F.A. 1

F.A. 1 (Fourth Age 1) is the inaugural year of the Fourth Age of Middle-earth, a new era that began after the final defeat of Sauron and the destruction of the One Ring. In the reckoning of Gondor, it started on March 25, 3021 of the Third Age, commemorating the fall of Barad-dûr and the deeds of the Ring-bearers. This year marked the transition from the fading Third Age to the age of the Dominion of Men, when the Elves began their final departure from Middle-earth and the Reunited Kingdom under King Elessar was established.

Definition and Beginning

The Fourth Age was not held to have begun until Master Elrond departed from Middle-earth, which took place in September 3021. However, for purposes of record in the Kingdom, F.A. 1 was the year that began according to the New Reckoning on March 25, 3021, old style. This date was chosen to commemorate the fall of Sauron and the deeds of the Ring-bearers, Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee. The New Reckoning represented a return to Kings' Reckoning adapted to fit a spring-beginning as in the Eldarin loa. In this new calendar, the months retained their former names but began with Víresse (April), and all months had 30 days. Three Enderi or Middle-days were inserted between Yavannië (September) and Narquelië (October), corresponding to September 23, 24, and 25 old style. In honour of Frodo, Yavannië 30, which corresponded with former September 22, his birthday, was made a festival, and the leap-year was provided for by doubling this feast, called Cormarë or Ringday.

The New Reckoning and the Shire

This reckoning was in the course of the reign of King Elessar adopted in all his lands except the Shire, where the old calendar was retained and Shire Reckoning was continued. Fourth Age 1 was thus called 1422 in Shire terms; and in so far as the Hobbits took any account of the change of Age, they maintained that it began with 2 Yule 1422, and not in the previous March. There is no record of the Shire-folk commemorating either March 25 or September 22; but in the Westfarthing, especially in the country round Hobbiton Hill, there grew up a custom of making holiday and dancing in the Party Field, when weather permitted, on April 6. Some said that it was old Sam Gardner's birthday, some that it was the day on which the Golden Tree first flowered in 1420, and some that it was the Elves' New Year. In the Buckland the Horn of the Mark was blown at sundown every November 2 and bonfires and feastings followed.

Significance and the End of the Third Age

The Third Age was held to have ended when the Three Rings passed away in September 3021. The Fourth Age was not held to have begun until Master Elrond departed, and the time was come for the dominion of Men and the decline of all other 'speaking-peoples' in Middle-earth. In the Fourth Age the earlier ages were often called the Elder Days; but that name was properly given only to the days before the casting out of Morgoth. The histories of that time are not recorded in the main narrative of The Lord of the Rings. The year F.A. 1 thus stands as a symbolic and administrative hinge between the world of the Ring and the world that followed, a threshold year in which the new order was formally declared even as the last of the Elder Kindred still lingered on the shores of Middle-earth before their final voyage into the West.