The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King

by J. R. R. Tolkien

  At the same time as the great armies besieged Minas Tirith a host of the allies of Sauron that had long threatened the borders of King Brand crossed the River Carnen, and Brand was driven back to Dale. There he had the aid of the Dwarves of Erebor; and there was a great battle at the Mountain’s feet. It lasted three days, but in the end both King Brand and King Dáin Ironfoot were slain, and the Easterlings had the victory. But they could not take the Gate, and many, both Dwarves and Men, took refuge in Erebor, and there withstood a siege.

  When news came of the great victories in the South, then Sauron’s northern army was filled with dismay; and the besieged came forth and routed them, and the remnant fled into the East and troubled Dale no more. Then Bard II, Brand’s son, became King in Dale, and Thorin III Stonehelm, Dáin’s son, became King under the Mountain. They sent their ambassadors to the crowning of King Elessar; and their realms remained ever after, as long as they lasted, in friendship with Gondor; and they were under the crown and protection of the King of the West.

  THE CHIEF DAYS FROM THE FALL OF BARAD-DÛR TO THE END OF THE THIRD AGE1

  3019

  S.R. 1419

  March 27. Bard II and Thorin III Stonehelm drive the enemy from Dale.

  28. Celeborn crosses Anduin; destruction of Dol Guldur begun.

  April 6. Meeting of Celeborn and Thranduil.

  8. The Ring-bearers are honoured on the Field of Cormallen.

  May 1. Crowning of King Elessar; Elrond and Arwen set out from Rivendell.

  8. Éomer and Éowyn depart for Rohan with the sons of Elrond.

  20. Elrond and Arwen come to Lórien.

  27. The escort of Arwen leaves Lórien.

  June 14. The sons of Elrond meet the escort and bring Arwen to Edoras.

  16. They set out for Gondor.

  25. King Elessar finds the sapling of the White Tree.

  1 Lithe. Arwen comes to the City.

  Mid-year’s Day. Wedding of Elessar and Arwen.

  July 18. Éomer returns to Minas Tirith.

  22. The funeral escort of King Théoden sets out.

  August 7. The escort comes to Edoras.

  10. Funeral of King Théoden.

  14. The guests take leave of King Éomer.

  15. Treebeard releases Saruman.

  18. They come to Helm’s Deep.

  22. They come to Isengard; they take leave of the King of the West at sunset.

  28. They overtake Saruman; Saruman turns towards the Shire.

  September 6. They halt in sight of the Mountains of Moria.

  13. Celeborn and Galadriel depart, the others set out for Rivendell.

  21. They return to Rivendell.

  22. The hundred and twenty-ninth birthday of Bilbo. Saruman comes to the Shire.

  October 5. Gandalf and the Hobbits leave Rivendell.

  6. They cross the Ford of Bruinen; Frodo feels the first return of pain.

  28. They reach Bree at nightfall.

  30. They leave Bree. The ‘Travellers’ come to the Brandywine Bridge at dark.

  November 1. They are arrested at Frogmorton.

  2. They come to Bywater and rouse the Shire-folk.

  3. Battle of Bywater, and Passing of Saruman. End of the War of the Ring.

  3020

  S.R. 1420: The Great Year of Plenty

  March 13. Frodo is taken ill (on the anniversary of his poisoning by Shelob).

  April 6. The mallorn flowers in the Party Field.

  May 1. Samwise marries Rose.

  Mid-year’s Day. Frodo resigns office of mayor, and Will Whitfoot is restored.

  September 22. Bilbo’s hundred and thirtieth birthday.

  October 6. Frodo is again ill.

  3021

  S.R. 142I: The Last of the Third Age

  March 13. Frodo is again ill.

  25. Birth of Elanor the Fair,1 daughter of Samwise. On this day the Fourth Age began in the reckoning of Gondor.

  September 21. Frodo and Samwise set out from Hobbiton.

  22. They meet the Last Riding of the Keepers of the Rings in Woody End.

  29. They come to the Grey Havens. Frodo and Bilbo depart over Sea with the Three Keepers. The end of the Third Age.

  October 6. Samwise returns to Bag End.

  LATER EVENTS CONCERNING THE MEMBERS OF THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING

  S.R.

  1422 With the beginning of this year the Fourth Age began in the count of years in the Shire; but the numbers of the years of Shire Reckoning were continued.

  1427 Will Whitfoot resigns. Samwise is elected Mayor of the Shire. Peregrin Took marries Diamond of Long Cleeve. King Elessar issues an edict that Men are not to enter the Shire, and he makes it a Free Land under the protection of the Northern Sceptre.

  1430 Faramir, son of Peregrin, born.

  1431 Goldilocks, daughter of Samwise, born.

  1432 Meriadoc, called the Magnificent, becomes Master of Buckland. Great gifts are sent to him by King Éomer and the Lady Éowyn of Ithilien.

