Q: Is It Wrong To Identify The Beginning of The First Age with The First Sunrise?
ANSWER: Many people would insist that, technically, yes, it’s “wrong” to say the First Age began with the first sunrise. I received this question in June 2024 and decided not to wait on answering it, so my apologies to everyone whose questions are still in the queue.
However, I think you have some wiggle room. And this is why I borrow David Day’s “Ages of the Sun” convention. Some people get very upset if you use that convention. And yet they don’t seem to have a problem celebrating Bilbo and Frodo’s birthday every September 22 (it’s the wrong date, according to J.R.R. Tolkien).
The “ages” are determined according to the Eldarin calendar. They’re arbitrary measurements of time and relative only to the history of the Elves (especially the Eldar of Aman and Endor). The Valar labored for uncounted ages or eons before they came to Arda, and they passed a lot of time in Arda before the Elves awoke.
So you’re well within your rights to consider Year 1 of the Sun as the first year of the First Age of the Sun. Just be clear about what calendar you’re using (call it the “fan calendar”).
Why Do People Care When the First Age Began?
J.R.R. Tolkien didn’t explain how long the First Age was when he published The Lord of the Rings. It’s clear from The Peoples of Middle-earth that was never his plan. He didn’t have a complete idea of what the First Age looked like at that time. In fact, as The Nature of Middle-earth shows, Tolkien kept revising his First Age timeline through the years.
There is no canonical timeline for the First Age. There is some agreement between the various timelines, but so far as we know much if not all of that work was on the verge of being thrown out in the last year of Tolkien’s life as he contemplated rewriting the Elvish “mythology” so that it would be more compatible with known science.
The story of the Two Trees of Valinor would have to be recast in some way. There could still be two trees, but either they’ve had to have been brought to life before the sun formed or they’d have to serve some other purposes. They could still be producers of light, and Fëanor could still have used that light to produce the Silmarils, but the story of Arda would be very different. And many Tolkien fans seem to feel that would not have been as satisfying as the mythology that Christopher Tolkien patched together in the published Silmarillion.
And so without a formal or canonical definition for when the First Age began, all we can know for sure is that in J.R.R. Tolkien’s mind there was a time before the Sun first rose. But that would not be the case in his allegedly revised scientific timeline. In that case, the First Age of the Children of Ilúvatar should have begun well after the first sunrise (however that should be defined).
The Years of the Sun Are Significant
The Elves obviously changed they way they kept time after the sun rose. They had to. And that story complicated Tolkien’s time-keeping calculations. He struggled to decide how long a “Valian Year” should be in terms of Years of the Sun. He never seemed to settle on a final ratio (despite what some people tell you). He experimented with changing ratios and we don’t know that the last one recorded would have been the ratio he used in the reimagined history of Arda. We don’t even know if Yéni únótimë would still have referred to something other than the passing of time (as measured in normal Earth-Sun years).
The “Tale of Years” includes timelines for Years of the Sun in the First Age. If J.R.R. Tolkien felt it was important to record these annals according to the years Elves measured by solar seasons, then he felt that the First Age’s years of sunlight were significant to the Elves.
So it should be acceptable to speak of the First Age of the Sun (or First Age of the Years of the Sun) because both Tolkiens laid out historical narratives according to that chronology.
Men only awoke with the rising of the Sun. So for them the First Age did begin with the first sunrise. Why should the perspective and experience of Men be ignored? If you’re clear about what you’re referring to, I think any nomenclature for the passage of time should be acceptable.
The First Age of Arnor began in the Second Age of the Eldarin Calendar. Gondor had its own calendar. The Shire had its own Reckoning.
People need to stop freaking out about when the First Age supposedly began. One should ask whose first age are we talking about?
J.R.R. Tolkien Distinguished between Age Types, Anyway
The First Age of the Eldar spanned the last Age of the Stars (and Tolkien did use the phrase “ages of the stars”):
Now rumour came to the camp in Hithlum of the march of Fingolfin and those that followed him, who had crossed the Grinding Ice; and all the world lay then in wonder at the coming of the Moon. But as the host of Fingolfin marched into Mithrim the Sun rose flaming in the West; and Fingolfin unfurled his blue and silver banners, and blew his horns, and flowers sprang beneath his marching feet, and the ages of the stars were ended. At the uprising of the great light the servants of Morgoth fled into Angband, and Fingolfin passed unopposed through the fastness of Dor Daedeloth while his foes hid beneath the earth. Then the Elves smote upon the gates of Angband, and the challenge of their trumpets shook the towers of Thangorodrim; and Maedhros heard them amid his torment and cried aloud, but his voice was lost in the echoes of the stone.
If the ages of the stars ended with Fingolfin’s arrival in Middle-earth, then what the heck began if not the “ages of the Sun”?
David Day may get a lot of things wrong (he just rewrites stuff according to his whims, I guess), but he got that part right. Tolkien was clearly implying that the “ages of the Sun” began with the first rising of the Sun.
We don’t have any annals for what happened in Valinor (according to the experiences of the Vanyar, Noldor, Teleri, and other Elves) after the end of the First Age(s). Were they really keeping the same calendar there? Couldn’t they have decided that a new age began (for them) after the Changing of the World, when Aman was removed from the Circles of the World (Arda)?
Why should they have tracked their years according to Sauron’s falls?
Conclusion
It annoys me no end to see people hem and haw and cough and stamp their feet and hold their breaths every time someone says “First Age of the Sun”. You’re no Tolkien purist if you don’t allow people to speak of such a thing, because both J.R.R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien clearly did – multiple times. They simply didn’t use the phrase “first age of the sun”.
I think they felt it was pretty obvious. But that’s just my opinion.
And you’re welcome to your own, especially if it’s to hold that the First Age (of something) began with the first sunrise. No one would be right to say you’re wrong about that.
See also
What Are the Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar?
When Did the Third Age End in Our Calendar?
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Have you read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles?
What is the correct date to celebrate Bilbo & Frodo’s birthday?
It usually falls around September 13.
https://middle-earth.xenite.org/when-is-bilbo-baggins-birthday/
My hypothesis that is when Tolkien writes ‘Age of the X’ with capitalizaton, he means the specific time period, but when he writes ‘ages of the X’ without capitalizition, he means an unspecified ‘centuries of X’. That’s simple.