Ten Truly Wild Theories Historical People Had about Redheads

There has been a meme floating around on the internet for a decade or so now about how gingers have no souls. And while that’s definitely funny (well, for some of us, at least), it’s also wrong. Gingers (and redheads in general) do indeed have souls. Could you imagine if all of Scotland had soulless humans roaming around for centuries at this point? Hmm. On second thought, don’t answer that…

Jokes aside, redheads have always occupied a place of curiosity in our culture. There aren’t many of them. They look very unique. They seem like outliers compared to the blondes, the brunettes, and those with jet-black hair and dark features. So it makes sense that many people would have crazy opinions about them.

In this list, we’re going to go through ten of those wacky beliefs and theories. Back in the day, people thought some truly crazy things about redheads. They assumed our ginger neighbors were out of this world—literally. Here are the wildest and weirdest historical theories about where redheads came from, why they are here, and what they are up to. Read on after you prepare for the bizarre!

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10 Their Witchy Ways

In the Medieval Era, Christians all across Europe very often associated redheads with witches and the practice of witchcraft. It was common for ordinary folks and elite landowners alike all over much of Western Europe to distrust redheads, believing them to be cut from a different cloth than brunettes, blondes, and all the rest. Because of that, there was a considerable risk of redheads becoming outcasts in society at various points throughout the Medieval Era.

And we don’t mean outcasts, just as in redheads being iced out of polite society, either. We mean they were at risk of being cast out literally to their deaths during the worst periods of social upheaval. Take this for example: between 1500 and 1660, a long and slow-burning period of extreme witch hysteria took hold all across Europe. In those 160-ish years, several major controversies popped up in various cities involving supposed witches.

In total, historians now estimate that more than 80,000 suspected witches were slain during that period. It’s not known how many of them were redheads—but we can be sure that quite a few of those killed were sadly of the ginger variety. For one, that is a personal tragedy for every person unjustly accused of witchcraft and pushed toward their ugly demise. And second, we can’t help but wonder what effect that must have had on the gene pool of redheads for society forever after. Would we see many more redheads around today were it not for the witchcraft purges of Europe in the Middle Ages?^[1]

9 A Ton of Anger

Red is, of course, the color of passion. And also of fire, danger, anger, and, well, red-hot heat. So, it’s only natural that throughout history, people have associated red hair with fiery personalities. Plenty of redheaded people are calm as can be, of course. But that’s not how historical societies have viewed them. Take a famous old Russian proverb as perhaps the best example of that viewpoint. It read: “There was never a saint with red hair.” And it didn’t help gingers much when it came to Satan very often being depicted as having red hair in countless artistic renderings through the old world.

The Russians weren’t the only ones who felt that way, either. Even the supposedly laissez-faire French have showcased all kinds of backward views about redheads. One very famous French proverb reads: “Redheaded women are either violent or false, and usually are both.” With so many cultures laying it on those poor redheads for centuries on end, we can only imagine the psychological damage gingers have endured. Less than ideal… to say the very least!^[2]

8 Tilling the Fields

The Ancient Egyptians were fond of executing redheads in pretty large numbers and then using their bodies as a way to offer up a sacrifice to the god Osiris. (More on that in a minute, by the way!) But aside from using poor ginger-headed folks as (literal) sacrificial lambs, the Egyptians also employed an extremely strange custom with those recently deceased redhead bodies: they burned up the ashes and then spread them all across their farm fields in order to bring forth a bountiful harvest. Wait, what?

In the early 20th century, a Scottish anthropologist and folklorist named James Frazer wrote a book called The Golden Bough. In it, he revealed his discovery of evidence from the long-ago ancient world, which suggested that the Egyptians were fond of burning redheads alive. But it wasn’t just to offer up a sacrifice to Osiris; instead, the Egyptians would immediately take the ashes of the dead redheads and sprinkle them all across their farm fields to fertilize the ground. They felt like the sacrifices worked, too, because every season, their crown would grow red and golden as it flourished and grew—proof in the pudding that the ginger sacrifices were working!^[3]

7 Jesus the Ginger?

Was Jesus a ginger? It’s a question that has been asked for quite a while now by all kinds of theological minds. And actually, it’s kind of a complicated one. As far as historical mythology and lore are concerned, red hair was long ago thought of as a sign of somebody’s supposed moral degeneration. Those with red hair were considered to exhibit significantly enhanced sexual desire compared to “normal” people. But that all got flipped on its head the more that artists began to portray Jesus as supposedly having had red hair during his lifetime.

It’s not just Jesus, either. Take one of his most well-known disciples, Mary Magdalene. According to countless artistic depictions of her, she had red hair during her lifetime. And she wasn’t the only one. In Michelangelo’s iconic Temptation, none other than Eve is depicted with red hair.

Of course, now that we think about it, she was kicked out of the Garden of Eden. So maybe ancient societies weren’t far off with their assumptions about redheads being shifty. Regardless, depicting major religious figures as redheads is certainly a choice when compared to the low opinions past societies have held of those poor gingers!^[4]

6 That Time of the Month…

In the Middle Ages, there was a very pervasive belief that anybody who happened to be redheaded had been conceived by their parents during what was known as “unclean” sex. That’s a euphemism for a couple having intercourse during, uh, THAT time of the month. You know, how every month, for about a week, a woman goes through a time when she… well… yeah.

