Most Tolkien fans will immediately recognize September 22 as the birthday of both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, but their September 22 was not our September 22. Tolkien’s offbeat calendar system for the Shire made the Hobbits’ September 22 fall on our September 14 (September 13 in a Leap Year). So, for years, you’ve been toasting Bilbo and Frodo’s good health 8 days too late.
Halloween is not an especially important date in the Tolkien calendars, either. Our October 31 (All Hallows’ Eve) falls on the Hobbits’ November 9. By that time, their harvest is way behind them. But Halloween did not really originate in a harvest festival, as some have told the tale. It began as the Celtic festival called Samhain in Irish Gaelic (pronounced SOW-en, despite the “m” in the middle of the word).
According to tradition, Samhain was the time of year when the Celts extinguished their hearth-fires, put on special costumes, and attended bonfires ignited by Druidic priests. The Celts believed this was the time of year, as Summer gave way to Autumn, when the spirits of the dead were most likely to return to the world of the living. These spirits were expected to help the living foretell each other’s fortunes (and occasionally get into mischief). The Celts often dressed up in costumes as they celebrated their new year. When the festivities were over, so traditions say, the Druids would give an ember from the bonfire to each family in the community, and they would use that ember to relight their hearthfires for the coming year.
The Eldar of Imladris observed their New Year about the Shire’s April 6, which would be about our March 29. The Shire’s New Year fell on our December 23. And the poor Dwarves, living by a Lunar Calendar for part of their shadowy history, celebrated the last new moon of Autumn as their new year’s day, calling it Durin’s Day (perhaps commemorating the day Durin I awoke, or the day he died).
Lalaith suggests that Durin’s Day may have fallen around the 14th16th day of the 10th Imladris month (the 22nd day in Shire Reckoning; see here for detail) in the year T.A. 2941 (the only year in which Durin’s Day figures prominently in a story — that story being The Hobbit). Well, our October 14 would be the Shire’s October 22, which is as close as you can get a Middle-earth holiday to October 31.
Mid-October thus marks the Autumn period of the Shire and adjacent lands. And though the Shire-folk, who were largely farmers, put some emphasis on their harvests, they did not offer their first fruits to pagan gods, as the Celts did. Nor did the Hobbits engage in prophecy or dressing up in costume. They probably would have enjoyed the modern custom of trick-or-treating, which is believed to have arisen from a Church-sponsored practice of giving “soul-cakes” to poor people who begged for food on All Hallows’ Eve. The poor people were expected to pray for the spirits of dead relatives (of the cake-givers).
It is possible that Frodo awoke in Rivendell around the time of Durin’s Day. No one is really sure of when it would have occurred, although Tolkien used an Almanac for 1942 to calculate the phases of the moon for The Lord of the Rings. Frodo awoke on October 24 (Shire Reckoning, or October 14 in our reckoning).
Perhaps not coincidentally, Gandalf told Frodo that he had been on the brink of the wraith-world. Frodo’s Morgul-wound had nearly made him a ghost, and Frodo had returned to the ranks of the fully living with Elrond’s help. So Frodo began a period of introspection which lasted about two months. The highwater mark of this period was, of course, the Council of Elrond, at which various representatives of free peoples put together all the pieces of the large puzzle Tolkien had assembled. Gandalf even engaged in a little foretelling on the day Frodo awoke: he looked at Frodo and thought to himself that Frodo “may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can.”
When Frodo awoke from his sleep, Elrond gave a feast for his honored guest, the Ring-bearer, and Frodo found himself sitting next to Gloin, a Dwarf. Afterward, the celebrants retired to the Hall of Fire, where Frodo was reunited with Bilbo. The Elves sang many songs honoring Elbereth and probably other Valar. Strider was unmasked as the Dunadan, and Gandalf was compared (in Frodo’s estimation, as he gazed upon the wizard at the feast) to “a wise king of ancient legend.”
Another custom which was long associated with Halloween (and its predecessor holidays, including the ancient Roman holiday of Feralia, in which the passing of the dead was commemorated) was the telling of stories, especially about dead relatives and heroes. After Frodo was reunited with Bilbo, he began to drowse, but Bilbo’s song of Earendil roused the younger Hobbit. Bilbo had the nerve (Aragorn felt) to sing about Earendil, the father of Elrond, in Elrond’s house. In a Halloweenish way, Bilbo was honoring Elrond’s “dead”, although Earendil certainly had not died. He was lost to the mortal world, but Elrond could still expect to see his father some day. Life for the Eldar in Aman was therefore as bit like living in both this world and the next (and, indeed, Gandalf told Frodo that same day that those Elves who had dwelt in Aman lived at once in both the Seen and the Unseen worlds).
Although Durin’s Day never again figured into any of the events of the War of the Ring, the Tale of Years says that the war officially ended in early November, which would have been close to our October 31. Saruman was slain at Bag End and his spirit passed away from the world of the living to the world of the dead (or the houseless). In one year, from Durin’s Day 3018 to Durin’s Day 3019, Middle-earth was changed forever. The powerful Maiar were overthrown or their purpose in Middle-earth brought to completion. The woeful spirits of dead Men (whether Nazgul, who weren’t so much dead as faded, and the Dead Men of Dunharrow) were released from long bondage and allowed to seek their eternal rest.
Tolkien used to say that The Lord of the Rings was about death and the search for deathlessness. It is also, however, about life, and the search for purpose in living. A renewal. There is the passing of the old and the arrival of the new. Just as the Celts celebrated the passing of their old year and the arrival of their new year with a feast and celebration, so we still celebrate our change in year, although we do it at a historically oddball time of year (there is virtually no major religious significance in Christian or Celtic tradition to December 31/January 1).
