Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 2: My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick,
Speaker 2: and it's Saturday, so we are heading into the vault
Speaker 2: for an older episode of the show. This one originally
Speaker 2: published July twenty third, twenty twenty four, and it's part
Speaker 2: two of our series about burning hair. Hair on Fire Enjoy.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert.
Speaker 2: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with
Speaker 2: part two in our discussion of burning hair. This topic
Speaker 2: was inspired by a personal experience for me. I actually
Speaker 2: singed a bunch of hair off my arm while grilling
Speaker 2: at a family get together for the Fourth of July,
Speaker 2: and not the first time I've done that, well grilling
Speaker 2: for a crowd, and it got me thinking about what
Speaker 2: happened when hair burns. So in the last episode we
Speaker 2: talked about the distinctive and sometimes overpowering smell of burning hair,
Speaker 2: which seems to be mostly due to the presence of
Speaker 2: sulfur compounds that are formed and released when hair burns,
Speaker 2: a chief one being sulfur dioxide which is released when
Speaker 2: the keratin of hair is decomposed by fire. Sulfur dioxide
Speaker 2: is also a major part of the characteristic smell of
Speaker 2: a burning match head. We also ended up talking about
Speaker 2: a couple of studies of hair catching on fire in
Speaker 2: space ships, specifically addressing the question of whether human hair
Speaker 2: is a fire hazard in environments with higher levels of
Speaker 2: oxygen than Earth's atmosphere, and the answer seems to be yes.
Speaker 2: In oxygen rich environments, where things catch fire more easily
Speaker 2: because there's more oxygen, human hair can be a potent
Speaker 2: fuel source and fire can spread quickly over it. So
Speaker 2: these papers ended up talking about strategies to mitigate that
Speaker 2: risk in future spacecraft and space habitation environments that might
Speaker 2: be using elevated levels of oxygen. And then finally we
Speaker 2: talked about stories of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century
Speaker 2: English pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, who famously
Speaker 2: was said to put burning slow matches under his hat
Speaker 2: and he's drawn with like these slow matches and it
Speaker 2: kind of fuses, sticking out alongside his hair. In some
Speaker 2: evolved versions of this legend, maybe he's said to have
Speaker 2: the burning slow matches in his hair or in his beard,
Speaker 2: and we discussed to where these stories come from, how
Speaker 2: historically plausible they are, including considerations of the danger of
Speaker 2: catching one's own hair or beard on fire in general.
Speaker 1: In case you don't listen to that episode, don't try
Speaker 1: any of this at home. Don't set out to do
Speaker 1: anything flammable with your beard or.
Speaker 2: Hair now, kind of continuing on that theme, I ended
Speaker 2: up pursuing a research trail where I didn't turn up
Speaker 2: quite as much as I expected to, but I at
Speaker 2: least want to report what I did come across. So
Speaker 2: I had a vague idea from somewhere that the powdered
Speaker 2: wigs that were popular in parts of Western Europe, especially
Speaker 2: in the eighteenth century, were prone to catching on fire.
Speaker 2: My impression here may have been formed by seeing older
Speaker 2: illustrations of this, or like cartoons from the period that
Speaker 2: show people with elaborate hair wigs and headdresses catching on
Speaker 2: fire due to a candle placed underneath them or something. Ultimately,
Speaker 2: I found less about this than I expected to, and
Speaker 2: I can't tell if it was actually any more common
Speaker 2: than regular instances of people catching their hair on fire,
Speaker 2: which of course does happen occasionally. Here and there, but
Speaker 2: just to get into what it did come across, I
Speaker 2: found mentioned in a post on the British Library's Untold
Speaker 2: Lives blog, and I may have mentioned this on the
Speaker 2: show before, but generally I think the British Libraries have
Speaker 2: some great blogs and archives about history and some interesting
Speaker 2: documents in their collections. This post was by Julia Armfield
Speaker 2: from August twenty thirteen, and it's a short post concerning
Speaker 2: how the elaborate wigs that had been so popular among
Speaker 2: the wealthy during the Georgian Era, which was about seventeen
Speaker 2: fourteen to eighteen thirty seven, these elaborate wigs began to
Speaker 2: fall out of fashion later on in that period and
Speaker 2: going into the Victorian period, they sort of fill out
Speaker 2: out of fashion after the French Revolution and then especially
Speaker 2: after the eighteen thirties. According to the author, this was
Speaker 2: in part because of changing social perceptions about wigs that
Speaker 2: they came to be seen not just as fashion but
Speaker 2: in some cases as a kind of undesirable show of
Speaker 2: vanity or as a deception. Which is funny because I
Speaker 2: realized that even today there are like changes in how
Speaker 2: you know, people are always like trying to affect their
Speaker 2: outward appearance. There's like, you know, there's haircare and cosmetics
Speaker 2: and stuff like that in every era, and for some reason,
Speaker 2: you can look at someone trying to shape their appearance
Speaker 2: in a certain way and just say, well, that's just fashion,
Speaker 2: but with just a different kind of emotional spin on it.
Speaker 2: You start to think of it as they're trying to
Speaker 2: look unreal, They're trying to look away they're not supposed to.
Speaker 2: Now it's a deception.
Speaker 1: M Yeah, that's interesting to think about. I guess the
Speaker 1: stigma against powdered wigs in particular has pretty much stuck.
Speaker 1: I think, yea, you know, there's certainly there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with wearing a wig or a hair piece. But if
Speaker 1: it is a powdered wig or a hair piece like
Speaker 1: out of the period piece broadly speaking, like there's a
Speaker 1: certain air that comes with that, then I guess there
Speaker 1: are probably some exceptions in the fashion world and so forth.