  1434 Peregrin becomes the Took and Thain. King Elessar makes the Thain, the Master, and the Mayor Counsellors of the North-kingdom. Master Samwise is elected Mayor for the second time.

  1436 King Elessar rides north, and dwells for a while by Lake Evendim. He comes to the Brandywine Bridge, and there greets his friends. He gives the Star of the Dúnedain to Master Samwise, and Elanor is made a maid of honour to Queen Arwen.

  1441 Master Samwise becomes Mayor for the third time.

  1442 Master Samwise and his wife and Elanor ride to Gondor and stay there for a year. Master Tolman Cotton acts as deputy Mayor.

  1448 Master Samwise becomes Mayor for the fourth time.

  1451 Elanor the Fair marries Fastred of Greenholm on the Far Downs.

  1452 The Westmarch, from the Far Downs to the Tower Hills (Emyn Beraid),1 is added to the Shire by the gift of the King. Many hobbits remove to it.

  1454 Elfstan Fairbairn, son of Fastred and Elanor, is born.

  1455 Master Samwise becomes Mayor for the fifth time.

  1462 Master Samwise becomes Mayor for the sixth time. At his request the Thain makes Fastred Warden of Westmarch. Fastred and Elanor make their dwelling at Undertowers on the Tower Hills, where their descendants, the Fairbairns of the Towers, dwelt for many generations.

  1463 Faramir Took marries Goldilocks, daughter of Samwise.

  1469 Master Samwise becomes Mayor for the seventh and last time, being in 1476, at the end of his office, ninety-six years old.

  1482 Death of Mistress Rose, wife of Master Samwise, on Mid-year’s Day. On September 22 Master Samwise rides out from Bag End. He comes to the Tower Hills, and is last seen by Elanor, to whom he gives the Red Book afterwards kept by the Fairbairns. Among them the tradition is handed down from Elanor that Samwise passed the Towers, and went to the Grey Havens, and passed over Sea, last of the Ring-bearers.

  1484 In the spring of the year a message came from Rohan to Buckland that King Éomer wished to see Master Holdwine once again. Meriadoc was then old (102) but still hale. He took counsel with his friend the Thain, and soon after they handed over their goods and offices to their sons and rode away over the Sarn Ford, and they were not seen again in the Shire. It was heard after that Master Meriadoc came to Edoras and was with King Éomer before he died in that autumn. Then he and Thain Peregrin went to Gondor and passed what short years were left to them in that realm, until they died and were laid in Rath Dínen among the great of Gondor.

  1541 In this year1 on March 1st came at last the Passing of King Elessar. It is said that the beds of Meriadoc and Peregrin were set beside the bed of the great king. Then Legolas built a grey ship in Ithilien, and sailed down Anduin and so over Sea; and with him, it is said, went Gimli the Dwarf. And when that ship passed an end was come in Middle-earth of the Fellowship of the Ring.

  APPENDIX C

  FAMILY TREES

  The names given in these Trees are only a selection from many. Most of them are either guests at Bilbo’s Fa
rewell Party, or their direct ancestors. The guests at the Party are underlined. A few other names of persons concerned in the events recounted are also given. In addition some genealogical information is provided concerning Samwise the founder of the family of Gardner, later famous and influential.

  The figures after the names are those of birth (and death where that is recorded). All dates are given according to the Shire-reckoning, calculated from the crossing of the Brandywine by the brothers Marcho and Blanco in the Year I of the Shire (Third Age 1601).

  APPENDIX D

  SHIRE CALENDAR FOR USE IN ALL YEARS

  Every year began on the first day of the week, Saturday, and ended on the last day of the week, Friday. The Mid-year’s Day, and in Leap-years the Overlithe, had no weekday name. The Lithe before Mid-year’s Day was called 1 Lithe, and the one after was called 2 Lithe. The Yule at the end of the year was 1 Yule, and that at the beginning was 2 Yule. The Overlithe was a day of special holiday, but it did not occur in any of the years important to the history of the Great Ring. It occurred in 1420, the year of the famous harvest and wonderful summer, and the merrymaking in that year is said to have been the greatest in memory or record.

  THE CALENDARS

  The Calendar in the Shire differed in several features from ours. The year no doubt was of the same length,1 for long ago as those times are now reckoned in years and lives of men, they were not very remote according to the memory of the Earth. It is recorded by the Hobbits that they had no ‘week’ when they were still a wandering people, and though they had ‘months’, governed more or less by the Moon, their keeping of dates and calculations of time were vague and inaccurate. In the west-lands of Eriador, when they had begun to settle down, they adopted the Kings’ Reckoning of the Dúnedain, which was ultimately of Eldarin origin; but the Hobbits of the Shire introduced several minor alterations. This calendar, or ‘Shire Reckoning’ as it was called, was eventually adopted also in Bree, except for the Shire usage of counting as Year I 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 amongst 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 S.R. 1418, 1419 is so carefully set out in the Red Book that there cannot be much doubt about days and times at that point.

