Mad hair

I can never understand why red hair is still vilified. It's hair color. Why should it have any more effect on personality than, say, toenail length? Humans are weird. Most people around during my childhood had black hair, except for the elderly and that one cousin whose (not who's) hair was a shade of dark brown. Temperaments varied widely among them, despite the similarity in their hair color. Aside from that, the lightest-colored hair I saw was in the movies and on foreigners. Most of those hair colors tended to shades of blond or lighter brown. Temperaments varied widely among them as well. My first real encounter with a redhead was in the States, a classmate in fifth grade. He was also my first encounter with ears that blush (Seriously? The human body can do that?). Never learned much more about him apart from his hair color and ears, but I found those physical characteristics fascinating enough to commit to memory. Captions for a documentary on Elizabeth I, a queen known for her off-with-their-heads temper and her red hair (both of which she shared with her infamous father, Henry VIII), prompted both the memory and this post. The guy in fifth grade had the hair, but if he had the temper, I never encountered it. Color - ROYGBIV Choler - mad (boiling, not hatter)

Maybe the continued connection between color and choler is just another mad (hatter, not boiling) British thing, like crispy golden pudding.