Speaker 2: Well, like why would wearing a wig be a deception,
Speaker 2: but like wearing clothes that cover your skin is not
Speaker 2: a deception.
Speaker 1: I don't know, yeah, I mean, I guess on one level,
Speaker 1: someone can make the argument, well, the hair supposedly grows
Speaker 1: out of you. The hair is of course, by its
Speaker 1: very nature, something you put on you. But I don't know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, when you get down to it, why does
Speaker 1: it matter one way or the other.
Speaker 2: Anyway, This blog post mentions, in apart from changing social
Speaker 2: perceptions of wigs, that there were that there were practical
Speaker 2: problems presented by the wigs of the Georgian era, including
Speaker 2: the fact that some wigs were so huge and heavy
Speaker 2: that they actually caused people wearing them to develop sores
Speaker 2: on their scalps. Another thing is infestation by insects or
Speaker 2: other unwanted critters and parasites. Lice and fleas sometimes would
Speaker 2: get into wigs, and that's also sometimes held up as
Speaker 2: one reason for the popularity of wigs. Is that, well,
Speaker 2: maybe the lice will get into the wig instead of
Speaker 2: getting into your actual hair, if you can cut your
Speaker 2: hair short or shave it, and then you know, they
Speaker 2: just get into the wig instead. But then you've got
Speaker 2: lice in your wig. I've read in separate places about
Speaker 2: mitigation strategies for this, including historical trends in wigs that
Speaker 2: would include built in lice or flea traps that would
Speaker 2: be some kind of container with like bait hidden inside
Speaker 2: the hair. But also this British Library post mentions that
Speaker 2: Georgian wigs would be flammable due to the presence of
Speaker 2: palmades made in large part out of animal fats such
Speaker 2: as hogs lard or mutton renderings. Of course, animal fat
Speaker 2: can be quite combustible, and so if you're using that
Speaker 2: as the base of a kind of hair styling material
Speaker 2: or pomade that we would think of today, you know,
Speaker 2: to hold the wig in its in its styling shape,
Speaker 2: you can imagine there would be trouble. Like you know,
Speaker 2: combined wigs gelled up with animal fat and the use
Speaker 2: of candles as a primary light source, and it just
Speaker 2: seems like it would be a recipe for wig fires.
Speaker 2: But I wasn't able to turn up a lot about
Speaker 2: this in like history books or academic articles about the
Speaker 2: history of wigs. I did find another blog post. This
Speaker 2: one was on a history blog called all Things Georgian
Speaker 2: by an author named Syria Murden, that managed to dig
Speaker 2: up a handful of eighteenth century newspaper reports from England
Speaker 2: and Scotland of young women's wigs or headdresses catching on
Speaker 2: fire from a candle or in one case I think
Speaker 2: from a fireplace and in a couple of cases leading
Speaker 2: to their deaths. But again I did not find convincing
Speaker 2: evidence that this was actually a really common occurrence or anything. So,
Speaker 2: you know, with candles everywhere and large smeared masses of
Speaker 2: hair bobbing around all over the place, it does seem
Speaker 2: plausible that this would happen a lot, But apart from
Speaker 2: a few reports here and there, I'm not sure it
Speaker 2: actually did. Historians of wigs and hair, if you're aware
Speaker 2: of something I'm not right in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is often weird to look back on times
Speaker 1: when candles were your main form of elimination. There were
Speaker 1: a lot more open fires and less in the way
Speaker 1: of fire safety, And on one level, you just kind
Speaker 1: of think, well, why wasn't everything on fire all the time?
Speaker 1: And certainly fire was a huge threat. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe part of it is we sometimes don't
Speaker 1: give our ancestors enough credit for not catching everything on fire.
Speaker 1: I don't know, we think of them as the way
Speaker 1: we might think of our own children if they're in
Speaker 1: the presence of an open flame.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess sometimes when we think about a historical
Speaker 2: activity or apparatus that came with certain hazards. We imagine
Speaker 2: the prevalence, but without the accustomedness that would accompany prevalence.
Speaker 2: I mean, a world with lots of candles also had
Speaker 2: people who were used to handling candles.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. Now, at this point in the episode, we're
Speaker 1: going to get a little bit into hair of fire
Speaker 1: and flaming beards and so forth, and mythology and folklore
Speaker 1: and literature. And I have to admit this is an
Speaker 1: area where I thought we were going to have more
Speaker 1: to draw from. And certainly, you know, we probably left
Speaker 1: some things off, and certainly, as always right in and
Speaker 1: let us know if you have some great examples to
Speaker 1: bring to mind. But generally I was thinking, Okay, hair
Speaker 1: can burn, and it's reasonable to assume that every fire
Speaker 1: bearing culture would have some experience with this that they
Speaker 1: might further craft into various myths and legends, jokes, you know,
Speaker 1: turns of phrase and so forth. Right, I mean, you
Speaker 1: have fire, Hair can catch on fire. Maybe it doesn't
Speaker 1: happen that often, but if it happens once, it's memorable.
Speaker 1: And therefore you might have some traditions, you might have
Speaker 1: some magical creatures, you might have some gods and goddesses
Speaker 1: that have flaming hair. And while this is true, we
Speaker 1: do have some examples to discuss, we didn't. I wasn't
Speaker 1: able to find as many examples as I was expecting.
Speaker 1: I was expecting it to be just a long list
Speaker 1: of creatures and entities, but there's there's actually a lot
Speaker 1: of like bleed over into other categories that makes it difficult,
Speaker 1: you know, like just characters with red hair or characters
Speaker 1: who have some sort of a halo or an ara.
Speaker 1: But then it's kind of left to exactly what languages
Speaker 1: used as to whether you would call this flaming hair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there are a lot of examples that
Speaker 2: are arguable or edge cases, but I also was expecting
Speaker 2: there just to be a lot more defined with it.
