In the Welsh tale from The Mabinogian, Peredur (Perr-EDD’yr), the son of Efrawg, grows up isolated in the wilderness with only his mother. One day, he encounters a group of knights and aspires to join them. Because of his bravery and combat skills, several knights and noble figures mentor him. He faces many trials and foes, enchanted beings, and mysterious figures.
“And in the evening he entered a valley, and at the head of the valley he came to a hermit’s cell, and the hermit welcomed him gladly, and there he spent the night. And in the morning he arose, and when he went forth, behold a shower of snow had fallen the night before, and a hawk had killed a wild fowl in front of the cell. And the noise of the horse scared the hawk away, and a raven alighted upon the bird. And Peredur stood, and compared the blackness of the raven and the whiteness of the snow, and the redness of the blood, to the hair of the lady that best he loved, which was blacker than jet, and to her skin which was whiter than the snow, and to the two red spots upon her cheeks, which were redder than the blood upon the snow appeared to be.”
In the passage above, he is swept into a mystical world where he sees the redness of the blood, the whiteness of the snow, and the blackness of the raven, and he sees only the black blackness of his beloved’s hair, the fairness of her skin, and the redness of her lips. Medieval literature often uses red to symbolize heroism, valor, passion, or danger. White signifies purity, innocence, truth, spiritual enlightenment, and the quest for knowledge. Black is associated with mystery and the unknown. It can also denote mourning, death, or a transformative phase.
In this story, these colors together reflect Peredur’s internal journey.
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