(avg. read time: 3–6 mins.)
As with my series on the links between The Silmarillion and LOTR, I have combined these appendices because there is not as much pertinent material in them. One point that is reemphasized is the theological framing of the Istari that we have already noted in the main story through reference to Tolkien’s letters. Here, it is said when referring to their coming to Middle-earth in the Third Age, “It was afterwards said that they came out of the Far West and were messengers sent to contest the power of Sauron, and to unite all those who had the will to resist him; but they were forbidden to match his power with power, or to seek to dominate Elves or Men by force and fear” (Appendix B). They are thus presented as “angels” in the most basic sense of the Greek term, though they are also “angels” in the more metaphysically loaded sense as members of the race of the Ainur.
December 25 and March 25
One element that Appendix B makes the reader aware of is that the Fellowship set out from Rivendell on December 25 and that the Quest was completed on March 25. One cannot make Christian correlations with all the dates Tolkien gives, despite how much he knew of the calendar of the feast days.1 But these two narratively significant days being on these dates can hardly be coincidental.2 This was a point that Tom Shippey made, though his analysis was not focused on what we have been attending to.3