Speaker 2: Was just like, here's a figure with fire for hair.
Speaker 2: Maybe because I'm used to Hades from the Disney movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this is a great example to bring up
Speaker 1: the Greek god Hades in the nineteen ninety seven Hercules
Speaker 1: movie flaming blue hair, voiced by James Woods. He's not
Speaker 1: actually a fire related deity in Greek mythology. This was
Speaker 1: just a visual choice by Disney that actually, I guess
Speaker 1: the exact alchemy of this is they're dragging in elements
Speaker 1: often associated generally with the Christian devil, you know, fire
Speaker 1: and so forth, and and creating this kind of like
Speaker 1: Haiti Satan combo for their their main villain, and making
Speaker 1: like a very distinct visual choice on how to just
Speaker 1: to present him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a combination. So you associate the Christian
Speaker 2: the Christian Satan with the lake of fire, I guess.
Speaker 2: So there's your fire element. But then you you've got
Speaker 2: to have it like cold, sort of more like you
Speaker 2: would get in Dante's Lower levels of Hell, or like
Speaker 2: you would get I think more often in Greek depictions
Speaker 2: of the underworld. It's just kind of like a cold,
Speaker 2: dark place. So they make the fire blue, which ironically
Speaker 2: is actually the hottest color of flame.
Speaker 1: Right, So yeah, that's that's a that's a fun example
Speaker 1: to bring up. I mean, there's so many pop culture
Speaker 1: examples of this, and I think that's one of the
Speaker 1: confusing things, is you, I mean, I would assume anyway
Speaker 1: that Okay, we have characters like Captain Marvel and and
Speaker 1: and so forth from from Marvel comics, and and they
Speaker 1: have like flaming hair at times. Then this is it's
Speaker 1: just a more modern example of a longer health tradition,
Speaker 1: and that we're gonna have all these other examples and
Speaker 1: in all these different belief systems. But yeah, I found
Speaker 1: that you have certainly have no shortage of things like
Speaker 1: fire elementals in modern fiction and sci fi and fantasy,
Speaker 1: all sorts of creatures and spirits with flaming hair and
Speaker 1: flaming beards. But they're just they seem there's just seemed
Speaker 1: to be less of them when you actually look into
Speaker 1: folklore and mythology and legend.
Speaker 2: As far as the recent pop culture examples go. You
Speaker 2: brought up one in the notes that I didn't think of,
Speaker 2: which is the one from the Wall the movie.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, this is the animated Pink Floyd movie,
Speaker 1: and I believe it's Pink's wife, and it is depicted
Speaker 1: later on as this kind of like monstrous cannibal creature
Speaker 1: with flaming hair, hair of literal fire.
Speaker 2: I've seen this movie, I mean a long time ago.
Speaker 2: I think I was in high school, but I completely
Speaker 2: forgot about this. The main thing I remember is warning
Speaker 2: for a gross thing about the scene shaves his nipple off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I forgot about that. How could you. I mainly
Speaker 1: just remember the hammers like marching around.
Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, yeah, the fascist imagery.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, it's been a long time since I've seen
Speaker 1: I think I saw it when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and you know, on TV parts of it. Anyway, Ultimately,
Speaker 1: the examples of like fire elemental beings are too numerous
Speaker 1: to mention, but I was reminded of that there's one
Speaker 1: in The Dark Crystal. So I picked up my copy
Speaker 1: of the Dark Crystal Bestiary, and there's a description of
Speaker 1: these things called the fire Lings. And I believe these
Speaker 1: pop up in some of the like Dark Crystal Expanded
Speaker 1: Universe material, I guess, you know, in comic books and
Speaker 1: so forth. And I think maybe they were going to
Speaker 1: be a part of a possible film project that never
Speaker 1: came to fruition. But these are supposed to be direct
Speaker 1: descendants of Gelfling exiles who live in the superheated core
Speaker 1: of the planet Thraw, and they're depicted as Gelfling like beings,
Speaker 1: but they have hair of fire. And then I found
Speaker 1: like a couple of different images that kind of portray
Speaker 1: different ideas of this, Like in one of them you
Speaker 1: can see the Gelfling or in this case, the fire
Speaker 1: ling has hair that is literal fire, and the others
Speaker 1: they just look like fiery, golden beings. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of left up to your interpretation if their hair is
Speaker 1: just actual physical hair, or if it is like the
Speaker 1: chemical emergence, you know, this, this pyrotechnic experience of fire.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm tempted to speculate that a lot of this modern
Speaker 2: hair as fire imagery and cartoons and stuff specifically comes
Speaker 2: from physical and visual similarities between hair and fire that emerge,
Speaker 2: especially when they're being depicted in human drawing. That you know,
Speaker 2: the ways that you sort of represent say hair blowing
Speaker 2: in the wind, or hair flowing in a like a
Speaker 2: still painting or photo or still painting or drawing can
Speaker 2: very much resemble the kind of wisps of a fire,
Speaker 2: but oriented in the opposite direction. Often. Yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 2: and that's not a fully formed thought, but something almost
Speaker 2: makes me think that it's something about like modern drawing
Speaker 2: and animation traditions that give rise to seeing these things
Speaker 2: as visually similar and then inviting the mind to make
Speaker 2: a connection where it's not just that hair looks like fire,
Speaker 2: but you have a character with fire fore hair.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I was definitely thinking a bit about like
Speaker 1: how hair appears when it is say, caught by the wind,
Speaker 1: or if one is underwater and you have like footage
Speaker 1: of someone with long hair and the hair is floating
Speaker 1: and so forth, and if that has anything to do
Speaker 1: with I mean that you could sort of link it
Speaker 1: to the history of underwater the underwater moving picture, which
Speaker 1: of course isn't going to go back that far, and
Speaker 1: you could perhaps, I guess arguably enhance comparisons that would
Speaker 1: be made in general, because of course there are always
Speaker 1: going to be comparisons made between you know, reddish hair
Speaker 1: and fire. You can factor in things like you know,
Speaker 1: length and texture as well. But you know, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, we do have at least a
Speaker 1: few examples of creatures and entities that I feel like
Speaker 1: are close enough that we can say, Okay, we can
Speaker 1: quibble about the details, but these creatures kind of sound
Speaker 1: like they have fire for hair.
