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Volume 7 Number 4 Article 1

12-15-1981

The Sun: A Study of in J.R.R. Tolkien’s

Miriam Y. Miller

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Recommended Citation Miller, Miriam Y. (1981) "The Green Sun: A Study of Color in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 7 : No. 4 , Article 1. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol7/iss4/1

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm

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Abstract Considers the fact that Tolkien rarely uses any but unadulterated basic color names (, , , etc.) and gave unusually positive associations to neutral and grey. Also considers Tolkien’s use of color in character identity and heraldry, and traces some of this to literature Tolkien studied as a scholar, as well as his interest and abilities in graphic arts.

Additional Keywords Color in The Lord of the Rings; Tolkien, J.R.R.—Use of ; Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings—; Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings—Technique; Stephan Peregrine; John Pivovarnick

This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol7/iss4/1 THE GREEN SUN A STUDY OF COLOR IN J.R.R TOLKIEN'S THE LORD OF THE RINGS MIRIAM Y. MILLER

Gandalf's Fireworks

Even the most casual reader of The Lord of the generalization and abstraction, sees not only Rings cannot fail to notice the prominence of color words green-grass, discriminating it from other throughout the trilogy. Others have noted (and commented on things . . . but sees that it is gr een as at length) the thematic oppositions of white and , well as being grass . But how powerful, how and dark, good and ev il.1 What has not been examined stim ulating to the very faculty that produced are the other colors so frequently mentioned. Keeping in it, was the invention of the adjective. . . . mind Tolkien's interest and abilities in the graphic arts, The mind that thought of . . . grey, yellow), I feel that color theories, particularly those of A. H. . . . a ls o c o n c e iv e d o f m agic t h a t w ould . . . Munsell (which were introduced to great popular interest turn grey lead into yellow . . . . When we in during Tolkien's later student years) do much can take green from grass, from heaven, to illuminate the use of color in Lord of the Rings . I a ls o and red from blood, we have already an enchan­ feel that the usages of heraldry contributed to Tolkien's ter's power. . . . We may put a deadly green color choices in the trilogy. upon a 's face and produce a horror; we My consideration of Tolkien's use of color in Lord may make the rare and terrible blue moon to of the Rings was shaped initially by two observations: shine; or we may cause woods to spring with leaves and rams to wear fleeces of 1. that Tolkien used a strangely limited gold. . . . But in such "fantasy" as it is palette—red, green, blue, black, gray, called, new form is made; Faerie begins; Man brown, yellow, and white (the last two becomes a sub-creator. (22) are also referred to as gold and silver)— with very, very few exceptions. Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Light through 2. that the above color words are used whom i s s p l i n t e r e d from a s i n g l e W hite to without modification; i.e ., we see, again many , and endlessly combined in living with very, very few exceptions, green, n o t shapes that move from mind to mind. Though pale green, or emerald green, or char­ all the crannies of the world we filled with tr e u s e . Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build Gods and their houses out of dark and light, The rest of this study attempts to explain these rather and sowed the seed of dragons— 'twas our right curious observations and to suggest some possible artistic (used or misused). That right has not decayed: effects which Tolkien may have achieved by using color in we make s till by the law in which we're made. the above mentioned ways. (54) In his essay "On Fairy-Stories,"2 Tolkien relies on color as a primary means of illustrating some of his obser­ The object of the process of sub-creation, the making of a vations on the nature of fantasy. The key concept of sub­ Secondary World, is also illustrated with a color reference: creation (that is, man's abilities to create a Secondary World in im itation of his Creator) is twice described in Anyone inheriting the fantastic device of terms of color: human language can say the green sun. Many can then imagine or picture it. But that is not The human mind, endowed with the powers of enough. . . . 3 provide any direct explanations of the two observations I made earlier (namely, the limited palette and the lack of modification of color words), they do clearly indicate that Tolkien found the terminology of graphic arts to be a com­ fortable and effective means of communicating literary concepts. Other evidence of Tolkien's "painterly" concern with color (even from childhood) can be gleaned from Humph­ rey Carpenter's recent biography. Tolkien's mother com­ mented on her son's color perceptions as a child:

Ronald can match silk lining or any shade like a true 'Parisian m odiste.'->ls it his A rtist or Draper Ancestry coming out?— (28)

This childhood aptitude was developed during student days and exercised throughout Tolkien's adult life:

[Tolkien] had never entirely abandoned this childhood hobby [drawing and painting] , and 's Coat of Arms during his undergraduate days he illustrated To make a Secondary World inside which the several of his own poems, using watercolours, green sun w ill be credible, commanding Secon­ coloured inks or pencils, and beginning to dary Belief, w ill probably require labour and develop a style that was suggestive of his thought, and w ill certainly demand a special affection for Japanese prints and yet had n skill, a kind of elvish craft. (48-49) individual approach to line and colour. (163)5

