Grey

From Traditional Witchcraft Wiki Project

Grey is a colour between black and white, and as such is of a liminal nature. This notion of it being neither one thing or another is expressed in the idea of a "grey area", that is to say one that is ambiguous. This liminality perhaps derives also from the use of the word to describe dusk, with which it is related in the system of the airts, that is to say grey being dull, dismal, gloomy, murky and shadowy.

Grey, because of its inbetweeness is also popularly associated with ghosts (as in the ubiquitous grey lady and so forth), goblins, elves and fairie, as is dusk. Scandinavian folklore often depicts their gnomes and nisser in grey clothing.

Grey is also identified with the twilight of one's life, that is to say old age, hence we have hoary as a word meaning grey, venerable and old, perhaps evolving from the grey hair that comes with old age. Interestingly, hoary is an attribute often given to boundary stones in Old English, expressing further the link betwixt liminality and the colour grey.

The word grey derives from the Old English graeg.