elvenpiratelady | Thranduil's Hair: Because He's Worth It

Cross-posted to

discuss_realm. Another one of my theories that deals with hair - I seem to be fixated on the stuff. All comments, debates and poking of holes in the argument are welcomed.

Elf hair colour is a tricky topic, and all sorts of conclusions can be drawn from a few writings on the subjects. We all tend to agree that the Vanyar are blond and the Noldor are dark-haired (with several exceptions), but Telerin(1) hair colour is a highly debatable topic. I’ve read posts claiming that all the Teleri are dark-haired, or that they all have silver hair, or a mix of both. But there is at least one Elf whose hair colour goes against all other writings and genealogical charts on the subject, and that’s Thranduil (and by extension, Legolas).

(1) I’m using Teleri here to describe both the Teleri in Valinor and the Sindar in Middle-earth. They were originally part of the same group, and have the same traits.

Thranduil and his hair would be largely irrelevant in the silver/dark hair debate, if not for one passage in The Hobbit which describes it:

The feast that they now saw was greater and more magnificent than before; and at the head of a long line of feasters sat a woodland king with a crown of leaves upon his golden hair, very much as Bombur had described the figure in his dream.

- The Hobbit, ‘Flies and Spiders’

From this description comes the idea that Thranduil has golden hair. But wait – there are holes in this theory that you could ride a horse through…

For a start, this ‘woodland king’ is never identified as Thranduil – there is very strong evidence for it, as he is called the Elvenking, and no other kings are mentioned – but the fact remains that there is no passage that says it conclusively. Another problem comes from the description itself, and the internal history of the story. Bilbo and the Dwarves see the Elf as golden-haired, but they have already been influenced by Bombur’s description of his dream, and they’re most likely biased in favour of seeing golden-haired elves. They’re also more concerned about the food at the feast than the Elves eating it, whether they be golden-haired or not – and since Bilbo didn’t write the tale of his adventures until he was safely back at home, there would be plenty of time for the details to become jumbled and confused. Bilbo has a tale of trolls, orcs, riddles in the dark, spiders, a dragon, eagles and treasure to write – the hair colour of one Elf seems rather unimportant by comparison.

(As for the external history of the story, I think that Tolkien may have described Thranduil as ‘golden-haired’ to differentiate him from Thingol and Celeborn, both of whom have silver hair and live with Sindar in the forests.)

So – the idea of Thranduil with golden hair is already looking quite unstable if we analyse this passage from The Hobbit. But there’s more to come, courtesy of ‘The History of Galadriel and Celeborn’ in the Unfinished Tales, and a few characters in The Silmarillion…

Elu Thingol was the king of the Teleri who chose to stay in Middle-earth, ie. the Sindar. He married Melian the Maia, and their daughter was Lúthien Tinuviel. Thingol also had a brother, Olwë, who went to Valinor and took some of the Teleri with him. Olwë’s daughter Eärwen married Finarfin, and one of their children was Galadriel. Some sources say that Elu had another brother, Elmo (yes, really), and Celeborn was descended from him (which makes he and Galadriel distant cousins, but that’s a discussion for another time). Besides having a widely spread family, Thingol is also notable for having silver hair, and some of his relatives possessed it too. Celeborn and Nimloth, his niece, had silver hair, and Galadriel’s hair was a mixture of silver and gold.

But how is this related to Thranduil’s hair colour? One of the Appendices in ‘The History of Galadriel and Celeborn’ suggests that Thranduil and his father Oropher became kings of the Sylvan Elves in the east of Middle-earth because they were related to Thingol. Their exact relation to Thingol is not known, but if they are related to him, then Thranduil might have had silver hair.

We now turn back to that scene in The Hobbit. Mirkwood at this point in time has little or no natural light, but there are fires mentioned in the passage (‘the elvish folk were passing bowls from hand to hand across the fires’). Silver hair can appear gold or red by firelight, especially when only seen for a short time, as the Dwarves and Bilbo do. So, then, the Dwarves and the Hobbit leap out among the Elves, and everything immediately becomes dark. They are lost and confused in the darkness, and another attempt results in all of them except Bilbo being taken prisoners by the Elves. Hair colour is not high on their priorities list. Much later, when Bilbo sits down to write about their adventures in Mirkwood, he recalls a figure with hair that appears gold, and records Thranduil as golden-haired. Thranduil himself never disputes this, and so it becomes accepted as canon…

And here ends this discussion of Thranduil’s hair, which I believe to be silver. This also gives weight to the idea of Legolas having either silver or dark hair, and takes away all support for Orlando’s bleached locks in the movies.

(And I know that this doesn’t explain how Nimrodel and a random guard of Lothlórien come to have golden hair, but that’s a discussion for another day.)