Red Hair and the Merovingians Revisited

Someone recently left a comment drawing my attention to the following painting. Titled; The Last Merovingian, it shows a very red-haired Childeric III getting his kingly locks shorn off by three monks. Quite a striking image.

(The Last Merovingian)

(The Last Merovingian - detail)

It's by the French artist Évariste-Vital Luminais. He was active during the 19th century and his works seem to feature red hair quite frequently.

(The Death of Childeric I)

(The Gallic Scouts)

(Les énervés de Jumièges)

As I've mentioned before on this blog, it's sometimes repeated online that the Merovingians were said to be red-haired. However, it's difficult finding any actual sources for this claim. The Merovingians were known as the "long-haired kings" - hence the symbolic shaving of the head in the painting - but the actual colour is difficult to pin down. Of course, most Europeans tend to have an array of hair colour in their family, so it would be unlikely that any colour would be common to an entire family. Then again though, that would make it even more interesting if it were found to be the case that the Merovingians were especially red-haired.

Given how far back in the past the Merovingian story is set it's perhaps also entirely possible that their entire history is more myth than reality. In fact, given how dishonest our current media is I'm starting to wonder if this was always the case. I'm starting to view all history as simply the aggregation of nonsense. These paintings do suggest though that the tradition relating red hair and the Merovingians was current in the 19th century, and that it's not just a modern phenomena. Again though, it could just be an aesthetic choice on the part of the artist. Maybe the way we write (or in this case paint) history says more about us than it does about any supposed distant point in time.

A quick search on Google Books for the keywords "red hair Merovingian" brought up the following description from a 19th century work;

Sidonius Appollinaris saw and has delineated one of their military bands. He describes the host as bareheaded, with masses of long red hair falling between their shoulders, their bodies tightly girt about with raw hides, though naked from the knee downward, carrying neither slings nor bows, nor other missiles, except a hatchet and a short pike, to which was strung a barbed harpoon, marching on foot, and protected by no defensive armour.

Lectures on the History of France - Sir James Stephen

This description seems to parallel the descriptions of Germanic, Gaulish and British tribes given by Greek and Roman writers. Again, one wonders how much is fact and how much is imagination.

Redhead - Ian Cook

In other news I recently had contact via email with Ian Cook, the author of the red hair themed novel Redhead. Quite fitting following on from the previous topic really given the far reaching historical and mythological themes featured in book.

He informed me that there is a revised edition of the book now available, and that he's also well into the sequel, which I look forward to reading :D

https://www.amazon.com/Redhead

Red Hair and Sulfur

In this article I'll be noting some of the links that have been made regarding sulfur and red hair.

(The illustration L'Ame du vin by the artist Carlos

Schwabe, supplanted by the alchemical symbol for sulfur)

Red hair is said to have a high sulfur content in relation to hair of other colours. Over the years people have speculatively argued that this may bear some relation to the perceived fiery temperament redheads are said to have. As well as other possible personality traits.

Sulfur can often be found on the edge of volcano craters and for this reason was traditionally called brimstone in English. This brings to mind Christian notions of "fire and brimstone", and perhaps may help explain why red hair is sometimes associated with Judas and devilish behaviour. However, brimstone was also burned by adherents of the Greek Orthodox Church to ward off evil and disease. So in some ways such traditions regarding sulfur can be seen more positively as acts of purification.

In alchemy sulfur is also highly regarded and is often viewed in tandem with mercury. In fact, mercury, sulfur and salt are viewed as being the three most important constituents in western alchemy. Mercury is associated with the Moon, the feminine and water. Sulfur associated with the Sun, the masculine and fire. The combination of the two creating the symbolic alchemical marriage between the Sun and the Moon. Salt then being said to symbolise the fixed and permanent Earth.

As for the possible relationship between hair and temperament Rudolf Steiner had this to say;

Equally you can learn a great deal from one hair of a human being. But here you must remember how different, how individual is the hair of each person. Some of you are fair, some of you have black hair. What underlies this? Those of you who are dark have in the blackness of the hair an iron process which is going on in the hair. Blondeness comes from a sulfur process which is particularly strong in those people who have red hair. These things are of the very greatest interest. I have actually known people of whom it could be said that they were really fiery, with their bright red hair. A very strong sulfur process is present here, whereas in black hair there is a comparatively strong iron process. You must remember that this emanates from the whole human organism. A person who has red hair is always producing something that is a highly combustible substance - sulfur - and his hair is permeated with it. The other person who has black hair secretes iron - a substance that is not combustible but of a different character. This reveals a deep-seated difference between the two people in their whole organization. In individual cases, much can be learned about the whole human being from the kind of hair he has.

It'll be interesting to see if anything else comes to light regarding all this.

