Red Hair, Weasleys and Evanses

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 95714

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "tipgardner" <tipgardner at n...>
wrote:
> "amanitamuscaria1" wrote:
> > AmanitaMuscaria again - The Welsh, as do the Irish, come in 2 main 
> > varieties - the 'black' - dark hair, round skull, ?old Picts?, and 
> > the 'red' - red hair of varying hues, elongated skull, ?old Celts?
> > Cheers. AmanitaMuscaria
> 
> Tip:
> Actually, the reason there seem to be a disproportionately large red 
> haired population in Ireland and western Britain is the Angles, 
> Jutes, Saxons, etc.  The vikings and related groups did a lot of 
> raiding (and as was the wont of such types in those days, raping) and 
> left a lot of red and blonde haired bairns in their wake. That's 
> more common in Ireland and Hebrides, but certainly one sees it in 
> Wales.

Carol:
If that's the case, the number of redheads in the general population
of Great Britain should be higher, given that most English people are
of Saxon descent. (There's a Norman element as well, but it's smaller.)

IIRC, the dark hair among the Celtic populations is from the native
New Stone Age peoples and the red hair is from the Celts, who mingled
with them after emigrating from the continent and absorbed them into
their culture. The Saxons, OTOH, were mostly blond, with a red-haired
strain coming from the Vikings. (The fact that so many British people
today have brown hair probably reflects a thorough mixing of all these
elements.)

The Weasleys and Lily, to my thinking, would reflect the Celtic
element, but the name Potter is native English, so itss roots are
probably Saxon. If the bloodlines were pure Saxon, James would have
been blond rather than black-haired, but a Norman or "black" Celtic
gene for black hair would be dominant over the blond gene (or Lily's
gene for red hair, in Harry's case). 

If we bring in the concept of pure blood as it's used in the book, the
question becomes more complicated. My absolutely unprovable view is
that the wizard element in Britain came from the Celts and
particularly the Druids, so any mixing of potentially magical Celts
with Germanic Muggles could result in a Muggle-born witch or wizard.
Associating witches and wizards with Celts and Muggles with Saxons
(and Vikings) could account for some of the antagonism between the WW
and Muggles in Salazar Slytherin's time and later. (The advent of the
Normans in 1066 would have made matters even worse.)

The problem with this teory as it relates to the Potters is that Lily,
with her Welsh name and Celtic ancestry, should have been the magical
parent and James (unless his black hair suggests Celtic ancestors) the
Muggle parent. Instead, he's the pure blood and she's the Muggle-born.
 IMO, she had some recent magical ancestors with Squib children who
married Muggles, interfering with the magical inheritance from the
formerly magical Evans line.

I think we're all being a little too literal-minded here, but I wanted
to try to bring the thread back on topic with my musings, which
chiefly prove that I spend too much time speculating about the WW!

Carol