Dwarven hair color

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caedmon
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Dwarven hair color

Post by caedmon »

So Dwalin is described as having a blue beard. I have always assumed that was blue-black just because of the darkness of it.

But I have recent read that miners in cobalt and copper mines can get blue and green hair respectively. Do you think this is a possibility?
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Udwin
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Re: Dwarven hair color

Post by Udwin »

There isn't really a y support in the text for it, but given the mining associations with dwarves it could be a valid interpretation of the text. I recall reading a discussion on reddit Tolkienfans about this same topic a while back, and it was concluded that "blue" in this case could be blue-black, blackish-grayish (like a 'blue' heeler dog), actual cobalt blue, dyed blue, who knows! Blue is funny that way (it was apparently the last color to be named in the Indo-European sphere)
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Re: Dwarven hair color

Post by Cimrandir »

https://themathomhouse.org/2018/05/17/d ... lue-beard/
According to Borillus, the labourers in copper mines or copper factories are distinguished by green hair, those of cobalt mines by blue hair; the workmen of brass-factories, particularly such as are engaged in pointing needles, by bluish or greenish hair. It is necessary to know, says Eble, that the colour in these workmen is not merely superficial, but penetrates the whole substance of the hair in such a manner as not to be wiped off the hair’s surface.
[Hermann Beigel M.D., M.R.C.P., The Human Hair: Its Structure, Growth, Diseases, and Their Treatment (1869), Ch. VII. ‘The Colour of the Hair — The Phenomenon of Sudden Bleaching of the Hair’]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt#History
Cobalt compounds have been used for centuries to impart a rich blue color to glass, glazes, and ceramics. Cobalt has been detected in Egyptian sculpture, Persian jewelry from the third millennium BC, in the ruins of Pompeii, destroyed in 79 AD, and in China, dating from the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD) and the Ming dynasty (1368–1644 AD).[28]

Cobalt has been used to color glass since the Bronze Age. The excavation of the Uluburun shipwreck yielded an ingot of blue glass, cast during the 14th century BC.[29][30] Blue glass from Egypt was either colored with copper, iron, or cobalt. The oldest cobalt-colored glass is from the eighteenth dynasty of Egypt (1550–1292 BC). The source for the cobalt the Egyptians used is not known.[31][32]

The word cobalt is derived from the German kobalt, from kobold meaning "goblin", a superstitious term used for the ore of cobalt by miners. The first attempts to smelt those ores for copper or silver failed, yielding simply powder (cobalt(II) oxide) instead. Because the primary ores of cobalt always contain arsenic, smelting the ore oxidized the arsenic into the highly toxic and volatile arsenic oxide, adding to the notoriety of the ore.[33]
Simple google search so I'm sure you've seen this before. I wasn't aware of the history of cobalt mining which goes back much further than I had thought so it definitely fits an earlier medieval feel for Middle-earth. And I was curious if the cobalt dying would wash off but it seems that it was a fairly study dye. I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that the blue of Dwalin's beard was an actual blue. A blue beard certainly fits the more "fairy-tale" feel of the Hobbit. I wish there were photos of what shade cobalt turns hair but I'm imagining a fairly pale blue.
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Re: Dwarven hair color

Post by redhandfilms »

I read something about the word "blue" being a fairly modern invention. The color blue was obviously around. The sky was still blue back then, but other terms were used to describe it. The best example is the reference of a "Wine-Dark Sea" used by Homer to describe a dark stormy sea. When I hear "Wine-Dark", I think of Merlot, deep red/purple, not dark blue. This Wikipedia article explains it best and I'll paraphase here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine-dark_sea_(Homer)
Gladstone analysed all aspects of Homer's mythical world, to discover a total absence of blue from the poet's descriptions of the Greek natural scenery. The word kyanós (κυανός), which in later stages of Greek meant blue, does make a limited appearance, but for Homer it almost certainly meant "dark", as it was used to describe the eyebrows of Zeus.
Perhaps this is the case for Dwarves. A word once used to mean "Dark" has taken on a new meaning and is now "Blue". Tolkien's translations used the newer meaning of the word.
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Re: Dwarven hair color

Post by Iodo »

I have never given this much serious thought, and the possible connections with mining are interesting

I first read The Hobbit when I was very young and while blue might be simply interpreted as meaning black with flecks of gray, and Yellow may be interpreted as meaning blond, my imagination did see brilliant blue and bright yellow as the colors in question and I was a little disappointed that they didn't carry this through to the movies :mrgreen:
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Peter Remling
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Re: Dwarven hair color

Post by Peter Remling »

Maybe, they dyed it intentionally? Maybe the party hoods weren't colorfast, so the dye leached out onto their hair. :)
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Iodo
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Re: Dwarven hair color

Post by Iodo »

Peter Remling wrote: Wed Nov 02, 2022 4:17 pm Maybe, they dyed it intentionally? Maybe the party hoods weren't colorfast, so the dye leached out onto their hair. :)
both are possible explanations :P
Gimli: It's true you don't see many Dwarf-women. And in fact, they are so alike in voice and appearance, that they are often mistaken for Dwarf-men.
Aragorn: It's the beards.
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