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A Vindication of
the Redhead
The Typology of Red Hair Throughout
the Literary and Visual Arts
Brenda Ayres · Sarah E. Maier

A Vindication of the Redhead
Brenda Ayres • Sarah E. Maier
A Vindication of the
Redhead
The Typology of Red Hair Throughout
the Literary and Visual Arts
Brenda Ayres Sarah E. Maier
Liberty University English
Lynchburg, VA, USA University of New Brunswick
Saint John, NB, Canada
ISBN 978-3-030-83514-9 ISBN 978-3-030-83515-6 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83515-6
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
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Cover illustration: Robert J. Moore
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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Dedicated to All Ginger-, Carrot-, Strawberry-, Auburn-Haired
Individuals
Because as Annie (of Green Gables) said,
“People who haven’t red hair don’t know what trouble is.”
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Robert J. Moore who granted permission to use his painting on

the cover.
Brenda Ayres wants to thank the generosity of Penn State’s library for
loaning her hundreds of books and articles that provided so much of the
scholarly information for this project. She also would like to express her
appreciation for Sarah E. Maier who has been a congenial, collegial, com-
mitted, talented, and gracious fellow scholar, coeditor, and, with this
book, coauthor. More than that, Sarah is the definition of “fellowship” as
it used to be used in academe and is defined in John Wycliffe’s translation
of Proverbs 18:24 “A [wo]man amiable to felashipe mor a frend shal be,
than a brother [or a sister].” When “ship” is a suffix added to a noun (like
“fellow”) to imply its condition, then Sarah has been a true and invaluable
fellow—and a jolly, good one as well.
Sarah E. Maier will always be grateful to the other two Musketeers—
her daughter, Violet and her father, Patrick—who remind her to hang out
and watch movies; to Christine Coleman for being herself; to the valiant
University of New Brunswick librarians who found redhead references for
me during lockdown; and to Judy, a redhead, for being a friend and our
Indigo Auntie. Brenda Ayres is an indefatigable whirlwind of thought,
humour, and scholarship that leaves me both exhausted and exhilarated.
As a formidable partner in crime, Brenda is an absolute blessing.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction: “Hair is the woman’s glory”—Unless

It’s Red 1
Bibliography 17
2 The Devil Has Red Hair and So Do Other Dissemblers

in Ancient Discourses 21
Gothic Roots of Red Hair 21
Satan Is a Redhead 22
Thor as a Redhead 23
Goat Gods with Red Hair 24
Red-Headed Devils 25
Babylonian Redheads 25
Adam and Eve and Their Red Hair 27
Lilith and Lamia Redheads 28
The First Murderer Had Red Hair 30
Red Hairy Esau and Deceit 32
Villainy and Red Hair 33
A Dancing Redhead 35
The Emerging Stereotype in Judeo-Christian Culture 38
Bibliography 42
3 “Real are the dreams”: Red Hairy Incubi and

Unheavenly Succubi 49
Red Hair and Evil 50
ix
x Contents
Red Hairy Nightmares 54

The Intercourse of Incubi and Succubi with Humans 55
Rosemary’s Baby and Afterward 60
Bibliography 66
4 Les Roux Fatales: The Plaits of Pre-Raphaelite Redheads 71

The Debut of the PRB Redhead 71
The Roots of Pre-Raphaelite Redheads 74
Vampires and Red Hair 77
Lady Audley’s Pre-Raphaelite Look-Alikes 79
Lydia Gwilt and Red Hair 83
Daphne du Maurier’s Neo-Gothic and Red Hair 84
The Woman, aka, Whore and Red Hair 86
Daphne: A Plait of Red Hair 87
From Boudica to Victoria 91
Bibliography 98
5 The Agency of Red Hair on the Male Gender Equivocal

in Mr. Rochester, The Little Stranger, The Danish Girl,
and Elsewhere105
The Unmanning of Mr. Rochester 105
Dickensian Redheads 110
The Desexing of the Red-headed Patriarch in The Little
Stranger 112
The Queering of Red Hair in The Danish Girl 113
Raped Fathers 120
The Power of Red 123
Bibliography 124
6 “Here we are again!” Red-Haired Golems Galore

Including Those in Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem127
A Jewish Mythical Creature with Red Hair 127
The First and the Last 128
The Golem in Us 130
The Red-haired Metaphors 132
Red-haired Golems 135
Golems Galore 137
Golem Murders 140
Bibliography 143
Contents xi
7 Tangled Webs of Red Hair from the Grimm Brothers

to Kate Morton147
Grimm Redheads 147
Hair as Sexual Trope in Art 149
Mrs. Redhead: Angel or Demon? 151
The Forgotten Garden 151
The Clockmaker’s Daughter 159
Hairline Note About The House at Riverton 167
Bibliography 168
8 The Other Redheads Throughout Asia and Africa171

Orange Creatures in the East 172
Enlarging One’s Circle of Acquaintance 174
Bedouins 180
Red-haired Fan 180
Red Hair in Japan 184
Red Hair in Korea 187
Red Hair in Africa 187
Centricisms, Gingerphobia, and Gingerphilia 189
Bibliography 191
9 Tough Little Red-Headed Orphans: Anne (of Green

Gables), Little Orphan Annie, Madeline, and Pippi197
Anne with an “E” 199
Little, and Orphaned, Annie 208
Redhead Out of Line 212
Pippi with Long Stockings and Braids 214
Bibliography 219
10 Rebellious Royals: From Disney’s Ariel to Pixar’s Merida223

Disney’s Monstrous Mer-Maid 224
Pixar’s Scraggly-Haired Lassie 229
Bibliography 238
11 Neo-Victorian Freakery: Flaming-Haired Women,

Dolls, Art, and Detection243
Guys, Art, and Dolls 245
Collecting and Detecting Women 251
Bibliography 259
xii Contents
12 STEAM(y) and Marvel(ous) Women: Agent Scully,

Lisbeth Salander, Beth Harmon and the Black Widow261
The Truth (About Scully) Is Out There 263
The Girl as Dragon 265
Queen Harmon and Her Gambit 267
Supersmart Superspy 271
One Final Redhead 276
Bibliography 277
13 Epilogue: The Splitting of Red Hairs281

Bibliography 286
Index289
About the Authors1
Brenda Ayres and Sarah E. Maier coedited and contributed chapters to the
following: Neo-Victorian Madness: Rediagnosing Nineteenth-Century Mental
Illness in Literature and Other Media (Palgrave, 2020); Neo-Gothic Narratives:
Illusory Allusions from the Past (2020); Animals and Their Children in Victorian
Culture (2020); and Reinventing Marie Corelli for the Twenty-first Century
(2019). The two cowrote A Vindication of the Redhead: The Typology of Red
Hair Throughout the Literary and Visual Arts (Palgrave, 2021) and will be
publishing Neo-Victorian Things: Re-Imagining Nineteenth-Century Material
Cultures with Palgrave in 2021 (adding Danielle Dove as coeditor).
Brenda Ayres is now retired from full-time residential teaching, but
teaches online for several universities. Besides the listing of publications
above, her additional works can be found at Amazon. As of 2021 she has
published 60 academic books and over 250 academic articles, primarily on
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English literature.
Sarah E. Maier is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the
University of New Brunswick. Besides the works listed above as coeditor
and coauthor, she has published extensively on the Brontës; edited special
issues on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Neo-Victorian Considerations, and
Charlotte Brontë at the Bicentennial as well as published articles on biofic-
tion, neo-Victorian vampires, transmedia adaptations; Anne Lister, and
neo-Victorian narratives.
1
Brenda Ayres wrote the Introduction and Chaps. 1–8, and Sarah Maier wrote Chaps. 9–13.
xiii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: “Hair is the woman’s

glory”—Unless It’s Red
“Hair is the woman’s glory,” Charlotte Yonge announced in her prescrip-

tive exposé of “womankind” (1878, 193), partially referring to 1
Corinthians 11:15, which from the King James reads, “But if a woman
have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.”
Based on this scripture, several religious groups continue to forbid women
to cut their hair, such as Apostolic Pentecostalists, a few other indepen-
dent Pentecostal sects, the Amish, the Mennonites, the Sikh, and the
Rastas. There have been other religious groups that allow for the hair to
be cut, but to obey scripture, women must not pray to God without hav-
ing their heads covered, almost as if instead of being her glory, hair is a
woman’s badge of shame.
Perhaps the assumption is that one should give glory to God instead of
ascribing glory to oneself, but more likely, the injunction is intended to
protect men from being distracted from their single-minded devotion to
God by the sexual enticement of women’s hair. As Wendy Cooper has
noted, humans may subliminally associate head hair with pubic hair and
then pubic hair with genitals, and thus head hair can be an object of sexual
arousal (1971, 45). “Whether it is a survival from our ape-like ancestors
or, as Charles Darwin thought, an evolutionary innovation, the erotic
appeal of women’s hair is immensely strong,” she surmises; “it runs like a
fascinating and sometimes fatal thread through mythology and history,
poetry and prose” (68). Of all hair, though, it is the red that is the most
sexually charged.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
B. Ayres, S. E. Maier, A Vindication of the Redhead,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83515-6_1
2 B. AYRES AND S. E. MAIER
Men with red hair, throughout legends and myth, have been perceived
to be more virile than other men (66), and female redheads have always
had sex appeal (71) but women with any kind of power have posed a
threat to men in most cultures. That power may not always be cultured,
endowed, or tolerated by humans but it can overcome all man-made
restraints through supernatural agency, as Sylvia Plath asserts in her poem
“Lady Lazarus” (1960):
Out of the ash

I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
In response to such seductive power, 1 Timothy 2:9 extols women to

dress modestly and not adorn their hair, lest they tempt men to forego
spiritual sanctification and lest they prioritize their external appearance to
the neglect of their internal beauty as did, say, Jezebel.
Jezebel, often portrayed as a redhead in art,1 is the quintessential evil
woman and enemy to God. She is called a false prophet in Revelation, and
no wonder, during her reign as queen, she insisted that her people worship
Baal, who to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike was the same as Beelzebub
in demonology. Jezebel ordered the Israelite prophets to be murdered
until only 100 survived, with Elijah fleeing for his own life and despairing
of life altogether. Once her husband Ahab was killed and Jehu, the king
newly appointed by God, came to deal with her, either to seduce him or
to intimidate him with her royal mien, she painted her face and adorned
her hair (2 Kings 9:30). Unsuccessful in dominating him as she did other
men, she was defenestrated, meaning she was thrown out of the window,
and was done so by three eunuchs. This is significant in that her own red
hair implied sexual prowess. The practice of castrating Israelites as punish-
ment or as insurance that once they were slaves or servants around female
royals that they were sexually innocuous began with Jezebel as a Phoenician
familiar with such practices (Tadmor 1995, 324). Therefore, her death
was also an act of retaliation by men whose power had been stolen from
them by a redhead. As further warning to women who usurp power over
men, her body was devoured by dogs leaving only her skull, feet, and the
palms of her hands; she was literally consumed so that none of her earthly
beauty survived (2 Kings 9:33–37), just as Elijah had prophesied would
happen (1 Kings 21:23).
1 INTRODUCTION: “HAIR IS THE WOMAN’S GLORY”—UNLESS IT’S RED 3
Jezebel appears again in prophesy, but as a signifier for the end times.
In a letter to Thyatira as recorded in Revelation 2:20, John writes,
“Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest
that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to
seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed
unto idols.” Webster defines a “jezebel” as “an impudent, shameless, or
morally unrestrained woman,” and the name is afloat with similar meaning
in the universal lexicon.
In contrast to Jezebel with her seductive hair, millions of women believe
that they must wear some kind of head covering as an act of obedience,
modesty, or a covenantal relationship with God. The passage about head
covering for women is also the basis of the common law that was estab-
lished after the Norman Conquest in 1066. The law of coverture asserted
that women’s legal rights were subsumed by those of her husband. A mar-
ried woman was designated feme covert or “woman covered by her hus-
band.” A feme sole or unmarried woman had some rights to own property
and make contracts of their own, but their fathers and brothers usually
made sure that they had and did neither.2
Yonge writes about the necessity of women’s “reduc[ing] the hair to
well-ordered obedience” (193), for “tumble-down hair, falling dishev-
elled on the shoulders, sounds grand in fiction, but it is disgusting in real
life; and when once the melancholy moment of ‘turning up the hair’ has
come, no girl whose life is to be spent without a maid should be content
till she has learnt to make her edifice firm, as graceful as nature will per-
mit” (193). During Victorian times, women who had loose hair were
regarded as fallen women or prostitutes.3 This was the philosophy of the
infamous Brocklehurst in Jane Eyre (1847) who exclaimed that naturally
curly hair was nature gone amuck and that it was a Christian act of grace
to cut off curls as well as braids and topknots. His mission was “to mortify
in these girls the lusts of the flesh” because the girls simply had “far too
much of the excrescence” (Brontë 1869 [1847], 61), the implication
being that their hair tempted them to be too vain about their appearance.
Brocklehurst was not just a fictional character; his real name was William
Carus Wilson, a severe Calvinist that founded the Clergy Daughters’
School at Cowan Bridge where four of the Brontë sisters attended. The
two eldest girls contracted tuberculosis at the school before they were
removed by their father and, ultimately, they died. Wilson did indeed cut
off the girls’ hair in his effort to save their souls; however, his “own wom-
enfolk were not expected to surrender any of their vanities of dress and
coiffure” (Lyndall Gordon 1994, 17). Nevertheless, a popular magazine,