It should be noted that the method of sub-creation During these same years, the color theories of A. H. described above, the use of adjectives to qualify nouns in Munsell^ were introduced to B ritain where they met with ways entirely different from those observed in the Primary great popular acclaim. Briefly, Munsell developed the first W o rld , i s not Tolkien's method of treating his Secondary systematic nomenclature for color in which every possible World. Middle- has no "green sun," no "rare and ter­ shade received its own designation, based on three charac­ rible blue moon," only the Yellow and White Faces of Gol- teristics: , brilliance or value, and chroma (intensity lum's (and our) experience.3 in fact, not one object in or saturation). Hue refers to the area of the spectrum in Middle-Earth is characterized by a color other than the one which a particular color may be found; i.e ., whether it is it would have were it in our Primary World. a blue, a , a yellow, etc. Brilliance is a measure of or darkness; e.g. (technically a However, the image of the created by passing tint—color plus white) is high in brilliance, while navy white light through a prism does show up in The Lord oof blue (a shade—color mixed with black) is low. Finally the Rings where it has a pejorative connotation. I refer, chroma or saturation refers to the degree of grayness in of course, to the transformation of Saruman the White into a color; the high saturation color is relatively pure in Saruman the Many-Colored as a result of his seduction by eelor, such as a bright leaf green, while the low sat­ the Dark Lord (I 339).4 This is not the Noachian rainbow, uration color (tone) has a relatively high admixture of God-given sign of redemption, but instead is a symbol of gray, such as green. Symbols are then assigned to evil as perversion of good (or refraction, as it were), each color, indicating where on these three scales that a thoroughly Christian concept of evil supported elsewhere particular color falls. throughout the book ['s inability to create forces A number of color theorists have examined color in him to subvert—e.g. the subversion of the previously order to determine which hues represent primary sensations, "dull and lumpish" trolls (III 511)]. and they have arrived at three different primary config­ Tolkien also uses color as an example in his discus­ u r a t i o n s : sion of the twin ideas of Escape and Recovery, which he postulates as functions of fantasy: 1. Pigment primaries—red, blue, yellow We do not, or need not, despair . . . of (which when mixed form black or deep brown). painting because there are only three "pri­ 2. Light ray primaries—red, green, and blue (which when mixed form w hite). mary colors.". . . there may be a danger of boredom or of anxiety to be original, and 3. Vision (or psychological) primaries—red, that may lead to a distaste for . . . "pretty" yellow, blue, green (which when mixed form g r a y ) . colours, or else to mere manipulation and over-elaboration of old m aterial, clever and I cannot say whether Tolkien definitely was aware of these heartless. But the true road of escape from such weariness is not to be found . . . in color theories, although that seems likely in view of their popularity in Britain, or whether as an artist sensitive making all things dark or unremittingly vio­ to color since childhood by his mother's witness, Tolkien ; nor in the mixing of colours on through intuited this information, but I definitely feel that these subtlety to drabness, and the fantastical concepts are helpful in understanding color as it appears complication of shapes to the point of s illi­ in The. Lord of the Rings. ness and on towards delirium. Before we reach To explain my aforementioned observation that Tolkien such states we need recovery. We should look uses color words almost always without m odification, I at green again, and be startled anew (but not think we may look at M unsell's three components of color. blinded) by blue and yellow and red. (56-57) I believe that Tolkien in his creation of Middle-Earth has essentially separated out these three components. He usu­ This recovery, this "startling anew" as demonstrated by a ally expresses color either solely in terms of hue (r heightened perception of color, occurs for Frodo when he ed, green, blue, yellow) or solely in terms of value without visits Cerin Amroth in Lothlorien: hue (light, dark, pale ). Only rarely is a hue given value (pale green, dark blue, etc.). Because color is usually in­ He [Frodo] saw no colour but those he knew, dicated only by hue or by the word grey (the lowest pos­ gold and white and blue and green, but they sible chroma or intensity), the number of colors charac­ were fresh and poignant, as if he had at terized by all three components is very lim ited. In approx­ that moment first perceived them and made imately 1500 pages of text, these are the only instances for them names new and wonderful.(I 454) of color words which indicate all three qualities: It is interesting that Frodo here exhibits an Adamic abil­ ity to the name perfectly to the perception—I suspect s c a r l e t (I 52, I 150; II 340, 341; III 139—these that Tolkien envied this ability, an envy which may lie at last three references to the heraldic colors the root of his preoccupation with the invention of lan­ of the Ilaradrim—III 284) g u a g e . r u s s e t ( I 188) r o s e (II 29, II 194—both referring to dawn, the While color references in "On Fairy-Stories" do not first literally, the second metaphorically— 4 an echo of Homer's "rosy-fingered dawn"?) especially his friends. (I 337) s a f f r on ( I I 194) ( I I 3 9 9 ). The description of the Brown, lore-m aster of herbs and beasts and friend to the birds, I think, cannot fail to Coincidentally, perhaps, all five of these words are from bring to mind the picture of St. Francis of A ssisi, sur­ the warm half of the (color being generally rounded by the flora and fauna of the forest, dressed in divided into "cool"—green, blue, and violet—and "warm"— his customary brown friar's habit. Of the three named wiz­ yellow, , and