Speaker 2: Okay, what'd you come up with?
Speaker 1: Now? A couple of these are from South America. One
Speaker 1: is called the Kuma Conga, and this is a disembodied
Speaker 1: head spirit of Brazilian folklore that I was reading about
Speaker 1: in the werewolf in between Indians and Whites. This is
Speaker 1: by Mark Harris and this was published in t PTE,
Speaker 1: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America.
Speaker 1: And in this article, Harris describes this entity as entailing
Speaker 1: aspects of what we might think of as a werewolf,
Speaker 1: you know, in Western folklore, especially as well as sightings
Speaker 1: of balls or wheels of fire. So that's another thing
Speaker 1: I saw several examples of. It's like you have sort
Speaker 1: of like fire entities, kind of will of the wisp
Speaker 1: sort of entities, and it depends on like how far
Speaker 1: you push that from being like a mere strange light
Speaker 1: to being a flaming entity or a flaming head or
Speaker 1: something with you know, physiology to it. Now, another one
Speaker 1: that I've ran across was the Kurapura. I've seen descriptions
Speaker 1: of this spirit from Tupequar Knee traditions of Brazil, entailing
Speaker 1: a beard of fire, though Carol Rose doesn't mention this
Speaker 1: in her entry on the creature in the book Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns,
Speaker 1: and Goblins and Encyclopedia, she describes it as a bright,
Speaker 1: red faced gnome with cloven hoofs as well as a
Speaker 1: shaggy creature with backward turned feet. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: forest guardian of game. Then there's also an Afro Brazilian
Speaker 1: tradition of the Kurupira that casts everything more as a
Speaker 1: will of the wisp that leads people off track in
Speaker 1: the forest, but maybe sort of bribe with offerings. But
Speaker 1: I've seen some more recent articles that mention either red
Speaker 1: hair or hair of fire, so I can't completely dispute
Speaker 1: that idea. But again, it seems like we often run
Speaker 1: into this territory of It's probably some linguistic drift in
Speaker 1: some of these descriptions, especially when you're dealing with multiple translations,
Speaker 1: so hard for me to tell anyway exactly like what
Speaker 1: the tradition actually is. Are we dealing with creatures that
Speaker 1: are thought to have hair of fire or does that
Speaker 1: just sort of get added on somewhere in the chain.
Speaker 2: Or I think, especially the further back you go in history,
Speaker 2: just to kind of blending of the concepts of light
Speaker 2: and fire, that in many cases any light source that
Speaker 2: didn't come from the sky or whatever could be described
Speaker 2: as a fire.
Speaker 1: Right right, Yeah, if you see a strange light in
Speaker 1: the forest, for example, or in the sky and it
Speaker 1: is of sufficient luminosity, like it's very reasonable to say, oh,
Speaker 1: there was some sort of fire out there, there was
Speaker 1: some sort of Yeah, what else could it be? If
Speaker 1: it's like above, if it's not the moon, if it's
Speaker 1: not a you know, something that is obviously celestial, and
Speaker 1: it's not something that is like a firefly, then you
Speaker 1: might reasonably think in terms of candles and torches and
Speaker 1: so forth. I'm also reminded of a fireball yo kai
Speaker 1: from Japanese traditions. I think we may have talked about
Speaker 1: this one before and name Ubagabi, and this is more
Speaker 1: of a fireball, but with the face of an old man.
Speaker 1: And I guess if it is an old man's face,
Speaker 1: then you could say, well, there the hair is fire.
Speaker 1: But maybe not. Maybe that's adding too much on, you know.
Speaker 1: I've also seen some ideas about low Key from Norse
Speaker 1: mythology having hair of fire or flame hair. This I
Speaker 1: didn't get a real strong feeling off of this either.
Speaker 1: Hair with these two can get kind of complicated, and
Speaker 1: in general are sort of understanding of them are kind
Speaker 1: of you know, influenced by Marvel comics now, but you know,
Speaker 1: Thor sometimes had red hair and a red beard, and
Speaker 1: Loki is sometimes depicted with red hair, sometimes arguably resembling
Speaker 1: a flame. And this is where I've seen various commentators,
Speaker 1: you know, pointing out this idea that Loki may be
Speaker 1: connected to the word Logi, which means flame, but is
Speaker 1: also the name of one of the otin who personified fire.
Speaker 1: So again, I don't know, there's that you could make
Speaker 1: a case. I guess that sometimes Loki was perhaps a
Speaker 1: fire headed god, but maybe not. Now one of the
Speaker 1: stronger cases I came across is there is an Armenian
Speaker 1: warrior god by the name of Vaughan the Dragon Reaper,
Speaker 1: who apparently is more traditionally described as having celestial fire
Speaker 1: for hair, a beard of flames, and eyes like suns.
Speaker 1: So this one would seem a stronger example. Uh though
Speaker 1: it is interesting here too that we're getting into like
Speaker 1: celestial fire here in this idea of like a holy
Speaker 1: flame that doesn't necessarily behave like a real flame, and
Speaker 1: is also kind of like a halo, kind of like
Speaker 1: a holy aura. But I feel like this this guy,
Speaker 1: you can make a stronger case and say, Okay, this
Speaker 1: guy has has fire for hair.
