Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/202

 196

NOTES AND QUERIES. (12 s. n. SEPT. 2, ioi&

FOLK-LORE : RED HAIR (12 S. ii. 128). Red is a magic colour : Cain was anciently represented with red hair, and Judas Is- cariot (whatever that surname may mean) was always portrayed upon, ancient tapestries and in old paintings with a red, or yellowish- red, beard and hair. Thus I saw him represented in the Ober-Ammergau Passion Play of 1890.

Rosalind. His very hair is of the dissembling colour.

Celia. Something browner than Judas's : marry, his kisses are Judas's own children. Rosalind. I' faith, his hair is of a good colour.

' As You Like It,' III. iv. 7.

Fir*t Puritan. Sure that was Judas then with the red beard.

Second Puritan Red hair,

The brethren like it not, it consumes them much : "Tis not the sisters' colour.

Middleton's ' A Chaste Maid in Cheapside,'

III. ii. 43-7.

And Corporal Judas (sic) is spoken of as : That hungry fellow With the red beard there. Beaumont and Fletcher's ' Bonduca,' II. iii. Worse than the poison of a red-hairM man.

Chapman's 'Bussy d'Ambois,' III. i. " He has made me smell for all the world like a flax, or a red-headed woman's chamber." Massinger and Field's 'Fatal Dowry,' IV. i.

" It is observed, that the Red-haired of both Sexes are more libidinous and mischievous than the rest." Swift's 'Gulliver,' IV. viii.

The French, or some of them, say that a red man commands the elements, and wrecks off the coast of Brittany those whom he dooms to death. He is fabled to have appeared to Napoleon and foretold his downfall. William II., that unpleasant bachelor, was nicknamed Rufus from his ruddy countenance (cf. David), and not, apparently, from his hair, which was yellowish. A. R. BAYLEY.

The strong antipathy to people with red hair originated, according to some anti- quaries, in a tradition that Judas had hair of this colour. It is supposed that the passions of such persons are more intense than those whose hair is of a different colour. It has also been conjectured that the odium took its rise from the aversion to the red-haired Danes and Scots. Or the colour was con- sidered ugly and unfashionable, and on this account a person with red hair would soon be regarded with contempt. Red-haired children are supposed to indicate infidelity on the part of the mother ; they are conse- quently looked upon as unlucky, and are not wanted in a neighbour's house on the morning of a Xew Year's Day.

ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

Did not the prejudice against red hair arise from the fact that evil personages were formerly depicted with yellowish-red hair representing scarlet, the colour of sin (Isa. i. 18)? A Cain-coloured beard is men- tioned in ' The Merry Wives of Windsor,' I. iv., and there is reference to Judas's hair in ' As You Like It,' III. iv. Some years ago I knew a red-haired and bearded Lancashire policeman who was commonly known as " Red Judas," though, as far as I am aware, there was nothing against the man except the pronounced colour of his hair, and maybe his profession, to account for his sobriquet. W. H. PINCHBECK.

The origin of the prejudice against red; hair, according to Gerald Massey's ' Ancient Egypt ' (Sign Language and Mythology), dates from the conception of the evil deity Sut or Typhon in the Egyptian mythology. He was depicted as red, yellowish, or sandy, because he was the representative of the desert, the cause of drought and thirst, Massey quotes Plutarch as saying that at certain festivals they (the Egyptians) " abuse red-headed men." Judas was always figured as red-headed, and, down to the time of Garrick, Shylock was always played in a red wig. ARTHUR BOWES.

Newton-le- Willows.

The prejudice against red and fair-haired persons as unreliable and unstable in dis- position is fairly widespread over the British Isles. Experience shows that, while there- is some basis for the belief, it is unwise to dogmatize, for dark-complexioned folk are sometimes equally unreliable. The pre- judice is of somewhat modern growth, for Queen Elizabeth's ruddy locks caused that colour, in her day, to be the fashionable tint, and the prejudice then was against dark hair. WM. JAGGARD, Lieut.

There is a Magyar saying to the effect that

A red dog, a red horse,

A red man : none of them good.

I do not think there is any objection to a red-haired woman in Hungary. L. L. K.

There is also an idea that red-haired people and chestnut horses are constitutionally hot-tempered. Several of my acquaintances, judging by their own experience, consider this belief well founded. If I recollect rightly, red-haired people are unpopular in. French folk-lore. Was not the evil god of ancient Egypt red-haired ? Loki, the mocker and promoter of evil in the ancient Scandi- navian mythology, on one occasion changed