Great Year of Plenty

The name given in the Shire to the year III 3020 (or 1420 by the Shire-reckoning), the year that followed victory in the War of the Ring. After the misery of the rule of the Chief and his thugs, the free Shire enjoyed a year of extraordinary growth and beauty, with rich harvests and plenty throughout the Shire. Indeed, the year seems somehow to have been blessed, a blessing that was aided by a box of earth from Lórien, a gift from Galadriel, that Sam Gamgee scattered across the Shire. There was no illness in this year, and many of the Hobbit children born in 1420 had golden hair, an unusual trait among Hobbits.