The Magdalen’s Friend, warned that girls had “the tendency to Vanity”
and one must employ “a constant effort to suppress it.”4
Vanity was only one dangerous snare laid by hair that could lead to
ruination for a woman. To Victorians, “disordered hair was a traditional
symbol of abandonment. It could suggest the abandonment of reason, as
in dramatic or operatic ‘mad scenes.’ But it could also suggest sexual aban-
donment. … Respectable women kept their hair tidy: not to do so was at
best slovenly, at worst a mark of immorality” (Grylls 2016, 24). As “to
discourage vanity and improper thoughts” and as “part punishment and
part penance,” many prostitutes had their hair cropped (Finnegan
2004, 26).
One euphemism throughout Europe for a female prostitute was mag-
dalene. She was named after the biblical Mary Magdalene who was under-
stood to have been a prostitute reformed by Jesus. She had long flowing
hair that is usually represented as red in paintings of her, particularly when
the scene involves when she uses her hair to wash Jesus’ feet (Luke
7:36–39).5 Prostitutes were called magdalenes by the early Catholic
Church as early as the days of Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century
(McCarthy 2010, 1 and 8). The Pope conflated Mary of Bethany, the
sister of Martha and Lazarus and who was not a prostitute (Luke 10:39),
with the unnamed woman in Luke 7 who was a prostitute. Both women
washed Jesus’ feet as a traditional cultural act of hospitality, a sign of
humility and selfless love, one that Jesus would perform on his twelve
disciples at the Last Supper (John 13:1–15). Although prostitution and
adultery were serious-enough offenses to warrant being stoned to death in
the Judaic tradition, significantly, Jesus showed such women mercy. He
did not condemn them although He condemned the sin (John 8:1–11).
In a severely patriarchal society, Jesus defied gender praxis when He
allowed Mary Magdalene to be one of His followers who traveled with the
disciples. Additionally, she was the first person (a woman, a former prosti-
tute, and most likely a redhead to boot!) to whom the risen Christ
appeared, and was the first to be commissioned by Christ to tell the good
news of His resurrection, thus making her the first evangelist (John
20:10–18).
Like The Awakening Conscience (1853) by Pre-Raphaelite William
Holman Hunt,6 the magdalene or fallen woman has been depicted in
medieval and Renaissance paintings as having “loose, flowing hair, which
before her conversion symbolized her sexual sin” (O’Connell 2020, 27–30).
Magdalene asylums, also known as Magdalene laundries, were created

as penitentiary workhouses beginning in 1700 (McCarthy 1). Most of the
women committed to them were pregnant but unmarried. The first one
began in Whitechapel, England, in 1758, and soon there were similar asy-
lums throughout Britain, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Sweden, Canada,
Australia, and the United States (Smith 2007, xv–xvi). By 1900 there were
over 300 of them in England alone (Finnegan 2004, 8). The last one
closed was in Dublin, and it ended only because it was no longer profitable
in 1996 (O’Kane 1996, 2).
The first “laundry” to open in Dublin was in 1767 and ran until 1996.
An estimated 30,000 women were confined in them, and one mass grave
held 155 corpses (Ryan 2011, n.p.). Another maternity home, the Bon
Secours Mother and Baby Home in Ireland, buried 796 children in the
tunnels in coffins, and many of them in the sewage tank areas (Corless
quoted in Kelly 2017, n.p.). Since the “penitent females” were Irish, and
10% of the population has had red hair,7 it is not surprising that when the
movie Sinners was made in 2002 about the Irish laundries in the 1960s,
the star was fiery redhead Anne-Marie Duff, daughter of two Irish immi-
grants. (She also played the most famous of queens who was a redhead,
Elizabeth I, in the TV mini-series, Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen (2005)).
In real life, one redhead, Mary Paterson, also known as Mary Mitchell,
at eighteen was just released from a Magdalene laundry in Edinburgh (in
1828), when she was seduced by whiskey to breakfast at the house of one
William Burke, who murdered her (Rosner 2011, 116). So enthralled with
her hair, he cut it off (Michael Gordon 2009, 52) before selling her body
to Robert Knox, a Scottish anatomist who dissected bodies for his anat-
omy lectures. Burke and his partner in crime, William Hare, were Irish, but
murdered sixteen women to sell to Knox in Edinburgh (202 and 252).
The moral of these stories is that many “fallen women” had red hair
and suffered because of insidious stereotypes and often were disposed of
as if they were the bane of humanity, but no such repercussions were
imposed on men, red-haired or not, for their complicity in the female sex
trade. Prostitution had become such a necessary social service that by the
mid-fifteenth century throughout Europe, it had developed into “munici-
pal institutions” that were regulated by laws (and not outlawed), such as
forbidding prostitutes from wearing the coif or a veil lest they be mistaken
for respectable ladies (Haskins 2005, 170–72). If men had not paid for
female services and if women had been allowed alternate opportunities for
securing employment to support themselves and their families, there
would not have been so many prostitutes, even if red-haired women were
thought driven by sexual passion that they could not control.
Indeed, reviewing The Female Offender (1895) by Cesare Lombroso
and Guglielmo Ferrero, an article titled “A Legend of Bad Women” in the
National Observer, concluded that prostitutes had “an unusual quantity of
thick dark hair” but the preponderance of criminal women were unchaste
with their red hair (1895, 713). Lombroso was the founder of the Italian
School of Positivist Criminology; in their work, he and Ferrero claimed
that 48% of criminal women—“offenders against chastity”—were red-
heads (2004 [1895], 124).8 Further, Jonathan Swift reinforced a long-
standing stereotype that redheads were highly sexed. In Gulliver’s Travels
(1726), he wrote of the Yahoos, “It is observed that the red-haired of
both sexes are more libidinous and mischievous than the rest, whom yet
they much exceed in strength and activity” (164).
“Red hair has always been seen as ‘other,’ but fascinatingly and most
unusually, it is a white skinned other,” Jacky Colliss Harvey notes in her
Red: A History of the Redhead (2015, 8); “yet people still express biases
against red hair in language and in attitudes of unthinking mistrust that
they would no longer dream of espousing or of exposing if the subject
were skin color, or religion, or sexual orientation” (8). As A Vindication
of the Redhead will demonstrate, the stereotypes associated with red hair
have existed before the beginning of time when, as the biblical account
tells it, Satan—identified as being covered with red hair—was kicked out
of heaven, a subject that will be discussed in detail in the next two chap-
ters. The stereotypes continue in portrayals in literature, art, and other
visual arts today.
Red hair has also been associated with Jews, who have been the most
“othered” of all people throughout history in almost every country but
were/are God’s favored people according to the Bible. In the sixteenth
century, prostitutes and Jews were not allowed to handle any food in the
market unless they bought it (McCarthy 66). Like the Jews, prostitutes
were required to wear a rouelle or a badge (Haskins 172), but in some cit-
ies they wore an aiguillette or red shoulder knot designating the red rope
used by the prostitute Rahab in Joshua 2 (Gibb 2008, 36–65). Joshua sent
spies into Jericho, and Rahab protected them from capture. In gratitude,
they promised to spare her and her family if she were to tie a cord of scarlet
thread in the window, which she did.
Based on an interpretation of Romans 11, throughout medievalism
many Christians believed that before God would create a new heaven and
earth, the Jews would have to be converted to Christianity. As a result,

many tried to force Jews to convert, even by means of torture and threat
of death. The Jews—often derided not only for their religion and race but
also for their red hair—suffered more than any other redhead in the West
and were the supreme Other. The history of this prejudice toward the Jew
is one of the subjects in the next chapter, beginning with the biblical
Rebecca.
Isaac’s wife gave birth to twins. The firstborn was Esau, who grew into
a man who was covered with red hair and was given the nickname of
Edom or “red” (Gen. 25:25). Holding lightly his birthright, Esau gave it
willingly to his younger brother in exchange for “red pottage” because he
was hungry. Later when Isaac was on his deathbed, Rebecca wrapped
Jacob’s arms with hairy animal skin. Feeling the hair, blind Isaac believed
that Jacob was Esau and then gave his blessing that was inherently due to
the firstborn to Jacob. Esau was so angry, he vowed to kill Jacob (Gen.
25–28). Esau’s descendants were called Edomites, and they would often
battle the Israelites. By the second century BC, they were mostly Hellenistic
in culture until John Hyrcanus, a Hasmonean or Maccabean leader and
Jewish high priest, forced them to convert to Judaism, and they became
known as the Red Jews. This conversion yielded Herod the Great, who
was responsible for the Massacre of the Innocents. When he learned that
Jesus, the Messiah, was born in Bethlehem, he ordered the death of all
male children under the age of two (Matt. 2:16–18). His son, Herod
Antipater (with the nickname Antipas), ordered the executions of John
the Baptist and Jesus (Matt. 14:1–12). Herod’s descendants were called
the Herodians, and they were extremely hostile to Jesus during His min-
istry on earth.9 Christians today equate them to being as evil and legalistic
as were the Pharisees. The record of the red-haired Herods in the New
Testament and the belief that the Jews must be converted before Christians
could receive their rewards have incited historical anti-Semitism.10
“The Red Jews” has been a nomenclature around as long as the second
century. “Red” and “Rot” are the same in Middle High German, and
means “duplicitous, wicked, faithless, cunning.”11 Also the early Greco-
Roman and Christians associated red hair and beard with evil or sin
(Goldenberg 2009, 207–9). England has held a long history of anti-
Semitism. Although it is true that William the Conqueror resettled many
Jews from France in England in order to bring economic stability and
finance, the replacement of Anglo aristocracy with French, the Canonical
Excerptions, published by the Archbishop of York in 740, forbade

Christians to attend Jewish feasts (Tovey 1738, 3–4).12
During the earlier centuries, Christians were not allowed to lend money
with interest, but the Church was conflicted about the biblical prohibi-
tions that forbade usury (Dorn 2016; Kirschenbaum 1985).13 The medi-
eval Jewish scholars, the Rishonim, also debated the matter (Kirschenbaum
270). Regardless, although most Christians refrained from charging inter-
est because it was illegal to do so under threat of church excommunication
and thereby being sentenced to hell, European legal systems determined
that canon law did not pertain to non-Catholics and Jews because (1) they
were already condemned to hell for not being Christians, (2) the church
ecclesiastics and civil governments needed to borrow money, and (3)
Jewish moneylending was beneficial to trade, industry, and purchase of
war defenses (Dorn n.p.). Since Jews were forbidden to participate in
trade and industry in most European cities, Jews often looked to money-
lending as the only viable financial recourse (Dorn n.p.).
By the late twelfth century, hatred for the Jews peaked because of the
third crusade against “heathens” in the Middle East, extensive taxes to pay
for the crusades, debt to the English Jews, blame for the plague placed on
the Jews, and widespread belief that Jews were torturing and killing young
Christian men, for after all, the Jews, it was said, killed Christ. During the
coronation of Richard I, massacres of Jews occurred in dozens of cities
throughout England including the infamous burning of trapped Jews in
Clifford’s Tower in York (Mundill 2010, 74–82). This was not the first or
last drastic persecution against English Jews, and Hitler was not the first to
require Jews to wear the yellow stars to separate them from Gentiles.
Besides widespread murders and executions of Jews during the reign of
Edward I, in 1215 they were required to wear yellow patches (Little 1900,
854), and in 1290, Edward I ordered the expulsion of all Jews in England,
which was in effect for 350 years. Throughout Western literature, most
Jews were depicted with red hair, the most famous being Charles Dickens’
Fagin in Oliver Twist (1838), which will be discussed later in this volume.
Red seems to hold special, primal connotations, but we respond to it in
many ways. Jacky Colliss Harvey, in her book-length study of red
hair, writes:
It is the color of love, but also that of war; we see red when furiously angry,
yet send our love a red, red rose; it is the color of blood, and can thus sym-
bolize both life and death, and in the form of red ochre or other natural
pigments scattered over the dead, it has played a party in the funerary rites
of civilizations from Minoans to the Mayans. Our worst sins are scarlet,
according to the prophet Isaiah, and it is the color of Satan in much Western
art, but it is the color of luck and prosperity in the East. It is universally
recognized as the color of warning, in red for danger; it is the color of sex in
red-light districts across the planet. (2015: 8)
According to Harvey, Scotland has the greatest number of redheads mak-

