The paragraph starting "Manwe had no thought for his own honour...and the song
of words is his music. His rainment is blue, and blue is the fire of his eyes,
and his sceptre is of sapphire...."
Eowyn's mantle of blue...and, of course, "Elrond wore a mantle of grey, ...and
upon his finger was a ring of gold with a great blue stone, Vilya, mightiest of
the three. (irony that Manwe's sceptre was sapphire? And Galadriel's ring of
mithril-"flickered like a frosty star" like Varda?)
I'm very sensitive to color and color descriptions, and Tolkien's palette has
had a significant influence on me personally. I know he uses other colors
as we all mentioned, but when you read from the Sil and concerning Elvish
things, his color scheme is primarily white, with silver and grey. Think of
Gondor in white, and all the Elvish ships, and white fountains, the white knife
of Legolas, white rivers, white streams, white flowers, white rainment, white
light, white stars, and even white shadows, and a white sea.
For me, Tolkien changed how I saw and thought about
color.
"...and that first hour in which he shone, the white glimmer of a silver dawn..." "And the bright stars shone as silver fires." "...as a white cloud exceeding swift beneath the moon, as a star...a pale flame on the wings of a storm."
"Red as blood shone their swords."