  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 yén, often translated ‘year’ (p. 377), 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 ré and reckoned from sunset to sunset. The yén contained 52,596 days. For ritual rather than practical purposes the Eldar observed a week or enquië of six days; and the yén contained 8,766 of these enquier, reckoned continuously throughout the period.

  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 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 tuilë, lairë, yávië, quellë, hrívë, coirë, which may be translated ‘spring, summer, autumn, fading, winter, stirring’. The Sindarin names were ethuil, laer, iavas, firith, rhîw, echuir. ‘Fading’ was also called lasse-lanta ‘leaf-fall’, or in Sindarin narbeleth ‘sun-waning’.

  Lairë and hrívë each contained 72 days, and the remainder 54 each. The loa began with yestarë, the day immediately before tuilë, and ended with mettarë, the day immediately after coirë. Between yávië and quellë 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.

  How any resulting inaccuracy was dealt with is uncertain. If the year was then of the same length as now, the yén 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 yén was shortened by three days: the doubling of the three enderi due in that year was omitted; ‘but that has not happened in our time’. Of the adjustment of any remaining inaccuracy there is no record.

  The Númenóreans altered these arrangements. They divided the loa into shorter periods of more regular length; and they adhered to the custom of beginning the year in mid-winter, which had been used by Men of the North-west from whom they were derived in the First Age. Later they also made their week one of 7 days, and they reckoned the day from sunrise (out of the eastern sea) to sunrise.

  The Númenórean system, as used in Númenor, 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 twelve astar or months, of which ten had 30 days and two 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 yestarë, the middle day (183rd) was called loëndë, and the last day mettarë; these 3 days belonged to no month. In every fourth year, except the last of a century (haranyë), two enderi or ‘middle-days’ were substituted for the loëndë.

  In Númenor calculation started with S.A. 1. The Deficit caused by deducting 1 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 Númenor in S.A. 1000, 2000, 3000. After the Downfall in S.A. 3319 the system was maintained by the exiles, but it was much dislocated by the beginning of the Third Age with a new numeration: S.A. 3442 became T.A. 1. By making T.A. 4 a leap year instead of T.A. 3 (S.A. 3444) 1 more short year of only 365 days was intruded causing a deficit of 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds. The millennial additions were made 441 years late: in T.A. 1000 (S.A. 4441) and 2000 (S.A. 5441). To reduce the errors so caused, and the accumulation of the millennial deficits, Mardil the Steward issued a revised calendar to take effect in T.A. 2060, after a special addition of 2 days to 2059 (S.A. 5500), which concluded 5½ millennia since the beginning of the Númenórean system. But this still left about 8 hours deficit. Hador to 2360 added 1 day though this deficiency had not quite reached that amount. After that no more adjustments were made. (In T.A. 3000 with the threat of imminent war such matters were neglected.) By the end of the Third Age, after 660 more years, the Deficit had not yet amounted to 1 day.

  The Revised Calendar introduced by Mardil was called Stewards’ Reckoning and was adopted eventually by most of the users of the Westron language, except the Hobbits. The months were all of 30 days, and 2 days outside the months were introduced: 1 between the third and fourth months (March, April), and 1 between the ninth and tenth (September, October). These 5 days outside the months, yestarë, tuilérë, loëndë, yáviérë, and mettarë, were holidays.

  The Hobbits were conservative and continued to use a form of Kings’ Reckoning adapted to fit their own customs. Their months were all equal and had 30 days each; but they had 3 Summerdays, called in the Shire the Lithe or the Lithedays, between June and July. The last day of the year and the first of the next year were called the Yuledays. The Yuledays and the Lithedays remained outside the months, so that Ja
nuary 1 was the second and not the first day of the year. Every fourth year, except in the last year of the century,1 there were four Lithedays. The Lithedays and the Yuledays were the chief holidays and times of feasting. The additional Litheday was added after Mid-year’s Day, and so the 184th day of the Leap-years was called Overlithe and was a day of special merrymaking. In full Yuletide 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 Overlithe) was known only by its name and belonged to no week (p. 169). 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.2 They found this quite convenient at home, but not so convenient if they ever travelled further than Bree.

  In the above notes, as in the narrative, I have used our modern names for both months and weekdays, though of course neither the Eldar nor the Dúnedain 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 ten days, and our New Year’s Day corresponded more or less to the Shire January 9.

  In the Westron the Quenya names of the months were usually retained as the Latin names are now widely used in alien languages. They were: Narvinyë, Nénimë, Súlimë, Víressë, Lótessë, Nárië, Cermië, Úrimë, Yavannië, Narquelië, Hísimë, Ringarë. The Sindarin names (used only by the Dúnedain) were: Narwain, Nínui, Gwaeron, Gwirith, Lothron, Nórui, Cerveth, Úrui, Ivanneth, Narbeleth, Hithui, Girithron.