King David was a lad! The famous Jewish king was, in the most
Irish sense, a lad. It may come as a surprise to many, perhaps
an unwelcome surprise, but, red hair is an ancient Jewish
tradition. It began with the grandson of Abraham, Esau, twin
brother of Jacob. At the birth of the two brothers, “the first
came out red, all over like a hairy garment.” (Genesis 25:25.)
“And they called his name Esau. In Biblical Hebrew, עשו(‘é-sâv)
means rough, to the touch, referencing the thick hair. It almost
sounds like a case of hypertrichosis, or perhaps hirsutism.
Superstition of course associated this malady with lycanthropy,
or the werewolf condition. Esau, we must observe, was said to be
a great hunter. To our knowledge, there is no other Mesopotamian
tale, myth, or god, which features red hair. The Greek poet
Xenophanes (ca. 570-475 BC) described the Thracian people as
blue-eyed, with red hair, but that’s half a millennium after the
text of Samuel (depicting David as a red head), and depending on
when one dates the t