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Originally Posted by Hui
He does immediately go on to imagine the women of Hithlum going about "like the deer clad only in their hair", which - aside from not being likely to make him many friends among the friends and family of Luthien the Nightingale - suggests that "hair long enough to act as a cloak" is at least unusual.
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But hair long enough to act as a cloak is unusual even for women, if you think about it. Consider the picture of BlanchetteGaladriel earlier in this thread - her hair there is long by any standards, and yet it wouldn't even cover her waist. So is Saeros implying that "if men's hair is so long, how long must a woman's be?" - or, is what he actually saying, "you are all wild and unkept, how high can we raise the bar on wildness?". "Clad only in hair" doesn't mean that the hair is actually long enough to serve as a garment, but just there to underscore that there is no other garment (and relate this to the previous insults). That's the whole point. He's not saying their dress is unusual, he is calling them utterly uncivilized and lacking dress. It's like the old joke about people wearing Adam and Eve's costumes. Besides, long hair for women isgenerally considered a good attribute. Honestly, I never read it to imply hair
length, and while I see that as an interpretation for the taunts directed at Turin's person, I don't see that here at all.