Strawberry-Blonde Mary, John and Jesus

I came across this painting last night;

It's by an Italian painter called Gentile da Fabriano and dates to the early 15th century. The image is said to depict Jesus, the Virgin Mary and John the Evangelist. All three characters look pretty ginger to me, however I suppose the colouring could be said to be more blonde than red. It's difficult to tell with these old paintings - the decay of the image and the lighting conditions when the photograph was taken no doubt having some influence. I think I'll plump for strawberry-blonde.

Ginger City, USA - October 1st

I recently received an email informing me about an event taking place in the city of Troy, New York on October 1st. To celebrate an annual gathering of redheads called Night of the Walking Red the Mayor of the city has proclaimed that the city is to be known as "Ginger City, USA" for the day.

More details about the event can be found here:
http://leagueofextraordinaryredheads.com/for-media/mayor-proclaims-troy-ny-is-ginger-city-usa-oct-1-2014/

The event is organised by The League of Extraordinary Red Heads. In the above linked-to article they're described thusly;

"Though the highly visible group assembles suddenly in public spaces, not much is known of the inner workings or its true purpose. It purports to be “a social get-together for those with reddish hair and those who love them,” but some suspect it may be a secret society with plans for world domination."

It all seems pretty cool actually.

I really like the way they've used the pumpkin theme. In earlier articles I've speculated that in times gone by the pumpkin was a symbol for redheads. Linking it to both Halloween and the Protestant Reformation. Maybe these guys are tapping into a similar vein. The choice of October 1st seems pretty fitting with that in mind too - the month of Halloween.

Redheads should definitely hijack Halloween :D

Lots of Stuff Today ..Where to Start?

Earlier today I was reading Anatoly Fomenko's History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 when I came across this;

Furthermore, the mediaeval emperor Otho III ("the Red"), who died in the alleged year 1002, can be identified as the "ancient" emperor Constance I Chlorus, the latter being the word for "ginger". We thus get a correspondence of names; both these emperors, in turn, merge into the single figure of the "ancient" Julius Caesar from the Second Empire, qv in Chapter 1 of Chron2. It would be interesting to find out whether or not Julius Caesar had ginger hair.

I should explain this quote by stating that the books main theme is that the historical record is wrong and that many stories we know from history are simply retellings of other historical narratives, just misinterpreted or told in a different language or from a different perspective. For example, Fomenko states that the Trojan War is just a retelling of the Gothic War, moved back into "ancient" history by misguided historians. It's contentious but interesting stuff. However, for the purpose of this blog I'm more concerned with the fact that he's mentioned people who may have had red hair.

I searched out Otho/Otto III ("the Red"), but came across some confusion. According to Wikipedia it's actually Otto II that was named "the Red" or "Rufus". However, the picture of Otho III on Wiki, taken from the Gospels of Otto III (10th or 11th Century), shows him with bold red hair.

Kind of a result I'd say :D

After that I searched out Constance I Chlorus aka Constantius Chlorus. I couldn't find any mention of his hair colour. However, when I looked up the meaning of Chlorus I found it was the Latin for pale, and not ginger. Although I guess pale could be interpreted that way.

Anyway, that got me thinking about the term Choleric - one of the Four Temperaments of Classical/Medieval medical thinking (Melancholic, Phlegmatic, Sanguine and Choleric). As it turned out I found that Choleric was associated with red hair. It reminds me of my other post on here about the four suits/races on Tarot and playing cards.

That finally brought me to a book on Google Books that mentions the Choleric/red hair link, along with some other interesting things about red and red hair.
The Epic Hero - Dean A. Miller

To the medieval mind the red-haired man was an object of suspicion (or even, according to Joel Grisward, a "disgrace"), not just because the red-headed man was invariably considered choleric, quarrelsome, or aggressive, but because he was likely to be "méchant" or "felon."

He also mentions this about Achilles;

The "red" warrior's persona may break out of any modifying or controlling ethos, not just from disequilibrating anger but out of its own sense of distinct, uncontrolled individuality. When Akhilleus, in his youth, is briefly disguised as a girl he is called Pyrrha, "red head." It is this same "red" essence that underlies his brittle savagery in the Iliad.

He also brings to our attention this guy;

Mstislav, a red-haired (and red-faced and intemperate) Kievan warrior-prince in a Slavic source[.].

A decent days work. Oh, and regarding my last post I did starting watching Defiance. It's pretty good actually. Season 2 starts tonight (:

Irisa, Defiance

Was just flicking through the channels when I came across this image on TV.

Quite striking. It reminded me how alien red hair sometimes seems. She looks quite hot actually. The show's a Sci-Fi series called Defiance. I don't know how good or popular it is - I tend to be a bit behind the curve when it comes to this sort of thing. I watched the last 20 minutes or so and saw enough to arouse my curiosity, so I've Tivoed the next few episodes. Luckily what I caught was a repeat of the pilot. Hopefully it'll be worth watching.