red). ards of M iddle-Earth, Radagast the Brown is the one whose province is nature, whose element is the earth—hence his But what effects does Tolkien achieve by separating color. The other , and Saruman, have colors these components of color? First, the indication of b rilli­ (grey and white) which have decidedly different connotations, ance simply by l ig h t ( o r pal e) and dark o r white and black essentially those of immortal good, as w ill be demonstrated is obviously used them atically to express good and evil. below. In contrast, all of the associations of brown are [I w ill not say allegorically, for I agree with Neil with the natural, temporal world of Middle-Earth, espec­ Isaacs,7 B aillie Tolkien,8 and Tolkien himself (in the ially with its forests. foreward to Fellowship of the Ring , pp. x-xii) that he The very name of Radagast the Brown brings to mind avoided the fixed one-to-one relationships which allegory one of the chief functions of color in Lord of the Rings: im plies—as the White Hand of Saruman would exemplify.] color frequently serves as a marker of identity. It is no Second, the unqualified words for hue permit the coincidence that the colors used in the trilogy, with the reader to exercise his own imagination in picturing the exception of grey and brown, are the colors used in her­ scenery and characters of Middle-Earth. I suspect that very aldry (gules, vert, , or, argent, sable). Tolkien does few readers imagine a Middle-Earth, or a Middle- in fact occasionally blazon arms, sometimes using heraldic Earth painted all in dark colors, or a grayed one. I, for language, as in the description of the standard of the one, always have imagined the colors of Middle-Earth to be Stewards of : medium in brilliance and highly-saturated, giving it a jew el-like glow or "the effect of stained-glass windows, bright argent like snow in the sun, bearing no or the illum inations of mediaeval manuscripts."9 Finally charge nor device . . . (III 301) Tolkien may have wanted to avoid the extraneous associa­ tions which come with many English color words: at other times, using the common English terminology, as in the description of Saruman's arms as borne by the ores in . . . there are remarkably few prim itive color his service: terms—red, yellow, green, blue, white, black. Most other names are borrowings. . . . Orange, Upon their shields they bore a strange device: violet, , orchid, , on and on, all re­ a small white hand in the centre of a black fer to other things such as flowers. . . . f i e l d . . . ( I I 20) Emerald, , sapphire, turquoise are- precious stones. Gold, rust, cobalt, terra cotta are Like Saruman, the men of Gondor bear (some­ minerals. Cherry, , , chocolate, times blazoned as silver—both colors of course are trans­ olive, are fam iliar edible products. lations of the heraldic argent). 12 In a context in which , canary, cardinal are fish and birds. black and white are them atically opposed as symbols of evil D elft, Nile, , are places.10 and good, it is appropriate then for both Saruman and Gon­ dor to bear the morally ambiguous black and white—recalling Who is to say (since Tolkien generally didn't) whether most the treachery and perversion of the once-good Saruman the of the above-mentioned things exist in Middle-Earth? Cer­ White and the very checkered history of the Numenoreans tainly some of them could not. However, Tolkien also avoids (which includes of course the sim ilar treachery of the Black color words taken from things which do exist in Middle- Numenoreans). Saruman's device of the White Hand can be Earth, words such as cream, leaf-, grass-,, o r apple -g r een compared to the unambiguous evil of Sauron's own black hand sky- o r midnight-blue, ruby, sapphire and amethyst (w hich (I 232). As Aragom notes: are mentioned as gems, used metaphorically to describe Hen- neth Annûn, the Window of the , II 358), as well as . . . he [Sauron] does not use white. The Ores words which have no such immediate associations for native in the service of Barad-dfir use the sign of English speakers, whatever their ultimate derivations (e.g., the Red Eye. (II 21) buf f , , ). I think that words such as these are in fact deliber­ As we shall see later, black and red are used as leit motifs ately avoided in order to maintain a lim ited palette as throughout Frodo's and Sam's journey to Orodruin. noted earlier in this paper. Tolkien uses only the four There are several other specifically heraldic refer­ psychological primaries (red, green, yellow, and blue), the e n c e s i n Lord of the Rings, All, except for the standard of three neutrals (black, white, and gray), the two metals the chief of Haradrim ("black serpent upon " III 139), (silver and gold—which as in the heraldic terminology follow the heraldic principle of color upon metal, metal argent and or can also at times be interpreted as white and upon color. These include the banners of ("white yellow), and brown.11 horse upon a field of green"—III 138—inevitably recalling Brown, which is technically a shade (color mixed with the prehistoric horses carved into the chalk-white hills of black) of orange (yellow-red), does not fit neatly into any England, now surrounded by green grass), of Dol Amroth ("a color pattern. I think that perhaps for Tolkien with his great interest, both literary and graphic, in trees and Sauron's Red Eye forests and other aspects of nature, brown had a psycholog­ ical primacy not typical of psychological perceptions in general. At any rate, since there is no green sun in Mid­ dle-Earth and all things there have the same hues as their counterparts here in the Primary World, Tolkien needed brow n as its associations in The Lord of the Rings show: the for­ est of Fangorn, , the Entwives (including their now-blighted gardens, the Brown Lands) and other references to trees and landscape (II 82, II 83, II 100 for example), the Robin-Hood-like green and brown costumes of 's patrol, the Wood-, and Aragom setting out from (II 335, I 315, I 367), the complexions of those earthy creatures, the and (I 22, I 174), and finally Radagast the Brown:

