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appendix d 1455
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 January 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 Shirereform.
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
1 In the Shire, in which Year 1 corresponded with T.A. 1601. In Bree
in which Year 1 corresponded with T.A. 1300 it was the first year of the
century.