a little challenge. Calculating Easter Sunday is based upon that very problem.

Another such date is month and day of Durin's Day, the dwarvish New Year, in the solar year 2941 TA. It played a crucial rôle in the historical events and therefore, historians are of course interested in determining it exactly. Unfortunately, the sources do not provide an accurate time-table. Therefore, the determination of Durin's Day in 2941 TA has to be based upon secondary evidence. For an analysis of the individual calendar systems of Middle-earth including the Dwarvish reckoning, see The Reckoning of Time.

Establishing the lunar phases

At midsummer's eve in Rivendell, Thorin Oakenshield declared himself utterly unable to predict Durin's Day: "The first day of the dwarves' New Year is as all should know the first day of the last moon of Autumn on the threshold of Winter. We still call it Durin's Day when the last moon of Autumn and the sun are in the sky together. But this will not help us much, I fear, for it passes our skill in these days to guess when such a time will come again." (H III)

Gandalf and Elrond must have been hardly forced to suppress a chuckle. A simple lunar ephemeris - no doubt available in Rivendell - would have told the Dwarf precisely when to expect the new moon so that he could have set up his observational site at Erebor and wait for a clear sky to observe the setting young moon (no, I do not know what happened to the Dwarvish calendar during extended periods of bad weather). Gandalf's reply "That remains to be seen" (ibid.) was therefore probably given under utmost constraint so as not to insult the honourable Dwarf. And worse: the comment heard from some fellow a few days later about the "very next first moon of autumn - 'and perhaps it will be Durin's Day'" (IV) testifies an astronomical ignorance of such vastness that it cannot be excused any longer even by living underground. We have to assume several reasons why "Gandalf had shaken his head and said nothing" (ibid.)...

HH1 attests that the „next first moon of autumn“ was an error that escaped proofreading. In editions later than 1995 it was finally amended to read „next last moon of autumn“.

Lacking the ephemeris that Elrond for diplomatic courtesy did not supply, we have thus to use whatever observational observations are provided. One lunar phase is recorded quite exactly in H III: at midsummer's eve 2941, the moon was "a broad silver crescent" in the evening. That translates into a late first quarter moon, approximately between 4 and 6 days old, for before it would have been a narrow silver crescent, while later it would have been described as gibbous.

Durin's Day itself assists in narrowing down the lunar phases on the day precise. We know that the Company arrived via barrel in Esgaroth at 22.IX.(FR) and stayed there at least "a fortnight" (H, X). Durin's Day thus occurred at least two days after the new moon of month X., 2941., precisely on the first day of "the last week of autumn at the threshold of winter" (ibid.). Since all data in H are given in Shire Reckoning, there is only one way to reconcile these data: Durin's Day occurred precisely on Monday, 22.X., two days after a new moon at 20.X. The crescent of midsummer's eve was then by consequence a six-day-old moon, the latest possible configuration.

We may set these observations against the quite exact data provided by LR. Two of them will be sufficient to determine the lunar ephemeris(the roman numerals refer to the months of the Shire Reckoning, in contrast to those of the Gregorian calendar):

9.I.3019 TA: "The Moon, now at the full, rose over the mountains." (FR. Six days later, 15.I., the Company reached Moria.)

23.II.3019, Aragorn to Frodo: "And yestereve a new moon came again. Winter is nearly gone."

Drawing a function that links all mentioned observations, we find a surprising result: The orbital period of the moon was in the late Third Age of the Sun about 20 minutes shorter than today, being approximately 29.518 days in contrast to the modern value of 29.530879 days. This difference arises because the moon is gradually slowed down by tidal friction (and at the same time, receding from earth). This should allow even to compute the geological period to which the Third Age belomgs.

The lunar phases of 2941 TA can thus be given like that:

Full Moon:

12.I. 12.II. 11.III. 11.IV. 10.V. 10.VI. 06.VII. 06.VIII. 05.IX. 05.X. 04.XI. 04.XII.

New Moon:

27.I. 27.II. 26.III. 26.IV. 25.V. 25.IV. 21.VII. 21.VIII. 20.IX. 20.X. 19.XI. 19.XII.

The lunar observations of 2941 TA

• "It will soon be June": From the encounter with the trolls, not given any more precise, we acquire our first reliable observation: "It was nearly night ... a wandering moon appeared above the hills". (H, II) This moon is in the first quarter, a crescent seen soon after sunset, following the new moon of 25.V.
  (By the way, contradictory data are given for the day of departure from Bywater: Once the company is said to be "jogging off from the inn one fine morning just before May" (II), but another time Bilbo recalls when "they started their journey that May morning long ago." (VIII) QE establishes "Wednesday, April the 26th", as the date of the Unexpected Party, and so the 27th as the day of departure. The delay on the road is surprisingly long, compared to Frodo's travel speed. Was the Prancing Pony more attractive to the Dwarves than suited them?)

• Rivendell was reached mid of June when "the light became very dim, for the moon had not risen" (III). This moon was in third quarter, rising much after sunset. This was some days after the full moon of 10.VI. But why would it take two weeks for the Dwarves to cross a distance Glorfindel passed on horseback in two days? How long did they stay in the Forsaken Inn actually?

