WEBVTT - From the Vault: Hair on Fire, Part 2 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:07.720 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:10.680 My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:12.960 and it's Saturday, so we are heading into the vault 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:15.600 for an older episode of the show. This one originally 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:18.439 published July twenty third, twenty twenty four, and it's part 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:27.720 two of our series about burning hair. Hair on Fire Enjoy. 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:30.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:38.559 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:39.440 name is Robert. 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:42.000 Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:46.240 part two in our discussion of burning hair. This topic 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:49.839 was inspired by a personal experience for me. I actually 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:52.479 singed a bunch of hair off my arm while grilling 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:54.360 at a family get together for the Fourth of July, 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:56.400 and not the first time I've done that, well grilling 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:59.520 for a crowd, and it got me thinking about what 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:03.560 happened when hair burns. So in the last episode we 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:08.240 talked about the distinctive and sometimes overpowering smell of burning hair, 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:11.200 which seems to be mostly due to the presence of 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:14.560 sulfur compounds that are formed and released when hair burns, 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:18.640 a chief one being sulfur dioxide which is released when 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:22.360 the keratin of hair is decomposed by fire. Sulfur dioxide 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.280 is also a major part of the characteristic smell of 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:28.720 a burning match head. We also ended up talking about 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:32.119 a couple of studies of hair catching on fire in 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:36.920 space ships, specifically addressing the question of whether human hair 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.280 is a fire hazard in environments with higher levels of 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:45.200 oxygen than Earth's atmosphere, and the answer seems to be yes. 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:48.920 In oxygen rich environments, where things catch fire more easily 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:52.360 because there's more oxygen, human hair can be a potent 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:56.200 fuel source and fire can spread quickly over it. So 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:59.560 these papers ended up talking about strategies to mitigate that 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:04.680 risk in future spacecraft and space habitation environments that might 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:07.680 be using elevated levels of oxygen. And then finally we 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:11.120 talked about stories of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:15.560 English pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, who famously 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:19.320 was said to put burning slow matches under his hat 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:21.680 and he's drawn with like these slow matches and it 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:25.120 kind of fuses, sticking out alongside his hair. In some 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.560 evolved versions of this legend, maybe he's said to have 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:32.280 the burning slow matches in his hair or in his beard, 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:35.639 and we discussed to where these stories come from, how 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:39.440 historically plausible they are, including considerations of the danger of 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:42.880 catching one's own hair or beard on fire in general. 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:46.160 In case you don't listen to that episode, don't try 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:49.040 any of this at home. Don't set out to do 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:51.960 anything flammable with your beard or. 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:55.040 Hair now, kind of continuing on that theme, I ended 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:58.000 up pursuing a research trail where I didn't turn up 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:00.160 quite as much as I expected to, but I at 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.800 least want to report what I did come across. So 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:08.680 I had a vague idea from somewhere that the powdered 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.160 wigs that were popular in parts of Western Europe, especially 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:15.440 in the eighteenth century, were prone to catching on fire. 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:19.400 My impression here may have been formed by seeing older 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:23.000 illustrations of this, or like cartoons from the period that 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:27.080 show people with elaborate hair wigs and headdresses catching on 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:31.680 fire due to a candle placed underneath them or something. Ultimately, 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:34.160 I found less about this than I expected to, and 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:36.520 I can't tell if it was actually any more common 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:39.960 than regular instances of people catching their hair on fire, 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:43.200 which of course does happen occasionally. Here and there, but 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:45.480 just to get into what it did come across, I 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:49.200 found mentioned in a post on the British Library's Untold 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:51.600 Lives blog, and I may have mentioned this on the 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:54.560 show before, but generally I think the British Libraries have 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:58.000 some great blogs and archives about history and some interesting 