Silmarillion - Chapter 01 - Of the Beginning of Days

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Thanks for clearing that up, Ray.

On a different subject, I'd like to know if anyone fully understands the whole subject of time in this chapter. The lamps continuously burned until destroyed and so there was no real method of telling the time. But the waxing and weigning of the trees was something I always found odd...
According to one of the HoME books* the times were something like this:

1 hour of Tees = 7hours, our time
1 Day of Trees = 84 hours, our time
1 year of Trees = 84000 hours, our time

Now, there are approximately 8766 hours in a 'sun' year (365.25 X 24) and thus:

1 year of the Trees = 84000/8766
= 9.582 sun years

This has me baffled. Why did Tolkien do this? Why were the years of the sun so much shorter? Or, perhaps a better question would be, why did he make the years of the trees so much longer?


*You'll have to bare with me as I can't remember which one, I just have my battered old copy of the Silmarillion next to me with it's pages of notes shoved in. I think it was HoME 4: The Shaping of Middle Earth, but I've lent it to a friend and cannot check.