ing up 13% of its population and with 40% carrying the gene. The next is
Ireland with 10% and 46%, respectively (15). In Ireland, many believe that
red hair came to the isle from the Danes. Hence, to call someone a red-
haired Dane or red Dane is offensive (Norman 2019, n.p.). The English
Dialect Dictionary (1896) defines the word “Dane” as “a term of
reproach” (quoted in Norman). Whenever Sir Walter Scott uses the term
“Dane” in his poetry, he always associates it with “heathen” and “savage”
(such as in Marmion 1808, 6.6). In a note to Rokeby, Scott wrote: “About
the year of God 866, the Danes … invaded Northumberland,” bringing
with them magic. They “spread their conquests and incursions in every
direction” (395). “At length,” Scott says in a note to Marmion, they
“infest[] the country” (185). The “red-hair’d Dane” is mentioned in The
Lord of the Isles (1815, 19.10). In his Marmion, Scott describes the Celtic
Scotts as “Wild through their red or sable hair, / Looked out their eyes,
with savage stare” (5.9–10). Besides savagery, the redhead was depicted as
being deceptive, as Scott adds these famous lines: “Oh, what a tangled
web we weave / When first we practise to deceive!” (6.17).
In Egypt, red hair supposedly was so unlucky that once a year, they
would sacrifice a woman with red hair by burning her alive (Norman n.p.).
They also sacrificed red-hair men to Osiris, and their ashes scattered in
fields to ensure a good harvest, possibly because their red hair “symbol-
ized the golden wealth of corn” (Allen 1897, 310). Nevertheless, many of
the pharaohs had red hair, including the famous Ramses (Norman n.p.).
Xenophanes of Colophon (570–475 BC) noted that “men make gods in
their own image” (quoted in Burnet 1914, 35); however, they desire to
create gods that they can control—just like golems. More specific and
relevant to this study is that he supported that observation with: “Those
of the Ethiopians are black and snub-nosed, those of the Thracians have
blue eyes and red hair” (quoted in Burnet 35).
Thrace is a geographical area in Southeast Europe now split among
Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey; in fact, a thousand years before the birth of
Christ, what is now known as Europe was Thrace Proper. “Europa,” from
the Greek means “wide and broad,” and more specifically “wide face,”
referring to a Phoenician princess in Greek mythology, who was abducted
by Zeus and taken to Crete, after he turned her into a bull. The Thracians
seemed to have an inordinate amount of red hair and violence
(Harvey 34–35).
The next group that emerges in history with a lot of redheads are the
Scythians. Unfortunately, they do not get positive billing in the Bible.
They are mentioned in Colossians 3:11, in its description of God’s image:
“where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised,
barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all” (AV). Alfred
Barry, who was the Canon of the Eleventh Stall at St. George’s Chapel at
Windsor Castle and officiated at Charles Darwin’s funeral, said, “‘the
‘Scythian’ was the savage, towards whom the contempt implied for the
‘barbarian’ assumed explicitness, and reached its climax” (1884,
113–14n11).
Victoria Sherrow, who wrote Encyclopedia of Hair: A Cultural History,
has this to say about redheads:
Many cultures have associated red hair with a hot temper or a tempestuous
nature. …. At times, red-haired people have been the targets of supersti-
tions, prejudices, and persecution. In ancient Greek myths, they became
vampires after death. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a high
percentage of the women whom puritan religious leaders branded as
“witches” had red hair; “most of them also were young and good looking.”
(2006, 152)
During the Spanish Inquisition, women with red hair were believed to be
witches because their hair reflected the fire of hell (Norman 2019, n.p.).
“At the height of Europe’s witch hunts, in the 16th and 17th centuries,”
Cooper recounts that “many women suffered the shame and pain of being
stripped, shaved, and ‘pricked’ by a witch-hunter, endured torture, and
were put to death, simply because they were redheads—and preferably,
young and attractive” (75). In France Jean-Baptist Thiers, in his Histoire
des Perruques (1777), advised redheads to wear wigs to cover the color of
their hair because Judas had red hair (Cooper 75). In India, male members
of the Brahmin caste have traditionally been banned from marrying red-
haired women (Sherrow 152). The prejudice against redheads was global.
Incomprehensibly then, red hair became very popular during the reign
of Elizabeth I and in Italy during the Renaissance “when Titian and other
artists used brilliant red-gold tones to paint hair” (Sherrow 152), so much
so that women would dye their hair with a mixture of soda, alum, and
black sulfur (Cooper 75). Titian was famous for painting redheads. In fact,
the hair color—a “golden red-brown”—had become so popular in Venice
that women dyed their hair that color. Since then, the term “Titian red”
has been in vogue (Roach 2005, 68). It was a rare time that red-haired
women held onto their power and were not depicted as a threat to man-
hood; rather, such redheads depicted in art were queens, goddesses, or the
Madonna herself—as if they were not your everyday woman.
Women are not the only redheads who have been typed, as this volume
will show. T. S. Eliot based his infamous Macavity on Professor Moriarty,
the Machiavellian red-haired criminal created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
(who was also a redhead). Doyle drew Moriarty from real-life Adam
Worth, arguably the most notorious safecracker, bank robber, and art theft
of the nineteenth century. Worth was born in Germany into a poor Jewish
family who then emigrated to America. Once an adult, Worth’s criminal
activity expanded the globe.14 Doyle had Moriarty create a syndicate crime
group—all with red hair—forming the red-headed league—thus the title
of his short story “The Red-Headed League” (1891). In 1938 Eliot wrote
in a letter that he modeled the cat after Moriarty (quoted in Ricks and
McCue 2015, 66). Significant to our study, Eliot made him a “ginger cat”
(Eliot 2009 [1930], 41), and the 1998 film production of Andrew Lloyd
Webber’s musical has him covered in brilliant red hair. Mark Twain is
widely quoted as saying, “While the rest of the species is descended from
apes, redheads are descended from cats” (source unknown). Thus associ-
ated with the lechery of felines and rogues, red-haired men have also suf-
fered degenerate stereotypes of class and race.
Building upon the typology of male redheads as insane and Gothically
vicious, especially to fragile women, Hugh Walpole—yes, a descendent of
the first Gothic writer, Horace Walpole—published a Gothic tale titled
Portrait of a Man with Red Hair (1925), featuring a sadistic, macabre
redhead by the name of Crispin. An American on holiday to England
meets him and is fascinated by “such red hair” the likes of which he has
never seen before (73), a sure presage that this American and readers are
in for a real, terrifying Gothic thrill.
The next chapter of this volume that attempts to vindicate redheads,
“The Devil Has Red Hair and So Do Other Dissemblers in Ancient
Discourses,” traces in detail the global origins of the treatment of red hair
as evil, beginning with the biblical Satan and then his demonic brood.
Compared to goats covered with red hair, “devils” is translated as “goat
idols,” and the word evolved into English as “satyrs” that appear through-
out Greek mythology with their exaggerated erection. The Germanic
people believed in a red-haired Thor. Norse mythology was part of the
folklore of “the Welsh, Irish, and Gaelic tribes”; and the Teutonic, the
“Angles, Saxons, and Jutes and Danish and Norse Scandinavians”
(Hardwick 1872, 3), with counterpart of Indra and Agni deities of
Hinduism (64). Ayres discusses additional goat gods and devils with red
hair before turning to humans, first in Babylon and then traces redheads
in the Bible, starting, of course, with Adam and Eve, followed by Lilith
and Lamia, the first murderer Cain, and then a kin of his, Beowulf. Red-
haired royals in England fought constantly for power, but there was one
son of Henry II, Madoc, who, 300 years prior to Christopher Columbus,
arrived at present-day Florida and either began to infiltrate the native pop-
ulation with red hair and blue eyes or increased the population of the same
that might have come into existence after an earlier visit by Norsemen.
The next redhead Ayres discusses is also from the Bible, which is Esau,
as described above and whose story is replayed throughout literature
including in Kenneth Oppel’s This Dark Endeavor (2011). Two additional
villainous redheads from the Bible, Judas and Salome, are studied before
Ayres summarizes the stereotypes that have been perpetuated from these
deep red roots.
Chapter 3, “‘Real Are the Dreams’: Red Hairy Incubi and Unheavenly
Succubi,” takes a closer look at the devil and his red-haired league, includ-
ing the Nephilim, Rephaites, and Si-Te-Cah, the red-haired giants who
were the offspring of women and demons. This is followed by a history of
redheads who came into being through the copulation of demons with
humans, including Caliban in Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1610–1611).
The chapter also studies Henry Fuseli’s paintings of red-haired creatures
before discussing nuns, like Adhan—Merlin’s mother—who were impreg-
nated by incubi and gave birth to supernatural beings with one thing in
common, red hair. A surge of interest in medievalism by the Romantics
reproduced such red-haired legends in poetry and art. Additional incubi
can be found in Paradise Lost (1667). The chapter moves to an analysis of
Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and its incubus conception of an antichrist who,
of course, has red hair. Ayres finishes with an exploration of the red-haired
incubus in the TV series Evil that first aired in 2019.
Red seems to have been the preferred hair color for women in the
paintings by the Pre-Raphaelites. As Ayres says in Chap. 4, “No other
group, no other movement, and no other revolution of any sort pane-
gyrized and exploited historical typology of red hair as did the Pre-
Raphaelites. They seemed obsessed with untidy, red-hair women as
symbols for both resistance to conventionality and manifestation of other-
worldliness.” Ayres also discusses how the Pre-Raphaelite redheads influ-
enced art, literature, and other media.
Red hair has agency that alters gender norms is the subject of Chap. 5.
Beginning with Mr. Rochester (2017), Ayres explores Sarah Shoemaker’s
emasculation of Mr. Rochester of Jane Eyre fame, through the agency of a
red-haired nurse by the name of Grace Poole. Poole is compared to Miss
Miggs in Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge (1841), who has been depicted in art
as having red hair. Miggs is then compared to the “wild-looking woman”
with red hair in A Tale of Two Cities (1859). Also studied are the two male
redheads in Barnaby Rudge: Edward Chester and Lord George Gordon.
Wielding power over others has not been restricted to just one gender,
and it has been a characteristic of many redheads throughout literature
and the arts. Two examples are Dr. Faraday and Mrs. Baker-Hyde in Sarah
Water’s The Little Stranger (2009) and in the film adaptation. The power
of red hair to change gender is apparent in The Danish Girl by David
Ebershoff (2000) and its movie (2015), the biofiction about Lili Elbe, a
transgender woman who was the first to undergo sex reassignment sur-
gery. As portrayed by Eddie Redmayne (note the relevance of his last
name to red hair) and encouraged by his wife, Gerda Wegener—who read-
ily subverts gender constriction—Einar Magnus Andreas Wegener trans-
forms into a woman when he puts on a red-haired wig. Ayres notes that
Oscar Wilde, once he began to turn gray, also wore a red-haired wig. “To
undergird” her theory “about the perpetuated perception of the sexual
power of redheads to subvert gender norms,” Ayres finishes with two bib-
lical stories: Ham and his offspring, the Canaanites who have been por-
trayed in art with red hair. Ham’s notorious sin against his father has often
been understood as rape. The other is Lot’s copulation with his daughters
who were redheads.
Chapter 6 gives a history of Jewish golems and analyzes their function
and their influence on contemporary notions about the typology of red
hair. Ayres focuses on Peter Ackroyd’s Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem
(1999) and its metaphorical encoding and currency borrowed from the
history or red, hairy golems.
Rapunzel was a redhead. Chapter 7 delves into Grimm Brothers’ story

as it forms the basis for the work Kate Morton does on the redheads in
three of her books: The Forgotten Garden (2008), The Clockmaker’s
Daughter (2018), and The House at Riverton: A Novel (2008). Although
“Tangled Webs of Red Hair from the Grimm Brothers to Kate Morton”
is concerned with Morton’s postmodern treatment of time and truth, it
constantly finds the narrative dependency on traditional stereotypes of
redheads.
Ayres’ final chapter to this volume offers a history of the typology of
red hair throughout Asian and African cultures. Even though or maybe
because red-haired people have been so rare in the East, they have been
marginalized and vilified. Besides a sweeping history of red-hair typology
in the East, the chapter slows down to give an in-depth criticism and his-
torical context of The Red-Haired Woman (2016) by the Nobel-prize win-
ner and Turkish novelist Ferit Orhan Pamuk. At the chapter’s conclusion,
Ayres theorizes why Eastern cultures have reacted to redheads with both
gingerphobia and gingerphilia.
The next four chapters and the epilogue have been written by Sarah.
E. Maier. Chapter 9, “Tough Little Red-Headed Orphans: Anne (of
Green Gables), Little Orphan Annie, Madeline, and Pippi,” examines the
red-headed orphans that abound in children’s literature across the Western
world, from Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables (1908),
Little Orphan Annie comics (1924), Madeline (1939) to Astrid Lindgren’s
Pippi Longstocking (1945). This chapter surveys these girl-children who
have been ostracized for their dual differences as gingers and as orphans.
Life’s difficulties are brought into focus through perceptions on how such
prejudices and stigmatization is reflected in the literature about these char-
acters but also explores how their characters become even stronger in the
face of such unfair adversity.
Chapter 10, “Rebellious Royals: From Disney’s Ariel to Pixar’s Merida,”
also looks at young female redheads, but the media of typology is Disney’s
and Pixar’s film animation. Resisting the past few centuries’ didactic litera-
ture that inculcated young girls to develop into angel-in-the-house types,
several Disney films defy such an ideology but does so only through hero-
ines who are redheads. This chapter investigates the transformation from
passive femininity to active, rebellious heroines but notes where Ariel’s
disobedient acts falter in their sense of achievement while the wild Celtic
nature of Merida—with the scraggly, disobedient, and unique
hair—succeeds.
“Neo-Victorian Freakery: Flaming-Haired Women, Dolls, Art, and

Detection,” the penultimate chapter, analyzes the flame-haired Bridie as a
New Woman, pipe-smoking detective who uses her abilities to solve crimes
in Things in Jars (2019) by Jess Kidd. Also examined is Iris in The Doll
Factory by Elizabeth Macneal (2019), a young artist who becomes the
Pre-Raphaelite obsession of a criminal whose perversity and taxidermy
skills seek to objectify her as art. The chapter finds neo-Victorian women
that have been rescued from Victorian stereotypes and given voice to the
skilled but silenced women of the Victorian past.
The last chapter by Maier, and of the volume, “STEAM(y) and
Marvel(ous) Women: Agent Scully, Lisbeth Salander, Beth Harmon and
The Black Widow,” investigates how, following the immense popularity of
the science fiction drama The X-Files (1993–2002, reboot 2016–2018),
critics argued for a link between young women watching the show and
pursuing an education and career in STEM because of Dana Scully. It will
also consider Steig Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander as well as Walter Tevis’ Beth
Harmon, both intellectually gifted redheads, but one of whom hides her
gingerness and the other is known for her masterful chess prowess. Marvel
graphic novels are replete with red-haired heroines. During the same
period of time, the rise of the Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff, has
injected female perspective into the Marvel Universe. In all cases, these are
redheads who work against the sexualized stereotype to exemplify women
as active problem solvers in their worlds.
This volume gives an overview of the typology of red hair in both
Western and Eastern cultures, but it is by no means comprehensive. In the
Hall of Redhead Fame are such notable personages as Cleopatra, Elizabeth
I, Nell Gwynne (an actress and the mistress of King Charles II of England),
Thomas Jefferson, Vincent Van Gogh, Lilly Langtry (London actress and
socialite), Mark Twain, Winston Churchill, David Bowie, Tori Amos,
Julianne Moore, Marcia Cross, Lindsay Lohan, tennis champion Boris
Becker, Sarah Ferguson (Duchess of York), David Caruso, Eric Stoltz,
Ron Howard, and Conan O’Brien. Rita Hayworth and Lucille Ball dyed
their hair—with apologies for any that have been omitted. In the book’s
epilogue, Maier suggests opportunities for future scholarship on redheads,
with the hope of increasing awareness of stereotypes that may result in
regarding every individual as unique.
The internet has many lists of quotes about redheads,15 that in and of
themselves reflect the typology associated with redheads, iterated
throughout literature, art, and other visual media. Today, most redheads
are extremely proud of the color of their hair and even attend conferences
and festivals to celebrate it. Even though we now live in an age when we
are forbidden to stereotype anyone and treat people as types instead of
individuals all with unique value, A Vindication of Redheads demonstrates
that our perceptions of redheads stem from deep roots in history and cul-
ture and that these perceptions have not changed much in the twenty-first
century, even if there are those who are proud of their heritage or do not
take seriously any stereotypical connotations of red hair.
If you have a lawn, especially in the northeast of the United States, in
early spring you battle the dandelions. Also called the Irish daisy, when
you stop and think about it, there is no good reason to eradicate dandeli-
ons, for they are pretty flowers. Furthermore, they are useful plants: I
remember that when I was a girl, my dad would send me out into the
meadows to collect these sunny-yellow flowers so that he could make dan-
delion wine. My mom had me cut dandelion leaves, so that we could eat
them in much the same way as we were made to eat spinach. So why do
we abhor them? Why must yards consist only of green grass? Besides, to
get rid of dandelions takes some serious chemicals. Many fertilizers will kill
other weeds, but except for causing the dandelion to droop, chemicals
rarely kill the roots. If you try to dig them up, it is almost impossible to
disengage entire roots, for they grow very deep and intertwine with other
plants, like grass, that you don’t want to destroy. Dandelions are like ste-
reotypes; they may be appreciated or at least tolerated for having positive
qualities (especially to other dandelions, botanists, dandelion aficionados,
and accommodating people who do not mind some yellow in their green
sod), but if you want to get rid of them, you must destroy them at their
roots. Just mowing over top of them will not get the job done. But then
you kill a lot more than what you intend.
So it is the same with stereotypes whose roots are prejudice. So it has
been and is with gingerphobia. And so, in the twenty-first century, draw-
ing from ancient mythology, Spider-Man says, “The Phoenix Force is
crazy powerful cosmic firebird entity that for some reason seems to be
attracted to earthbound redheads (I can relate)” (Aaron 2012, n.p.). And
Charlie Brown still “can’t get that Little Red-Haired Girl out of [his]
mind” (Schulz 2020 [1978], n.p.).
Notes
1. See Jezebel by John Liston Byam Shaw (1896) at https://upload.wikime-
dia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/John_Liston_Byam_Shaw_003.jpg
2. For further reading, see William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of
England (1769), vol. 1, 746–51.
3. Galia Ofek argues that “loose hair equaled loose sexuality” (2009, 148).
4. Quoted in Logan 36.
5. One example of Mary Magdalene with red hair is Frederick Sandys’ Mary
Magdalene (1848–1860). See https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/
index.php?curid=1173828
6. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Holman_Hunt#/media/
File:Hunt-AwakeningConscience1853.jpg
7. Coming second to Scotland whose population consists of 13% redheads
(Cass 2003, 37).
8. They base this information on the research of the Italian psychiatrist,
Antonio Marro in his I Caratteri dei Deliquenti (1887; 148). The sam-
pling is not clear.
9. See Matthew 22:16; Mark 3:6, 8:15, and 12:13; Luke 13:31–32, and
Acts 4:27.
10. For a history of this based on the Red Jews, see Andrew Colin Gow’s “The”
Red Jews: Antisemitism in an Apocalyptic Age, 1200–1600 (1995).
11. Quoted in David M. Goldenberg 376n39. See also Gow (4, 66–69).
12. In addition, a charter written by the King of Mercia to the Monks of
Croyland refers to land owned by Jews (Tovey 3).
13. See Exodus 22:25–27, Leviticus 25:36–37, Deuteronomy 23:20–21, and
Ezekiel 18. Kirschenbaum’s article is excellent in its coverage of the debate.
14. See Kingston (1921, 259–73). His most famous heist was Georgiana,
Duchess of Devonshire, by Thomas Gainsborough (1787) stolen in 1876
(266). Georgina had red hair.
15. Goodreads list 50. See “Readheads Quotes” at https://www.goodreads.
com/quotes/tag/redheads
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Roach, Marion. The Roots of Desire: The Myth, Meaning, and Sexual Power of Red
Hair. New York: Bloomsbury, 2005.
Rosner, Lisa. The Anatomy Murders: Being the True and Spectacular History of
Edinburgh’s Notorious Burke and Hare and of the Man of Science Who Abetted
Them in the Commission of Their Most Heinous Crimes. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.
Ryan, Carol. “Irish Church’s Forgotten Victims Take Case to U.N.” The New York
Times, May 25, 2011. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/world/
europe/25iht-abuse25.html
Sandys, Frederick. Mary Magdalene by Frederick Sandys, 1848–1860, oil on can-
vas, 13-/4 in x 11 in. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.
php?curid=1173828
Schulz, Charles Monroe. The Complete Peanuts, 1977–1978. Vol. 14. Seattle, WA:
Fantagraphics Books, 2020.
Scott, Sir Walter. The Lord of the Isles. 1815. In The Poetical Works of Sir Walter
Scott with the Author’s Introductions and Notes, Oxford Complete Edition,
edited by J. Logie Robertson, 207–301. London: Henry Frowde, 1904.
https://books.google.com/books?id=-O5die2AJ8EC
———. Rokeby. 1813. In The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott, 313–516.
———. Marmion; A Tale of Flodden Field. Edinburgh: Archibald Constable,
1808. https://books.google.com/books?id=aRZMAAAAcAAJ
Sherrow, Victoria. Encyclopedia of Hair: A Cultural History. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 2006.
Smith, James. Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries. Notre Dame, IN: University of
Notre Dame Press, 2007.
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. 1726. London: Jones and Company, 1826.
Tadmor, Hayim. “Was the Biblical sa ̄rîs a Eunich?” In Solving Riddles and Untying
Knots: Biblical, Epigraphic, and Semitic Studies in Honor of Jonas C. Greenfield,
ed. by Ziony Zevit, 317–25. New York: Charles Scribner’s and Sons, 1995.
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Tauchnitz Edition. Vol. 1772. Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1878.
CHAPTER 2
The Devil Has Red Hair and So Do Other

