Passing on to the hair, there is a popular notion that sudden fright or violent distress will, to use Sir Walter Scott's words, "blanch at once the hair." Thus, in Shakespeare's 1 Henry IV. (Act ii., sc. 4), Falstaff, in his speech to Prince Henry, says:—
"Thy father's beard is turned white with the news."
Although this has been styled "a whimsical notion," yet in its support various instances of its occurrence have been from time to time recorded. The hair of Ludwig of Bavaria, for example, it is said, became almost suddenly white as snow on his learning the innocence of his wife, whom he had caused to be put to death on a suspicion of infidelity; and the same thing, we are told, happened to Charles I. in a single night, when he attempted to escape from Carisbrooke Castle. A similar story is told of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, when her flight from France was checked at Varennes. According to another notion, excessive fear has occasionally caused the hair to stand on end, a belief which Shakespeare has recorded. In Hamlet (Act iii., sc. 4), in that famous passage where the Queen is at a loss to understand her son's mysterious conduct and strange appearance, during his conversation with the ghost which is hidden to her eyes, she says:—
"And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end."
Once more, too, in that graphic scene in the Tempest (Act i., sc. 2), where Ariel describes the shipwreck, he says:—
"All but mariners
Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,
Then all afire with me; the king's son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring—then like reeds, not hair—
Was the first man that leap'd."
The sudden loss of hair is considered unlucky, being said to prognosticate the loss of children, health, or property; whereas many consider it imprudent to throw it away, or to leave the smallest scrap lying about. One reason assigned for this notion is that if hair is left about, birds might build their nests with it, a fatal thing for the person from whose head it has fallen. Thus, should a magpie use it for any such purpose—by no means an unlikely circumstance—the person's death will be sure to happen "within a year and a day." Some say, again, that hair should never be burnt, but only buried, a superstition founded on a tradition that at the resurrection its owner will come in search of it. On the other hand, it is customary with some persons to throw a piece of their hair into the fire, drawing various omens from the way it burns. Should it gradually smoulder away, it is an omen of death; but its burning brightly is a sign of longevity, and the brighter the flame the longer the life. In Devonshire, too, if the hair grows down on the forehead and retreats up the head above the temples, it is considered an indication that the person will have a long life. There is a very prevalent idea that persons who have much hair or down on their arms are, to quote the common expression, "born to be rich," although the exception, in this as in many other similar cases, rather proves the rule; but abundance of hair on the head has been supposed to denote a lack of brains, from whence arose an odd proverb, "Bush natural, more hair than wit." Once more, Judas is said to have had red hair, and hence, from time immemorial, there has been a strong antipathy to it. Shakespeare, in As You Like It (Act iii., sc. 4), alludes to this belief, when he makes Rosalind say of Orlando:—
"His very hair is of the dissembling colour."
To which Celia replies:—