Speaker 2: So I was not initially familiar with a hagan the
Speaker 2: dragon reaper, but the dragon reaper apparently is like a
Speaker 2: that's a translation of a traditional epithet. But that's it's
Speaker 2: amazing how much that sounds like modern cool. It sounds
Speaker 2: like something out of a video game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is this is old school cool right here.
Speaker 1: It makes me think I really need to get into
Speaker 1: Armenian mythology more. I really don't know much about about
Speaker 1: Armenian myth and lore, but if this is any indication
Speaker 1: that they have warriors with flaming hair that slay dragons,
Speaker 1: then I want to know more about it now. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of additional possible examples in Buddhist i
Speaker 1: Canog and Hindu iconography where you have things like hair
Speaker 1: of fire going on. But also again sometimes it's might
Speaker 1: be more akin to a halo or an aura or
Speaker 1: multiple auras. And of course there's often a lot of
Speaker 1: information that is being relayed through these religious images. But
Speaker 1: for instance, the tantric Buddhist Paul Deen Mamo is sometimes
Speaker 1: depicted with hair of flame. The Hindu god Agny is
Speaker 1: sometimes depicted with hair of fire two varying degrees, but
Speaker 1: sometimes it's more of an aura of flame so again,
Speaker 1: there's going to be a lot of drift here, and
Speaker 1: a lot of it is going to be left to
Speaker 1: personal interpretation. Now one of the more interesting things to discuss, though,
Speaker 1: really gets us more I guess into the literature end
Speaker 1: of the spectrum, getting into Latin literature here. But are
Speaker 1: there's not one? But there are two instances in Virgil's
Speaker 1: Eneid concerning omens of burning hair and or hair that
Speaker 1: becomes or is surrounded by a holy fire.
Speaker 2: M okay.
Speaker 1: So Virgil's Eneid has come up on the show before,
Speaker 1: but I thought we should maybe take a moment just
Speaker 1: to ground it properly and talk about what it is. So.
Speaker 1: Virgil was a Roman poet who lived seventy BCE through
Speaker 1: nineteen BCE and served Emperor Augustus. He composed the epic
Speaker 1: poem the Eneid between twenty nine and nineteen BCE as
Speaker 1: an attempt to ground Rome, the Roman people, and the
Speaker 1: rule of his boss Augustus within a deeper mythopoetic tradition,
Speaker 1: because while Romans he certainly had epics such as Homer's
Speaker 1: the Iliad and the Odyssey, they lacked for a true
Speaker 1: national epic and a true founding work of mythic literature.
Speaker 1: So that's what Virgil had set out to do, to
Speaker 1: create one, spinning a saga out of Greek myth and
Speaker 1: the of Homer into a Roman history. Now, Virgil died
Speaker 1: at the young age of fifty, possibly due to complications
Speaker 1: from heatstroke. I think maybe there's some back and forth
Speaker 1: over this, but sometimes I see it rather matter of
Speaker 1: factly said that it was probably heat stroke. But he dies,
Speaker 1: and as he is dying, he requests this unpublished and
Speaker 1: unfinished epic to be destroyed. He's like, it's not ready yet,
Speaker 1: I just get rid of it. Underlings, please destroy it.
Speaker 1: His orders are are not obeyed, though, and Augustus, having
Speaker 1: been exposed to some very flattering passages of the epic
Speaker 1: in which the hero, the hero of the tale, mirrors
Speaker 1: and predicts the rise of Augustus, he says, now, this
Speaker 1: work is great, Please make sure that it is published.
Speaker 1: And then it is published, and as we'll get into
Speaker 1: maybe not every passage of the Aenead is as flattering
Speaker 1: as those that Augustus initially heard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So for more context on Virgil, by the way,
Speaker 2: I just wanted to say we did talk about him
Speaker 2: a good bit in our episode a few years back
Speaker 2: on insect funerals, because there is an apocryphal legend in
Speaker 2: which Virgil and his friends held an elaborate funeral for
Speaker 2: a fly. I think we concluded that this probably did
Speaker 2: not actually happen, but the story arose like within the
Speaker 2: logic of the story, it's something like they're using it
Speaker 2: as a legal loophole to protect some estate from being seized.
Speaker 2: But also in that episode, we talked about how Dante,
Speaker 2: the author of The Divine Comedy, thought Virgil was just
Speaker 2: like the coolest guy ever and the best example of
Speaker 2: poetic virtues, which is why he uses him as the
Speaker 2: virtuous pagan character who guides his fictionalized tour of Hell.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, And ultimately that's where I've certainly more
Speaker 1: read on the Divine Comedy than I am on the
Speaker 1: actual works of Virgil. But you end up learning about
Speaker 1: Virgil in his works through Dante, like you end up
Speaker 1: learning about everything that Dante's into. Yeah, as you travel
Speaker 1: with him across the three Realms.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Virgil's really great.
Speaker 1: Did you know this?
Speaker 2: Beatrice is really great too.
Speaker 1: Not only is Virgil really great, but we're basically best friends. Now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he liked me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the Aeneid is the story of Aneas, who
Speaker 1: flees the destruction of Troy and ultimately conquers Italy to
Speaker 1: become the ancestor of the Romans. The first six books
Speaker 1: of this epic cover his journey to Italy, but it's
Speaker 1: not like a direct journey, like there's a joint through
Speaker 1: the underworld, for example, and that's key as an influence
Speaker 1: on Dante. And then books seven through twelve if the
Speaker 1: Aeneid concerned the wars in Italy, So the first book
Speaker 1: is a road trip, very much in the spirit of
Speaker 1: the Odyssey, and the second book is very much in
Speaker 1: the spirit of the Iliad because it's concerned mostly with
Speaker 1: this big war. Now, to be clear, this in this
Speaker 1: treatment in others, the founding of Rome and the Roman
Speaker 1: people is greatly embellished by myth and literature. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's again, that's kind of that's basically what Virgil set
Speaker 1: out to do. Right.