Dissemblers in Ancient Discourses
Throughout both Eastern and Western histories, a stereotype of red-

haired people as dissemblers has persisted. The association of red hair with
Satan, devils, monsters, murderers, villains, seductive women, Jews, and
other personages of presumed infamy continues to be propagated through
literature and other media today. Exploring ancient texts that include
mythology, the Bible, the Babylonian Talmud, histories, ecclesiastical writ-
ings, and Old English poetry, this chapter identifies the origins of this
prejudice and its dissemination through religious, literary, and visual cul-
tural discourse in Western culture.
Gothic Roots of Red Hair

In case you have not noticed, vividly red hair is the color of choice for
extant Goths,1 also known as the “undead subculture” as Michael Bibby
and Lauren M. E. Goodlad term it (2007). Gothicism is like vampirism:
The undead never die and show up just when you have no garlic available,
not even for ready money. Gothicism enjoyed a spurt of growth through
the punk ethos of the 1970s with “a gothic predilection for the dreadful
and macabre” (1). The Goth culture is still thriving today,2 and its adher-
ents are faithful to the historical record that the ancient Goths predomi-
nantly had red hair, as stated in Tacitus’ report to Domitian at the end of
the first century (quoted in Pinkerton 1814, 26).3 It became understood
that many people from what is now known as Germany and Scandinavia
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 21

Switzerland AG 2021
B. Ayres, S. E. Maier, A Vindication of the Redhead,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83515-6_2
had red hair (127). Tacitus thought that the people of Caledonia (present-
day Scotland) “resembled the Germans in their large persons and red hair”
(quoted in 107). After the erection of the Hadrian Wall to keep the
Caledonians from invading, the Romans called these redheads the Barbari,
from which we get “barbarians” (108). To the “civilized” Romans in the
early centuries, the hair of the Goths was a synecdoche for barbarism
(17–18).
Insofar as the Romans saw themselves as emissaries of civilization and
everyone else as Philistines, Gothicism and more recently neo-Gothicism
have become synonymous with nonconformity and anti-status. In The
Rise of the Gothic Novel, Maggie Kilgour theorized that Gothic writing is a
“rebellion against a constraining neoclassical aesthetic ideal of order and
unity, in order to recover a suppressed primitive and barbaric imaginative
freedom” (1995, 3). Gothicism and neo-Gothicism are subversive chal-
lenges to the societal norms of the day with tales that have been horrifying
to some, delightful to others, and delightfully horrifying to most. As an
archetype in the Gothic, people with red hair are recognized, to use the
postcolonial term, as the Other, both as victim and villain at the same time
because of being outside the norm.4
Satan Is a Redhead
The origin of the historical distrust of red hair began long before the
Romans encountered the Goths. The Judeo-Christian understanding, as
reflected in both the Old and New Testaments, is that all red-haired crea-
tures, human and nonhuman, are reprobate, beginning with Satan and his
league of demons. Jesus called the devil “the father of all lies” (John 8:44).
S ́ā·ṭa ̄n is Hebrew; the Greek is diábolic, which means “opponent” or
“accuser” and has been translated as “the devil” to refer to Satan, and
“devils” to refer to demons. The word “devils” appears four times in the
Old Testament. In Leviticus 17:7 Moses warns the Israelites to “no more
offer their sacrifices unto devils after whom they have gone a whoring.”5
The same term is in 2 Chronicles 11:15 when Jeroboam murdered all the
priests that served the Lord and replaced them with priests that served the
devils. The Hebrew word for “devils” in Chronicles is se’irim, translated
as “goat idols” in the New International Version or “goat demons” in the
New American Standard. Elsewhere translated as “hairy demons,” it
evolved into the English word “satyrs” from the Hebrew s ǝ́ -‘ı ̑r, referring
to goats.6 Many of these goats had red hair,7 as indicated in 1 Samuel
2 THE DEVIL HAS RED HAIR AND SO DO OTHER DISSEMBLERS… 23
16:12 and 19:13, when red hair from a goat was compared to King David’s
hair, who was said to be “ruddy” or “auburn.” Although called “a man
after God’s own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14 and Acts 13:22), David was also a
man who committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband
murdered (2 Sam. 11), holding true to stereotype that redheads possess
libidos that cannot be controlled.
A fascinating book that conflates Satan and devils with red hair and sex
is William Golding’s The Spire (1964). Set in the Medieval Age, a dean
decides to build an enormous spire to his cathedral ostensively to glorify
God but in reality to glorify himself. The spire develops into a phallic sym-
bol, the sexual implication blatant in the text as a man dances with “the
model of the spire projecting obscenely between his legs” (1966, 81). As
construction proceeds, it disrupts the religious activities of its cathedral
congregants and furthermore is being built upon a foundation that cannot
support it. The dean is sexually distracted by a married woman who has
unruly red hair and already is committing adultery with the master builder.
The dean neglects his duties, and “Satan was given leave to torment him,
seizing him by the loins, so that it became indeed an unruly mem-
ber” (131).
The dean suffers dreams of red hair, either the hair that covered Satan
or the alluring hair of Goody, often one in the same and both appearing
naked. The first instance is in Chapter 3: “Only Satan himself, rising out
of the west, clad in nothing but blazing hair stood over his nave and
worked at the building, tormenting him.” (56). At the beginning of
Chapter 5, he sees a nun with a wimple, but the wimple cannot cover the
wild, tangle of red hair beneath it, at least to the dean’s eye (83). From
that point on, every reference to Goody’s red hair that drives him mad. As
he lies dying, the dean realizes that it is the “late hour” and hopes that
“the witchcraft” has left him, but he sees that red “tangle of hair” (211).
Thor as a Redhead
The Romans recorded that the Germanic people believed in a red-haired
Thor. For the native Celts, the “Teutonic Thor” would come into conflict
with their religion. The Celts consisted of “the Welsh, Irish, and Gaelic
tribes”; and the Teutonic, the “Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, and Danish and
Norse Scandinavians” (Hardwick 1872, 3). “The Teutonic Thor” was
“the counterpart of Indra and Agni” (64), deities of Hinduism. The early
Christians “condemned Thor to the lower regions” but also “carried their
dislike to the very color of his hair. Hence the proverb, ‘Rother-bart,
Teufelstart,’ or ‘Red-beard, devil-steered’” (64).
The god of thunder, Thor rode a chariot pulled by two goats, Tanngniost
(Tooth gnasher) and Tanngrisnir (Tooth grinder). The goats could be
killed and eaten by the gods and humans, just as goats (and sheep) were
sacrificed for expiation from and propitiation for sin in the Bible. These
animals were the prototypes of Jesus who became the ultimate sacrifice by
dying on the cross to redeem the sins of mankind. Different from most
other forms of sacrifice, though, Jesus rose from the dead, paralleling
Thor’s resurrection of the goats (Daly and Rengel 2004 [1991], 91).8
Some paintings depict Thor’s goats with red hair, and others, with white
or black.
Goat Gods with Red Hair

Enduring from early Indo-European rituals, then, Scandinavian and
Northern European countries have practiced Koliada (Yule) festivals to
honor the god of fertility known as Devac (or Dabog or Dazbog) often
pictured as a goat, although Christians have perceived him as a manifesta-
tion of Satan (Lurker 2004, 86). Folklore throughout Europe and Asia
has described him as a white goat with golden hooves (Kropej 2012, 75),
and a tale from Bovs ̂ko has the white goat with a cross on its brow (72–73).
Beginning in the eleventh century, during the Koliada (now celebrated as
Christmas), a man dresses up as the Yule Goat or Julbocken who demands
presents; and another man, attired as Saint Nicholas, leads him around,
symbolizing the saint’s control over the devil (Ridenour 2016, 201).
Simply put, the goat, if white, is a savior, but if he is red or any other color,
he is the devil.
The Ancient Greeks worshipped Pan who had the ears, horns, hind-
quarters, and legs of a goat with hair on his head and torso of red hair. He
was “the emblem of fecundity” and a representative of lust (Inquiry 1848,
17). Thought to be a proto-Indo-European god, he was widely wor-
shipped in the Middle East and in India. Women who enjoyed sex in
sequence with different men were known as “Pan Girls” (Lane Fox 1988,
130). Called pan-pan girls (but perhaps “pan” comes from a language
base other than Greek), thousands of Japanese women were hired by the
Recreation and Amusement Association to serve the sexual needs of the
occupational forces after Japan’s surrender in 1945, not for the sake of the
conquering Americans, but to protect “respectable women” from rape by
the Americans (Sakamoto 2010, 3–4). Like nymphomania and satyriasis,

references to Pan allude to hypersexuality. “Perhaps it is through their
satanic associations that goats are also considered paragons of hypersexual-
ity,” Richard C. Francis relays as he confirms that goats are “highly pro-
miscuous, mounting any remotely receptive female” (2015, 146). He
reminds us of the British expression, “randy as a goat,” when “randy”
means “lustful or lascivious” (146).
Red-Headed Devils
Gender is blended in the two occurrences of “devils” or sheedim in
Deuteronomy 32:17 and Psalm 106:37–39, again an indictment of wor-
shipping and whoring after them. Although the word signifies the mascu-
line plural, it refers to multiple breasts and was the Hebrew name for Isis
who was worshipped by the Egyptians and Diana (18), associated with
fertility, childbirth, and the underworld. Hence when studying the Gothic,
one can expect some convoluted notions about gender as mercurial as
shapeshifters. One can also expect what Ruth Bienstock Anolik calls “hor-
rifying sex” (2007), and Candice Black, in following the theories of the
Austro-German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing in his Psychopathia
Sexualis (1886), describes as “Satanica Sexualis” (2007).
Jeffrey Burton Russell, an expert on the devil, argues that the color red
has always been associated with evil due to its “hostile hue of the scorching
sands” in contrast to black fertile dirt that gives life (1978, 78). Revelation
12:3 alludes to Satan as the “great red dragon” and in 17:3, the “scarlet
beast.” Then too there are several biblical references to Satan as a hairy
goat such as the prophecy in Isaiah that describes Babylon as where “the
satyrs [(goats)] shall dance” (13:21). Thus the Scottish have often used
the epithet of Hornie for the devil, as did Robert Burns in “The Holy
Fair” (1785, 12.5), “Address to the Deil” (1785–1786, 1.2), and “Ballad
Fourth: The Trogger” (1799, 12.3). By 1889, “horny” was being used to
mean “sexually excited; lecherous” (OED).
Babylonian Redheads
Biblically, Babylon has always symbolized idolatry, heathenism, and the
occult, intertwined with sexual “perversion.” The whore of Babylon wears
scarlet, rides Satan (the scarlet-colored beast), and is the “mother of
Harlots and abominations of the earth” (Rev. 17:3–5). Described as “the
great whore,” Babylon is vilified in Revelation 17 and 18. The “whore of

Babylon” is represented by Duessa in Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen
(1590) as the counterfeit to Una, the one true faith in the representation
of Catholicism. Richard Hurd, the Bishop of Worcester, in writing Letters
on Chivalry and Romance, pronounced Spenser a “Gothic poet” in con-
trast to a “Classic” one (1762, 4–5, 68–69), who drew from the Gothic
romances (68–72) but was “the more poetical for being Gothic” (55). In
Spenser and the Judeo-Christian tradition, Babylon represents “the evil,
anti-God empire which is already in existence” (Kuykendall 2019, 119).
Also as a place of exile and therefore great sorrow and despondency,
Babylon is symbolized in Psalm 137:1–2 and echoed in Lord Byron’s “By
the Rivers We Sat Down and Wept” (1813) and in W. T. Stead’s famous
“The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” (1885) that exposed prostitu-
tion in London of young girls. Appropriating the biblical topos of
“Babylon” persists in Gothic literature of the last three centuries. In his
Babylon Under Western Eyes: A Study of Allusion and Myth, Andrew Scheil
traces the references of Babylon in Romanticism as an idealized, sentimen-
tal ruin, causing a nostalgia for a simpler premodern past (2016, 219),
noting that during the 1840s and 1850s, the Victorians were enthralled
with the discoveries found in the excavations of Babylon and Nineveh9;
however, once the nineteenth-century Gothic writers embraced the trope,
Babylon became a place of “horror, fear, terror, and dread” (219). Scheil
then discusses the Babylonian conceit employed by the following writers
whose works incorporate Gothic elements: Lord Dunsany (1878–1957;
222–29), Thea von Harbou (Metropolis 1925; 230), Lana Wachowski and
Lilly Wachowski (The Matrix 1999–2003; 230), Jack McDevitt (Babylon
5 1994–1998; 230), J. R. R. Tolkein (The Lord of the Rings 1937–1949,
231), and C. S. Lewis (The Magician’s Nephew 1955, 233–40). In 1990
Julian Gobz created a Gothic musical band called The Whores of Babylon,
“born out of Mesopotamian mysticism and Egyptian sand” (Smith 1994,
n.p.). Brian Stableford, in his Gothic Grotesques, extolls them as “the most
sophisticated lyricists working in the entire Goth field and the choice of
Pieter Bruegel’s painting of the Tower of Babel to illustrate their record
sleeve testifies to an intellectualism that they are not loath to parade,” and
they do contain anti-Christian lyrics (2009, 45).
What does Babylon have to do with red hair? The following are excerpts
from several neo-Gothic novels about Babylon that perpetuate the stereo-
type of red hair: (1) From Gwen Davis’ Naked in Babylon comes: “A
young-looking boy with red hair burst in without knocking…. ‘I’m sorry,’
Art said, running his hand along is red crew cut” (1960, 35). (2) From
Maurice Dantec’s Babylon Babies: “We now see a replica of the angel, this
time wearing a fire-colored suit, with black and silver embroidery in the
shape of seven-pointed stars. His hair is dyed bright red…” (2008 [1999],
285) and “And a woman, corpulent but athletic, like a judo champion,
with red hair cropped short as well…. She was holding a machine gun
exposed on her large chest” (296). (3) From George Garrett’s The King
of Babylon Shall Not Come Against You: “Skinny and freckled and all jerky
and nervous like one of those little toys that you used to wind up with a
key…. But Penrose was already running…. ‘Catch me if you can,’ he hol-
lered back at us, his hair on fire from the blaze of the late-afternoon sun. …
Alpha sat herself down in one of the children’s swings. She was a tall girl
with the same kind of red hair as Penrose, and she was not wearing any
underpants” (1998, 36–37). (4) From Thomas Horan’s “Cotton Mouth,”
a story in Midwestern Gothic: “Women could not resist him. He had what
they call animal magnetism. Basically, that meant he looked straight
through a body with his pale blue eyes, the warm, passionate eyes of a
wolf, or an angel. A shock of red hair, tied in a lustrous ponytail. …
Jonathan was who he was, always. And women liked who he was”
(2011, 103).
Adam and Eve and Their Red Hair