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:02.800 documents in their collections. This post was by Julia Armfield 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:07.840 from August twenty thirteen, and it's a short post concerning 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:11.480 how the elaborate wigs that had been so popular among 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.880 the wealthy during the Georgian Era, which was about seventeen 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:19.000 fourteen to eighteen thirty seven, these elaborate wigs began to 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:22.839 fall out of fashion later on in that period and 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.240 going into the Victorian period, they sort of fill out 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.520 out of fashion after the French Revolution and then especially 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:32.200 after the eighteen thirties. According to the author, this was 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:36.960 in part because of changing social perceptions about wigs that 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:39.880 they came to be seen not just as fashion but 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.320 in some cases as a kind of undesirable show of 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:48.159 vanity or as a deception. Which is funny because I 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:51.320 realized that even today there are like changes in how 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:54.160 you know, people are always like trying to affect their 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:58.640 outward appearance. There's like, you know, there's haircare and cosmetics 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:02.520 and stuff like that in every era, and for some reason, 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:06.320 you can look at someone trying to shape their appearance 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:08.520 in a certain way and just say, well, that's just fashion, 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:12.479 but with just a different kind of emotional spin on it. 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:14.800 You start to think of it as they're trying to 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:17.560 look unreal, They're trying to look away they're not supposed to. 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:18.560 Now it's a deception. 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:21.880 M Yeah, that's interesting to think about. I guess the 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:25.520 stigma against powdered wigs in particular has pretty much stuck. 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:28.279 I think, yea, you know, there's certainly there's nothing wrong 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:30.440 with wearing a wig or a hair piece. But if 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.760 it is a powdered wig or a hair piece like 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:38.640 out of the period piece broadly speaking, like there's a 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:41.360 certain air that comes with that, then I guess there 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:44.799 are probably some exceptions in the fashion world and so forth. 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:47.560 Well, like why would wearing a wig be a deception, 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:50.440 but like wearing clothes that cover your skin is not 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:51.080 a deception. 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:53.359 I don't know, yeah, I mean, I guess on one level, 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.280 someone can make the argument, well, the hair supposedly grows 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:58.520 out of you. The hair is of course, by its 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:01.360 very nature, something you put on you. But I don't know, yeah, 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.800 I mean, when you get down to it, why does 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:06.159 it matter one way or the other. 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:10.360 Anyway, This blog post mentions, in apart from changing social 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:15.720 perceptions of wigs, that there were that there were practical 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:19.320 problems presented by the wigs of the Georgian era, including 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:22.200 the fact that some wigs were so huge and heavy 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.040 that they actually caused people wearing them to develop sores 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:30.080 on their scalps. Another thing is infestation by insects or 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:34.880 other unwanted critters and parasites. Lice and fleas sometimes would 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:38.720 get into wigs, and that's also sometimes held up as 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:42.279 one reason for the popularity of wigs. Is that, well, 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:44.280 maybe the lice will get into the wig instead of 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:46.440 getting into your actual hair, if you can cut your 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:49.240 hair short or shave it, and then you know, they 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:51.240 just get into the wig instead. But then you've got 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:54.719 lice in your wig. I've read in separate places about 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:59.200 mitigation strategies for this, including historical trends in wigs that 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:02.599 would include built in lice or flea traps that would 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:05.200 be some kind of container with like bait hidden inside 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:08.800 the hair. But also this British Library post mentions that 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.960 Georgian wigs would be flammable due to the presence of 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:17.600 palmades made in large part out of animal fats such 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:21.840 as hogs lard or mutton renderings. Of course, animal fat 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:24.720 can be quite combustible, and so if you're using that 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:27.160 as the base of a kind of hair styling material 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:30.880 or pomade that we would think of today, you know, 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:33.560 to hold the wig in its in its styling shape, 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:35.680 you can imagine there would be trouble. Like you know, 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:38.480 combined wigs gelled up with animal fat and the use 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:41.960 of candles as a primary light source, and it just 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:44.679 seems like it would be a recipe for wig fires. 