#ambarussa (S. amras) minyarussa pityafinwe=pityo & ambarussa (S. amras) atyarussa ambarto (S. amrod)/umbarto (S. amarthan) telufinwe=telvo

[polutrope]

hello, I read your amrod and amras post with interest (I actually did have it the wrong way around in my head…), but now I’m wondering which one of the two is the one with darker red hair? I remember reading somewhere that one of the twins’ hair darkened as he aged, but I don’t have the shibboleth (which I’m guessing this is from), and would like to get this correct in the future.

re:

Amras!

The twins remained alike, but the elder grew darker in hair, and was more dear to his father. After childhood they [?were not be] confused.

And yes, it's from the Shibboleth of Feanor, in Christopher's commentary on the legend of Amrod -- where (as you now know!) Amras is the elder.

Now, I got this detail about the hair wrong in my own fic about Lightly Toasted Amrod. Oops.

I should emphasise that I don't think there's an objectively "wrong" version here because we're mixing up canons. In your and others' defense, Tolkien Gateway for a while had Amras as Telufinwe, etc. -- but I see someone has updated that! There's now a great breakdown of their names there. Thank you to whoever heroically submitted that edit. (Alas my brain is too saturated to figure out how to edit the wiki. I really should learn.)

In revisiting this passage, I've been reminded that it seems Tolkien reversed their birth order specifically because of this story that he invented to explain the name Ambarto/Amrod. So it was clearly meaningful to him that Amrod was the baby in this version. I assume Christopher chose to keep the previous birth order (Amrod, Amras) because he did not choose to integrate the ship-burning death of Amrod in the Silmarillion (a choice I applaud - wrote a bit about how hard that would have been here).

Thanks for the ask!