“Rōt” in Middle German translates as “red” and has often been a nick-
name for someone with red hair (Hanks 2003, 226). Both imply “duplici-
tous, wicked, faithless, cunning” (Goldenberg 2009, 376n39). Regardless,
unconvinced about any evil implications of his own hair, Mark Twain once
wrote an article for the Hannibal Daily Journal titled “Oh, She Has Red
Hair!” (1853). Himself an avowed redhead and proud of it,10 he signed
the article “A SON OF ADAM,” asserting that our first father had red
hair. His theory is that since Adam was formed from the “red earth” and
Eve was formed from his rib,11 they both must have had red hair. After all,
the Hebrew for “Adam” does translate as “to be red.” The French
Symbolist painter Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer must have shared a similar the-
ory when he painted Eve in 1896, giving her flaming red hair.12
Because Satan successfully tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit,
medieval theologians believed that, beginning with Eve, all women are
more susceptible to the temptations of Satan than men but that the devil
can get to men through women. Women, therefore, were a constant threat
to men’s souls (Weitz 2004, 4), often a theme in both Gothicism and neo-
Gothicism. In particular, women’s hair seduces men to do Satan’s bidding
and therefore, in earlier times and in some cultures today, women have
been expected to hide their hair beneath a veil (4). The Bible emphasizes
that Adam was not deceived by Satan; Eve was, and then she led Adam to
sin (1 Tim. 2:13). That is why the Apostle Paul told women to cover their
hair, and if they would not, then they should shave off her hair, whereas a
man need not cover his head (1 Cor. 11:4–7). The Old and New
Testaments caution against loose and brightly colored hair worn by women
lest they tempt men into sin.
Lilith and Lamia Redheads

Before Eve, some say there was a red-haired Lilith. She is first mentioned
in the Babylonian Talmud between the third and fifth centuries. According
to Abraham Ecchellensis, who was a Maronite Catholic philosopher and
linguist who translated the Bible into Arabic in the seventeenth century,
“this fable” of Lilith “has been transmitted to the Arabs from Jewish
sources by some converts of Mahomet from Cabalism and Rabbinism,
who have transferred all the Jewish fooleries to the Arabs” (quoted in
Walsh 1914, 175). After having been expelled from Eden, Lilith bore off-
spring (called Jinns) with the devil and, as a result, “Mediaeval demonog-
raphers classed her as a Lamia” (Walsh 175), which is also the source for
John Keats’ eponymous poem of 1820.
Sabine Baring-Gould, a Victorian scholar,13 translated and quoted
Ecchellensis: “There are some who do not regard spectres as simple devils,
but suppose them to be of a mixed nature, part demoniacal, part human,
and to have had their origin from Lilith, Adam’s first wife, by Eblis, the
prince of the devils” (1884, 35). According to Baring-Gould, the legend
began with the “Gospel of Eve” around the time of Saint Epiphanius and
came from the Gnostics (35). Epiphanius was a church father and Bishop
of Salamis, Cyprus, in the fourth century. Gnosticism was denounced as
heretical in the New Testament by the apostles Paul and John during the
rise of the Christian church.14
Another nineteenth-century writer, Ada Langworthy Collier, con-
tended that Lilith was the first wife of Adam and that the two begat
demons that killed children15—as would the demonized Lucy in Bram
Stoker’s Dracula (1897). Writing twelve years before Stoker published
Dracula, Collier called Lilith a vampire (but with yellow-gold hair) who
“will bind thee so fast” (1885, 103). The lines reflect Johann Wolfgang
von Goëthe’s Lilith when Mephistopheles alerts Faust:
But guard yourself against her lovely tresses,

The crown and robe wherein she glorious goes!
When once those locks a young man’s heart enclose
It goes hard ere he ’scapes her fond caresses. (1897 [1770–1808], 4120–23)
The most famous paintings of Lilith with her wild red hair include John
Collier’s Lilith of 1887, where Lilith is nude while making love to a snake
that is coiled about her,16 and as Gabriel Rossetti tells it in his Lilith poem,
“Eden Bower” with her coiled tresses and his coils becoming one (1883
[1868], 151–52). Another is Rossetti’s Lady Lilith for which he uses the
body of his mistress Fanny Cornforth but the copper-colored hair and face
of Alexa Wilding (1866–1868 and 1872–1873).17 In his poem, he claims
that the devil “reconceived” her hair “as the devil itself” (410). Rossetti’s
account of Lilith’s turpitude has a different twist, for she seduces a ser-
pent, saying.
Wreathe thy neck with my hair’s bright tether,

And wear my gold and thy gold together!
……………………………………………..
“How shall we mingle our love’s caresses,
I in thy coils, and thou in my tresses.” (139–40, 151–52)
As the serpent, Lilith tempts Eve and thus instigates the fall of man and
thus makes two women the cause of all the woes in the world ever since.
It should be no surprise that when Gabriel Rossetti decided to paint
Lilith, he used a model with wavy red hair to represent the woman whom
Mephistopheles describes in Johann Wolfgang von Goëthe’s Faust (1808
and 1832). Algernon Charles Swinburne, himself a red-haired heteroclite,
wrote a note about Rossetti’s painting of Lilith that quotes Shelley’s trans-
lation of Faust:
Beware of her fair hair, for he excels

All women in the magic of her locks;
And when she winds them round a young man’s neck
She will not ever set him free again.18
He elaborated in prose: “Of evil desire or evil impulse she has nothing;
and nothing of good. She is indifferent, equable, magnetic; she charms
and draws down the souls of men by pure force of adoption, in no wise or
willful or malignant; outside herself she cannot live, she cannot even see:
and because of this she attracts and subdues all men at once in body and
in spirit” (Swinburne 372).19 The evil, seductive Lilith appears in many
neo-Gothic works, which will be discussed below.
The First Murderer Had Red Hair

The next evil personage with red hair in the Bible is Cain, whose offering
to God was not acceptable but his brother’s was. In a fit of jealousy, Cain
murdered Abel (Gen. 4); the first son of man was also the first murderer,
not an auspicious beginning of the human race but an anachronistic or
maybe precursor if not a prototype of four Gothic stories that Isabella
Thorpe recommended Catherine to read in Jane Austen’s Northanger
Abbey (1818 [1817], 69): Eliza Parsons’ The Castle of Wolfenbach (1793),
Ann Radcliff’s The Italian (1797), Francis Lathom’s The Midnight Bell
(1798), and Eleanor Sleath’s The Orphan of the Rhine (1798) in which
men murder their older brothers who had inherited the family’s title,
wealth, and property.
Historically, biblical scholars had assumed that Cain had red hair
because “Adam” is often translated as “ruddy” or “red” and since Eve
came from Adam’s rib, she also had red hair. Therefore, their sons would
have red hair, unless God formed Adam and Eve with some hidden genes
that were of another hair color. Another popular speculation is that the
mark that God placed on Cain (Gen. 4:15) was red hair, as Jill Bradley
explains it, “a mark of disfavour” (2008, 344) or as Pearl Braude puts it,
“a cokkel in oure clene corn,” or weeds in our wheat.20 Braude says that
she is quoting from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (Manly 1928 [1387–1400],
571) understanding it to allude to heresy. The phrase comes from Matthew
13:25 and does indeed refer to corrupting the truth with deception. To
Braude, then, Cain’s curse is that he and his will be dissemblers just like
Satan. More specifically, the medieval church perceived Cain’s offspring to
be the Jews (16).
Grendel in Beowulf (975–1025) is said to be a kin of Cain and like the
others of Cain’s “evil breed,” including “giants and elves and evil mon-
sters who strove against God.” He was condemned and exiled.21 Although
he falls in love with Wealhtheow, a beautiful woman with long red hair
who is married to Hrothgar and who is also often depicted with red hair,22
the monster is not given physical description. People have illustrated him
as a skeleton as if he were the walking dead or as a hairy, gigantic, hefty,
bear-like monster or as everything and anything horrid in between. Since
he supposedly was a Cain offspring, he surely would have had red hair
himself. For that matter, many of the Scandinavians had red hair, such as
Erik the Red (950–1003), and, as mentioned above, so did their god of
thunder, Thor.23
Sibling rivalry involving redheads occurred in 1170 with the death of
Owain ap Gruffudd, also known as Owain the Great, the Prince of Wales.
A battle for succession to his throne ensued between his sons and the sons
of Henry II of England. One son, the red-haired Madoc, decided to
escape the conflict and head West where he landed on present-day Florida.
This was more than 300 years prior to Christopher Columbus’ arrival
(Caradoc 1812, 194–96). Either Madoc managed to populate a tribe of
Indians who would have red hair and blue eyes or he found a tribe already
who, perhaps, began to have red hair and blue eyes when Norsemen were
exploring what is now North America. By 1785, a Captain Stewart con-
firmed that the Tuscaroras had become a nation of Indians with red hair
and that they spoke Welsh (Moosmüller 1911, 62n1).24
These Indians moved up the Mississippi and attempted to settle at the
mouth of Conestoga Creek off the Susquehanna River in South Central
Pennsylvania, where the Conestoga Indians were already residing. The
Conestogas were hostile to the encroachers reportedly because of their red
hair and blue eyes. They captured and tortured to death many of the red-
heads and ultimately drove out the offending tribe.25
Prior to redheaded Vikings, Welsh, and Welegcens, in the lineage from
Cain to Grendel, there must have been some demonic coupling with
humans to have produced such an evil monster-man as Grendel. Whether
he supernaturally never died or whether it was an offspring of his, a
Grendel-like character continues to make an appearance in Wales since the
seventeenth century. He is “a gigantic man covered with red hair” who
steals livestock for food. Like the original Grendel, a human (in the Welsh
tale, it is a farmer’s wife), severed his arm or hand. After that amputation,
the villagers had sightings of his “huge and hairy” hand with “long nails
as hard and sharp as steel.” They followed his trail of blood to a cave
behind a waterfall, as in Beowulf, but were too frightened to enter.26
Throughout the ages Cain has been the icon for heresy and “The Jew”
or “The Devil-Jew,” feeding anti-Semitism from the Middle Ages to the
present day.27 Charles Dickens perpetuated this stereotype, which was

already very popular on the Victorian stage, with the red-haired characters
of Fagin, Sampson Brass, and Uriah Heep (Lane 1958, 96–97). Maurice
Fishberg states that the well-known anthropologists Paul Topinard, Joseph
Deniker, and Izydor Kopernicki have reported that red hair is a “special
racial characteristics of the Jews” (2017, 69).
Arguably the most inimical portrayal of Jews is Shakespeare’s Shylock
in The Merchant of Venice (1596–1599). “Hatred of the Jews” in
[sixteenth-century Britain] is not a matter of conjecture, “Toby Lelyveld
says in his Shylock on the Stage; reviling the Jew was part of the social con-
vention of Shakespeare’s day” (2014, 7). Traditionally Shylock is per-
formed on stage wearing red, with hair covered by a scarlet hat or red wig,
and always with a red beard. A ballad written in 1664 by an actor, Thomas
Jordan, attests to this and the demonic association with red in these lines:
“His beard was red; his face was made / Not much unlike a witches”
(11–12). It was common for Elizabethan actors who played as Jews to
wear red wigs, “as a visual shorthand of Jewry and its supposed cultural
and religious associations with Satanic practice” (Kahan 2002, 42). The
“fiery red wig” was worn by Shylock actors and by those who portrayed
“Marlowe’s Barabas, and before that, by both Judas and Satan in the old
mystery plays” (Gross 1994, 27). When Barabas dies in the play, “the
Elizabethans jeered at his excesses and hooted at the moment of his fierce
and shrieking death,” just as they had done when Queen Elizabeth had
her Portuguese-Jewish physician, Rodrigo Lopez, hanged, drawn, and
quartered in June 1594 (Lelyveld 6–7).
Red Hairy Esau and Deceit

An additional famous redhead was Esau in the Bible, and his is another
story about paternal favoritism. “Esau” comes from a Hebrew word that
means “hairy,” and Esau was often called “Edom,” which means “red”
(Gen. 25:25–26). Disguising himself with excessive hair, his younger
brother Jacob deceived his blind father into granting him the birthright
that belonged to Esau. Consequently, his brother vowed to kill him (Gen.
27). Esau was both victim and villain because it is only when Jacob took
on red hair that he was able to trick and betray like any other red-haired
dissembler.
The jealousy and greed of one man against his brother is repeated in
Kenneth Oppel’s This Dark Endeavor. The novel opens with a pair of
twins acting out a play that foreshadows the killing of one by the other. In
their dramatization Victor Frankenstein (called the “evil twin” [2011, 4])
insists that an acquired treasure is all his. His brother asks why they cannot
share it as they have always shared everything. The reply is very similar to
the biblical account: “Though we’re of one body, we are not equal,
Brother, for you were born the sooner by two minutes. Even in our moth-
er’s womb you stole from me. The family birthright is yours. And such a
treasure that is, to make this one look like a pauper’s pittance. But I want
it, all of it, And I shall have it.” With that declaration, Victor pretends to
kill his twin (2–3). When not performing, however, the brothers are still
at odds because they compete for the love of the amber-haired Elizabeth
(142). Fueling the greed, the jealousy, the tumultuous love triangle is
always the force of supernatural evil, sometimes incarnate in the novel’s
apothecary/scientist/physician, Julius Polidori. He is referred to as the
“devil,” (65, 96, and 260) as well as the “traffick[er] with the devil” (65)
and a dabbler in the “Occulta Philosophia” (302). Victor is constantly
torn between good and evil, and both brothers vacillate between being
humanly good and monstrously evil, similar to the duality theme of Jekyll
and Hyde.
Villainy and Red Hair