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:48.240 But I wasn't able to turn up a lot about 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.640 this in like history books or academic articles about the 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:55.280 history of wigs. I did find another blog post. This 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.040 one was on a history blog called all Things Georgian 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:02.120 by an author named Syria Murden, that managed to dig 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:06.080 up a handful of eighteenth century newspaper reports from England 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:10.680 and Scotland of young women's wigs or headdresses catching on 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:13.880 fire from a candle or in one case I think 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:17.000 from a fireplace and in a couple of cases leading 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.680 to their deaths. But again I did not find convincing 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:25.480 evidence that this was actually a really common occurrence or anything. So, 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:28.760 you know, with candles everywhere and large smeared masses of 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:31.239 hair bobbing around all over the place, it does seem 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:33.800 plausible that this would happen a lot, But apart from 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:35.720 a few reports here and there, I'm not sure it 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:39.360 actually did. Historians of wigs and hair, if you're aware 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:40.679 of something I'm not right in. 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:44.319 Yeah, it is often weird to look back on times 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.440 when candles were your main form of elimination. There were 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:51.600 a lot more open fires and less in the way 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:54.880 of fire safety, And on one level, you just kind 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:57.320 of think, well, why wasn't everything on fire all the time? 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:02.240 And certainly fire was a huge threat. But yeah, I 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:04.839 don't know. Maybe part of it is we sometimes don't 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:09.240 give our ancestors enough credit for not catching everything on fire. 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:12.280 I don't know, we think of them as the way 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:14.600 we might think of our own children if they're in 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:16.080 the presence of an open flame. 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:19.880 Well, I guess sometimes when we think about a historical 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:24.520 activity or apparatus that came with certain hazards. We imagine 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:29.599 the prevalence, but without the accustomedness that would accompany prevalence. 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:31.679 I mean, a world with lots of candles also had 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:33.880 people who were used to handling candles. 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:48.160 Yes, exactly. Now, at this point in the episode, we're 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:51.040 going to get a little bit into hair of fire 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:54.600 and flaming beards and so forth, and mythology and folklore 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:57.160 and literature. And I have to admit this is an 0:09:57.160 --> 0:09:59.400 area where I thought we were going to have more 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:03.840 to draw from. And certainly, you know, we probably left 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:07.160 some things off, and certainly, as always right in and 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:09.640 let us know if you have some great examples to 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:13.400 bring to mind. But generally I was thinking, Okay, hair 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:16.800 can burn, and it's reasonable to assume that every fire 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:19.880 bearing culture would have some experience with this that they 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:26.080 might further craft into various myths and legends, jokes, you know, 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:28.680 turns of phrase and so forth. Right, I mean, you 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:31.720 have fire, Hair can catch on fire. Maybe it doesn't 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:33.920 happen that often, but if it happens once, it's memorable. 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.440 And therefore you might have some traditions, you might have 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:41.840 some magical creatures, you might have some gods and goddesses 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:45.840 that have flaming hair. And while this is true, we 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.800 do have some examples to discuss, we didn't. I wasn't 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:51.880 able to find as many examples as I was expecting. 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.400 I was expecting it to be just a long list 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:59.240 of creatures and entities, but there's there's actually a lot 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:02.160 of like bleed over into other categories that makes it difficult, 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:05.679 you know, like just characters with red hair or characters 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:07.760 who have some sort of a halo or an ara. 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:11.599 But then it's kind of left to exactly what languages 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.400 used as to whether you would call this flaming hair. 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:17.120 Yeah, I think there are a lot of examples that 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:21.080 are arguable or edge cases, but I also was expecting 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:23.679 there just to be a lot more defined with it. 