Beardless

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by MatthewM

On the subject of hair color-

Do you think that when Tolkien described a character with dark hair that it was always raven? What about dark brown? Faramir's hair is described as raven when it mixes with Eowyn's in the wind, however black hair is seen in our modern world predominately in the Asian culture, although it is possible in a European background I'm sure. What color do you think "dark hair" meant? I like to think he meant dark brown, as well as raven.

I suppose technically it is very dark brown but I have always thought that Daniel Day Lewis typified the colouring Tolkien means for the noldor and numenoreans... very dark hair, pale skin and light eyes.. not common of course because the gene for light hair isn't dominant but a definite celtic "type".

[Galin]

Do you think that when Tolkien described a character with dark hair that it was always raven? What about dark brown? (...) What color do you think "dark hair" meant? I like to think he meant dark brown, as well as raven.

Tolkien did some more thinking about hair colour after The Lord of the Rings was published of course, however, once again JRRT was not against changing his mind! In an Elven context at least, there's a stem appearing in Words, Phrases and Passages (from which work the rest of the following citations are taken as well, before we get to the Shibboleth of Feanor):

ÑGOL 'dark-hued, dark-brown'

And within a deleted entry for stem GWAY it was noted: 'morna black of hair; hróva, dark, dark brown'. The entry included a rejected passage concerning the Mindi (or first clan) noting that: '... The Noldor were generally hróva or morna. But fair-hair also occured among them especially by intermarriage.' Again the entire entry (which I did not give here) for GWAY was deleted in any case.

Also, outside of the section on roots, one can see the significance of the root ÑGOL above, as Tolkien had encountered the word used for one of his famed clans, and seemed ready (at this point anyway) to make a notable revision:

Q. noldo 'Delete all references of Ñoldo to 'wisdom, lore!'

Within which it's noted: 'The predominant colour of Ñoldorin hair was very dark brown (no Elf had absolute black hair: morna), but by intermarriage fair-hair occured among them: as e.g. in Finrod & Galadriel (after Indis).'


In any event we know that ñgol- was revised back again, as shown in the later text The Shibboleth of Feanor for example, referring once more to a type of wisdom (not as a root connected to Noldorin hair colour). And in the same text Finwe is described with 'black' hair (note 19): 'He had black hair, but brilliant grey-blue eyes.'

There is also note 61 to The Shibboleth of Feanor, concerning Nerdanel's father: 'His hair was not as dark or black as was that of most of the Noldor, but brown, and had glints of coppery-red in it.'


So one can make of this much as he or she will, but all in all I tend to think that Tolkien's 'dark' could generally include brown and black.