LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 01 - A Long-Expected Party

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by Morsul the Dark

A weird takeaway from this listening to the audio book, Middle Earth May be based on Europe and Shire specifically England, but we can make an interesting assumption that days are shorter that is to say the sun sets earlier. As has been quoted The fireworks start at 6:30 however mid September the sun sets at about 6:45. Most firework displays certainly wait til nightfall.

It wasn't until rather later in the process that Tolkien started using an almanac (for 1942) to keep things like sunrise/sunset and the lunar phases straight.

Even so, he consciously cheated once: the image of the moonlight illuminating Durin's Doors was too striking to give up, even though it's astronomically impossible, so he let it stand. I think the fireworks timing was just an oversight (or else, he didn't want to keep his hungry hobbits waiting too long for dinner!)