Queen Medb, Female Autonomy in Ancient Ireland, and Irish Matrilineal Traditions
1997, Proceedings of the Ninth Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference,
30 Pages
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Introduction In this paper, I shall discuss several interrelated topics. First, we look at the underlying matrilineal traditions of the Irish, reflected in several phenomena: the bestowal of the Dumezilian first and second functions through a female line; women's autonomous status-sexual and otherwise; inheritance of property, reflected in the "Pillow Talk" of the Tain, along with Old Irish laws regarding female inheritance; the avunculate,2 and the fostering by maternal kin which constitutes a subtext in the Tain Bo Cuailnge, the "Cattle Raid ofCooley." Then we discuss the caricature of female figures such as Queen Medb in the Tain, which reflects the need of the scholars who created the Tain to attack that very female power which was threatening to them. The Irish are unique among the Indo-European cultures. In other Indo-European realms, female autonomy was a concomitant of chastity and even virginity. In Ireland, however, perhaps because of matrilinear inheritance patterns which underlie the structure of their society,3 and the relative female autonomy
The Sheela na gigs, Sexuality, and the goddess in Ancient Ireland
Irish Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, ed. Mary Condren
777 Views23 Pages
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Starr Goode and Miriam Robbins Dexter. In both human social structure and divine pantheons, the ancient Irish exhibited a legacy of powerful female figures. These female figures appear in both their iconography – as Sheela na gigs – and in their literature. Neither oral traditions nor texts accompany the Sheela na gig figures to tell us who or what they are meant to represent. Only the Sheelas themselves exist, as images of supernatural women that are usually set into the architecture of churches and castles. Their meaning has been examined by scholars for 150 years. We believe that the Sheela na gigs reflect ancient Irish goddesses and heroines, although their form is even more ancient, dating to the Upper Palaeolithic and Neolithic eras. In this paper, we connect Irish female figures found in Old Irish texts with the Irish Sheela na gig carvings. We analyze the underlying functions and characteristics of these iconographic and textual female figures. (1) The Irish female figures – and by extension the Sheelas – are multivalent. In both the iconography and the texts, they represent all possibilities of the Life Continuum: birth, death, and rebirth. These female figures are not old or young but old AND young. They are not beneficent or terrifying but beneficent AND terrifying. This is the paradox of those who occupy the realm of the numinous: they represent a continuity of possibilities. Polarities need not apply to those in the realm of the sacred
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