Welcome to the British History Podcast, my name is Jamie.

Now before we start, I have some excellent community news, and frankly, I think it's needed

since 2013 so far has been a bit of a doozy.

So, avid listener, London Meetup Veteran, and friend of the show, Halley, has been battling

lymphoma for a significant chunk of this year.

And she's just found out that treatment worked, and she's tumor free.

So big congrats to Halley from the BHP, we're so happy that your humors are finally imbalanced

and all without needing to resort to horse dung, worm lambs blood, or even dog urine.

It's pretty impressive.

Now, as for this episode, it was originally going to be a member's only episode.

But this material is really interesting, and it also ties in nicely to the story that

we're telling, since it's connected to the spread of Christianity and its impact.

So I'm making it a public episode, but members don't you worry, I've got something pretty

fun on the way for you as well.

So you might not know this about me, but I used to have long hair, really long hair,

that flowed down my back in ringlets, and if I left conditioner in it, sausage curls.

Basically I had captain hook hair, and of course I had all manner of people taking

an interest in my hair.

Now generally if someone took an interest, they were telling me I needed to cut it.

Ever since then, I've been fascinated by the attention that we paid a hair.

And I started to wonder if the Anglo-Saxons had a similar thing going on in their culture,

which led to some research, and ultimately this episode.

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