New Tolkien coming!

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by zionius

Thanks, so glad to learn that!

I can only guess it might track to a note quoted in HoMe7 p. 369:my father wrote at the head of the first page of it: Moons are after 1941-2 + 6 days. He changed this to + 5 days, and added: thus Full Moon Jan. 2 is Jan. 7.

BTW, that easy page already racked my brains, you worked miracle!

Yes, that was the system he used consistently for most of the book, starting I believe at the time he wrote the episode in 'The Great River' where Sam is puzzled by the new moon and the passage of time in Lorien (which was written right at the end of 1941, probably during the Christmas holiday). He even considered but decided against bringing in the real-world lunar eclipse of March 2 1942. Once committed he stayed with it, including revising the moon in the earlier parts of the story... but he couldn't bring himself to delete the striking scene of the waning moon (impossibly) illuminating the west-facing Gates of Moria in the early evening.