Next to the devil, the most villainous redhead of all time is Judas Iscariot,
of whom Jesus said, “But woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is
betrayed! It had been good for that man if he had not been born” (Matt.
26:24). Judas, one of the original twelve disciples, did betray Jesus to the
Sanhedrin for thirty pieces of silver (Matt. 26:15–16) and then was filled
with so much remorse, he hanged himself (27:5). Ever since, Judas has
been a term synonymous with treachery. In The Proverbs of Alfred, King
Alfred warns against making any friends with a redhead (l.680). In The
Dialogue of Salomon and Saturnus, a collection of Old English poetry,
The red man is a rogue,

for he will advise thee ill;
he is quarrelsome, a thief and whoreling,
a scold, of mischief he is king. (Kemble 1848, 37.1–4)
John Kemble adds this note: “The faithlessness of red-haired men is

known to have been a widely prevailing belief, and to have passed into the
proverbs of many European countries: Judas, in the painted cloth, has red
hair, allusions to which in the works of all our old dramatic writers are far
too numerous to require specific reference” (255). The associations pro-
liferate, such as in France where a redhead is called poil de Judas, and in
Germany, Bavaria, Swabia, Fanconia, where “Judas” and “redhead” mean
the same thing (Fabre-Vassas and d’Almeida 1994, 109).
In John Marston’s hilarious play, The Insatiate Countess, two men,
Mizaldus and Clardiana, plot to continue a multi-generational family feud
by seducing each other’s brides. The two women, Thais and Abigail, trick
them into believing that the men are having sex with the other wife, but
in reality, the men are lying unawares with their own wives. Of Abigail’s
husband, Thais says, “I ever thought by his red beard he would prove a
Judas” (1887 [1613], 2.37–38). Arthur Henry Bullen, a Victorian editor
for this play, supplied a note that reads, “In tapestry Judas was commonly
represented with a red beard” (no. 1, 166). A similar reference is made in
Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (published in 1630)
with a warning against women having red hair (3.2). Another note is pro-
vided about Judas Iscariot’s being portrayed in tapestries and pictures with
red hair and beard (Dyce 1840, 47nn).28
“Medieval Christianity was not favorably disposed to any Jews, except
perhaps Jesus and the prophets—if they were recognized as Jews,” Andrew
Colin Gow has observed, and if people had red hair, they were assumed to
be Jews (1995, 66). Saint John Chrysostom (347–407), the Archbishop of
Constantinople, declared that “the synagogues of the Jews [were] the
homes of idolatry and devils,” and that Satan himself “inhabits the soul of a
Jew.”29 Another Early Church Father, Gregory of Nissa (335–395), called
Jews “advocates of the Devil” and “the congregation of demons.”30 Adding
to anti-Semitism by associating the Jews with Satan was Shakespeare who
wrote, “Certainly the Jew is the very devil incarnal” in The Merchant of
Venice.31 Hence, since the historical depiction of Satan has been goat quali-
ties—“horns, a beard, a tail and cloven hooves” (Jones 2006 [1999], 7)—
and since the Jews have been stereotyped as “agent[s] of Satan” (6), they
have historically been depicted in art and literature with similar goat quali-
ties like red hair (7–10). In fact, there was a time when male Jews were
required to wear pointed hats to conceal their supposed horns.32
In “Judas’s Red Hair and the Jews,” Ruth Mellinkoff observes that
redheads were regarded and portrayed in art and literature as “false, dan-
gerous, tricky, shameless, over-sexed, deceitful, hot-tempered, unfaithful,
foolish, war-like, crude, vulgar, low-class and unlucky for those who meet
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faltan allegados que, aunque en segunda fila, toman parte, siquiera
con la atención, en los debates de la primera. Habrá seguramente
entre los allegados un señor muy fino y muy risueño, con bastón y
gafas. No se moverá de la silla, no pedirá un fósforo, no hará una
pregunta, sin despepitarse en excusas y cumplidos. «Usted
dispense», «¿me hace usted el obsequio?» «con permiso de
usted», etc., etc... y no habrá dicho en todo el año cosa más
substanciosa. Pero, en una ocasión, trajo usted á la porfía (y note
que no digo conversación), un apellido que hasta entonces no había
sonado allí. Óyelo el de las gafas, y, clavándolas en usted, le
pregunta, con una voz muy dulce y una cara muy risueña:
—¿Verduguillos ha dicho usted, caballero?
—Verduguillos, sí señor,—responde usted parándose en firme.
—¿Sabe usted—insiste el otro,—(y usted perdone si le interrumpo
un momento), si ese señor de Verduguillos tiene parientes en
Cuzcurrita de Río Tirón?
—¿Por qué he de saber yo eso, si jamás allá estuve, ni conozco á
ese señor más que de vista?—replica usted con el sosiego y la
amabilidad que eran de esperarse.
—Perdone usted, caballero—dice el intruso hecho unas mieles,—y
verá por qué me he tomado la libertad de interrumpirle.
Y en esto, deja la silla, sale al centro, encárase con el grupo
principal, afirma las gafas en el entrecejo, carraspea, sonríese y
dice:
—Pues, señor, verán ustedes por qué me ha interesado tanto el oir
á este caballero nombrar á ese señor de Verduguillos. Por el mes de
septiembre del año treinta y ocho, salí yo de Zamora (donde nací y
me crié y radican los pocos ó muchos bienes que heredé á la
muerte de mis padres, y los que he podido adquirir después acá con
el fruto de mis especulaciones modestas), con el propósito de hacer
un largo viaje, por exigirlo así los asuntos de la familia, y también, si
he de ser franco, el estado de mi salud...
Así comienza este señor la relación de un viaje por media España,
con largas detenciones en todos los puertos y plazas del tránsito, y
minuciosas observaciones estadísticas y climatéricas, sin pizca de
interés, ni método, ni estilo, ni substancia, hasta venir á parar, al
cabo de tres mortales cuartos de hora, á Logroño, en la cual ciudad
conocía al comerciante don Fulano de Tal; y decirnos que, yendo á
visitarle á su escritorio, hallóse allí con un caballero, muy amigo
también del don Fulano, el cual don Fulano le dijo á él al despedirse
el otro:
—Este señor que acaba de salir, es don Pacomio Verduguillos,
natural y vecino de Cuzcurrita de Río Tirón.
Al llegar aquí con el cuento el de las gafas, espera usted el toque de
efecto, el desenlace sorprendente, la gracia del suceso; porque es
de saberse que el narrador se ha quedado en silencio y mirando de
hito en hito á los resignados oyentes. Pero el silencio sigue y la
sorpresa no asoma. Alguien se aventura, y pregunta al del bastón:
—Pero ¿por qué le chocó á usted tanto el oir nombrar á este
Verduguillos?
—Hombre—responde el interpelado, con candidez angelical,—
porque podía muy bien ser pariente del otro Verduguillos que yo
conocí en Logroño.
¡Y para eso interrumpió un animado y sabrosísimo debate; y estuvo,
durante cerca de una hora, ensartando insulsez tras de insulsez,
simpleza tras de simpleza, adormeciendo á unos, quemando la
sangre á otros y aburriéndolos á todos! Y usted llevó la cruz con
paciencia, y yo también; y lo mismo al día siguiente, porque el
bueno del zamorano, desde que pierde la cortedad con el primer
relato, ya no cierra boca en la tertulia, y siempre tan ameno,
divertido y oportuno. Pero nos permitimos los dos un desahoguillo
en un aparte.
—Amigo—dije, ó me dijo usted,—¡este hombre es insufrible:
estando él no se puede venir aquí! Y se oyó el rumor del desahogo,
y ¡qué caras nos pusieron los señores tolerantes, que estaban tan
aburridos como nosotros!
Al día siguiente asoma usted la cabeza á la puerta, ve al de las
gafas en el uso de la palabra, retrocede y no vuelve; ni yo tampoco.
Y porque no volvemos, y además decimos lo que mejor nos parece
del motivo, ¡qué ponernos de intolerantes y hasta de inciviles!...
¡Caramba, protesto contra la enormidad de esta injusticia! En este
caso no hay más intolerantes que el señor de Zamora, que
interrumpe toda conversación racional y obliga á hombres de buen
sentido á que oigan las interminables boberías que él enjareta sin
punto de reposo, y los forzados tolerantes que le escuchan con
paciencia, y no la tienen para oir que otros carecen de ella.
Trátase ahora de un embustero, que un día y otro día le abruma á
usted con narraciones autobiográficas, sin principio ni fin, como la
eternidad de Dios; pero muy punteadas, muy comeadas y con más
espacios que un libro de malos versos. Oye usted una historia, y
dos, y tres, ya con mala cara; pero, al fin, se acaba la paciencia, y
un día interrumpe usted al sujeto de los á propósitos, y le dice:
—Mire usted, hombre: en primer lugar, la mayor parte de lo que
usted me cuenta se lo he contado yo á usted en cuatro palabras; en
segundo lugar, le sucedió á un condiscípulo mío en Oviedo, y no á
un amigo de usted en Zaragoza; en tercer lugar, no pasó como
usted lo refiere, sino del modo contrario: mi condiscípulo no adquirió
una capa aquella noche, sino que perdió la que llevaba, y, además,
el juicio, con costas, á los pocos días...
—Pues lo mismo da...
—Justo: media vuelta á la derecha es lo mismo que media vuelta á
la izquierda, sólo que es todo lo contrario.
—¡Caramba, es usted lo más intolerante!... No se puede hablar con
usted...
¡Todavía le parece poco, al ángel de Dios, la tolerancia que se ha
tenido con él!
Media docena de mujeres, ó menos, si á usted le parecen muchas
seis, se pasan una tarde entera desollando con la lengua al lucero
del alba. ¡Eso sí, con las mejores formas y la intención más santa!
De una dirán que es un dolor que, siendo tan bonita, sea tan charra
en el vestir, tan tosca en el hablar, tan inconsecuente en sus
amistades, tan desleal en sus amores; de otra, que es mordaz y
maldiciente, en lo cual se perjudica mucho, porque teniendo esta
falta, y la otra, y la de más allá, da pie para que cualquiera que se
estime en tan poco como ella, se las saque á relucir; de otra, que es
una desgraciada, porque el marido la ha puesto á ración, así en el
vestir como en el bailar, á causa de que fué algo despilfarrada
siempre en estos dos ramos de buena sociedad; de otra, que ya no
halla modista que la haga un traje si no paga adelantadas las
hechuras, y que no le venden nada en las tiendas, sino con el dinero
en la mano, etc., etc., etc... En esto, entra usted (es un suponer) y,
continuando el desuello, llegan á preguntarle si conoce á cierta
señora de éstas ó las otras señas; y como la tal es mujer de historia,
y usted la sabe de corrido, repítela allí con comentarios, creyendo
hacer á su auditorio un señalado servicio. Yo creo también que
usted se le hace, pues no fué á humo de pajas la preguntita; pero es
lo cierto que todas aquellas señoras, después de oirle á usted,
exclaman, con el más sincero de los asombros:
—¡Jesús!... Con razón dicen que es usted temible.
—¡Yo temible, señoras mías?—responde usted.—¿Y por qué?
—¡Porque es usted lo más intolerante y lo más!...
¡Vaya usted á convencer á aquellas damas de que viven
constantemente encenagadas en el pecado que á usted le cuelgan!
No hay inconveniente en que, abandonando estos tiquis-miquis que
ocurren en el ordinario trato social, dirijamos el anteojo unos grados
más arriba.
Todos los días halla usted en periódicos, en folletos y en libros,
sátiras, burlas y disertaciones en serio contra ideas, sentimientos y
hasta personas muy de la devoción de usted. Ocúrresele mirar al
campo de donde parten tantos proyectiles, y le ve usted sembrado
de ridiculeces, farsas y toda clase de miserias; saca usted al palo
media docena de ellas, por vía de muestra, en un papel, en un
folleto ó en un libro; y ¡Virgen María, cómo le ponen á usted de
intolerante y de mordaz, los mismos que tienen la mordacidad y la
intolerancia por oficio!
Así andan, amigo, las cosas de justicia en el ordinario comercio de
las gentes; así se ataja al más inofensivo en el trayecto social en
que pasea su nombre, y así se pretende conducirle al extremo á que
no llegan en el mundo más que las bestias... y los que tienen la
manía de la tolerancia (siendo lógicos en ella): á ver, oir y callar... es
decir, á matar la sed con petróleo, allí donde haya un extravagante
que tal haga delante de usted.
Usted es hombre de sencillas y ordenadas costumbres (es también
un suponer): ni el mundo le tira, ni sus pompas y algaradas le
seducen. Éstos son gustos lícitos y racionales. Ajustándose á ellos,
en paz y en gracia de Dios, se da usted con un baile en los ojos:
tuerce usted el camino; tropieza usted más allá con una mascarada
de calaveras del gran mundo: echa usted por otro lado; allí topa
usted con la misma gente haciendo cuadros plásticos y animados
acertijos: cambia usted de rumbo; aquí asaltos, en el otro lado
conciertos... pues á la otra acera. Ni usted apedrea á los que bailan,
ni apostrofa á los que jiran, ni se ríe de los que se descoyuntan para
remedar á Cristo en la agonía, ni silba á los que reciben una
sorpresa, anunciada quince días antes, ni influye con el Gobernador
para que meta en la cárcel á toda esa gente: limítase á huir de lo
que le aburre, y á hacer lo que más le divierte ó menos le incomoda.
No haría otra cosa un santo.
Pero es el caso que los señores tolerantes no se conforman con
esto, y quieren que les diga usted por qué no concurre á los bailes, y
á las jiras, y á los cuadros vivos, y á los asaltos... y aquí está el
intríngulis precisamente; y si estos rasguños que trazo no fueran,
como he dicho, un inocente desahogo entre nosotros dos, y en
reserva, me atrevería á llamar la atención del lector hacia el
aparente fenómeno, cuya explicación es sencillísima, por lo cual, no
es fenómeno, aunque por tal le toman algunos.
Cuando á usted se le pregunta por qué no piensa como su vecino
sobre determinados puntos de transcendencia, á buen seguro que
se le ocurra á nadie que oiga la respuesta, agarrarse á ella para
llamarle á usted intolerante; pero que se le pregunte por qué no
baila, por qué no jira, etc., etc... y no bien ha contestado usted, ya
tiene encima el Inri de la intolerancia. Y ¿por qué en este caso y en
el otro no? Porque no está el intríngulis en la persona, ni en sus
razones, ni en el modo de exponerlas, sino en la cosa de que se
trata, que, muy á menudo, es, de por sí, ridícula, ó impertinente, ó
pueril cuando menos, y no resiste, sin deshacerse entre las manos,
el análisis de un hombre de seso; al cual hombre, no pudiendo
replicársele en buena justicia, en venganza se le pone un mote.
Por eso llevan el de intolerantes tantos caracteres dóciles, y creen
poner una pica en Flandes, y hasta se llaman guapos chicos y
excelentes sujetos en la sociedad, los que en ella entran con todas,
como la romana del diablo, menos con el sentido común. Quod erat
demonstrandum.
Á pesar de ello, y aun de la mucha saliva, que al propio asunto
hemos consagrado en nuestras conversaciones verbales, júzgole
apenas desflorado. ¡Cuánto me queda todavía que oir de los
inofensivos labios de usted!
Entre tanto, y dicho lo dicho, despidámonos por hoy, con la íntima
satisfacción, bien añeja en nosotros, de haber pasado juntos, en
espíritu, un agradable rato, sin murmurar de nadie ni ofender al
prójimo con hechos, con dichos ni con deseos.
1880.
EL CERVANTISMO
El Diccionario de la Academia no contiene este vocablo; pero es uno

