The Timeline of LotR and the Church Calendar

[Firefoot]

This topic has bounced around vaguely in the back of my mind for some time, perhaps for two reasons: 1) Having grown up in a church that paid close heed to the church calendar, it is something I have always been very aware of with the changing seasons (and Tolkien being Catholic, I would imagine would have a similar awareness), and 2) I began reading FotR for the first time on the morning of Good Friday, so it is perhaps inevitable that LotR should be linked in my mind to Easter.

So finally, I decided to sit down and figure out if there was any more to my vague feelings than the fact that the Fellowship set out from Rivendell on Christmas and that the Ring was destroyed in the spring, a generally Easter-ish time of year, and I actually did come up with some things that I thought were at least interesting enough to share... you all can be the judge of if and where I'm reading too much into things.

So first, obviously, is the fact that the Fellowship sets out on December 25th, and if it wasn't for that I probably would have thought no further of the topic. The church calendar actually begins at the beginning of December though with Advent - a time of preparation and waiting, which is exactly how the members of the Fellowship spent their time in Rivendell before setting out. (I freely admit, this is very loose, but I'm trying to be comprehensive.)

Here's where it gets interesting though. Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, takes place on the first Wednesday after the second full moon of the New Year. Then follows "40 days" of Lent (Lent is always described as having 40 days, though this actually doesn't count any Sundays between Ash Wednesday and Easter, so it's technically 46 days long...) - I don't know who decided this but 40 is a number with a lot of Biblical significance (Israelites wandering in the desert for 40 years, Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the desert...). But I digress.

According to Sam in The Great River,

"The Moon's the same in the Shire and in Wilderland, or it ought to be. But either it's out of it's running, or I'm all wrong in my reckoning. You'll remember, Mr. Frodo, the Moon was waning as we lay on the flet up in that tree: a week from the full, I reckon. And we'd been a week on the way last night, when up pops a New Moon as thin as a nail-paring, as if we had never stayed no time in the Elvish country."

This places full moons at about January 8 (about 1 week before the Fellowship reaches Lorien on Jan 15) and February 9 (about two weeks prior to Sam's New Moon on February 23)... the dates don't work out perfectly, though, since Jan. 8 and Feb. 9 are 31 days apart by the Middle-earth calendar... so I'd guess a couple days of fudge room from Sam's "a week from full" maybe being a couple days off of that, and then maybe one day because if Sam saw a sliver on the night of the 23rd, the real New Moon (night with no moon) would be the 22nd? So Full Moons on Jan 10 and Feb 8. Anyway, about a week after that second New Moon the Fellowship is leaving Lorien, and counting inclusively from their departure from Lorien to March 25, it's a very convenient 40 days, placing the destruction of the Ring at the point when Easter would occur.

Thematically this works well in comparison with the church calendar as well; right before Lent, Jesus' Transfiguration is celebrated, sort of a mini high point in between Christmas and Easter, just as I would say Lothlorien is a bit of a high point along an otherwise rather dark road. Gandalf's return to life and the Mirror of Galadriel both occur right before the Fellowship's departure from Lorien - perhaps compare Gandalf's resurrection/transformation to Jesus' glorification on the mountain, and the revelations to Sam and Frodo in the mirror to the wonder of the disciples?

I'm not trying to suggest an allegorical relationship between the two in any way here (the plots are too obviously dissimilar and I wouldn't even begin to try making 1:1 analogies...), only trying to point out the way the narrative arc follows a similar timeline/thematic structure. And if you think I'm stretching this entirely too far feel free to say so... I've freely admitted my own background and biases, but it seemed like there was enough here to at least merit comment.