Having read lately a bit about time, the expanding universe, and thinking about New Year's and our measurements, I came back to consider this part of the Appendices, which I had previously pretty much ignored as not especially relevant to an understanding of the narrative.
Yet I suppose that a way of measuring time is part and parcel of Tolkien's thought, given the role death plays in his Legendarium. The gift of Doom would be no gift, would in fact not be, if there were no sense of time's passing. Yet what was it that 'prompted' the elven year of 144 of our years, or their use of sixes and twelves? Early attempts at time keeping began with observing cycles--of flooding, of the moon, of seasons. What cycle did Tolkien have in mind or was he just playing with numbers because he liked the sound of them? Or was it a matter of 'remember the twelve, to keep them holy"?
On the other hand, much of this strikes me as evidence of Tolkien's mind. He must have been, I think, exceptionally bored with most of his life's daily work, to devote this much attention to creating not one but several versions of calendars for Middle-earth. I wonder if this labour isn't akin to our own endeavours spent here at the Barrow Downs, as evidenced in particular by such features as
Abercrombie of Rohan's
Periodic Table of Barrow Downers, or
Mark 12_30's creation of
the White Tree icon or
Alcarillo's
leaf icon or, well,
The Barrow Wight's
creation, The Barrow Downs itself.
Having alot of time on his mind, Tolkien went about various ways of organising if not spending it.
As a postscript, I do like the way in which Sam is described in the last paragraph, in that reference to
Sam Gardner in the celebration of the first flowering of the Golden Tree, rather than to his countless years as Reeve of The Shire. It represents how cultures come to create festivities as memories of events in their cultural past. Past time and pass time.