Brewer's: Hair

One single tuft is left on the shaven crown of a Mussulman, for Mahomet to grasp hold of when drawing the deceased to Paradise.

“And each scalp had a single long tuft of hair.”

Byron: Siege of Corinth.

The scalp-lock of the North American Indians, left on the otherwise bald head, is for a conquering enemy to seize when he tears off the scalp.

Hair

(Absalom's) (2 Sam. xiv. 25). Absalom used to cut his hair once a year, and the clippings “weighed 200 shekels after the king's weight,” i.e. 100 oz. avoirdupois. It would be a fine head of hair which weighed five ounces, but the mere clippings of Absalom's hair weighed 43,800 grains (more than 100 oz.). Paul says (1 Cor. xi. 14), “Doth not even nature itself teach you, that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?”

Mrs. Astley, the actress, could stand upright and cover her feet with her flaxen hair.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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