Speaker 2: Virgil is not like Herodotus or Thucydides, people in the
Speaker 2: ancient world who were to some extent concerned with trying
Speaker 2: to create an accurate historical record of events. He's like,
Speaker 2: he's he's got he's telling a good story, and it
Speaker 2: has a political agenda.
Speaker 1: Right, And but that political agenda does, in very strong
Speaker 1: terms concern Augustus. But while Augustus had again heard very
Speaker 1: apparently heard very flattering parts of the work prior to publication,
Speaker 1: it's thought that he might not have heard all of it,
Speaker 1: because there are parts of the work that also cast Augustus,
Speaker 1: or at least his his analog Aneas, in a more
Speaker 1: flawed light, you know. And idea is that his ascension
Speaker 1: and long term legacy are not completely assured. And we'll
Speaker 1: get into some examples of that as we go. But
Speaker 1: any rate, it's a book that's very concerned with prophesizing
Speaker 1: the future of Rome, mostly saying great things are ahead,
Speaker 1: but sometimes with little caveats, like bringing up probably great
Speaker 1: things are ahead, but watch watch out for this or that. Right.
Speaker 1: And at the end of book two we have the
Speaker 1: omen of Ascanius is burning hair, So Ascanius, who is
Speaker 1: also believe called LULUs. At times he's he's like a
Speaker 1: little boy. At this point point, he is the he
Speaker 1: is the son of Aeneas. He's eventually going to become
Speaker 1: the king of the Latin city state of Alba Longa,
Speaker 1: and is uh and in disrespect. He's you know, he
Speaker 1: can kind of loop him in as being one of
Speaker 1: the founders of the Roman race. But again, his father
Speaker 1: a Eneas is this position as an ancestor of Romulus
Speaker 1: and Remus. He's the hero of Troy. He's fled the
Speaker 1: burning city of Troy with his son after receiving uh
Speaker 1: he after he receives this omen of the burning hair
Speaker 1: from the god Jupiter. Uh. So his son's hair catches
Speaker 1: a flame. And there's you know, some back and forth
Speaker 1: over this, and and and and and it becomes like
Speaker 1: it's like a divine flame, a sort of soft, harmless fire, uh,
Speaker 1: that is around and his brow like a crown. So
Speaker 1: even here we have some there's some room to interpret it.
Speaker 1: You can think of it as a like a crown
Speaker 1: of flame, hair of flame, halo aurra and so forth.
Speaker 2: So his son's head appears with flame on it, and
Speaker 2: this seems to be delivering a message from the gods.
Speaker 1: Right, But of course he's not completely sure. So he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, mighty Jupiter, if this is a sign, give
Speaker 1: me another one. And so there's like a shooting star
Speaker 1: and and and Virgil, you know, has a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of fun with this, you know, poetically comparing
Speaker 1: the two. But you know, so ultimately we also have
Speaker 1: the connection here to the burning city that they are
Speaker 1: now going to have to escape. But it's a great
Speaker 1: omen a signifier of deliverance there, you know. And again
Speaker 1: their direct comparisons to be made between the tail the
Speaker 1: shooting star and a flaming arrow. And again there's this
Speaker 1: idea that y'all got to get out of here and
Speaker 1: go on to great things, in other words, the founding
Speaker 1: of Rome and so forth. Anna Rogerson in twenty seventeen's
Speaker 1: Virgils Zoskanias writes that this episode illuminates quote the path
Speaker 1: that must be taken in order ultimately to achieve the
Speaker 1: Roman dream. But she also stresses that the fire also
Speaker 1: carries with it other associations quote, hinting at different potential
Speaker 1: outcomes and reminding us again that his role as a
Speaker 1: sign and guaranteur of a Roman future is not as
Speaker 1: secure or as patent as it might seem.
Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting, especially if I'm interpreting this right. I
Speaker 2: don't know at all if this is what Rogerson is
Speaker 2: getting at, but the idea of a fire appearing around
Speaker 2: his son's brow could have it. On one hand, it
Speaker 2: could resemble this imagery like halo imagery that we see
Speaker 2: in other cases, where it's sort of like an anointing
Speaker 2: by the gods or a showing of divine favor light
Speaker 2: showing around the head. And I'll mention another example of
Speaker 2: that in a minute. But also the idea of fire
Speaker 2: appearing around the child's head has the connotation of danger, right,
Speaker 2: and so it's like both at the same time. Do
Speaker 2: you think that's at all what Rogerson is getting at here?
Speaker 1: That that I believe that I believe that's that's what
Speaker 1: they're getting at here. And and it does match up
Speaker 1: with with other arguments I've seen, you know that that
Speaker 1: that Virgil is of course talking about the greatness of
Speaker 1: Rome and the greatness of his boss, but also adding
Speaker 1: in these warnings and hints, you know, these uh uh,
Speaker 1: you know, speaking speaking truth to power at least a
Speaker 1: little bit u through the poetry. Interesting, so Ascanius and
Speaker 1: his father flee Troy with Aneas carrying his own elderly
Speaker 1: father on his back. There are some great depictions of this,
Speaker 1: you have, like a cross generational trio escaping the burning city.
