Yáviérë

A feast day introduced by Mardil, the first Ruling Steward of Gondor. Before Mardil's time, the Gondorians had continued to use the ancient Númenórean King's Reckoning, but the Steward chose to make some changes to that old calendar. He regularised the lengths of the months, so that each had exactly thirty days, but this regularisation left his Revised Calendar needing two extra days to complete a full year. Mardil resolved this problem by adding two days that fell outside any of the months: tuílérë in spring and yáviérë in autumn.

Yáviérë was inserted between the ninth and tenth months of the year (that is, between Yavannië and Narquelië). This would place it on 21 September on a modern calendar, a close match for the Autumnal Equinox. Mardil's Stewards' Reckoning with its new days was taken into use by most of the Westron-speaking peoples of Middle-earth (excepting those with their own traditional calendars, like the Shire-hobbits).

Yáviérë (and the other four intercalary days in the Stewards' Reckoning) were each held to be a holiday. Yáviérë in particular was a harvest festival (its name in fact means 'harvest day'), and was perhaps intended to reflect the old Eruhantalë of Númenor. That holiday was was one of the Three Prayers, and was observed at harvest-time, although it did not have a specific day dedicated to it as in the Stewards' Reckoning.

The description of Mardil's introduction of yáviérë in the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings is perhaps slightly confusing. After describing the insertion of tuílérë and yáviérë, the text goes on to read, 'These 5 days outside the months...' (Appendix D, The Calendars). The '5' here refers to the two new days, plus the three intercalary days that had already existed in the older King's Reckoning. Specifically, those were yestarë (New Year), loëndë (Midsummer) and mettarë (the last day of the year).