Halimath

The ninth month of the Shire Calendar, following from Wedmath. Halimath was approximately equivalent to modern September, running from modern 23 August to 21 September in a normal year. This was a time of harvest, and the name Halimath or 'holy month' derives from the harvest offerings made at this time of year (in Bree, the connection to the harvest was made even clearer in their preferred name for the month, Harvestmath).

The month-name Halimath was ancient even to the Shire-hobbits, and derived from their early history when they dwelt in the Vales of Anduin. The name was evidently acquired from the Men who also lived in those vales, and a similar name for the same month was said to have been used among the Rohirrim, who descended from those same Northmen of the Great River's vale.

Halimath was important to history as the month in which both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins were born (both of them on 22 Halimath, to be precise). This was thus the month in which the famous Farewell Party took place, when Bilbo departed from the Shire on his eleventy-first birthday. After the War of the Ring, this date was commemorated in Gondor by marking Frodo's birthday as a festival day, Cormarë or 'Ringday'. In the Halimath of III 3021, exactly twenty years after the Birthday Party, Frodo and Bilbo met the Keepers of the Three Rings in Woody End, and rode off with them to the Grey Havens, where the White Ship was waiting to carry them into the West.