• "They stayed long in that good house, fourteen days at least", (III) leaving at Midyear's Day (midsummer's day) remembering the „broad silber crescent“ of the night before.

• "It was Monday night or Tuesday morning" (VI), i.e. either 7. or 8.VII. when the company was captured by the goblins. There should have been a full moon in the night of Sunday to Monday, but the weather was stormy and observations prevented.

• At Thursday, 10.VII., "there will be a bit of moon", and later during the night "the moon was up and was shining into the clearing" (VI). This moon was obviously waning, but rose yet soon enough that the Eagles had time to save the company and Bilbo could sleep "all night" (VI), waking up "with the early sun shining in his eyes" (VII). This agrees with the full moon of 06.VII.

• Friday and Saturday night, 11. and 12.VII., were spent in Beorn's house. The following Tuesday evening, 15.VII., "they rode still forward after dusk and into the night beneath the moon." (VII) Which is very vaguely said for the moon was now in last quarter and did not at all rise after dusk but long after midnight.

• We do not know how much time was lost in Mirkwood. On some occasion in late August, the company was imprisoned by the Wood-elves. It was then noted that "autumn was come again" (IX) for Thranduil was wearing the appropriate wreath. We have no informations on the calendar of the Wood-elves; but if it was similar to the Calendar of Imladris the season of iavas or autumn had started at 10.VIII., about agreeing with the date of captivity.

• The time between was spent underground so that any information on how many days had passed was lost. The escape succeeded on 21.IX., as Bilbo later recalled. On his birthday 22.IX. and his "arrival by barrel at Esgaroth on the Long Lake" (FR) he noted constellations such as Valacirca in the late night sky but no moon. This agrees with the new moon of 20.IX. but not with the full moon seen on Tolkien's drawing in AI: this latter is clearly an error and may have been another cause for rejecting the image.

• "At the end of a fortnight Thorin began to think of departure" (H, X). This was then around 6.X. But between thinking and the actual departure there was still some time, and so the company set out "one day, although autumn was now getting far on" (ibid.), maybe at 8.X. No lunar observations are recorded; the moon was actually full at 5.X.

• Four days after leaving Esgaroth, they established their camp at Ravenhill (H, XI). The Company spent a couple of days searching for the secret door, and some further days in front of it. The Day before Durin's Day, Thorin courteously had a look into a calendar and commented: "Tomorrow begins the last week of autumn" (ibid.). This statement is curious, for the seasons "had no exact definitions" (TC), probably meaning they were differently applied in different regions of Middle-earth, according to the local climate. Certain is that the prediction of winter was not really Thorin's idea: the Steward's Reckoning then in use by the Dwarves applied it rather to the Yule-tide at which Bilbo and Gandalf were already back in Beorn's house (H, XVIII). Thorin rather referred to the "season" of quellë, "also used for the latter part of autumn and the beginning of winter". (TC)
  New moon occurred on 20.X., so the beginning of quellë was perhaps reckoned by the Dwarves at 1.XI. Durin's Day, as shown above, then occurred two days after New Moon, exactly at 22. X. The event was recorded by Bilbo Baggins like that: "Soon he saw the orange ball of the sun sinking towards the level of his eyes. He went to the opening and there pale and faint was a thin new moon above the rim of Earth" (H, XI).

• Smaug was killed in the night of the next day „at the rising of the moon“ (H, XV) "above the eastern shore ... the waxing moon rose higher and higher" (H, XIV). Here, the tradition must be severely corrupted for a waxing moon cannot rise in the East at night: It always sets behind the sun and again rises in the morning after him. In fact, the moon must have been low in the Western sky and maybe partially obscured by clouds.

• Twelve days had passed since Durin's Day when the armies of Men and Wood-elves set out to Erebor, this was then 04.XI, and the moon was full. If they travelled a fast as the Company, they reached Dale in the night of 07.XI.

• An unknown number of "days passed slowly and wearily", until the message was received that Dain's army stood two days from Erebor. „The sky was black and moonless“ (H, XVI) when Bilbo took the Arkenstone to Bard, returning before midnight. The moon was waning, but we cannot tell this date any more precise..

• The Battle of Five Armies occurred then in the early second half of November. A few further days were spent till Thorin's burial and Bilbo's departure from Erebor. Together with Gandalf and Beorn they went around Mirkwood in the North and reached Beorn's house at Yule-tide, i. e. in late December. H thus gives them six weeks for that voyage.

• One final observation was made in the night from 1.V. to 2.V., 2942, when in the early morning hours "the moon [was] shining through an open window" in Rivendell. This would have been about a full moon.

The following tables give the absolute chronology of 2941 TA (F = Full Moon; N = New Moon).

A day-by-day calendar of 2941 TA is displayed in the accompanying document.

Notes

The timeline in TAMe

In TAMe, Fonstad gives 30.X. as Durin's Day. This date is, as she admits, pure conjecture based on assumed travel times and does not correspond to the lunar phases at all. Fonstad felt herself utterly unable to calculate the dwarvish New Year any more precise.

List of Abbreviations

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