Red Hair in Art - Fra Angelico and Others

These first few are by the Italian Early Renaissance painter Fra Angelico (1395-1455). They can definitely by added to our red-haired Jesus collection :)

(Flagellation)

(Deposition from the Cross)

(An image of Mary and the Child Jesus)

What now follows is a random selection of red-haired images which I've came across.

This one's an image I came across on Pinterest. I couldn't find an

origin for it, but it portrays Mary Magdalene with reddish-brown hair.

It looks quite Germanic.

(Mary Magdalene at the Foot of the Cross - Ottilie Roederstein)

(The Progress of the Soul - Phoebe Anna Traquair)

Panel from an altarpiece once in Veyn, near Sort, Spain.

It depicts Saints Mary Magdalene, Ermengold, and

Catherine of Alexandria.

(The Sorrow of Mary Magdalene - Jules Joseph Lefebvre)

Red Hair in the Artwork of Florence Harrison

The following images come from the artist Florence Harrison (1877-1955). She was known for illustrating poetry and children's books.

This first one is an image I came across a very long time ago online, however at that time I had no way of knowing who the artist was as there was no label on the image. Fortunately I recently rediscovered it and found to my added pleasure that it was actually used to illustrate a poem by Christina Rossetti. It's quite a beautiful image.

(Illustration from Dream Land 1910)

The following two I only came across recently. They both portray women with reddish hair. The first is titled The Ghost's Petition, however I haven't been able to find the name of the second one as of yet.

Red Hair in the Works of Alphonse Mucha

Some beautiful art now. I've been meaning to upload some of these images for a while now, but have kept forgetting. This first batch comes from the Czech Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha.

(Poster for 'Imprimerie Cassan Fils' 1896)

(Cover for French literary and art review La Plume)

(La Belle Epoque)

(The Autumn Artist 1896)

(La Passion Poster)

(A poster for his Slovanská epopej exhibition)

The Red-Haired Prophecy of Constantinople

Yey, new post. First up a really excellent find from Emanuela. It comes from a book found on Google Books tilted Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte - which translates as Research on Eastern European History.

https://books.google.it/books?id

On page 57 it contains a curious reference to red hair. It concerns a prophecy relating to the city of Constantinople;

(click to enlarge)

It reads;

"The version which is possibly the oldest ends in a prophecy: one day, the "red-haired" people (rusyi rod) would reign over the Place of the Seven Hills (the New Rome) and restore to Christianity its ancient capital."

This is quite fascinating and is something I'm surprised not to have came across before. It's also interesting as it reaffirms the speculation linking Russia with red hair, and the idea that the name Russia possibly translates as "land of the reds". Something often repeated online and elsewhere. We've mentioned the possible etymological links with words such as rust, rose, russet, etc on this blog before.

On page 58 it then adds a little more, furthering this Russian connection;

This is definitely something worthy of further investigation :)

Following on from the Russian and Christian theme I also recently came across a paper that once again reiterates the unexpected commonness of red hair amongst the Jewish population. It's titled;

Jewish evolutionary perspectives on Judaism, antisemitism, and race science in late nineteenth-century England: a comparative study of Lucien Wolf and Joseph Jacobs

(A quick Google search should bring up the PDF).

I've yet to read the entire thing, but a quick search of the text brought up the following few bits.

In relation to hair, eyes, and complexion, he offered another meta-study (totalling 120,000 measurements) and showed that while Jews had darker hair and eyes than other nationalities, they included 21% blue eyes and 29% fair hair, and a surprisingly high number of red-heads (with Sephardim having three times as many red-haired as Ashkenazim).

In relation to red hair, Jacobs dismissed any claim that variation from the Jewish type should be interpreted as disproving purity of race; he argued that the Jewish type represented an average and that “the variations, though they may be due to intermixture, may also be merely normal divergences from the standard.” Red hair, Jacobs admitted, was the most difficult to understand in terms of divergence from the dark norm since it was “exceptionally prevalent” among Jews, but he noted that in biological terms “erythrism” was a kind of albinism and a matter of natural variance of certain pigments; he concluded that it was not due to intermixture but was the probable result of defective nutrition (since it occurred mostly among Jews of Africa and the East).

Interesting. Not too sure about the idea that red hair is the product of defective nutrition though xD

..available on Amazon

Just a quick post today to mention that my book, An Esoteric History of Red Hair, is finally available on Amazon. In both Kindle and Paperback form. I'm really pleased with the paperback edition in particular. It's one thing publishing articles online, but to see something you've written actually in print is quite a nice feeling. I enjoy reading and know the comfort of reading an actual physical book, as opposed to long text on a phone or laptop. So I'm really happy to put this out.

The links below are for the Amazon US and UK sites, however it's also available in several other markets too.

Paperback - Amazon; US UK

Kindle - Amazon; US UK