The Myths and History of Red Hair: Red-haired Pyrrha

If you have read Neil Scott’s book An Esotheric History of Red Hair, you’re already familiar with the name Pyrrha. The name derives from the Greek adjective πυρρός, purrhos, i.e. "flame coloured", "the colour of fire", "fiery red" or simply "red" or "reddish".

In Greek mythology there are at least three characters with this name. Two are those that interest us.

The first is the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora and wife of Deucalion. They had three sons, Hellen, Amphictyon, Orestheus; and three daughters Protogeneia, Pandora II and Thyia. She is describes as red-haired by Horace (Odes, 1.5) and Ovid (Metamorphoses). Pyrrha and Deucalion are at the centre of the Greek myth of the deluge. The two versions (Horace’s and Ovid’s) are slightly different from each other, but the core is still identical. Deucalion and Pyrrha are the only survivors of the deluge and consulted the oracle of Themis about how to repopulate the earth. They were told to throw the bones of the mother Gaia behind their shoulders, being the “bones” the rocks. They threw the rocks behind their shoulders, which soon began to lose their hardness and change form. Eventually, the stones thrown by Pyrrha became women; those thrown by Deucalion became men (here you can find both the myths recounted in more detail).

So, according to this myth, all women are the daughters of a red-haired mother.

The Flood, by Paul Menwart

Deucalion and Pyrrha,

by Giovanni Maria Bottalla

Pyrrha (Louvre Museum)

The other mythological episode in which we find the name Pyrrha is that of Achilles on Skyros, which is part of the myth of Achilles. The episode doesn’t exist in Homer's epic poem Iliad, but it’s written down in detail in some later versions of the story, particularly the Achilleid by the Roman poet Statius.

According to ancient sources, the nymph Thetis, rather than allow her son Achilles to die at Troy as prophesied, sent him to live at the court of Lycomedes, king of Skyros, disguised as another daughter of the king or as a lady-in-waiting, under the name Pyrrha "the red-haired" (or Issa, or Kerkysera, depending on the source). There Achilles had an affair with Deidamia, one of the daughters of Lycomedes, and they had one or two sons, Neoptolemus and Oneiros. Since another prophecy suggested that the Trojan War would not be won without Achilles, Odysseus and several other Achaean leaders went to Skyros to find him. Odysseus discovered Achilles by offering gifts, adornments and musical instruments as well as weapons, to the king's daughters, and then having his companions imitate the noises of an enemy's attack on the island (most notably, making a blast of a trumpet heard), which prompted Achilles to reveal himself by picking a weapon to fight back, and together they departed for the Trojan War.

Achilles Discovered among the Daughters

of Lykomedes, by Gérard de Lairesse

Achilles among the Daughters of

Lykomedes, by Jan de Bray

This means that Achilles might have had red hair, and this hypothesis is reinforced by the fact that his and Deidamia’s son Neoptolemus is also called Pyrrhus. He became the mythical progenitor of the ruling dynasty of the Molossians of ancient Epirus and, according to the myth, an ancestor of Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great. Neoptolemus was described by the chronicler Malalas in his account of the Chronography as "of good stature, good chest, thin, white, good nose, ruddy hair, wooly hair, light-eyed, big-eyed, blond eyebrows, blond beginnings of a beard, round-faced, precipitate, daring, agile, a fierce fighter" (Chronography, 5.104). Meanwhile, in the account of Dares the Phrygian, he was illustrated as ". . .large, robust, and easily irritated. He lisped slightly, and was good-looking, with hooked nose, round eyes, and shaggy eyebrows (History of the Fall of Troy ,13).

Interestingly, in Dares the Phrygian’s account of the war of Troy, Achilles is described as “chestnut-haired”, and other characters as auburn-haired: Aeneas, Cassandra, Menelaus and Meriones (although in Malalas’ account some of these descriptions are different).

Here are some details (referring to Ulysses discovering Achilles on Skyros) from a mosaic in a Roman villa in La Cueza.