Radagast is, of course, a worthy wizard, a mas­ ter of shapes and changes of hue; and he has much lore of herbs and beasts, and birds are 5 Council, etc.). But what of grey, the mid-point on the scale of brilliance? The conventional connotations of grey can include "either a vapid dullness or a pleasing gentle quietness," (Barber, p. 41) old age, gloom, sadness, depres­ sion and a sleazy sort of border-line immorality ("tattle­ tale grey," the "grey market," "grey areas," etc.). Its most common associations are with ashes, lead, overcast skies, and dawn or tw ilight. In general, the connotations of grey run from neutral at best to decidedly pejorative. I n The L o r d o f th e R in g s , however, the connotations of grey are uncharacteristically positive. To be sure, there is the Old Grey Willow-man, as Tom Bombadil calls him (I 175), a rather ill-tem pered vegetable whose epithet of "grey" is obviously a product both of advanced age and of the natural color of its bark, apparently the same in Middle-Earth as it is here.14 But, the primary associa­ tions of grey in Lord of the Rings are with Gandalf the Grey (M ithrandir, the Grey Pilgrim , the Grey Wanderer, Gan­ dalf Greyhame) , with the Grey Elves and the Grey Havens, R a d a g a s t and with the Grey Company and the Grey H ost.15 There are several possible explanations for the use of grey as the white ship like a swan upon blue water" III 180, also identifying marker of Gandalf, the Elves, and the Rangers blazoned as "silver upon blue, a ship swan-prowed faring (the Grey Company). According to accepted color theories on the sea. . . ." III 285), and of as the return­ (in contrast to popular perceptions), grey is not the most ing King of Gondor (". . . it was black, and if there was neutral of all possible color sensations; the most neutral any device upon it, it was hidden in the darkness ..." color form is tone—a mixture of a spectral hue plus grey III 74; later the device is revealed, "a white tree flow­ (or hue plus white plus black). Grey is in fact the anti­ ered upon a sable field beneath a shining crown and seven thesis of pure color, containing the two primary elements glittering stars." III 285).13 which hue lacks (Birren, Prin c ip le s , p. 65). Indeed the In addition to these literally heraldic usages, color color theorist A. H. Munsell believed that "in a b ro a d way is also used as a marker of identity in other ways. For ex­ one may say that color balances on middle gray" (quoted in ample, a study of the onomastics of Middle-Earth would B irren, Grammar, p. 44). Further, the four psychological reveal that color words are the most frequent single type (visual) primary colors—red, yellow, green, blue16—when of geographic designation. Some examples of color place mixed together form grey—which thus contains the universe names include the Blue, White, and Grey Mountains (Ered of man's color perceptions (Birren, P r i n c i p l e s , p . 2 2 ) . Luin, Ered Nimrais, Ered M ithrin), the Grey Havens, the These concepts associated with grey—centrality, balance, Greenway, the White Downs, Greenwood the Great (later Mirk- universality—are certainly appropriate ways to character­ wood) , the Greyflood, the Brandywine (Baranduin— the golden- ize Gandalf's role as organizer and coordinator of the brown river), the Field and River of Celebrant (Silver fight of the allied Free Races against the evil of the Dark Lode), Barad-dur (The Dark Tower), (the Black P it), Lord. (After all, if alliteration were the determinant, he Caras Galadon (the green city), Caradhras (Redhorn), Cel- could just as well be Gandalf the Green.) ebdii the white (Silvertine;, Fanuidhol the Grey, Mt. Min- The Elves (and their historical allies and friends, dolluin (Towering Blue-head), (the Black Land), the Rangers) are, I believe, linked with grey by a series Mt. Everwhite, Morannon (Black Gate), Morthond (Blackroot of common natural and literary (rather than scientific) Vale), the Brown Lands, and Lothlorien (the Golden Wood). associations. The prediliction of the Elves for the twi­ The tendency to use color words in naming extends light, the time when the stars first appear (III 485), leads from place to personal names. These latter fall into two naturally to an affinity with grey; this relationship is classes. In the first the color word is an integral part of explicit in descriptions of and : the name and may not even be identified as such by the reader. Examples would include (Golden-haired), His hair was dark as the shadows of tw ilight Celebom (Silver Tree—cf. with mallo r n —the Golden Tree), . . . ; his eyes were grey as a clear evening. Goldwine, , Hasufel (Grey Hide), W ill W hitfoot, . . . the light of stars was in her bright eyes, the Swertings (dark ones), and Thingol (Greycloak). Into grey as a cloudless night . . . (I 299) the second category fall individual characters and groups of characters who are distinguished by color epithets, the Such descriptions inevitably call to mind the "eyes grey as meanings of which (unlike those of the names in the first glass," conventional description of the heroes and heroines category) are fully felt by the audience and usually func­ of medieval rom ance.^ tion them atically. These names include the wizards, Saruman Among the gifts given by the Elves to the members of the White, Radagast the Brown, and Gandalf the Grey, all the Fellowship of the Ring before they leave Lothlorien are members of the White Council; Sauron the Black One (the wondrous elven-cloaks, iridescent grey in color, symbolic­ Dark Lord); the Grey Host; the Grey Elves; Old Grey Willow- ally investing the Company with the values of Elven culture, man; Elwing the White; Ar-Pharazon the Golden; and the serving in a as badges of adoption: greatest of dragons Ancalagon the Black. It w ill be noted that, as lim ited as is the total It was hard to say of what color they were: palette used by Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings , the colors grey with the hue of the tw ilight under the used in personal and group names (of both categories) are trees they seemed to be; and yet if they were s till more lim ited. Again with the exception of Radagast moved, or set in another light they were the Brown, we find only the three neutrals (black, white, green as shadowed leaves, or brown as fallow and gray) and the two metals (silver and gold). There are fields by night, dusk-silver as water under no counterparts here to such real and fictional characters stars. (I 479) of the as Erik the Red, Harold Blue-tooth, and the Green Knight. It is clear that these five color words The symbolism of the cloaks is made explicit by an uniden­ have thematic and symbolic value in Lrd of the Rings . As tified Elf: Baillie Tolkien observed in the Introduction to D ra w in g s by Tolkien, "beauty, in his [Tolkien's] writing is almost . . . Leaf and branch, water and stone: they always idealized, in terms of gold, or silver, [e.g. as in have the hue and beauty of all these things Telperion (Nimloth) the White Tree and Laurelin the Golden under the tw ilight of Lórien that we love; for Tree] or the bright glow of light from within (as exempli­ we put the thought of all that we love into all fied most of all in the Silm arils). . . ." Black is, of that we make. . . . never before have we clad course, regularly associated with evil (Black Riders, An­ strangers in the garb of our own people. (I 479) calagon the Black, Black Numenoreans, Mordor, etc.), and its opposite on the scale of brilliance, white, is equally It is interesting to note that the description of these obviously associated with good (Elwing the White, the White cloaks (afterward always referred to as simply "grey") is 6 optically accurate: beauty of it smote his heart . . . and hope returned to him. (III 244) Whereas luster demands black contrast, ir id e s - cence requires gray contrast . . . the back­ Sam and Frodo throughout the remainder of the journey are ground is a light gray. The highlights . . . assisted by a grey light—the best that Mordor can offer. are white, and the is in a gray that As Sam reaches the lim its of his strength, he finds "the is slightly d eep er than the ground. (Birren, world all dark and only blackness all about him" (III 262). Principles, p . 