Speaker 1: And so there are all, you know, various images where
Speaker 1: you'll have Aneas with this older man, huge older man
Speaker 1: on his shoulders, kind of piggyback style, and then here's
Speaker 1: the young and behind him kind of like tugging on
Speaker 1: his his clothing a little bit like Dad, are we
Speaker 1: there yet? Have we founded Rome yet? And so forth. Now,
Speaker 1: later on in book seven, Aneas's last wife of Lavinia,
Speaker 1: she has an episode with burning hair as well. I
Speaker 1: told you there was going to be a second one.
Speaker 1: Her hair catches fire during a sacrifice at the altar
Speaker 1: of the gods. And I'm going to read a bit here.
Speaker 1: This is in a translation, of course, from the Aeneid.
Speaker 1: While the old king lit fires at the altars with
Speaker 1: a pure tortch, the girl Lavinia with him. It seemed
Speaker 1: her long hair caught, her head dress caught in crackling flame,
Speaker 1: her queenly tresses blazed, her jeweled crown blazed, mantled, Then
Speaker 1: in smoke and russet light, she scattered divine fire throughout
Speaker 1: all the house. No one could hold that site anything
Speaker 1: but hair raising marvelous. And it was read by Sears
Speaker 1: to mean the girl would have renown in glorious days
Speaker 1: to come. But that she brought a great war on
Speaker 1: her people, And I was reading about interpretation of this
Speaker 1: by John E. Rexen from nineteen sixty one in fire
Speaker 1: Symbolism in the Eneid, and this author wrote, these flames
Speaker 1: presented both destructive and constructive aspects. Laviniu's people would be
Speaker 1: involved in the conflagration of war with the Trojans, but
Speaker 1: a marriage torch would unite her with Aeneas, who had
Speaker 1: found a new city in Italy named Lavinium after her Ah.
Speaker 2: So it's almost that same duality we interpreted with the
Speaker 2: crown of fire around Buscanius's head.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I think it's really it's really potent
Speaker 1: when you think about it, Like the idea of any
Speaker 1: divine being giving you messages and laying out your course
Speaker 1: for you, you know, making sure that you're walking, you know,
Speaker 1: a conditioned path like that's at both powerful but also
Speaker 1: terrifying because in all these various traditions, you know, we
Speaker 1: know what sorts of fates the gods sometimes lay in
Speaker 1: front of our heroes and heroines. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: all it's not all roses. Sometimes there is a burning
Speaker 1: city and so forth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this actually connected for me to something that is
Speaker 2: in the Iliad itself. We talked about how Virgil he
Speaker 2: bases his epic in part on the epics of Homer,
Speaker 2: but this came up a few years back when we
Speaker 2: did episodes on the religious imagery of the Halo. You
Speaker 2: can look up those older episodes if you want. There's
Speaker 2: a good bit of overlap with what we're talking about today. Actually,
Speaker 2: but this specific connection with the Iliad comes in book eighteen.
Speaker 2: So I was thinking about the passage where the great
Speaker 2: warrior Achilles he finds out that his bosom companion, a Patroclus,
Speaker 2: has been killed in battle by the Trojan prince Hector,
Speaker 2: and Achilles reacts sort of by losing his mind. He's
Speaker 2: filled with grief and rage and a thirst for vengeance.
Speaker 2: And so the Greeks and the Trojans in this part
Speaker 2: of the poem are fighting over the right to retrieve
Speaker 2: Petroclus's body from the field of battle. And then the
Speaker 2: goddess Athena puts this godlike power and aura into Achilles
Speaker 2: so that he will be able to terrify the Trojans
Speaker 2: and drive them into a route. And so this is
Speaker 2: from the translation by Caroline Alexander. Achilles beloved of Zeus arose,
Speaker 2: and Athena casts the tasseled aegis about his mighty shoulders.
Speaker 2: She shining among goddesses. Encircled round his head a cloud
Speaker 2: of gold, and from it blazed bright, shining fire. Okay,
Speaker 2: so maybe a little bit different. Maybe not hair directly
Speaker 2: on fire, but a cloud of gold around the head
Speaker 2: from which blazes bright fire. It goes on to say,
Speaker 2: and as when smoke rising from a city reaches the
Speaker 2: clear high air from a distant island, which enemy men
Speaker 2: fight round, and they, the whole day long, are pitted
Speaker 2: in hateful warfare around the city walls. But with the
Speaker 2: sun's setting, the beacon fires blaze torch upon torch, and
Speaker 2: flaring upward, the glare becomes visible to those who live around,
Speaker 2: in the hope that they might come with ships as
Speaker 2: allies against destruction. So from a killer head the radiance
Speaker 2: reached the clear high air, and going away from the wall,
Speaker 2: he stood at the ditch. Nor did he mix with
Speaker 2: the Achaeans, for he observed his mother's knowing command, and
Speaker 2: standing there he shouted, and from the distance Pallas Athena
Speaker 2: cried out. Too unspeakable was the uproar he incited in
Speaker 2: the Trojans, as when a clarion voice is heard, when
Speaker 2: cries the trumpet of life, destroying enemies who surround the city.
Speaker 2: Such then was the clarion voice of Eacides. And when
Speaker 2: they heard the brazen voice of Eacides, the spirit in
Speaker 2: each man was thrown in turmoil. The horses, with their
Speaker 2: fine manes, wheeled their chariots back, for in their hearts
Speaker 2: they forebode distress to come. And the charioteers were struck
Speaker 2: from their senses when they saw the weariless, terrible fire
Speaker 2: above the head of Peleus's great hearted son blazing. And
Speaker 2: this the gleaming eyed goddess Athena caused to blaze. So
Speaker 2: again it's sort of an edge case because it doesn't
Speaker 2: say directly the hair is on fire, in that it's
Speaker 2: literally being consumed by flame. But it's this more common
Speaker 2: imagery we get of a radiance that appears around or
Speaker 2: over the top of the head and is described as
Speaker 2: burning like fire or burning like his hair were on fire.
