Middle-earth Calendar - Hobbit Calendar

Hobbit Calendar

The Shire Calendar was a calendar used in J.R.R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth by the Hobbits of the Shire. It was different from that used by the Men of Middle-earth, Dwarves and Elves. Use of this calendar in Middle-earth is referred to as Shire-reckoning.

It is closely based on the Germanic calendar. Year 1 of the Shire Calendar corresponded when the Shire was founded by the Bree Hobbits Marcho and Blanco in the year 1601 of the Third Age. Therefore, years of the Third Age can be converted to Shire-years by subtracting 1600. The last year of the Third Age was year 1421 on the Shire calendar. A year in the Shire was the same length as our year - 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds. The Shire's calendar year was also divided into 12 months but all of 30 days. Five additional days were added to create a 365-day year. The months followed the lunar cycle.

For the names of the months, Tolkien used reconstructed names derived from Old English; in other words, they are Tolkien's take on what English would have actually used if it had not adopted Latin names for the months (January, February, March, etc.).

The Yuledays were the days that signify the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one, so 2 Yule was the first day of the year. The Lithedays are the three days in the middle of the year, 1 Lithe, Mid-year's Day, and 2 Lithe. In leap years (every fourth year except centennial years) a day was added after Mid-year's Day called Overlithe. All these days were placed outside of any month. These days were primarily holidays and feast days. Mid-year's Day is meant to correspond to the summer solstice, which Tolkien describes as being 10 days earlier than the middle day of our year. However, since then the summer solstice has shifted slightly so it falls on a different date now, rendering the difference between Mid-year's Day and the middle day of our year eleven days, instead of ten.

There were seven days in the Shire week. The first day of the week was called Sterday and the last day of the week was called Highday. The Mid-year's Day and, when present, Overlithe had no weekday assignments. This arrangement was used because it caused every day to have the same weekday designation from year to year (instead of changing as in the Gregorian calendar).

Highday was a holiday with evening feasts. Tolkien states that Highday was more equivalent to our Sunday, and so translated the names of days used one of Bilbo's songs as "Saturday" and "Sunday" rather than Mersday and Highday.

In The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the names of months and days are given in modern equivalents. For instance, Afteryule is called January and Sterday is called Saturday.