Red hair

thumb|Out of the ash / I rise with my red hair / And I eat men like air. ~ Sylvia Plath thumb|Her hair was like elfin-gold ~ Robert E. Howard Red hair, also known as orange, ginger or auburn hair, is a rare human hair colour, most common in people of Northern or Northwestern European ancestry. It has been prized as a symbol of courage in men and beauty in women. Quotes Their tresses, like the crocus’ flamy hue,In waving radiance round their shoulders flew. Homer, "To Demeter" (7th or 6th century BC), as translated by Richard Hole, Homer's Hymn to Ceres (Exeter: B. Thorn & Son, 1781) Prose His gaze went again to her unruly locks, which at first glance he had thought to be red. Now he saw that they were neither red nor yellow but a glorious compound of both colors. He gazed spell-bound. Her hair was like elfin-gold; the sun struck it so dazzlingly that he could scarcely bear to look upon it. Robert E. Howard, "The Frost-Giant's Daughter", The Coming of Conan (1953) Verse His heer, his berd was lyk saffroun,That to his girdel raughte adoun; Geoffrey Chaucer, Sir Thopas, First Fit Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes,Whose red-haired offspring ev’rywhere remains, Daniel Defoe, The True-born Englishman (1701) Lo! where the Giant on the mountain stands,His blood-red tresses deepening in the Sun,With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands,And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon; Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto I, 39. These curious locks, so aptly twined,Whose every hair a soul doth bind,Will change their auburn hue and growWhite and cold as winter’s snow. Thomas Carew, "To A. L. Persuasions to Love",Poems (1640) Out of the ashI rise with my red hairAnd I eat men like air. Sylvia Plath, Ariel (1965) External links Category:Hair