71) In one such moment of despair Sam remembers the "green willow-shades" of (III 265). That memory precip­ The E lf's description of the cloaks also shows an artist's itates his decision to complete the Quest, even though he insight, referring to the principle of dominant tint: must carry both Frodo and the Ring. The Quest is finally completed under a sun which is "a dull bleared disc of red" The colors of nature (and those fashioned by (I 273). As Mordor crumbles, it is lashed with a torrent man) are commonly seen under tinted light that of black rain" (III 277). The two hobbits lapse into un­ varies from the and orange of early dawn, consciousness (black out, as it were) amid the destruction. to the yellow of sunlight, to the blue of sky When they awaken in the safety of Ithilien, the black and light. Distance may be enveloped in grayish or red are gone, immediately replaced by the "green and gold" purplish m ist. (Birren, P r i n c i p l e s , p . 42) of young beech leaves in the sunlight (III 282). For, if grey, silver, and white are the colors of In this case, of course, the dominant tint is the grey of the undying good, and black and red, of unrelenting evil, tw ilight. The function of dominant tint in art is to pro­ then the remaining colors, green, gold (yellow), and blue, vide a basic harmony to a containing many are most often associated with the morally neutral forces colors which otherwise might be unharmonious and displeas­ of Nature in M iddle-Earth. Tom Bombadil, for example, Mas­ ing. An analogous function might be ascribed to the cloaks, ter of the natural world, defines himself by color: covering the disparate members of the Company. The Elven word with "grey,"18 which is the root of Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow; mith r il "true-silver," links the color grey to the color Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are silver which is itself linked to white (as I have previously yellow. (I 173) demonstrated), thus forming a triad of colors which symbol­ i z e s th e good. This triad is consistently opposed to the His consort Goldberry is sim ilarly described: long yellow colors of evil, of war and destruction: black and red. The hair, gown "green as young reeds," belt of "gold shaped opposition can be found throughout the trilogy. For exam­ like a chain of flag-lilies set with the pale-blue eyes of ple, the pivotal fight between Gandalf and the is forget-me-nots" (I 172). Outside of their home, everything dramatized, almost cinem atically, by the shifts from black is "green and pale gold. . . . under a washed autumn sky and red to white and grey (I 426-431). First Gimli the .. of thin blue" (I 187). As the hobbits leave Bombadil's sees a red light—the lower levels of Moria appar­ house, they see before them "wooded ridges, green, yellow, ently on fire—which Gandalf’s face with a "red russet. , . . northward . . . the land ran away in flats glow." This "red glow" is mirrored in the sides of smooth and swellings of grey and green and pale earth-colours black stone pillars. From a fissure beneath comes a "fierce . . . ," the ridges beyond "no more than a guess of blue red light" and "wisps of dark smoke." As the Fellowship and a remote white glimmer blending with the hem of the reaches the Bridge of Khazad-dum, a "black chasm" opens up sky" (I 188). before them. They see "swarming black figures"——with The Bombadil episode, it should be noted, has an un­ "spears and scim itars red as blood." Gandalf's hat is usual number of examples of the otherwise rare modification pierced with a "black feather" of an arrow. The "dark form" of color words, the hues in this section frequently being of the Balrog appears, wreathed in flame and "black smoke." given value as well. In addition to his bright blue jac­ Gandalf turns to meet it, a small figure, "grey and bent, ket and face as "red as a ripe apple," Tom is thrice des­ like a wizened tree before the onset of a storm," his sword cribed as having "bright blue eyes" (I 168, 180, 184). Glamdring gleaming "cold and w hite." "From out of the shadow By contrast, the colors of Tom's environment are frequent­ a red sword leaped flaming. Glamdring glittered white in ly characterized as "thin" or "pale" (a number of examples answer." The clash is marked with a "stab of white fire." are cited above). The effect of these indications of color As Gandalf destroys the bridge, "a blinding sheet of white value is to give Tom Bombadil, the "Master of wood, water, flame" springs up. After the loss of Gandalf, the Company and hill" (I 174), who "was here before the river and the makes its way out of Moria to see the "clouds white and trees" (I 182), an intensity beside which the colors of high"—a "thin black smoke" trailing behind them from the the natural world of Middle-Earth can only seem pale. It Gates of Moria, the Black P it. is, of course, the hobbits who perceive the heightened Similar associations of black and red with evil can color associated with Tom, a perception appropriate to be found in the descriptions of the Southrons (II 321), the their first experience of the recovery inherent in fantasy White Hand of Saruman with "its red nail darkening to black" after leaving the Shire. The enchanted "paralysis" exhib­ (II 247), the banner of Barad-dur, "black but bearing on it ited by Frodo and Sam when they first hear Tom Bombadil's in red the Evil Eye" (III 202), the Red Arrow, war token of song (I 168), the strange surprise and wonder which the Gondor, "black-feathered . . . but the point was red" first sight of Goldberry elicits (I 172), and Frodo's in­ (III 86), and Sam's vision of the destruction of the Shire spired poetic performance (I 173) all evidence an exper- in G aladriel's M irror, "a large red-brick building was being put up. . . . a tall red chimney nearby. Black smoke seemed to cloud the surface of the Mirror" (I 469). A ragorn's Standard Finally, like the fight with the Balrog, the journey of Frodo and Sam through Mordor throughout Book III is painted in red and black (with an occasional grey). The references here are too numerous to list completely, but some representative passages follow. Sam's first look at Orodruin reveals "a swirling smoke, dusky red at the roots, black above" (III 214). Shagrat the Ore threatens to put t red maggot-holes" into the belly of another ore with his "long red knife" (III 223). Even the flies of Mordor are dun or grey, or black, marked like ores with a red eye­ shaped patch" (III 243). In Chapter 1 ("The Tower of Cirith Wngol ), the scenes are lit by a red glow, but in Chapters 2 ("The Land of Shadow") and 3 (""), the red all but disappears, and black is all that remains—or rather almost all. Above the Ephel Duath, Sam sees:

