Hi ,

I'm a big fan of all things mystical. Faeries. Mermaids. Etc. When I was in Scotland, I felt like I'd walked into a land of enchantment. While my sister had been the one to feel the pull of the place and organized the trip, I have to admit, I felt a connection too. Plus, I learned I'm 19% Scottish (at least that's what Ancestry DNA says). 

Recently, I was reading a book and watching YouTube videos about redheads. I'm a redhead. I was teased some growing up, but mostly I had a lot of older women expressing how they wished they had hair like me. My grandmother and two cousins had red hair, so while I didn't see many redheads in my daily life, it didn't seem all that rare to me either. 

Now, you might wonder what red hair this has to do with faeries.

Well...in my research, I've learned that red hair is rare...just 2% of the population. It's a mutation on the MC1R gene receptor (Research suggests that other genes may be involved as well). Here are some other cool facts:

• Redheads have a higher pain threshold, which also means they need more anesthesia when having surgery. 
• They have fewer hairs on their head, but since it's usually thick, it looks like they have a lot of hair.
• They produce more vitamin D (probably because the sun is so harmful to us...we have higher rates of skin cancer as well).
• Red heads go gray later (yay!) and often instead of gray, their hair becomes blonde or white (double yay!)
• Red heads are sensitive to cold. I agree with this, although being a woman of a certain age has helped with this.

So...what's my point? 

Well, Scotland has the highest number of redheads at 13%. 

Red hair is a mutation. 

Scotland is full of faerie stories (as are other UK countries, which also have more redheads than other areas). 

Which has to mean...redheads are faeries, right? 

I love the idea of having faerie DNA. 😁 There must be a book in this idea.