Counting the Sun Years

[Aiwendil]

Originally Posted by Galin

And so, when I ended with (which should not have ended that paragraph however, as it helped to confuse things): 'But I don't recall any notation that a new reckoning in Sun Years is begun before a full Valian Year had transpired. I merely meant: if 1500 is not a full 'year' why not mention this -- that is, why not note something similar to the short digression in GA concerning Feanor?

Ah, I see what you mean now. And it's a good point; I would expect it to be noted if 1500 was less than a full Valian Year.

I have to say I'm moving toward thinking that 1500 was a full year and that the first rising of the Moon was set for the very end of the year by the Valar. The opinion you quote from another forum does make a fair point:

This, I base on the Annals of Aman (AAm) where the last we hear before 1500 is about the creation of the Moon and the Sun and a description of Tilion and Arien (§172). Then we have the year marker for 1500 and the next paragraph, §173, starts by saying that ‘Isil was first wrought and made ready, and first rose into the realm of the stars, and was the elder of the new lights., as was Telperion of the Trees.’ Since this comes after a description of the making of the Moon and the Sun, it leads me to suggest that the year YT 1500 was quite short (less than one sun-year).

. . . however, I don't find it convincing. There are plenty of other examples from AAm where the interval between two events is demonstrably longer than what one would intuitively guess. For instance, since the Kinslaying occurs in 1495 and Feanor's landing at Losgar occurs at least seven sun-years into 1497, the time between the seizing of the ships and their burning cannot have been less than about sixteen and a half sun-years. I can't speak for anyone else, but before I actually reckoned this out from the dates, I would have guessed that those events took place in a matter of weeks rather than years.

So I can similarly see the making of the Sun and Moon and the arranging for their operations taking quite a bit longer than one might first guess, and I can easily persuade myself that it was not until the end of 1500 that all was made ready. Yes, the fact that the rising ofthe Sun and Moon is described immediately after the '1500' header in AAm does tend to make the reader assume that it happens at the beginning of the year, but this assumption could very well be in error. If the only events that a given annal reports are ones that occurred toward the end of the year, why should it not simply launch into them, as the 1500 annal does?

Moreover, it's worth noting that the annal before 1500, which describes the making of the Sun and Moon, is headed '1495 - 1500'. Reading those dates inclusively, one could suppose that the events it describes extend well into the year 1500. The author of the Annals then broke the account of the actual rising of the Sun and Moon into a separate entry simply to specify its date more exactly.

One still might complain that having the first rising of the Moon come exactly at the end of YT 1500 seems too neat and coincidental. But really, is it any more of a coincidence than having the Age of the Trees last for a nice, round 1500 years? Or the Age of the Lamps for a nice, round 3500 years? Indeed, the Sun Years beginning exactly at the end of a Valian year probably makes more sense than the Ages of the Lamps and the Trees being integral numbers of centuries, since in the former case we can at least suppose that the Valar purposefully waited for the beginning of a new year. The ends of the ages were triggered by Melkor's actions - it's hard to imagine Melkor planning his destruction of the Lamps, for instance, to line up so neatly with the Valian calendar!

[Galin]

I'm leaning more toward a full year for 1500 myself. Reading the entries 1495-1500, and 1500 again, I get the feeling that matters of chronology within the entry might be of secondary importance to the description of events and beings and so on -- as it arguably should be. In entry 1495 -1500 we have (section 166):

'But when at last the Valar learned that the Noldor had indeed passed out of Aman and were come back into Middle-earth, they arose and began to set forth in deeds those counsels that had taken thought for the redress of the evils of Melkor.

167 Then Manwe bade Yavanna and Nienor to put forth their powers of growth and healing; and they put forth all their powers upon the Trees.'

This seems to say that the fruits of the Trees didn't even exist before the Noldor were back in Middle-earth, and the rest of 1497-1500 is more about the Sun and Moon, their vessels, Arien and Tilion, and so on, than chronology -- similar in wording to Quenta Silmarillion actually, although not exact. VY 1500 notes that when the Moon first arose, for a 'while' the world had moonlight and many things stirred and woke, and that Tilion traversed the heavens seven times before Anar arose. And interestingly, because of the initial design of the pathways of Anar and Isil...

'Thus the first of the new days were reckoned after the manner of the Trees from the mingling of the lights when Arien and Tilion passed in their courses, above the middle of the Earth.'

But Varda changed her counsel (after how long?) and set new courses for the Sun and Moon, and:

(177) 'Therefore by the coming and going of Anar the Valar reckoned they days thereafter until the Change of the World.'

Of course the Annal doesn't end here, but one might assume that what follows is a description that spills into Sun Year 1 -- which isn't that problematic in my opinion, if so, because this is an account from the perspective of Aman, which has further things to note, including the assault upon the Moon and the Hiding of Valinor. Sun Year 1 of the Grey Annals also records Morgoth's reaction to the new lights, so there is overlap, but GA concerns itself more with events of Middle-earth, as expected. In AAm it's the assault on Tilion that greatly inspires the hiding of Valinor, and such a notable event -- given Earendil later -- can hardly be left out of an Aman-based account, even if technically we have spilled into Sun Year 1.

The Grey Annals entry for 1500 has much less to report, but notes that, seemingly at the end of 1500: 'And even a they set foot upon Middle-earth, the ages of the stars were ended, and the time of the Sun and Moon was begun, as it told in the Chronicle of Aman.

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A look back at the Annals of Valinor (the later version as compared to the even earlier version), a preceding concept where 1 Valian Year = 10 Sun Years:

V. Y. 2998 - 3000: The First Ages are reckoned as 30000 years, or 3000 years of the Valar; whereof the first thousand was before the Trees, and Two thousand save nine were the years of the Trees of the Holy Light, which lived after, and lives yet, only in the Silmarils; and the nine are the Years of Darkness, or the Darkening of Valinor.

Towards the end of these nine years, as is elsewhere told, the Gods made the Moon and Sun, and sent them forth over the world...'