Anyway, people back in the Middle Ages were keen on believing that about redheads. The assumption at the time was that every single redhead who lived in that era had been conceived during period sex, to put it bluntly. Obviously, that’s not the case. We now know all about genetics and how things like hair color and other immutable physical characteristics come to the forefront. But that was all a mystery several centuries ago. So people clung to the “that time of the month” myth for a very long time.

It does make us wonder, though: how did those in the Middle Ages explain the preponderance of redheads in Scotland and Ireland more than pretty much anywhere else? Just a case of tons of “unclean” sex by the Scottish and the Irish? Seems like a stretch!^[5]

5 Fake Redhead News!

There have been all kinds of interesting (and fake) rumors about redheads. Frequently, rumors have circulated that redheads are in danger of extinction because they aren’t getting together and having redheaded babies at the rate needed to sustain their genes. But as it turns out, that “report” was funded by a hairstyling foundation that was funded in part by companies selling hair dye. The hope, apparently, was that those shoddy “samples” and “studies” would encourage people to buy red hair dye and really go crazy with it. Personally, we don’t see the connection there, but hey… marketers are a different breed.

That’s not the only redhead-related rumor out there, either. Another “report” came out a few years back claiming that climate change would do away with all redheads. Gingers would supposedly experience more adverse health effects and die sooner than other people because of the effects of more sunlight (and harsher sunlight) on their sensitive skin. That study also proved to be dubious, though. So, as far as we know, redheads will continue to reign. But that doesn’t mean the crazy fake reports about them will stop!^[6]

4 Originating in Atlantis

All over the world, redheads have been found mummified centuries (or more) after their deaths. Ancient Egyptians, long-ago Peruvian peoples from the New World of old, and many more groups would mummify redheads, seeking to get them to the afterlife in one piece. It’s likely that the mummification was done for religious purposes and/or because those cultures saw the unique power inherent in redheads. But all that mummification led to an unintended consequence, too: people began to believe that redheads had spread across the globe from their former home on the lost sea empire of Atlantis.

Sounds crazy, right? But for centuries, people theorized that redheads had gotten themselves all over the globe to be mummified in the first place simply because they had purposely left Atlantis after it was lost. Everybody in Atlantis was redheaded, the story went. And any redheads who were mummified by the Egyptians (or anyone else) had gotten to those civilizations after leaving their underwater homeland. The Atlantis legend goes way back, too. As the story goes, Prince Idon of Mu was apparently the first-ever redhead. And he only became a redhead during his life (no, he supposedly wasn’t born that way) after seeing a sunset while… you guessed it… in Atlantis.^[7]

3 Those Soulless Gingers

If you know anything about gingers and their (supposedly non-existent) souls, it’s probably on the account of a YouTube viral star named Mikey Kittrell. Poor ol’ Mikey went on YouTube and recorded an angry video in which he slammed critics of redheads who claimed that those bright-coiffed folks don’t have souls. The video was inspired by a South Park episode that claimed redheads are born without souls. For Mikey, that episode—and subsequently being made fun of at school for it—was simply too much to handle. So he lashed out.

But here’s the crazy part: South Park is far from the only cultural touchstone that has historically claimed redheads are soulless. Back in the day, it was a common belief to regard ginger folks as not having souls like other humans. They were seen as less than the “normal” people all over the world—the “other” group that was destined not to enjoy the spoils of the afterlife. Some historical societies even went so far as to believe that red-haired people had specifically sold their souls to Satan. In turn, those poor gingers were forever indebted to serve on behalf of the Dark Lord. Creepy!^[8]

2 Vampires in the Afterlife

Many famous people from history supposedly had red hair. According to legend and mythology alike, word has it that Aphrodite, Achilles, and Helen of Troy all had red hair. That’s a pretty loaded roster of redheads back in the ancient world! But Greek mythology also holds another belief about redheads: that they turned into vampires after death. It was a common belief in the days of ancient Greece that all redheaded humans immediately became vampires after they passed away from their mortal life.

They weren’t the only ones who had strange beliefs in the ancient world, though. The Romans of the olden days often bought red-haired slaves at a higher price than the other human chattel they purchased because they thought redheads were a sign of good luck. The ancient Egyptians were thought to have sacrificed redheaded men in droves in order to curry favor from the gods. They would slaughter the bodies, burn them, and then scatter the ashes at the grave of Osiris, the King of the Dead. They figured that would protect them from the wrath of the other gods in the supernatural realm. Poor redheads!^[9]

1 Good Luck, Red!

Everything on this list up to this point has been relatively negative toward people with red hair. But we should be fair, too—down throughout history, there have always been people who felt that redheads brought good luck and good fortune! Throughout various parts of the world, people of the past have believed (on occasion) that redheads are lucky. Some people even went so far as to rub the bright red hair of their ginger brethren as though it were a genie’s lamp in a bid to have that good luck rub off on them.

In Poland, long-ago living locals used to say that if three redheads showed up at the same place and at the same time, everyone there would have good luck. In the modern era, that belief has morphed into claims that you’ll win the lottery if you spot three redheads at once. Quick, somebody go grab Carrot Top and two buddies! In various eras of rule in Ancient Rome, even while redheads were often bought and sold as slaves, it was typical that they fetched a much higher price than other slaves upon exchanging hands. That was because the long-dead Romans believed redheaded slaves brought better luck to their masters.^[10]

fact checked by
Darci Heikkinen