. . . a white star twinkle for a while. The 7 ience which can be compared with Frodo's epiphany at Cerin Far above the rot and vapours of the world Amroth (I 454), among the principal m anifestations of the Sun was riding high and golden now in a which is a heightened perception of color. serene country with floors of dazzling foam, The hobbits themselves, close to Nature in their but only a pale ghost of her could they see beautiful green Shire, are particularly fond of bright below, bleared, pale, giving no colour and colors—especially yellow and green (I 20). The same col­ no warmth. (I 295) ors are used to describe the home of Fangorn, eldest of t h e e n t s : It is clear from the many examples cited that color i n The Lord of the R ings can be used as a marker of iden­ two great vessels . . . began to glow, one tity , literally and figuratively heraldic. Color also with a golden and the other with a rich green functions as a sort of visual leit motif: key repetitions light; and the blending of the two lights lit of color words setting moods and tracing the Interlaced the way, as if the sun of summer was shining threads of themes. But, more than a convenient mark of through a roof of young leaves. . . . T he identification or a way to te ll the "good guys" from the trees . • • had also begun to glow until every bad ones, the presence or absence of color seems to be an leaf was edged with light: some green, some external indicator of the most profound emotional states. gold, some red as . . . (II 92) When incidents occur which arouse a high degree of feel­ ing, characters (or the ostensible narrators) gen­ Although the undying Elves themselves are associated with erally respond with set pieces of description placing grey, their idyllic dwelling places, located in the nat­ great emphasis on color. The first such emotional climax— ural world of Middle-Earth, are largely depicted in tones the fireworks at Bilbo's birthday party—calls forth a of green and gold. There is beautiful Caras Galadon, the veritable symphony of colors, sounds, sm ells, and tastes: green city of (I 457), hidden in the Golden Wood, Lothlórien, golden because of the extraordinary There were rockets like a flight of scin­ beauty of the mallorn trees (as described by Legolas): tillating birds singing with sweet voices. There were green trees with trunks of dark For in the autumn their leaves fall not, but smoke: their leaves opened like a whole spring turn to gold. Not till spring comes and the unfolding in a moment, and their shining bran­ new green opens do they fall, and then the ches dropped glowing flowers down . . . , dis­ boughs are laden with yellow flowers; and the appearing with a sweet scent. . . . there were floor of the wood is golden, and golden is pillars of coloured fires that rose and turned the roof, and its pillars are of silver, for into eagles, or sailing ships, or a phalanx of the bark of the trees is smooth and gray. flying swans; there was a red thunderstorm and ( I 434) a shower of yellow rain; there was a forest of silver spears that sprang suddenly into the air The "heart of the ancient realm" of the Elves is the mound with a yell like an embattled army, and came of Cerin Amroth, "covered with grass as green as Spring­ down again into the Water with a hiss like a time in the Elder days." The trees have "bark of snowy hundred hot snakes. . . . A great smoke . . . white" and are "arrayed in pale gold." There are green shaped itself like a mountain seen in the dis­ hillsides, flowers of white, gold, and palest green. The tance and began to glow at the summit. It sky is blue, and here even the shadows cast by the sun are spouted green and scarlet flames. Out flew a green. It is at this point that Frodo has a moment of re­ red-golden dragon . . . (I 51-52) covery in which the colors and fragrances take on a new intensity and meaning (I 454). Within this Edenic context Although this wondrous exhibition brought the provincial can be placed the Elf-stone which is Aragorn's heritage, hobbits to prostration, this scene end the emotions "a great stone of a clear green" (I 485), for his coming aroused are triv ial compared with the emotional content of as king w ill mean a period of rebirth for Middle-Earth. As later incidents. We have already seen Frodo's moment of Bilbo puts it: epiphany at Cerin Amroth (I 454). Sim ilar moments come to Gimli at the Caverns of Helm's Deep who responds with un­ in every wood in every spring characteristic eloquence: there is a different green. (X 364)19 . . . gems and crystals and veins of precious But things which are once green and gold with life ore glint in the polished walls; and the light and growth do not always stay that way. Greenwood the Great glows through folded marbles, shell-like, can become the fearsome (I 21); "once translucent as the living hands of Queen Gala­ . . . had been green and fair," and is "now filled with driel. There are columns of white and saffron pits and forges."20 And even in Middle-Earth, there can be and dawn-rose, . . . fluted and twisted into another kind of green—the grotesque green of sickness, dream-like forms; they spring from many-col­ decay, evil. For example, an ore of Moria has a "dark skin oured floors to meet the glistening pendants of greenish scales" (I 421). The barrows are described as of the roof. . . . a silver drop falls, and "h ills crowned with green mounds, and on some were stand­ the round wrinkles in the glass make all the ing stones, pointing upwards like jagged teeth out of green towers bend and waver like weeds and corals gums." The sun is "a pale and watery yellow" as the hobbits in a grotto of the sea. (II 194) approach the Barrow-downs (I 190). In the Barrow itself there is a "pale .greenish light" (I 194), not unlike the and to Aragorn as, with the remaining members of the Com­ "green flame" flashing from the murderous 's eyes pany, he catches first sight of his destined kingdom of (I 34). This green light reappears whenever the Stinker G o n d o r: side of Gollum's personality asserts itself (e.g. II 289, during one of his internal debates "A pale light and a At last they reached the crest of the grey green light alternated in his eyes . . ."II 3 0 3 , I I hill. . . . 317). Gollum is also reported as "covered with green Turning back they saw across the River slime" (I 34). The same connotations adhere to green as the far hills kindled. . . . The red rim of it occurs in the blighted lands of the East: the sun rose over the shoulders of the dark land. . . . the world lay still, formless and the sickly green of them [the lands of the grey; but even as they looked, the shadows of East] was fading to a sullen brown. (II 265) night melted, the colours of the waiting earth returned: green flowed over the wide meads of The only green was the scum of livid weed on Rohan; the white mists shimmered in the water- the dark greasy surfaces of sullen waters. vales; and far off to the left . . . blue and ( I I 295) stood the White Mountains, rising into peaks of je t, tipped with glimmering snows, Even the gold of the Sun is perverted in Mordor: flushed with the rose of morning. "Gondor! Gondor!" cried Aragorn. (II 29) 8 The very capacity to experience such emotions, to "Yes, I am in White," said Gandalf. "Indeed I appreciate the vividness and vitality of Middle-Earth, am Saruman, one might almost say, Saruman as quite literally to have color in one's life at all, is a he should have been." (II 125) dividing line between the morally good and the morally cor­ rupt in Middle-Earth. This is most clearly indicated in a With the promotion, as it were, of Gandalf to Saru­ series of interchanges between the wizards Saruman and man's status, the Ranger Aragorn is sim ilarly elevated, Gandalf, in which changes in color symbolize changes in now to become associated himself with the color grey: character. The first example of this is the revelation of Saruman's treachery, indicated by a change in epithet from The grey figure of the Man, Aragorn son of Saruman the White to Saruman of Many Colours: Arathorn, was tall, and stem as stone, his hand upon the h ilt of his sword; he looked as "For X am Saruman the Wise, Saruman Ring-Maker, if some king out of the mists of the sea had Saruman of Many Colours." stepped upon the shores of lesser men. Before him stooped the old figure, white, shining "I [Gandalf] . . . saw that his robes, which now as if with some light kindled within, bent, had seemed white, were not so, but were woven laden with years, but holding a power beyond of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered the strength of kings. (II 133) and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered. "I liked white better," I said. Even with the assumption here of his destiny as a king, "'W hite!' he sneered. 'It serves as a be­ Aragom nevertheless acknowledges the higher destiny of ginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white the White Wizard: page can be overwritten, and the white light can be broken.' And this I also say you are our captain and '"In which case it is no longer w hite,' our banner. The Dark Lord has Nine: But we said I. 'And he that breaks a thing to find have One, m ightier than they: the White Rider. out what it is has left the path of wisdom.'" He has passed through the fire and the abyss, (I 338-339) and they shall fear him. (II 133)