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:25.760 Was just like, here's a figure with fire for hair. 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:30.560 Maybe because I'm used to Hades from the Disney movie. 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:32.800 Yeah, yeah, this is a great example to bring up 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.199 the Greek god Hades in the nineteen ninety seven Hercules 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:40.720 movie flaming blue hair, voiced by James Woods. He's not 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:46.000 actually a fire related deity in Greek mythology. This was 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.559 just a visual choice by Disney that actually, I guess 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:53.839 the exact alchemy of this is they're dragging in elements 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:58.520 often associated generally with the Christian devil, you know, fire 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:01.360 and so forth, and and creating this kind of like 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:05.720 Haiti Satan combo for their their main villain, and making 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.079 like a very distinct visual choice on how to just 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:09.080 to present him. 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:12.280 Yeah, it's like a combination. So you associate the Christian 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:16.120 the Christian Satan with the lake of fire, I guess. 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:19.640 So there's your fire element. But then you you've got 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:22.280 to have it like cold, sort of more like you 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:25.840 would get in Dante's Lower levels of Hell, or like 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:28.800 you would get I think more often in Greek depictions 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:30.800 of the underworld. It's just kind of like a cold, 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:34.360 dark place. So they make the fire blue, which ironically 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:36.280 is actually the hottest color of flame. 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:41.680 Right, So yeah, that's that's a that's a fun example 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:44.040 to bring up. I mean, there's so many pop culture 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:45.480 examples of this, and I think that's one of the 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:49.600 confusing things, is you, I mean, I would assume anyway 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:53.840 that Okay, we have characters like Captain Marvel and and 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:57.360 and so forth from from Marvel comics, and and they 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:00.199 have like flaming hair at times. Then this is it's 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:03.600 just a more modern example of a longer health tradition, 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:05.280 and that we're gonna have all these other examples and 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:10.040 in all these different belief systems. But yeah, I found 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:12.760 that you have certainly have no shortage of things like 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:18.599 fire elementals in modern fiction and sci fi and fantasy, 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:21.800 all sorts of creatures and spirits with flaming hair and 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:25.439 flaming beards. But they're just they seem there's just seemed 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:27.600 to be less of them when you actually look into 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:29.200 folklore and mythology and legend. 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.040 As far as the recent pop culture examples go. You 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:34.800 brought up one in the notes that I didn't think of, 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:36.760 which is the one from the Wall the movie. 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:40.680 Oh yeah, yeah, this is the animated Pink Floyd movie, 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:44.400 and I believe it's Pink's wife, and it is depicted 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:47.840 later on as this kind of like monstrous cannibal creature 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:50.600 with flaming hair, hair of literal fire. 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:53.000 I've seen this movie, I mean a long time ago. 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:55.000 I think I was in high school, but I completely 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.439 forgot about this. The main thing I remember is warning 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:01.320 for a gross thing about the scene shaves his nipple off. 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:05.880 Yeah, I forgot about that. How could you. I mainly 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.360 just remember the hammers like marching around. 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:10.559 I guess, yeah, yeah, the fascist imagery. 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:12.600 Yeah yeah, it's been a long time since I've seen 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:13.680 I think I saw it when I was a kid, 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:17.079 and you know, on TV parts of it. Anyway, Ultimately, 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:20.160 the examples of like fire elemental beings are too numerous 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:22.960 to mention, but I was reminded of that there's one 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:24.720 in The Dark Crystal. So I picked up my copy 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:28.480 of the Dark Crystal Bestiary, and there's a description of 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:30.880 these things called the fire Lings. And I believe these 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:36.400 pop up in some of the like Dark Crystal Expanded 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:38.920 Universe material, I guess, you know, in comic books and 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:40.840 so forth. And I think maybe they were going to 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:45.040 be a part of a possible film project that never 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:48.640 came to fruition. But these are supposed to be direct 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:52.200 descendants of Gelfling exiles who live in the superheated core 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:55.840 of the planet Thraw, and they're depicted as Gelfling like beings, 0:14:56.240 --> 0:15:00.960 but they have hair of fire. And then I found 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.760 like a couple of different images that kind of portray 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:06.360 different ideas of this, Like in one of them you 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.080 can see the Gelfling or in this case, the fire 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:12.720 ling has hair that is literal fire, and the others 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:17.040 they just look like fiery, golden beings. And it's kind 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.920 of left up to your interpretation if their hair is 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.000 just actual physical hair, or if it is like the 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:29.840 chemical emergence, you know, this, this pyrotechnic experience of fire. 