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Originally Posted by Lalwendë
Anyway, I want to know where the redheads were?  |
Interestingly, an RPG guidebook for tabletop RPGs,
The Middle-Earth Role-playing (or M.E.R.P.) suggests that Beornings were often redheaded. I have absolutely no clue where they base this assumption - as far as I know the only Beorning whose hair colour is mentioned is Beorn himself, who had black hair.
(I know the RPG-book isn't a very reliable source of information, but I just felt like mentioning that - after all, there might be passages in HoME I'm not yet familiar with that might agree with some weird things in the RPG guidebook...)
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Originally Posted by Lal
It'd certainly be interesting if there was textual evidence that most/all Rohirrim were blonde and most/all Gondorians were dark. This would hint at very little if any intermingling between the two nations and as such would make them insular to an incredible degree. As Lommy says, no real nation has an 'exclusive' colouring (though some colourings may be more common in some countries/regions - you see a LOT of ginger Scots!) - this is due to intermingling which goes back for millennia.
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Well, let's use the Finns as an example again.
Finns are one of the most inbred peoples of the world, yet we still have hair colours varying from very fair blonde to dark brown, complexion in different hues of fair skin and mostly blue, green and grey eyes though brown eyes aren't a rarity either. Of course there has been some intermingling but there must have been some intermingling with the Rohirrim as well. I mean, even a few darker people and suddenly you should have darker people in there as well - dark eyes and hair are dominant genes (we can always argue how aware Tolkien was of these things but I'm not going into that).