Saruman has changed from pristine white to the entire spec­ Gandalf's change from Grey to White has as its pur­ trum which results from the breaking of light, revealed in pose the strengthening of the forces of good in the inev­ his treachery; the once-good has been corrupted by his itable war with the forces of evil: commerce with the evil forces which emanate from the Dark Tower. But he s till has colors, even if only the broken I am Gandalf, Gandalf the White, but Black is colors of refracted light. After the destruction of Isen- mightier still. (II 132) gard, when Saruman tries to salvage his position by means of his seductive voice, his color becomes more ambiguous: But evil in its most essential form is more than black­ ness, the absence of color; it has the power to erase even an old man, swathed in a great cloak, the the memory of color, as Frodo and Sam discover in 's colour of which was not easy to tell, for it l a i r : changed if they moved their eye or if he stirred. (II 234) They walked . . . in a black vapour wrought of veritable darkness itself that, as it was The cloak of the deceptive wizard bears a striking resem­ breathed, brought blindness not only to the blance to the elven-cloaks given to the hobbits in Loth- eyes but to the mind, so that even the memory lorien (I 479). Yet it is Saruman who fails to recognize of colours and of any light faded out of the change in Gandalf's color, referring to him as "Gan­ thought. (II 415) dalf the Grey." Gandalf retorts: The grim obliteration of color and memory and light and "Behold, I am not Gandalf the Grey, whom you life is, fortunately, not the last word. Although darkness destroyed. I am Gandalf the White, who has re­ and evil are strong, far too strong to be overcome unaided turned from death. You have no colour now and by hobbits (or men), there is, ever to be depended upon, I cast you from the order and from the Coun­ the salvation of grace as Sam comes to understand through cil." (II 241) his vision in the spider's lair: and the staff of Saruman is broken. . . . as he stood, darkness about him and a Having endured a death and a resurrection, Gandalf blackness of despair and anger in his heart, adopts as an outward sign of his apotheosis the color it seemed to him that he saw a light: a light white, supplanting the traitor Saruman. As Gandalf first appears to his "disciples" on his return: in his mind, almost unbearably bright at first, as a sun-ray to the eyes of one long-hidden in . . . there was a gleam, too brief for cer­ a windowless p it. Then the light became col­ tainty, a quick glint of white, as if some our: green, gold, silver, white. Far off, as garment shrouded by the grey rags had been in a little picture drawn by elven-fingers, he saw the Lady G aladriel standing on the grass for an instant revealed. (II 123) in Lorien . . . (II 418)21 Then his cloak drew apart, and they saw . . . It is significant that grace, "a light in dark places," that he was clothed in white. "a light when all other lights go out" (II 418), is sym­ bolized by a return of color, first the green and gold of His hood and his grey rags were flung away. earthly creation, then the silver and white of immortal­ His white garments shone. He lifted up his staff . . . (II 124) ity—an appropriate association for a man who created his fantasies both in literature and in art. The insights into color which Tolkien developed in His hair was white as snow in the sunshine; his life-long avocation of artist completely permeate and gleaming white was his robe; the eyes The . Color functions throughout the trilogy under his deep brows were bright, piercing as Lord of the Rings as a marker of identity, as a visual leit motif establish­ the rays of the sun; power was in his hand. ( I I 125) ing atmosphere and delineating theme, as a means of ex­ pressing the highest emotions, and as an external sign of When hailed as Gandalf, the wizard makes clear that the inner moral and spiritual condition. The lim ited palette change in color signifies a more profound change: of pure hues that Tolkien provided paints Middle-Earth in primary sensations, avoiding the subtleties and nuances "Gandalf" . . . "Yes, that was the name. I was which inevitably would be evoked by using a profusion of G a n d a lf ." tints, shades, and tones, the subtleties and nuances which color the Primary World. For, although there is no green 9 sun in Middle-Earth, although everything there has the b u t broidered on the breast in silver w ith hue of its counterpart here, nonetheless there is a pro­ the token of the Tree. (III 97) [italics mine] found (although perhaps not immediately apparent) differ­ ence between the two worlds. Middle-Earth is a world pur­ The same identification of white and silver is made by posely sim plified, a world of pure hue, a world of black Gandalf in two them atically important speeches: and white, as it were, a world unlike ours with its be­ wildering range of ambiguities, where nothing is clear-cut. I am Gandalf, Gandalf the White, but black is mightier still. (II 132) ENDNOTES Give me Shadowfax! . . . I shall ride him into a great hazard, setting silver against black 1See, for example, Walter Scheps, "The Fairy-tale . . . (II 161) M orality of The Lord of the Rings," i n A Tolkien Compas s , ed. Jared Lobdell (LaSalle, 111.: Open Court Publishing 13The heraldic term s able is also applied to Pippin 1975), pp. 45-46. "clad in the silver and sable of the Guards of Minas Tir­ ith" (III 287), the Morgul army "clad in sable, dark as 2J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories," in The Tol­ night" (II 400), and the ores at the Battle of Helm's Deep kien Reader, (New York: Ballantine, 1966) • This essay was "with high helms and sable shields" (II 174). At that bat­ originally delivered, in shorter form, as an Andrew Lang tle Erkenbrand of Rohan carries a red shield without de­ Lecture at the University of St. Andrews in 1938. It was vice (II 186). published in Essays Presented to Charles W illiam s, e d . C. S. Lewis (London: Oxford University Press, 1947, pp. 14Compare with the description of that other ancient 38-89; Grand Rapids, Mich .: William B. Eerdmans, 1966, creature of the forest, Fangorn: pp. 38-89) and revisedXand reprinted in Tree and Leaf (London: G. Allen and Urwin, 1964; Boston: Houghton Mif­ . . . whether it was clad in stuff like green flin, 1965). and grey bark, or whether that was its hide, was difficult to say. . . . The lower part of 3A possible world with a green sun is postulated in the long face was covered with a sweeping Dorothy K. Barber's "The Meaning of The Load o{ the Rings," grey beard, bushy, almost twiggy at the roots, i n "T he Tolkien P a p e r s ," Mankato Studies, In English, No. 2 . thin and mossy at the ends. . . . (II 83) Mankato State College Studies, Vol. 2 (Feb., 1967), pp. 3 8 -5 0 . 15There are of course incidental and off-hand men­ tions of grey in contexts which have the more typical con­ 4 All quotations from The Load ofi the Rings a r e from notations of gloom and sadness; for example, Gimli's song the Ballantine revised edition (New York, 1965).