Speaker 2: And in fact it comes back more towards Virgil's time period,
Speaker 2: the context of the early Roman Empire. You can think
Speaker 2: of cases of imagery like this that appear in say,
Speaker 2: the Christian New Testament. So in the New Testament, in
Speaker 2: the Book of Acts, chapter two, we get the story
Speaker 2: of the Pentecost, which is the anointing by the Holy
Speaker 2: Spirit of Jesus's apostles in Jerusalem, fifty days after the
Speaker 2: Resurrection has taken place. And this part says that in
Speaker 2: the NRSV translation quote, when the day of Pentecost had come,
Speaker 2: they were all together in one place, and suddenly from
Speaker 2: heaven there came a sound, like the rush of a
Speaker 2: violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they
Speaker 2: were divided. Tongues as of fire appeared among them, and
Speaker 2: a tongue rested on each of them. All of them
Speaker 2: were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak
Speaker 2: in other languages, as the Spirit gave them the ability.
Speaker 2: So in this case it does not seem intended to
Speaker 2: terrify like it did in the Iliad. But what's sort
Speaker 2: of common in all these stories across the Eneid by Virgil,
Speaker 2: across the Iliad, and across the New Testament is the
Speaker 2: appearance of fire or radiance above the crown of a
Speaker 2: human head, to show in some way that God or
Speaker 2: the gods have intervened on behalf of this person, either
Speaker 2: to make them powerful in battle, to give them new
Speaker 2: powers of speech or understanding, or to show a kind
Speaker 2: of prophecy about them, to mark them as destined in
Speaker 2: some way.
Speaker 1: And then, yeah, you can imagine there's some crossover here.
Speaker 1: Certainly we can look to various examples from the Bible too,
Speaker 1: where there's people are in flames but they're not hurt,
Speaker 1: or God speaking through the fire, the burning bush, and
Speaker 1: so forth. So yeah, well, once you have these images
Speaker 1: out there, they kind of there, they do kind of
Speaker 1: brush up against each other and infect each other with
Speaker 1: their their there ares.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but if you want to learn more about the
Speaker 2: Halo and the Ara, like I said, we did a
Speaker 2: whole series on that a few years back. You can
Speaker 2: go into our archives and check out. Ultimately, I feel
Speaker 2: like a lot of the examples we were able to
Speaker 2: turn up today I think do bleed more into the
Speaker 2: halo are territory than into the more literal hair burning
Speaker 2: territory that we were thinking about. So I don't know,
Speaker 2: I want I guess this episode is one where we
Speaker 2: turned up more dead ends than usual. But uh, maybe
Speaker 2: that's useful to you. To you the listener to to
Speaker 2: hear what it's like when you expect to find certain
Speaker 2: things out there and you come up cold.
Speaker 1: Well, at least with the second example from the Ania,
Speaker 1: it seems to sort of at least start off like
Speaker 1: hair catching on fire, where they're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: our hair's on fire. Wait, hold up, just an omen,
Speaker 1: It's okay, put their water jugs down. So there is
Speaker 1: there is at least a direct connection there.
Speaker 2: I think the aenead is the closest we got to
Speaker 2: what I had in mind. But like we said, and
Speaker 2: maybe there are a bunch of great examples we just
Speaker 2: didn't come across.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I don't know, there could be examples
Speaker 1: that are kind of that where we lose that emphasis
Speaker 1: and translation. So I don't know. It's like the comparison
Speaker 1: of hair to fire and all these various auras and
Speaker 1: halo effects. You know, they do kind of bleed together
Speaker 1: and they confuse the topic of it. And again, there
Speaker 1: there's no shortage of modern examples that are far clearer. Again,
Speaker 1: lots of fire, elemental beings and fantasy and probably in
Speaker 1: science fiction as well. I didn't look there as much,
Speaker 1: but you know, so many examples, certainly in the illustrated medium.
Speaker 1: There I ran across like multiple superheroes that have like
Speaker 1: hair of fire, So I do think you're onto something
Speaker 1: with that possible connection to modern depictions of hair and
Speaker 1: that kind of like propping up more and more examples
Speaker 1: of fire, elemental beings with flaming hair, flaming beard.
Speaker 2: Speaking of elementals, this has actually been on my list
Speaker 2: for a bit. I've been thinking we should come and
Speaker 2: do an episode on the elementals, like going back to Paris,
Speaker 2: Elsis and stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I'd be up for that. Yeah, all
Speaker 1: the way from ancient traditions on up to dungeons and dragons.
Speaker 2: But okay, I think that does it for burning hair
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 1: All Right, we'll go ahead and close it off then,
Speaker 1: but we'd love to hear from everyone out there if
Speaker 1: you have thoughts on anything we discussed here, or examples
Speaker 1: that we didn't bring up that we should sin them in,
Speaker 1: and we'll cover them perhaps on a future episode of
Speaker 1: Listener Mail. We're still doing listener Mails, They're just not
Speaker 1: happening every week. They're going to occur every month or so,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna they're gonna be longer. They're gonna be
Speaker 1: in the place of Core episodes. Our Core episodes, of course,
Speaker 1: are key science and culture episodes. They published on Tuesdays
Speaker 1: and Thursdays. On Wednesdays we do a short form episode,
Speaker 1: and on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: We're running those Weird House Cinema rewind episodes on Mondays now,
Speaker 1: and of course regular Vault episodes reruns of Core episodes
Speaker 1: those occur on Saturdays.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 2: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 2: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 2: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 2: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: your Mind dot com.
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