XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: Taemon@zonnet.nl   
      
   Stan Brown wrote:   
      
   > I don't understand literary color descriptions in general.  "The   
   > wine-dark sea"?  Unless Homer was familiar with blue wine, or the sea   
   > was red, I don't get it.   
   > And while Tolkien's "red metal" is unique in my experience, I   
   > remember seeing several authors use the phrase "red gold".  I'm   
   > sorry, but in the words of Lord Blackadder, "The color of gold ... is   
   > gold."   
      
   Well, there is such a thing as red gold... Hey, look what I saw on   
   Wikipedia: "During ancient times, due to impurities in the smelting process,   
   gold frequently turned a reddish color. This is why many Greco-Roman texts,   
   and even many texts from the Middle Ages, describe gold as "red".[citation   
   needed]"   
      
   I think "olive skin" is the weirdest of them all.   
      
   T.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)