*snerk* You're absolutely right about number 3; that's exactly how the Professor would have handled it!
Of course, something along those lines MUST have happened in Middle Earth at some point anyway, since the constellations Frodo sees rising during his hike through the Shire in FotR seem to match up pretty well with our current autumn constellations - which shouldn't be the case. The effects of precession of the equinoxes would be quite pronounced over the tens of thousands of years that separate the Third Age from our own time.
So maybe Una's story is set before this colossal act of Divine meddling, and young Faramir CAN see Sirius on a warm Midsummer's evening. Of course, it's odd that no one in LotR makes even the slightest allusion to this recent cosmic upheaval (which occurred within the lifetimes of all the story's major characters), but then again, they WERE a bit preoccupied...
(Sorry, but the explanation that Tolkien probably wasn't aware of the effects of precession of the equinoxes is just TOO prosaic for me.)
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momijizukamori
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Date: 2003-05-11 10:11 pm (UTC)Of course, something along those lines MUST have happened in Middle Earth at some point anyway, since the constellations Frodo sees rising during his hike through the Shire in FotR seem to match up pretty well with our current autumn constellations - which shouldn't be the case. The effects of precession of the equinoxes would be quite pronounced over the tens of thousands of years that separate the Third Age from our own time.
So maybe Una's story is set before this colossal act of Divine meddling, and young Faramir CAN see Sirius on a warm Midsummer's evening. Of course, it's odd that no one in LotR makes even the slightest allusion to this recent cosmic upheaval (which occurred within the lifetimes of all the story's major characters), but then again, they WERE a bit preoccupied...
(Sorry, but the explanation that Tolkien probably wasn't aware of the effects of precession of the equinoxes is just TOO prosaic for me.)