Written for Narya in the 2023 Worldbuilding Exchange. Originally posted on the Archive of Our Own here.
The following is excerpted from an essay by Tuilindil of Lossarnach, published in Gondor in the 436th year of the Fourth Age, and translated here from Sindarin into English for the first time.
A student tasked with determining the date an ancient manuscript was written, preparing to comb the text for minute references to known events and examine the script in an attempt to spot telltale variations [1], might breathe a sigh of relief on finding a date at the top of the letter. That is, until she notices that it is a letter dated "the 360th Year of the Sun" and addressed to Bëor, who was by then five years dead.
To a modern Gondorian, that a year of the Sun is 365 and one-quarter days long is unquestioned fact. But at the Sun's first rising, the Elves of Beleriand had the benefit neither of millennia of astronomical observation, nor of the direct revelations of the Valar [2]. Despite the advent of the new Great Lights, in the matter of timekeeping, they were still in the dark.
Considerable time passed before the Noldor – and, subsequently, the Sindar and Avari, although the latter never universally – fully adopted the practice of dating by Sun-year. The Úmanyar, never having used the Tree-cycles to mark time, continued for many centuries to mark time by subtle movements of the Stars, and only gradually began to date using a count of Sun-years, even long after they were adept in tracking seasonal cycles for agricultural purposes.
Consequently, although there is some debate among scholars, the general consensus is that the Noldor were the first group of Elves in Beleriand to adopt the practice of long-term timekeeping by the Sun, and the Sindar initially adopted the practice in communications with Noldorin allies. It was therefore the Noldorin understanding of Sun-cycles that determined the general practice – and that understanding changed a great deal in what we would now call the first few centuries after the Sun's rising.
Those of the Amanyar who had dwelt in Beleriand before the Great Journey had, like the Úmanyar, been accustomed to marking time by the movement of the stars. This art had been neglected, to be sure, during the years the Noldor dwelt in Valinor. But it had not been entirely forgotten, and was swiftly revived, though not without some difficulty [3]. So the Noldor could track the cycle of the Valian year by observing the movements of the stars, but it was not an entrenched custom as it was for the Úmanyar. Indeed, the Amanyar were all accustomed to marking time by the Great Lights rather than the lesser, and consequently some among the Noldor, as soon as the Sun and Moon rose, devoted themselves to figuring out the pattern by which the movement of those Lights should be reckoned.
In this they were hampered by the assumptions of Valinor. The cycle of the Trees – that is, the Valian Year – was customarily divided and subdivided by a factor of twelve. One group of Noldorin astronomers, mainly those associated with the Fëanorians, seems to have assumed at once that the relation between the greater Sun-cycle – the Sun-year – and the Moon-cycle was likewise, and to have measured one Year of the Sun at 360 days, containing twelve Moon-cycles of 30 Sun-days each.
A second group – all followers of Fingolfin – instead focused on the relationship between the Sun-year and the Valian Year. Swiftly rejecting a scale of twelve to one, they instead arrived at a model of ten Sun-years, each measuring 350 days, per Valian Year, which had been found by star-reckoning to contain 3,500 days.
By the time of the Dagor Aglareb, all of the Noldorin astronomers had recognized that the "Fëanorian model" of the year was more accurate – though many of the astronomers, especially from Fingolfin's host, already saw that even this number was slightly too short. Political tensions, however, led some among the Fingolfinians – most notably the followers of Angrod and Aegnor – to continue using the 350-day year for official purposes for some decades more, although High King Fingolfin's scribes at this point measured the year at 360 days already.
The eventual discovery that the true relationship between the Year of the Sun and the Valian Year is a factor of 9.582 – a seemingly arbitrary number – was one that left the Noldor, ever lovers of beauty and proportion, greatly perturbed. Many considered it a sign of the depravity of Middle-earth, and the corruption of Morgoth. Yet this view was not universal, as shown by the words of the philosopher Turwen [4]:
Some have said that the irregularities in the courses of the Sun and Moon are evidence that Arda is diminished, degenerate, after the death of the Trees. I cannot call them wrong – and yet, neither can I fully agree. Diminished? Yes, diminished indeed, by the loss of something beautiful that shall never be regained. But not wholly beyond repair.
For in these strange cycles I read instead an echo of the tale we have long been told: That out of disharmony, Ilúvatar brings greater harmonies yet, in the long roll of years. Patience, these ratios admonish, patience! If these are not the simple numbers to which we were accustomed in Valinor; if, in the short term, all seems ragged and uneven; then we must recall that just as it is in the longer run that the count of days appears smoother, so it is in the further movements of the Music when present confusion and present dismay will be turned to a greater joy.
[1] Often less than helpful when the writer was an Elf; effectively immortal lifespans limit the rate of script evolution compared to that seen in other peoples. Indeed, some scholars have observed that regular written contact with Elves leads to a slower rate of change in this area even among Dwarves and Men; see Glauril of Pelargir's exhaustive reference work Mannish Scripts in Beleriand for further detail.
[2] Though such revelations might not have been entirely helpful. Accounts from members of the Host of the West suggest that the Valar initially intended a more regular ratio between the years of the Sun and the days of the Sun, the cycles of the Moon, and the Valian Year (itself based on the cycles of the Trees) – but Tilion was somewhat over-hasty, and Arien a little slow.
[3] One anonymous account of the journey of Fingolfin's host across the Helcaraxë describes a heated argument that broke out between two astronomers, shortly before the beginning of the crossing, regarding the precise date. The chronicler writes that as many as a half-dozen other Elves, though they lacked the expertise to evaluate the astronomers' competing claims, were nevertheless drawn into the quarrel, and nearly came to blows. Although the question of the date had little practical importance, in this dark, disoriented time, when so many customs had been cast aside and the Noldorin way of life turned all but upside down, it is easy to see how the departing Noldor might have been eager to cling to any signpost they could, and reach for temporal certainty when physical was out of reach.
[4] Turwen crossed into Beleriand as part of the Host of Fingolfin. She dwelt in Hithlum, at the court of Fingolfin and then of Fingon, and was one of those killed defending it following the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. She was evidently more favorably disposed toward the Valar than many of the Noldor who made the journey to Beleriand; a letter by a contemporary suggests she may have left Aman only so as not to be separated from her wife. Sadly, although she was well-regarded as a scholar by her contemporaries, her works come down to us only in fragments.