Where does Beleg’s light-coloured hair come from? Is it just fanon? Thank you!
Hair Colour of Beleg (and the Sindar)
To the enduring enrichment of fandom discourse, descriptions of physical appearance are (famously) very few and far between in Tolkien's writings.
Beleg, though, is an interesting case because we actually have a painting of him by Tolkien! If you haven't yet seen the 'Red Boots Beleg', your day is about to get better:
This is a close-up of a larger painting, dating to July 1928 and originally entitled 'Beleg finds Flinding in Taur-na-Fúin' (Flindling was the name of Gwindor's character in the Lay of the Children of Húrin). Tolkien later titled it 'Fangorn Forest' and used it as an illustration for LotR. But it was originally meant to be Beleg and Gwindor.
Here's the full painting, where you can see the title 'Fangorn Forest' has been added:
As this painting is the only canonical reference we have for Beleg's hair colour, Beleg is canonically dark-haired.
(A small consolation for fans of light-haired Beleg: Being from 1928, the painting is quite early in the development of the legendarium, and Tolkien was known to change his mind on things, including what this painting depicted.)
However, the fandom's fondness for light-haired Beleg did not arise out of nowhere. Beleg is one of the Sindar, who are a subset of the Teleri, and several major Teler characters in the legendarium are described as silver-haired: Thingol, Olwë, Eärwen, Círdan, and Celeborn. So it makes perfect sense that readers would think silver hair was common among the Teleri.
(There's also the influence, of course, of the Peter Jackson films which are full of light-haired elves, including Sindarin Legolas.)
Here's from the essay 'Quendi and Eldar' in History of Middle-earth Vol. 11: The War of the Jewels:
Elwe himself had indeed long and beautiful hair of silver hue, but this does not seem to have been a common feature of the Sindar, though it was found among them occasionally, especially in the nearer or remoter kin of Elwe (as in the case of Círdan). In general the Sindar appear to have very closely resembled the Exiles, being dark-haired, strong and tall, but lithe.
No kinship between Beleg and Thingol is ever mentioned, for the record. But again, for silver-hair fans, this passage doesn't exclude the possibility that someone unrelated to Thingol could have silver hair. It just wasn't common.
References
This fantastic compilation of the evidence on elven hair colours has all the sources.
Information on the 'Fangorn' painting is from the Tolkien Estate's website.
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Is ghost naturally blonde?
Hey ^-^
I'm not quite sure what his canon hair colour is.
Unless he dye his hair, i believe his hair is naturally brown.
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'It's never been so easy... so safe... so satisfying for young mothers to camouflage grey... for young grandmothers to show it off...'
Advertisement for Revlon 'Color Up' hair colouring cream (1962).
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Does Nerdanel have red hair?
Nerdanel and Celegorm's Hair Colour
Hi Anon! Dawn Felagund has already done an excellent job discussing and assembling all the evidence on this in her Character Biography of Nerdanel (in the section "And the Requisite Discussion of Hair Color").
For the Anon who asked about Celegorm's hair colour, Dawn also covers that at length in the Celegorm Bio (section "A Digression on Hair"). I'll get to the other characters you requested later.
I highly recommend giving both bios a read, but here's the tl;dr:
The published Silmarillion says nothing about either character's hair colours.
A quotation from Tolkien published in the linguistic journal Vinyar Tengwar (Issue 41, pg. 9) reveals that Nerdanel "had brown hair"*.
In the Quenta Silmarillion published in The History of Middle-earth Vol. 5: The Lost Road, in the section "Of Beren and Tinúviel", Christopher reveals that he removed from the published Silmarillion a clause applying to Celegorm: "golden was his long hair"*.
*These citations are from Dawn's bios but I double-checked both.
There are your quotes! Brunette Nerdanel, blond Celegorm. But as always -- happy imagining and transforming.
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reblogs + comments are appreciated ⸜(。˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡
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currently doing a strand test with a new hair colour im very excited but this is either going to make or break me if it doesnt work
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