Friday, May 9, 2008

On being red.

''Why aren't there more redhead jokes?– Someone told them to a redhead.''





''She was huge of frame, terrifying of aspect, and with a harsh voice. A great mass of bright red hair fell to her knees: she wore a twisted torc, and a tunic of many colours, over which was a thick mantle, fastened by a brooch. Now she grasped a spear, to strike fear into all who watched her." Dio Cassius about Boudicca.





I tell my children I married their father for his hair. When I met him he had long, luxuriant red~gold waves; absolutely gorgeous colour. Four out of five of our kids are red~heads. No they don't look it but they are. This is unusual as red is a recessive gene so we need two recessives to get red hair dominant.





Jossie was a copper nob, as is Ditz. When the light hits just so they light up like a Christmas tree. Mostly they look a reddish brown colour but that's very deceptive. Dino & Theo are even more peculiar. They have their mama's white blond hair ~ but they didn't start out that way. They had the most glorious mahogany hair for months after they were born & only became blond later. I went from blond to strawberry blond to a muddy brown colour but the root colour is still reddish.





Only Liddy escaped. She got the olive Spanish skin, the small brown Spanish eyes, the thick brown hair with no trace of red. Odd man out. Not really surprising we have a houseful of reddish haired people; Scotland has the highest percentage of redheads of anywhere in the world & both Dearest & I are of Scots descent ~ several times over! Yes, red hair is a pecularity of Celtic peoples & Ditz always reminds me of that most famous of Celtic Queens ~ Boudicca. OK, I don't expect her to go careering round the countryside in a chariot with spiked wheels burning & pillaging as she goes ( my goodness, I would hope not!) but the larger than life persona is pretty Ditzy. Which reminds me, the Scots also have an odd gene for cannabalism. Some things you just don't want passed on, do you?

4 comments:

MamaOlive said...

My hair looks pretty red on occasion. My brown eyes also go a golden green at times. Taryn's hair had a red tint in infancy (what there was of it). But I don't see it taking over anytime soon. :-)

molytail said...

I wanted red hair so badly when I was younger - it was the first colour that I dyed my hair when I hit my teens....

My good friend Diane is a redhead and I absolutely love her hair - it's funny though, how we want what we don't have, because she doesn't seem to really like hers...it's thick and curly and red and if it was mine, I'd have it long and curling all over the place...she keeps it fairly short and usually hidden under a bandana.

She's got the freckles that often come with the red hair as well - they're so cute! Again, I don't think she's impressed with them. ;-)

Ganeida said...

Ditz has these sweet little *sun kisses* tripping across her nose & cheekbones & she absolutely hates them!! I think they are soo cute... Her daddy is speckled like a trout so she should be grateful! :D

Happy Elf Mom (Christine) said...

Why aren't there redhead jokes?? LOL!!! That's too funny!

Heyy. That was a redhead joke!