de los propuestos por el último de los individuos del insigne cuerpo
literario para la edición que está imprimiéndose. Por si la Academia
no le acepta, conste que entiendo yo por
Cervantismo: La manía de los cervantistas; y por
Cervantista: El admirador de Cervantes, y el que se dedica á
ilustrar y comentar sus obras.
En rigor, pues, estos párrafos debieran haberse incluido entre los
que, bajo el rótulo de Manías, quedan algunas páginas atrás; pero
son tantos, y de tal índole la enfermedad á que se refieren, que bien
merecen vivir de cuenta propia y establecerse capítulo aparte.
Dice Chateaubriand, hablando de los españoles como soldados, que
nuestro empuje en el campo de batalla es irresistible; pero que nos
conformamos con arrojar al enemigo de sus posiciones, en las
cuales nos tendemos, con el cigarrillo en la boca y la guitarra en las
manos, á celebrar la victoria.
Si despojamos á esta pintura del colorido francés que la califica, nos
queda en ella un exactísimo retrato del carácter español, no sólo en
la guerra, sino en todas las imaginables situaciones de la vida.
Ya que no la guitarra, la pereza nacional nos absorbe los cinco
sentidos, y sólo cuando el hambre aprieta, ó la bambolla empuja, ó
la curiosidad nos mueve, sacudimos la modorra. Entonces
embestimos con el lucero del alba para estar donde él estuvo,
medrar de lo que medró y hacer todo cuanto él hizo. Pero de allí no
pasamos. Nuestra política, nuestra industria y nuestra literatura
contemporáneas lo declaran bien alto. Todo el mundo nos lleva la
delantera, y siempre estamos imitando á todo el mundo, menos en
andar solos y por delante; vivimos de sus desechos, y cada trapo
que le cogemos nos vuelve locos de entusiasmo, como si se hubiera
cortado para nosotros. Así estamos llenos de conquistas y de
«títulos á la admiración de las naciones extranjeras»; todos somos
ilustres estadistas, invictos guerreros, sabios hacendistas, insignes
literatos, laboriosos industriales y honrados obreros; hemos tenido
códigos á la francesa, códigos á la inglesa, códigos á la americana;
revoluciones de todos los matices, reacciones de todas castas,
triunfos de todos calibres, progresos de todos tamaños; y á la
presente fecha, el ciudadano que tiene camisa propia se cree muy
rico; la escasa industria desaparece antes que la Hacienda la
devore; los bufos imperan en el teatro; el hijo de Paul de Kock en la
novela; los Panchampla en desfiladeros y caminos reales, y la
navaja del honrado menestral desbandulla en las plazas públicas, á
la luz del mediodía, las víctimas á pares. De manera que quien nos
comprara por lo que decimos y nos vendiera por lo que hacemos,
buen pelo iba á echar con el negocio. Á hacer cosas nuevas y útiles
nos ganará cualquiera; pero á ponderar lo que hacemos no hay
quien nos eche la pata, ni á hacerlo mal y fuera de sazón, tampoco.
—Pero ¿qué tiene que ver todo esto con el cervantismo?—
preguntará el lector, oliéndole lo dicho á artículo de oposición más
que á otra cosa.
—No sé—respondo—por cuál de los lados encajará mejor en el
asunto prometido; pero lo cierto es que á las mientes se me ha
venido con él y como eslabón de la misma cadena de ideas. Acaso
en el cervantismo vea yo algo de la intemperancia, que, entre
nosotros, lleva en todo lo demás hasta el ridículo las cosas más
serias y respetables; quizá esa manía me ha hecho recordar la
tendencia española á perder en escarbar el huerto del vecino, el
tiempo que necesitamos para cultivar el propio; quizá me asaltó las
mientes el dicho de Chateaubriand pensando en los valientes que
conquistan el Quijote, y no pasan de allí, y allí se quedan,
rebuscando hasta las polillas, como si ya no hubiera otra cosa que
leer ni que estudiar en el mundo; acaso coinciden los dos asuntos
por el lado de la facilidad con que pasamos de la apatía al asombro,
de la indiferencia al entusiasmo, de la fiebre al delirio... ¡Quién
sabe? Pero el hecho existe, y ya no borro lo escrito, aunque el lector
me diga que soy uno de tantos como en España malgastan sin fruto
la hacienda, echando siempre los garbanzos fuera de la olla... Y
vamos al caso.
Y el caso es que ya estaba el mundo cansado de admirar á
Cervantes y de reproducir las ediciones del Quijote en todas las
lenguas que se hablan sobre la haz de la tierra, y aún eran muy
contadas en España las librerías en que se vendiera la obra inmortal
del ilustre soldado, que vivió de las limosnas de los próceres y fué
enterrado de caridad. Conocíanla los literatos, poseíanla los menos
de ellos, y veíase de vez en cuando en los mezquinos estantes de
algún particular, al lado de Bertoldo cuyos chistes saboreaba con
preferencia la patriarcal familia. Los nombres de don Quijote y
Sancho Panza eran populares; pero contadísimas las personas que
conocían á estos personajes más que de oídas: teníanlos unas por
históricos, las menos por novelescos; pero ni unas ni otras habían
oído jamás el nombre del padre que los engendró en su fantasía.
De pronto, ayer, como quien dice, alguien, y no español ciertamente,
nos aguija y nos apunta el Quijote con el dedo; sacudimos la
tradicional modorra, y allá vamos en tropel, y caemos como espeso
granizo sobre la obra señalada; las prensas gimen vomitando
ediciones populares del libro insigne, entre los cuadernos de Jaime
el Barbudo y Las cavernas del crimen, y aunque las masas de levita
siguen prefiriendo estas creaciones para solaz del espíritu, el
nombre de Cervantes suena en todas partes y á todas horas, y las
plumas y las lenguas ya no saben decir sino «el Cautivo de Argel» y
«el Manco de Lepanto».
¡Qué baraúnda! ¡Qué vocerío! Hay hombre, ya con canas, que
acaba de leer á saltos el Quijote, y se escandaliza de buena fe al
saber que un mozo imberbe no le conoce todavía; otro no le ha visto
ni por el forro, y mira con lástima á quien declara noblemente que no
ha podido adquirir un ejemplar para leerle... ¡Y cómo abunda esta
clase de admiradores!
—«Pero ¡qué hombre!... Pero ¡qué libro!... Pero ¡qué tiempos
aquéllos en que se morían de hambre tan preclaros ingenios! Como
esa obra no hay otra... El mundo la admira, y España no necesita
más que ella para su gloria... ¡Ah, Cervantes! ¡Ah, el Manco de
Lepanto!... ¡Ah, el Cautivo de Argel!».
Verdades como puños, enhorabuena; pero que tienen suma gracia
dichas por una generación, ya vieja, que no ha reparado en ellas
hasta que se las han metido por los ojos; y aun así no las ha visto
bien.
Y sigue el estrépito, y llena los ámbitos de la patria, y se conmueven
los poetas de circunstancias y los periodistas de afición y hasta los
filántropos de la usura; y allá van odas Al Manco de Lepanto, y
sonetos Al Cautivo de Argel, y llega á verse el nombre de Cervantes
en la popa de un falucho carbonero, y en el registro de una mina de
turba, y en los membretes de una sociedad anónima, y hasta en la
muestra de una zapatería; y hoy se celebra el aniversario de su
muerte, y mañana el de su nacimiento, y al otro día el de su
redención por los frailes trinitarios, y al otro, el de su casamiento; y
aquí brota una Academia cervantina, y allí un Semanario cervantino
y un Averiguador cervantesco; y en los unos y en los otros, y acá y
allá, no se trata sino de Cervantes y sus obras; y Cervantes aparece
en discursos, en gacetillas, en charadas, en rompe-cabezas y en
acertijos.
Lo que era de temer, sucede al cabo: la fiebre se propaga, hácese
peste asoladora, y no se libran de ella ni los que tienen el juicio más
aplomado; caen hasta los cervantistas de buena casta, y caen sobre
el Quijote y sobre la memoria de su autor, como antes cayera el
servum pecus, y allí se están cual si hubieran jurado, en el
paroxismo de su manía, gastar en la empresa hasta el último soplo
de la vida; porque cada cual cree encontrar en aquellas páginas
inmortales lo que más se acomoda á sus deseos y aficiones.
Imagínomelos yo como aquellos sabios resucitados de que nos
habla Balmes, husmeando el amplísimo establecimiento, y tráenme
á la memoria el caso de Mabillon despistojándose sobre un viejo
pergamino para descubrir algún renglón medio borrado, cuando
llega un naturalista y tira hacia sí del pergamino, para ver si halla en
él huevos de polilla.
Merced á estas faenas sobrehumanas, sabemos hoy, por otros
tantos señores cervantistas, cuyas plumas lo han afirmado en
sendos escritos, á cual más serio y pespunteado, que de las obras
de Cervantes resulta que fué éste sobresaliente
Teólogo,
Jurisperito,
Cocinero,
Marino,
Geógrafo,
Economista,
Médico,
Liberal (¡patriotero!)
Administrador militar (!!!!),
Protestante (¡¡¡!!!),
Viajero, etc., etc., etc.
Es decir, Cervantes omniscio, y sus obras la suma de los humanos
conocimientos.
Pero ni con todo esto, ni con más de otro tanto por el estilo, que no
hay para qué mentar, ni con el pintoresco catálogo de los
cervantómanos que han contado las veces que dice sí don Quijote,
ó Sancho vuesa merced, y otros admiradores de parecida ralea,
hemos llegado al delirium tremens de la enfermedad; puesto que
hay un español que ha dicho, y dice sin tregua ni descanso, porque
sospecho yo que por eso y para eso alienta y ha nacido:
—Caballeros, nada de lo que el mundo ha leído en el Quijote es la
obra de Cervantes.
Asombró el aserto, y preguntósele:
—Pues ¿qué otra cosa puede ser?
—Quiero decir—repuso el crítico,—que hasta ahora nadie ha sabido
leer el Quijote. No hay tal Dulcinea, ni tal Sancho Panza, ni tales
molinos, ni tales yangüeses, ni tal Ínsula Barataria, ni nada de lo que
allí aparece tal como suena. El Quijote, en suma, es una alegoría.
—¡Canastos! Y ¿quién se lo ha dicho á usted?
—Me lo han dicho treinta años de estudio incesante de esa obra
maravillosa, y lo demuestro en catorce volúmenes de comentarios,
que he escrito y tengo en casa esperando un editor que se atreva
con ellos.
—¡Tendrán que leer! Y diga usted, señor sabio, ¿qué especie de
alegoría es ésa que usted ha visto en el famoso libro?
—Es, como si dijéramos, el siglo xix hablando en profecía en el siglo
xvii; la luz de nuestras libertades columbrada por un ojo sutil, á tan
larga distancia; la protesta de un alma generosa contra la cadena de
la tiranía y las mazmorras de la Inquisición.
—¡Cáspita! Luego Cervantes...
—Cervantes fué un libre-pensador; un demócrata que nos precedió
cosa de tres siglos.
—Pero, hombre, aquellas declaraciones terminantes de neto y
fervoroso católico, que á cada instante hace; aquél su único
propósito, que jamás oculta, de escribir el Quijote para matar los
libros de caballerías...
—No hagan ustedes caso de ello. También dice (no lo niega al
menos) que lo de cabalgar Sancho en el Rucio después de
habérsele robado Ginés de Pasamonte, fué un lapsus de su
memoria, si no descuido del impresor, y, sin embargo, se le ha
demostrado todo lo contrario... Á Cervantes hay que saber leerle,
desengáñense ustedes.
—Corriente; pero ¿cómo teniendo ese hombre tanto talento no logró
hacerse entender de sus lectores?
—Porque temía á la Inquisición y al tirano.
—Callárase entonces, y ahorrárase el riesgo y la fatiga.
—No debía callar, porque había nacido para escribir.
—Pero no alegorías; pues, por las trazas, no le daba el naipe para
ellas.
—¡Cómo que no?
—Hombre, me parece á mí que una alegoría que no halla en cerca
de tres siglos más que un sabio que la desentrañe, no es cosa
mayor que digamos.
—¿Y qué son tres siglos en la vida de la humanidad?
—Trescientos años nada más; y aunque á usted le parezcan pocos,
pienso yo que, para desentrañar un libro, sobran de ellos casi todos,
aunque el libro esté en vascuence, cuanto más en neto castellano...
No se eche á broma el precedente diálogo, porque es la quinta
esencia de las polémicas sostenidas en la prensa, todos los días,
por el desenredador único de la supuesta maraña del Quijote, contra
los defensores del servum pecus, que no ha visto ni verá jamás en
las páginas del áureo libro otra cosa ¡y no es poco, en gracia de
Dios! que lo que en ellas se dice y se enseña.
¡Ah! y si al pasar esto—porque ha de pasar como pasan las
epidemias y las tempestades—nos viéramos libres de las
extravagancias del cervantismo, pudiéramos darnos con un canto en
los pechos; pero, no obstante lo impresionables que somos y lo
propensos, por ende, á olvidar mañana lo que hoy nos alborota,
como el mal deja semillas, éstas germinarán andando los años, y,
cuando menos menos, ha de nacer de ellas una raza que,
empezando por ver zurcidos en el Quijote, acabe por negar la
existencia de su autor.
Todos los grandes hombres van teniendo, en la posteridad, su fama
roída por este género de gusanos. Yo no sé qué demonios anda por
la mollera de ciertos sabios cuando examinan las obras que admira
el mundo, que, no bien las contemplan, cuando ya exclaman: «esto
nació ello solo». ¡Como si no fueran más maravillosas estas
producciones espontáneas que la existencia de un padre que las
engendrara! Á Homero le niega ya el último zarramplín de la crítica,
y hay una Escuela antihomérica, á la cual se van arrimando todos
los catasalsas del helenismo; se está negando también á Hesiodo, y
hasta á Gutenberg y á Dante, y luego se negará la luz del mediodía.
Y ¿por qué no? ¿No hay historiador que niega toda autoridad á los
cinco siglos de Roma? Y la maña es vieja: cien años hace aseguró
el P. Harduino, y hasta intentó probarlo, que todos los libros griegos
y latinos, excepción hecha de unos pocos de Cicerón, Plinio,
Horacio y Virgilio, habían sido forjados en el siglo xii por una
comunidad de frailes.
¡Y qué luz derraman estos sabios negativos en las obscuridades con
que van topando en sus investigaciones! ¡Con qué primor
reconstruyen lo que derriban de un voleo! Paréceles mucha obra la
Ilíada para un hombre solo, de tan remotos siglos; niegan la
existencia de Homero fundándose en aquella potísima razón:
pregúntaseles entonces cómo se formó ese admirable poema, y
responde uno de ellos, Dissen, por ejemplo:
—De la manera más fácil: se reunió una especie de academia de
cantores que se propusieron hacer una epopeya; encargóse cada
cual de un canto, y el resultado de esta asociación fué la Ilíada.
De modo que nos salen, por esta cuenta, veintiséis Homeros, por lo
menos. ¡Y al sabio que los presenta le asombraba, por su grandeza,
un Homero solo!
Dos cuartos de lo mismo ocurre con los sabios de otra catadura,
cuando nos hablan del Universo. Le niegan un Autor, porque no les
cabe en la cabeza la idea de tanto poder, y se le adjudican al átomo,
y sudan y se retuercen entre los laberintos de una tecnología
convencional y de unos procedimientos fantasmagóricos, para venir
á demostrar... que no saben lo que traen entre manos, y que, á
pesar de sus humos de gigantes, no pasan de gusanillos de la tierra,
como el más indocto de los que en ella moramos.
Por eso creo yo que á los sabios de la crítica les pasa algo grave en
la mollera, cada vez que se las han con otras de gran calibre. No
diré que este algo, y aun algos, sean tufillos de la envidia; pero
tampoco aseguro que lo sean de la caridad.
Volviendo al asunto, digo que nacerá quien niegue la existencia de
Cervantes, apoyando el aserto en la autoridad, por supuesto, de otro
sabio, necesariamente francés. Este tal habrá descubierto que en el
siglo xvii no sabían leer ni escribir en España sino los frailes, á los
cuales se debió la traducción, del francés al castellano, de aquel
teatro admirable que ha estado pasando tantísimos años por
español de pura raza; que los nombres de Lope, Moreto, Tirso,
Calderón, etc., etc., no son otra cosa que seudónimos con que se
disfrazaban los traductores temiendo á la Inquisición, que prohibía el
culto de las bellas letras á la gente de cogulla.—En cuanto al Quijote
(seguirá diciendo el sabio de mañana), basta examinarle una vez
para convencerse de que no pudo ser la obra de un hombre solo. La
novela de Crisóstomo, la de Dorotea y Luscinda, la del Curioso
impertinente, la del Cautivo, la del Mozo de mulas, etc., intercaladas
violentamente en la primera parte, y desenlazadas, con otros varios
sucesos, en la Venta de Juan Palomeque el Zurdo, en una sola
noche, lo prueban hasta la evidencia. Esas historias las narrarían los
ciegos por las calles al ronco son de la guitarra, ó las recitarían los
inquisidores en las tertulias de los señores de horca y cuchillo,
mientras las segnoritas y las monjas bailaban el zapateado y el
Jaleo de Jerez. Algún fraile ingenioso las recogió, engarzólas en las
populares aventuras de un loco legendario, llamado, según doctas
pesquisiciones de un bibliómano cochinchino, don Fidalgo de la
Manga, y lo publicó todo bajo el rótulo con que se conoce la obra del
supuesto Cervantes. Por lo que toca á la segunda parte de la
misma, ¿quién ignora que se debe á los frailes Agustinos, que la
escribieron en odio al autor de otro Quijote falsificado, al P.
Abellaneda, Prior de los Jerónimos del Escorial?
Cosa parecida se dirá de las Novelas ejemplares, del Persiles y la
Galatea: tradiciones popularísimas en España, aunque de
procedencia francesa, recogidas y dadas á luz por frailes codiciosos
que explotaban el prestigio del imaginario Cervantes, hecho célebre
desde la aparición de la primera parte del Quijote.
—Pero—seguirá diciendo el futuro bibliófilo francés—¿qué mayor
prueba de la no existencia de Cervantes que la que nos dan los
cervantistas españoles del siglo xix, en el que ya comenzaba á leer
y escribir la clase media, porque se había secularizado la
enseñanza? En el último tercio de aquel siglo no trataron los
escritores de España más que de Cervantes, y, sin embargo, no
pudieron hallar un solo rastro de su persona. Quién le supuso
soldado en Lepanto; quién cautivo en Argel; quién teólogo; quién
marino; quién abogado; quién cocinero; quién médico; quién
ardiente propagandista de la Reforma; quién afirmó que había
nacido en Madrid; quién que en Alcalá; quién que estuvo preso en
Argamasilla; quién que en Valladolid; y nada se prueba en limpio, ni
nadie supo jamás en qué punto de la tierra descansan sus cenizas.
La misma confusión de pareceres se observa en lo relativo al texto
primitivo y á la intención generadora de la novela. Cada edición de
ella en aquel siglo salía ilustrada por un nuevo comentarista, que
quitaba y añadía, á su antojo, frases y períodos, so pretexto de
enmendar así los errores tipográficos del impresor Juan de la
Cuesta. Esto nos hace creer que el Quijote que salió del siglo xix no
se parece en nada al que, por primera vez, publicaron los frailes del
xvii, de cuyas ediciones no ha llegado un solo ejemplar á nuestros
días. Afortunadamente, se conservan catorce volúmenes de un
literato andaluz de aquella centuria, en cuya obra se pone de
manifiesto la verdadera importancia del libro del supuesto
Cervantes. El tal libro es una ingeniosísima alegoría, según afirma el
intérprete feliz de los catorce volúmenes; y á su parecer nos
adherimos, no sin declarar que si el perspicuo andaluz sudó tinta
para dar con la clave del enigma, nosotros hemos sudado pez para
acomodar nuestro criterio á las angosturas, nebulosidades y
retortijones de sus ingeniosos razonamientos. Pero á gimnasias más
abstrusas y complicadas nos tiene avezados el intelecto la filosofía
alemana; y al influjo de esa ciencia, madre de la actual sabiduría,
debemos este descubrimiento portentoso. De modo que bien
podemos decir, con otro ingeniosísimo comentarista,
contemporáneo del de los catorce volúmenes (el cual comentarista
se jactaba de poseer el autógrafo del famoso libro): «Ni Cervantes
es Cervantes, ni el Quijote es el Quijote».
Éstos y otros tales dichos del sabio francés de los futuros siglos,
llegarán á formar escuela; y esta escuela se acreditará en España; y
habrá españoles que se pasarán la vida cotejando el fárrago
cervantista del siglo xix con los asertos de la escuela; y al fin
perderán el juicio, y quizás den origen á una nueva orden de
cervantistas andantes, que saldrán por el mundo á buscar las
aventuras, deshaciendo escolios y enderezando notas al Quijote y á
la dudosa vida de su autor, que es cuanto queda ya que ver.
Entre tanto, cosa es que abruma el espíritu la contemplación del
cervantismo de nuestros días, malgastando lo mejor de la vida en
resobar, sin pizca de respeto, al más ilustre de los nombres y á la
más hermosa de las creaciones del humano ingenio; apesta y
empalaga ese fervor monomaníaco con que todo el mundo se da
hoy á buscar misterios en el fondo del libro, y habilidades en el
autor. Debémosle admiración, y es justo que se la tributemos; pero
no con cascabeles ni vestidos de payasos. Popularícese el Quijote,
y, si es necesario, declárese de texto en las escuelas; pero no el que
nos ofrezca, arreglado á su caletre, el cervantismo al uso.
Si las investigaciones hechas por doctos y respetables literatos,
desde Navarrete hasta Hartzenbusch, no bastan á poner en claro
cuáles son, en las primeras ediciones de Juan de la Cuesta, errores
del impresor, y cuáles descuidos de Cervantes, inténtese esa
empresa; pero una sola vez y por gentes erigidas en autoridad
literaria; y lo que resulte del expurgo, sin más notas que las precisas
para aclarar la significación de palabras poco conocidas hoy del
vulgo, ó para mostrar los pasajes en que Cervantes parodia escenas
y trozos de los libros de caballerías, algo, en suma, de lo que hizo
Clemencín (y no digo todo, porque este comentarista cayó también
en la impertinente tentación de meterse en pespuntes y reparos
gramaticales, como si quisiera enmendar la plana á Cervantes),
guárdese como oro en paño y sea el modelo á que se ajusten
cuantas ediciones del Quijote se hagan en lo sucesivo; pues el mal
no está en que un literato de autoridad y de juicio meta su escalpelo
en las páginas del áureo libro, sino el precedente que de ese modo
se sienta para que todos nos demos á expurgadores de faltas y á
zurcidores de conceptos. Y aun sin este riesgo, ¿qué se saca en
limpio de las enmiendas de los doctos, si cada uno de estos señores
está tan discorde con las de los demás, como lo están todos ellos
con el asendereado Juan de la Cuesta? Y si ya entran por miles las
confesadas alteraciones hechas en el texto de las primeras
ediciones por esos respetables literatos, ¿qué lector, al poner el
dedo sobre una palabra del Quijote, se atreve hoy á asegurar que
esta palabra sea de Cervantes y no de alguno de sus correctores? Y
¿quién se atreverá mañana si á la afición reinante no se le ponen
trabas?
Volviendo al cervantismo inconsciente é intemperante, digo que no
mezcle berzas con capachos, ni confunda tan lastimosamente lo
serio con lo bufo. Elévese una estatua en cada plaza pública
española al príncipe de nuestros novelistas, y sea cada edición de
sus obras un monumento tipográfico; pero, por el amor de Dios, no
pidamos fiestas nacionales para cada uno de sus aniversarios, ni
nos demos todos á académicos cervantinos, ni estampemos el
egregio nombre en desvencijadas diligencias, ni en sociedades de
bailes públicos, ni salgamos á la calle con cara de parientes del
ilustre difunto, ni asociemos su memoria á todas nuestras
debilidades y sandeces. Léase y estúdiese la inmortal obra, que
deleite y enseñanzas contiene para doctos é indoctos en todas las
edades de la vida; pero no pretenda cada lector imponerse á los
demás con el fruto de la tarea; pues cada hombre es un carácter, y,
como dijo un insigne escritor, disputando sobre reparos hechos, y no
del todo mal, á unas enmiendas suyas al Quijote,
«Cada uno tiene, don Zacarías,