The character's called Irisa by the way. She stood out so much when I was flicking through the channels. Maybe the image pressed some primordial button in me. I guess you could say her misshapen alien brow ridge looks almost Neanderthal. I might have to adopt her as my new pin-up.

Red-Haired Mummies of Florida

I've just been reading the book reviews in this months Fortean Times. One review, about a book titled The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America, mentioned red-haired bodies discovered on the west coast of Florida. The book description on Amazon states they were buried circa 7500 BCE. I've had a look online, and although there are articles and videos about the excavations, I can't find any pictures of the mummies themselves :( The book looks pretty cool though, maybe I'll buy it.

Fifty Shades of Grey Alien

My brother recently bought me a book titled The Encyclopaedia of Alien Encounters by Alan Baker. Having just devoured it I'll now share the relevant red-hair related ET-isms.

(artwork: how I imagine a red-haired

alien would look)

I'll start with the Antonio Villas Boas case. I think I mentioned this one before somewhere but it bears repeating - mainly for its Star Trek style sexual content. It apparently happened in 1957, Antonio Villas Boas was a young Brazilian farmer out working the fields when he encountered a circular spaceship. He was kidnapped by the humanoid occupants of the ship and taken aboard. After being stripped naked and subjected to medical procedures he was then left in a room where he encountered another alien being - this time a female. I'll quote directly from the book now;

...Antonio was shocked to see a beautiful woman enter the room. She was about five foot tall and completely naked. Her face was entirely human, except for her large, catlike eyes and rather pointed chin. She had long white hair, although her pubic hair was bright red ...he and the woman had sex. Her technique was rather unusual: she did not kiss him, but nipped him on the chin and made barking noises.

The woman then rubbed her belly and pointed skywards - apparently indicating that she would have his baby up in space somewhere. The book doesn't mention if Captain Kirk was jealous or not.

A more scary tale of red hair visitation apparently occurred at Dakelia Barracks in Cyprus. In 1968 a British Army NCO had an encounter there with a terrifying 'incomplete humanoid being'. It occurred at 3 o'clock in the morning after he was alerted to a strange presence by his Turkish wolfhound growling. After hearing a high-pitched humming sound..

..the soldier moved carefully and silently to the door of his room, while the wolfhound uncharacteristically scampered under the bed and began to whimper.

He opened the door and stepped on to the landing, at which point he was confronted by the thing. It's described thusly;

...only the head and shoulders were visible - dressed in a light blue suit with a collarless neck. The scowling face, inclined forward, was bright orange in colour; the hair was red, and the eyes were large and unblinking.

He ran back and hid in the room, then picked up an underwater spear and fired it through the door. The humming sound then immediately stopped. He was left shaken by the encounter but made a full recovery, the dog however 'remained fearful of the slightest noise for the rest of its life.'

Rouge hair also cropped up in another case, this time involving a guy named Jose Antonio da Silva. He was out fishing when he was accosted by some space people and dragged aboard their ship.

The beings had waist-long, reddish hair, thick eyebrows, large eyes, ears and wide mouths, and large, crooked noses. They also sported extremely long beards. These strange, dwarf-like creatures took an immediate interest in da Silva's fishing equipment.

They eventually returned him - 250 miles from where he had originally been abducted. He later discovered that he'd been gone for four and a half days.

The book also mentioned a broader category of red-haired aliens. These are called Oranges in UFO circles.

The Oranges are said to be quite similar to humans in appearance, although their hair is red, their skin has an orange tone, and there is something of the reptilian in their faces ...it has been suggested that the Oranges are a hybrid race, but one that has been produced through the fusion of humans and Reptoids, rather than humans and Greys.

Looking at all these tales from a red-hair point of view it's interesting that they all fall under the same historic archetypes associated with red hair - sex, fear, dwarfs, dragons.

Red Hair n Tarot Cards

I was reading a book about Tarot Cards and was surprised to learn that hair colour plays a bit of a role in Tarot readings.

The Minor Arcana cards have four suits - Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles, corresponding to the Clubs, Hearts, Spades and Diamonds in a normal deck of cards. Also like a standard deck each suit contains cards numbering one (ace) to ten, then subsequent cards representing people. The slight difference being that the Tarot have an extra one - King, Queen, Knight and Page as oppose to just King, Queen and Jack.

Apparently these characters are represented differently for each suit - the Wands are ruddy, red-haired and hazel/blue eyed. The Cups fair, blond and blue-eyed. The Swords apparently fair, dark-haired and dark-eyed. And the Pentacles swarthy, dark-haired and dark-eyed. Hence the "you will meet a tall dark stranger" patois.

The book didn't illuminate on how old this tradition is - understandably so given how murky and interesting the history of the Tarot is in general. An on-line search was likewise unfruitful. However, on the Wikipedia page it states that the suits equate to different social classes. Wands = peasantry, Cups = clergy, Swords = nobility and Pentacles = Merchants.

So going by that the redheads would be the common folk I guess.