5These two quotations are from Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien (Boston: Houghton M ifflin, 1977). I asked both Carpenter and B aillie Tolkien (Tolkien's daughter-in-law and executor in artistic matters) whether they cared to elaborate on Tolkien's "individual approach to . . . col­ our;" both declined to do so.

6These theories can be found in A. H. Munsell, A Color Notation, 8th ed. (Baltimore: Munsell Color Company. Inc., 1936).

7Neil D. Isaacs, "On the Possibilities of Writing Tolkien Criticism ," in Neil D. Isaacs and Rose A. Zimbardo, e d s . , Tolkien and the Catties, (Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame P r e s s , 1 9 6 8 ), p p . 1 -1 1 .

8In her introduction to a "Catalogue of an Exhibition of Drawings by J. R. R. Tolkien" (Oxford: The Ashmolean Museum, and London: The National Book League, in conjunc­ tion with George Allen & Unwin, 1976).

9In her introduction to the Catalogue of the Tolkien exhibition, B aillie Tolkien so describes her father-in- law's paintings. I think the observation is also applic­ able to his writings.

10Faber 'B irren, Principles of Color: A Review of Past Traditions and Modern Theories of Color Harmony (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1969), p. 53.

l1If we consider the pigmentary colors, Tolkien uses all three primaries (red, yellow, blue) and only one of the secondaries (green). Of the other secondaries, orange is never used and purple appears only three times, all in reference to Mt. Mindolluin near Minas T irith (II 29, II 262, III 24).

12Compare the following descriptions:

The guards . . . were robed in black . . . upon the black surcoats were embroidered in white a tree blossoming like snow beneath a silver crown and many-pointed stars. (III26)

Pippin soon found himself arrayed in strange garments, all of black and silver. . . . Above the mail was a short surcoat of black, 10 of M o ria: The world is grey, the mountains old, The forge's fire is ashen-cold; (I 411-412)

16The primacy of which are certainly known to Tol­ k ie n :

We should look at green again, and be start­ led anew (but not blinded) by blue and yellow and red. ("On Fairy-Stories," pp. 56-57)

17The in itial description of Aragorn (as Strider) notes especially his "dark hair flicked with grey: and his "keen grey eyes" (I 215). The association of the Elves with the Rangers of the North (the Grey Company) is dem­ onstrated by their battle livery: the Rangers in cloaks of dark grey with a silver rayed star (emblem of Elves) as a badge—the grey-eyed sons of Elrond in cloaks of sil­ ver-grey (III 59-60).

18The synonymy of Elvish mith "grey," "silver" with E n g lis h myth, inevitably calls to mind C. S. Lewis's def­ inition of myth-making as "Breathing a lie through Silver," a definition which Tolkien quotes and rejects in "On Fairy-Stories" (54).

19As an interesting sidelight, compare Bilbo's line with what B aillie Tolkien said about her father-in-law 's artistic technique: He extracted an Astonishing variety of from his materials*. (In her introduction to the exhibition catalogue) Staren in welkyn in wynter ny3t; 20Hugh J. Keenan makes this point in comparing the For vche a pobbel in pole jser py3t descriptions of Meduseld (II 148) and Minas T irith (III 281), pointing out the differences in color and vitality Wat3 emerad, saffer, oper gemme gente, Iat alle pe lo3e lemed of ly3t, in the two civilizations—Rohan, young, vigorous, if somewhat barbaric, and decadent Gondor. ("The Appeal of So dere wat3 hit adubbement. (109-120) Thue Lord of the R ings: A Struggle for Life" in Isaacs and Zimbardo, pp. 77-78.) 21 A possible source for these color associations The adornments of that wondrous deep ( the green and gold of earthly creation and the silver qnd Were beauteous banks of beryl bright; ''white of immortality) is the corpus of the Pear l - p o e t , a Swirling sweetly its waters sweep, poet with whom Tolkien has special affinities. He, with Ever rippling on in murmurous flight. E. V. Gordon, prepared the standard scholarly edition of In the depths stood dazzling stones aheap Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, began an edition of PeaAt As a g litter through glass that glowed with which was never completed, and translated both poems. (See l i g h t , Carpenter's biography, pp. 35, 46, 105, 118, 137, 140-142, As streaming stars when on earth men sleep 175, for discussion of Tolkien's relationship with this Stare in the welkin in winter night; p o e t . ) I n Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, green is assoc­ For emerald, sapphire, or jewel bright iated with nature (e.g., the Green Knight has a literally Was e v e ry p e b b le i n p o o l t h e r e p e n t , "bushy" beard—a description not unlike that of Fangorn And the water was lit with rays of light, Treebeard) and gold with the splendor of earthly courts. Such wealth was in its wonderment. (109-120) I n th e Pear l , however, as Wendell Stacy Johnson points out, there are two opposing sets of images: [The Pearl stanza is from E. V. Gordon's edi­ tion (Oxford: Clarendon, 1953), begun with . . . on the one hand, images out of the world Tolkien; the translation is Tolkien's in S i r of growing things, -images of the garden and Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl and Sir the vineyard which are associated with the Orfeo (London: Allen & Unwin, 1975), p. 92.] dust of the earth; on the other, images of light, and of brilliant, light-reflecting, Readers of Tolkien w ill recognize the light shining gems, . . . associated with whiteness. . . . through glass, the stars, and the precious gems, the beryl ["Imagery and Diction of The P earl: Toward an elfstone, the gems used in the description of Henneth Interpretation," ELH 20 (1953): 165; reprinted Annun and Helm's Deep. Johnson's description of the dream­ world of the Pear l : in Edward Vasta, ed., Survey: Critical Essays (Notre Dame, Ind.: Univ. of N o tr e Dame P r e s s , 1 9 6 5 ), p . 9 8 .] . . . all is shining, shimmering, gleaming, glowing, flaming, bright; the colors have an I n t h e Pear l , a s i n The Lord of the Rings, goodness and incredible brilliance, . . . (100) immortality are associated with brilliant light, gems, and w h i t e n e s s . could as well be applied to much of Middle-Earth. As an example of the proposed influence of the Tolkien's use of color seems, therefore, to owe poet on Tolkien, compare the following description of the something to the Pear l - poet who wrote in the second half dream-garden in Pear l with Tolkien's descriptions: of the fourteenth century. It does not, I think, owe much to the use of color in poetry, Tolkien's other The dubbemente of po derworth depe scholarly field. While Old English poets seem interested Wern bonke3 bene of beryl bry3 t. in contrasts of light and dark (as does Tolkien), they Swangeande swete pe water con swepe, make very few references to hue, preferring color words Wyth a rownande rourde raykande ary3t. without denotations of hue (like wan and dun). They also In pe founce per stonden stone3 stepe, tend to describe color in terms of finish, matte or As glente pur3 glas pat glowed and gly3t, glossy. For further information on this subject, see Nigel As stremande stem e3, quen strope-men slepe, Barley, old English Colour C lassification: Where Do Mat­ ters Stand?" ASE3:15-28. 11