Sus aprensiones y sus manías».
¡Y adónde iríamos á parar si se diera, como se va dando, en la

gracia de remendar é interpretar el libro, al tenor de esa suma de
aprensiones, y conforme al parecer de cada aprensivo?
Dudo mucho que el Gobierno de la nación permitiera á los
aficionados á la arquitectura poner sus manos en determinados
detalles artísticos de un monumento público, so pretexto de que así
lo quiso el arquitecto, á quien no deben achacarse los errores de los
canteros. ¿Ha habido pincel que se atreva á borrar el tercer brazo
con que aparece en el Museo uno de los mejores caballos de
Velázquez? Antes al contrario, ¿no se lleva el respeto al gran pintor
al extremo de hacerse las copias de tal cuadro hasta con ese
glorioso arrepentimiento?
¿Por qué no ha de merecernos iguales deferencias y
consideraciones el blasón de nuestra nobleza literaria?
Por lo que á mí toca, desde luego aseguro que, si tuviera poder para
ello, declaraba el Quijote monumento nacional, y no consentiría,
bajo las penas más severas, que se alterara en una sola tilde el
texto de la edición que, por los medios indicados, ó por otros
análogos que se juzgasen mejores, se hubiera declarado oficial, con
todas las solemnidades y garantías apetecibles.
¿Que tiene erratas?... Que las tenga. ¿Que lo del Rucio?... Mejor
que mejor. ¿Habrá trastrueque de párrafos, ni razonamientos que
valgan lo que dice del caso el mismo Cervantes en la segunda parte
de la novela? ¿No son estos descuidos y aquellos arrepentimientos
y los otros deslices gramaticales, el mejor testimonio de la frescura y
espontaneidad de la obra? ¿O creen los químicos del cervantismo
que un libro como el Quijote puede hacerse con regla, compás y
tiralíneas?
Si Cervantes hubiera tenido que estar atento á cuantos tiquis-miquis
le quieren sujetar sus admiradores; si lo que dijo de herir de soslayo
los rayos del sol á su personaje al lanzarse al mundo de las
aventuras, lo dijo para que la posteridad no dudara que salía de
Argamasilla de Alba y no de otro lugar manchego; si no fueron
donaires de su pluma y primores de lengua otros mil pasajes de su
libro, sino estudiados disfraces de otros tantos propósitos
transcendentales; si cada frase es un jeroglífico y cada nombre un
anagrama; si, amén de esto y mucho más, necesitó trabajar con el
calendario á la vista, y encarrilar á su caballero por cualquiera de los
itinerarios que le han trazado sus comentaristas de hogaño, y
conocer á palmos los senderos para no dar con una aventura en
martes, cuando, por el cómputo del mapa y del almanaque, podía
demostrársele que la fazaña debió tener lugar en miércoles, día de
vigilia además, con otros muy curiosos pormenores que el lector
habrá visto, tan bien como yo, en escolios, notas y folletos; si á todo
esto, y á lo de la cocina, la teología, la jurisprudencia, el
protestantismo (!!!), la economía política, etc., etc., etc... y otro tanto
más, tuvo que estar atento, repito, el glorioso novelista, más le
valiera no haber salido nunca del cautiverio de Argel; que entre
escribir un libro con tales trabas, ó arrastrar las de hierro bajo la
penca de un moro argelino, aun con el ingenio de Cervantes optara
yo por el cautiverio, y saldría mejorado en tercio y quinto.
¡Dichoso día aquél en que el cervantismo pase y vuelva á reinar el
Quijote en la patria literatura sin enmiendas, reparos ni aditamentos,
y su autor perínclito sin habilidades ni misterios! Venga, pues, la
inmortal obra sin teologías, náutica ni jurisprudencia, y, sobre todo,
sin claves ni itinerarios ni almanaques; venga, en fin, como la hemos
conocido los que peinamos ya canas, cuando en ella aprendimos á
leer, á pensar y á sentir; que así, al pie de la letra y hasta con las
erratas y garrafales descuidos de los primeros impresores, ha sido
admirada de todos los hombres y traducida á todas las lenguas, y
servido de pedestal á la fama de Cervantes, que ya no cabe en el
mundo.
1880.

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A Vindication of the Redhead: The

Typology of Red Hair Throughout the

Brenda Ayres · Sarah E. Maier

ISBN 978-3-030-83514-9 ISBN 978-3-030-83515-6 (eBook)

Cover illustration: Robert J. Moore

Thanks to Robert J. Moore who granted permission to use his painting on

1 Introduction: “Hair is the woman’s glory”—Unless

2 The Devil Has Red Hair and So Do Other Dissemblers

3 “Real are the dreams”: Red Hairy Incubi and

Red Hairy Nightmares 54

4 Les Roux Fatales: The Plaits of Pre-Raphaelite Redheads 71

5 The Agency of Red Hair on the Male Gender Equivocal

6 “Here we are again!” Red-Haired Golems Galore

7 Tangled Webs of Red Hair from the Grimm Brothers

8 The Other Redheads Throughout Asia and Africa171

9 Tough Little Red-Headed Orphans: Anne (of Green

10 Rebellious Royals: From Disney’s Ariel to Pixar’s Merida223

11 Neo-Victorian Freakery: Flaming-Haired Women,

12 STEAM(y) and Marvel(ous) Women: Agent Scully,

13 Epilogue: The Splitting of Red Hairs281

Introduction: “Hair is the woman’s

“Hair is the woman’s glory,” Charlotte Yonge announced in her prescrip-

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Out of the ash

In response to such seductive power, 1 Timothy 2:9 extols women to

coiffure” (Lyndall Gordon 1994, 17). Nevertheless, a popular magazine,

Magdalene asylums, also known as Magdalene laundries, were created

earth, the Jews would have to be converted to Christianity. As a result,

Excerptions, published by the Archbishop of York in 740, forbade

According to Harvey, Scotland has the greatest number of redheads mak-

Rapunzel was a redhead. Chapter 7 delves into Grimm Brothers’ story

“Neo-Victorian Freakery: Flaming-Haired Women, Dolls, Art, and

Blackstone, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England. Vol. 1. 1769. Edited

Plath, Sylvia. “Lady Lazarus.” 1960. Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetry-

The Devil Has Red Hair and So Do Other

Throughout both Eastern and Western histories, a stereotype of red-­

Gothic Roots of Red Hair

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 21

Goat Gods with Red Hair

the Americans (Sakamoto 2010, 3–4). Like nymphomania and satyriasis,

great whore,” Babylon is vilified in Revelation 17 and 18. The “whore of

Adam and Eve and Their Red Hair

Lilith and Lamia Redheads

But guard yourself against her lovely tresses,

Wreathe thy neck with my hair’s bright tether,

Beware of her fair hair, for he excels

The First Murderer Had Red Hair

present day.27 Charles Dickens perpetuated this stereotype, which was

Red Hairy Esau and Deceit

Villainy and Red Hair

The red man is a rogue,

John Kemble adds this note: “The faithlessness of red-haired men is

El Diccionario de la Academia no contiene este vocablo; pero es uno

«Cada uno tiene, don Zacarías,

¡Y adónde iríamos á parar si se diera, como se va dando, en la

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1 Introduction: “Hair is the woman’s glory”—Unless

2 The Devil Has Red Hair and So Do Other Dissemblers

3 “Real are the dreams”: Red Hairy Incubi and

Red Hairy Nightmares 54

4 Les Roux Fatales: The Plaits of Pre-Raphaelite Redheads 71

5 The Agency of Red Hair on the Male Gender Equivocal

6 “Here we are again!” Red-Haired Golems Galore

7 Tangled Webs of Red Hair from the Grimm Brothers

8 The Other Redheads Throughout Asia and Africa171

9 Tough Little Red-Headed Orphans: Anne (of Green

10 Rebellious Royals: From Disney’s Ariel to Pixar’s Merida223

11 Neo-Victorian Freakery: Flaming-Haired Women,

12 STEAM(y) and Marvel(ous) Women: Agent Scully,

13 Epilogue: The Splitting of Red Hairs281

Throughout both Eastern and Western histories, a stereotype of red-