The Rings of Power for the most part conferred upon their weareres the ability to see the Unseen, to interact with wraiths. These abilities were apparently sought by the Eldar of Eregion because they were afraid of fading. This fate, foretold to the Noldor by the Valar when the Noldor marched into rebellious exile, daunted even the mighty Noldor. Tolkien says the Elves wanted “to live in the mortal historical Middle-earth because they had become fond of it (and perhaps because they had there the advantages of a superior caste), and so tried to stop its change and history” (Letter 154).
By stopping change and history, the Elves hoped to forestall the invetible fate that Iluvatar had in store for them: death. Now, many people are quick to point out that the Elves were supposed to live with the life of Arda. That is, they would naturally endure in the world so long as the world itself endured. Men, on the other hand, grew weary of the world and sought elsewhere. In this sense, Tolkien seems to be speaking of a different kind of “death”. Death in Tolkien usually refers to the death of the body. But the body is a physical shell, regarded as nothing more than raiment for the Valar, who were naturally disincarnate spirits.
For the Elves, physical death meant that their spirits would be summoned to the Halls of Mandos. If they elected to answer the summons, they had the hope of living a physical life again, although they would be expected to remain in Aman. If, however, they refused the summons, they could remain in Middle-earth, where they had dwelt. But they would remain as disembodied spirits. They were essentially wraiths, ghosts. The Elves would haunt their former lands.
Tolkien discussed the states of Elven spirits in “Laws and Customs among the Eldar”, published in Morgoth’s Ring. He called the dead Elves “houseless”, and referred to their disembodied spirits as “houseless fëa(r)“. The early Elves, who knew nothing or little of the Valar, frequently refused the Summons to Mandos. During Morgoth’s tenure in Angband, he forced any Elvish spirits which refused the Summons into slavery. Such spirits would become truly tormented souls, and it is tempting to speculate on whether the Barrow-wights and other horrors might have been Elvish spirits, corrupted into the service of evil.
Elves were certainly capable of engaging in evil. The Noldor attacked other Elves in the three Kin-slayings, and the Eldar of Beleriand often strove with each other because of greed, jealousy, or even fear. Betrayal was apparently quite common, especially from Elves who had escaped from Angband. But after the fall of Morgoth, the Elves were freed from the peril of being forced into his service. Those Elves who loved Middle-earth need not, when they died, abandon it completely. In “Laws and Customs”, Tolkien notes:
…in these after-days more and more of the Elves, be they of the Eldalie in origin or be they of other kinds, who linger in Middle-earth now refuse the summons of Mandos, and wander houseless in the world, unwilling to leave it and unable to inhabit it, haunting trees or springs or hidden places that once they knew. Not all of these are kindly or unstained by the Shadow. Indeed, the refusal of the summons is in itself a sign of taint.
Dead Elves still roam the world, and perhaps were plentiful in the Second Age. Would the former wraith-thralls of Morgoth have sought healing in Aman after his fall? Perhaps, perhaps not. It may be that the Noldor, in seeking to heal the hurts of the world (which was also one of their goals in making the Rings of Power), hoped to contact their dead brethren and perhaps commune with them or persuade them to seek comfort in the West. Such practices, however, would ultimately be forbidden, at least for men. Tolkien continued in the above essay with:
It is therefore a foolish and perilous thing, besides being a wrong deed forbidden justly by the appointed Rulers of Arda, if the Living seek to commune with the Unbodied, though the houseless may desire it, especially the most unworthy among them. For the Unbodied, wandering in the world, are those who at the least have refused the door of life and remain in regret and self-pity. Some are filled with bitterness, grievance, and envy. Some were enslaved by the Dark Lord and do his work still, though he himself is gone. They will not speak truth or wisdom. To call on them is folly. To attempt to master them and to make them servants of one’s own will is wickedness. Such practices are of Morgoth; and the necromancers are of the host of Sauron his servant.
Eventually, Men who practice necromancy may find their bodies seized by the Houseless Elves, and themselves rendered houseless. What becomes of such Mannish spirits? The essay does not say, but it condemns necromancy in the strongest terms. The practice must therefore have been known among even the Elves, and it may be that their attempts to engage in necromancy led the Valar to decree that such communication was off-limits. But the damage had been done. People knew they could communicate with the dead, even if they couldn’t be sure of whose dead with whom they communicated.
The War of the Ring thus represents a cleansing of the world, a restoration of the natural order. Although Elves might continue to remain in Middle-earth after death, the world has been granted a reprieve. With the Rings of Power destroyed, the Elves no longer need worry about the temptation of engaging in their own form of necromancy. And many of them, especially those who had come to depend upon the Time-stalling effects of the Three Rings, feel the onsought of their world-weariness and they set sail over Sea to seek their own healing. In Aman they will continue to live physical lives, sustained by the Valar.
The Lord of the Rings is thus in some ways the ultimate Halloween tale, honoring fallen heroes and foretelling great deeds for those who stay the course and do what is right. The story recognizes the passage from the mythical world to the historic world. It acknowledges the heritage of forgotten peoples and struggles which have removed the physical incarnations of evil from the world, and helped to divide the world of the living from the world of the dead.
So, when the little Hobbits and Goblins come trick-or-treating to your front door, remember to give them soul-cakes and be sure to have a copy of Manhatten Transfer’s “Soul Food to Go” in the CD-player. But, most of all, keep a copy of the best ghost story of the 20th century handy just in case someone starts up a bonfire and begins telling tall tales. I foretell you’ll have a good time and perhaps will make a new friend or two. Just be sure those are really their own bodies….
This article was originally published on October 31, 2001.
