Oh no - he's come to pillage!

Happy New Year.  Looking back through previous posts I noticed that a couple of years ago I mentioned "first footing" and the fact that I was not allowed to go first footing as a young man because I had fair hair back then, and I wondered what that was all about.  Nobody really seems to have a definitive answer, but the best guess - and I find this really interesting - is that it may go back to folk memories of the Vikings, who being Nordic, would probably mostly have been blond-haired. So a fair-haired man was to be feared, or at the very least, not trusted, and as your first footer effectively was supposed to determine your fortune for the year, you would want to play safe by ensuring he had dark hair.  My hair went from fair to dark over the years, and now what there is left of it is silvery grey - so I don't know where that would leave me today!