Why have so many young people found their way to Rome through a fantasy novel with no churches in it? David Engels on Tolkien, Galadriel, and the Marian devotion hidden in Middle-earth.
I was well into adulthood before I figured out the significance of 25 March, not just as the feast of the annunciation but as the start of the new year. In the English folk culture this was known as Lady Day, and was one of the four “quarter days” for rent collection, the others being midsummer day, Michaelmas and Christmas Day. In Ireland those dates never caught on in commercial life. Don’t know about Scotland.
Around 1752 Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar, one of the last of the European countries to do so, it being seen as a sinister Catholic invention! Of course Russia kept the Julian Calendar till 1917. Anyway, while the new year was now January 1, the tax year was still based on 25 March as the start of the tax year. This then shifted to 6 April. The populace back then didn’t like the change and there was a slogan, “Give us back our 11 days”!
But as a 13 year old I just assumed Tolkien had picked the date at random.
I think that Lady Day may also have been the traditional date for the start of lambing in the old English agricultural year. These days lambing is more of a moveable feast. At a more fundamental meteorological level it also marks the start of spring in the Atlantic climate of NW Europe. Within Orthodoxy I think there’s a view that says Christmas Day is calculated from the date of the annunciation, that is, forwards not backwards. The historian Tom Holland, also a Tolkien enthusiast, is emphatic that the date of Christmas really owes nothing to the feast of Saturnalia, though I’ve forgotten his precise reasoning.
Exceptional. This is why I'm on Substack. In the fight of my life for my company. No place I'd rather be. However, pennies are at a premium, so to speak. So, hope to be in a better position, soon, to be a paid subscriber. For now, however, know how grateful I am to be able to read these wonderful essays.
I was well into adulthood before I figured out the significance of 25 March, not just as the feast of the annunciation but as the start of the new year. In the English folk culture this was known as Lady Day, and was one of the four “quarter days” for rent collection, the others being midsummer day, Michaelmas and Christmas Day. In Ireland those dates never caught on in commercial life. Don’t know about Scotland.
Around 1752 Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar, one of the last of the European countries to do so, it being seen as a sinister Catholic invention! Of course Russia kept the Julian Calendar till 1917. Anyway, while the new year was now January 1, the tax year was still based on 25 March as the start of the tax year. This then shifted to 6 April. The populace back then didn’t like the change and there was a slogan, “Give us back our 11 days”!
But as a 13 year old I just assumed Tolkien had picked the date at random.
Thanks a lot for this important addition to my point!
I think that Lady Day may also have been the traditional date for the start of lambing in the old English agricultural year. These days lambing is more of a moveable feast. At a more fundamental meteorological level it also marks the start of spring in the Atlantic climate of NW Europe. Within Orthodoxy I think there’s a view that says Christmas Day is calculated from the date of the annunciation, that is, forwards not backwards. The historian Tom Holland, also a Tolkien enthusiast, is emphatic that the date of Christmas really owes nothing to the feast of Saturnalia, though I’ve forgotten his precise reasoning.
Exceptional. This is why I'm on Substack. In the fight of my life for my company. No place I'd rather be. However, pennies are at a premium, so to speak. So, hope to be in a better position, soon, to be a paid subscriber. For now, however, know how grateful I am to be able to read these wonderful essays.
Thanks a lot; that is most kind!
Good, but I wished you’d provided the sources for your direct quotations from Tolkien.