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:30.320 I don't know. 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:34.720 I'm tempted to speculate that a lot of this modern 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:40.000 hair as fire imagery and cartoons and stuff specifically comes 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:44.720 from physical and visual similarities between hair and fire that emerge, 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:50.520 especially when they're being depicted in human drawing. That you know, 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:53.880 the ways that you sort of represent say hair blowing 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:56.320 in the wind, or hair flowing in a like a 0:15:56.360 --> 0:16:00.680 still painting or photo or still painting or drawing can 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:04.240 very much resemble the kind of wisps of a fire, 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:08.640 but oriented in the opposite direction. Often. Yeah, I don't know, 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.200 and that's not a fully formed thought, but something almost 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:14.760 makes me think that it's something about like modern drawing 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:18.880 and animation traditions that give rise to seeing these things 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:22.240 as visually similar and then inviting the mind to make 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.160 a connection where it's not just that hair looks like fire, 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:27.640 but you have a character with fire fore hair. 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:30.800 Yeah, yeah, I was definitely thinking a bit about like 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:35.760 how hair appears when it is say, caught by the wind, 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:39.000 or if one is underwater and you have like footage 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:41.040 of someone with long hair and the hair is floating 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:43.760 and so forth, and if that has anything to do 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:46.480 with I mean that you could sort of link it 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:50.920 to the history of underwater the underwater moving picture, which 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:53.040 of course isn't going to go back that far, and 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:58.320 you could perhaps, I guess arguably enhance comparisons that would 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:00.640 be made in general, because of course there are always 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:04.080 going to be comparisons made between you know, reddish hair 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:08.639 and fire. You can factor in things like you know, 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:14.600 length and texture as well. But you know, at the 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:16.560 end of the day, we do have at least a 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:21.200 few examples of creatures and entities that I feel like 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.000 are close enough that we can say, Okay, we can 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:26.520 quibble about the details, but these creatures kind of sound 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:28.200 like they have fire for hair. 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:29.600 Okay, what'd you come up with? 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:32.720 Now? A couple of these are from South America. One 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:36.320 is called the Kuma Conga, and this is a disembodied 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:40.360 head spirit of Brazilian folklore that I was reading about 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:44.879 in the werewolf in between Indians and Whites. This is 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:48.879 by Mark Harris and this was published in t PTE, 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:53.440 Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America. 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:57.720 And in this article, Harris describes this entity as entailing 0:17:57.760 --> 0:17:59.960 aspects of what we might think of as a werewolf, 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:04.160 you know, in Western folklore, especially as well as sightings 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:09.119 of balls or wheels of fire. So that's another thing 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:11.240 I saw several examples of. It's like you have sort 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:13.639 of like fire entities, kind of will of the wisp 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:16.880 sort of entities, and it depends on like how far 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:20.120 you push that from being like a mere strange light 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:24.960 to being a flaming entity or a flaming head or 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:27.880 something with you know, physiology to it. Now, another one 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:32.159 that I've ran across was the Kurapura. I've seen descriptions 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:36.800 of this spirit from Tupequar Knee traditions of Brazil, entailing 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:40.399 a beard of fire, though Carol Rose doesn't mention this 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.920 in her entry on the creature in the book Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.639 and Goblins and Encyclopedia, she describes it as a bright, 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:51.040 red faced gnome with cloven hoofs as well as a 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:54.479 shaggy creature with backward turned feet. It's kind of a 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:58.840 forest guardian