Quote:
Quote:
Red sky at night, Sailors' delight.
Red sky at morning, Sailors' warning. (Bb)
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Over here its shepherds rather than sailors who are either delighted or warned, but it is (or was) a common saying. (davem)
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I was about to post the shepherd version of the quote (really! I just forgot), and was thinking if, in fact, it had anything to do with Legolas' words.
Just one word kept coming back to me: shepherds. The Ents, the Shepherds of the Trees, may be the ones being warned (or delighted)--after all, it was the same day when Merry and Pippin blundered into Treebeard. A delight and warning to the old Ent the two have been!
Perhaps Legolas just saw it and interpreted it as if it was for their own, which it wasn't:
As before Legolas was first afoot, if indeed he had ever slept. "Awake! Awake!" he cried. "It is a red dawn. Strange things await us by the eaves of the forest. Good or evil, I do not know; but we are called. Awake!"
LR III 2 - emphasis mine
Treebeard may have read it himself, and that could explain the fact why he was there on the eaves--well, relatively near to it--of his forest.
But that's already two chapters in advance.