of game. Then there's also an Afro Brazilian 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:03.840 tradition of the Kurupira that casts everything more as a 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:06.040 will of the wisp that leads people off track in 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:10.800 the forest, but maybe sort of bribe with offerings. But 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:13.720 I've seen some more recent articles that mention either red 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:18.359 hair or hair of fire, so I can't completely dispute 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.320 that idea. But again, it seems like we often run 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:24.240 into this territory of It's probably some linguistic drift in 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:29.040 some of these descriptions, especially when you're dealing with multiple translations, 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:32.920 so hard for me to tell anyway exactly like what 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:36.520 the tradition actually is. Are we dealing with creatures that 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:39.479 are thought to have hair of fire or does that 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:42.600 just sort of get added on somewhere in the chain. 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:46.080 Or I think, especially the further back you go in history, 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:49.040 just to kind of blending of the concepts of light 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.959 and fire, that in many cases any light source that 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:56.680 didn't come from the sky or whatever could be described 0:19:56.720 --> 0:19:57.680 as a fire. 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:00.359 Right right, Yeah, if you see a strange light in 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:03.679 the forest, for example, or in the sky and it 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:07.560 is of sufficient luminosity, like it's very reasonable to say, oh, 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:09.080 there was some sort of fire out there, there was 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:11.000 some sort of Yeah, what else could it be? If 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.960 it's like above, if it's not the moon, if it's 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:16.480 not a you know, something that is obviously celestial, and 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.040 it's not something that is like a firefly, then you 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:22.199 might reasonably think in terms of candles and torches and 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:26.560 so forth. I'm also reminded of a fireball yo kai 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:28.880 from Japanese traditions. I think we may have talked about 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:32.280 this one before and name Ubagabi, and this is more 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:35.080 of a fireball, but with the face of an old man. 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:38.359 And I guess if it is an old man's face, 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:40.760 then you could say, well, there the hair is fire. 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:43.879 But maybe not. Maybe that's adding too much on, you know. 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.639 I've also seen some ideas about low Key from Norse 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:54.280 mythology having hair of fire or flame hair. This I 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:56.480 didn't get a real strong feeling off of this either. 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:00.199 Hair with these two can get kind of complicated, and 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:02.320 in general are sort of understanding of them are kind 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:07.639 of you know, influenced by Marvel comics now, but you know, 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:11.040 Thor sometimes had red hair and a red beard, and 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:15.520 Loki is sometimes depicted with red hair, sometimes arguably resembling 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:19.000 a flame. And this is where I've seen various commentators, 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:21.399 you know, pointing out this idea that Loki may be 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:25.760 connected to the word Logi, which means flame, but is 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:30.280 also the name of one of the otin who personified fire. 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:33.840 So again, I don't know, there's that you could make 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:36.680 a case. I guess that sometimes Loki was perhaps a 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:40.919 fire headed god, but maybe not. Now one of the 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:43.800 stronger cases I came across is there is an Armenian 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:47.240 warrior god by the name of Vaughan the Dragon Reaper, 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:52.840 who apparently is more traditionally described as having celestial fire 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:56.800 for hair, a beard of flames, and eyes like suns. 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:00.800 So this one would seem a stronger example. Uh though 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:03.720 it is interesting here too that we're getting into like 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:06.320 celestial fire here in this idea of like a holy 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:09.440 flame that doesn't necessarily behave like a real flame, and 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:12.119 is also kind of like a halo, kind of like 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:15.880 a holy aura. But I feel like this this guy, 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:18.159 you can make a stronger case and say, Okay, this 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:19.960 guy has has fire for hair. 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:24.119 So I was not initially familiar with a hagan the 0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:28.600 dragon reaper, but the dragon reaper apparently is like a 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:32.480 that's a translation of a traditional epithet. But that's it's 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:35.720 amazing how much that sounds like modern cool. It sounds 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:37.080 like something out of a video game. 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:39.560 Yeah, this is this is old school cool right here. 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:43.000