Vries de J. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Leiden, 1961.
Wagner 1970 – Wagner H. Studies in the Origin of Early Celtic Civilisation 2. Irish fáth, Welsh gwawd, Old Icelandic óðr ‘poetry’ and the Germanic god Wotan / Ódinn // ZCP. Bd. 31. 1970.
Wagner 1982 – Wagner H. The name EITHNE and the background of the tale Esnada Tige Buchet // Topothesia / Ed. B.S. Mac Aodha. Gallway, 1982.
Windisch 1887 – Táin bó Regamna / Ed. E. Windisch // Irische Texte. Bd. 2. Ser. 2. Leipzig, 1887.
Windish 1880 – Windish E. Irische Texte mit Worterbuch. Bd. 1. Leipzig, 1880.
Summary
Harbinger of death, shaper of destiny: The image of woman in Irish traditional culture
Introduction
This work is not intended to be an exhaustive study of Celtic female deities as they represented in myth, epic literature and folklore. In the last decades a number of such general works appeared (see, e. g. [Green 1995]). We are not speaking of the real medieval Irish women, who enjoyed a surprising level of physical and moral freedom. This book is about an archetypal image of women in Irish myth and folklore. The woman in the Early Irish literature was very often treated not as a woman, but as some strange creature. This creature was called by an untranslatable name banscál, ‘a female shape’ or a ‘female phantom’; in short, any woman-looking being. This being was not regarded as a goddess, but it wasn’t a normal woman, either. She was, in a word of J.F. Nagy, a liminal creature; in every single occasion we cannot say, what part of this creature we are seeing – real or mythical. In some respect, we can agree with the view of E. MacNeill, who believed that in reality such women were members of local, autochthon groups of population, goidelicized though, but still hostile to the Goidelic invaders. From the physical point of view, they were most probably short, darkhaired, and rather mongoloid, flat-faced people. The well-known Lorica, ascribed to Saint Patrick depicts women as persons, innately capable of sorcery. In the Irish folklore, female sorcery is a fact of life. Perhaps that’s why the witch-hunting never was practiced in Ireland on a large scale: witches were all too common. Suddenly a woman could «prove» to be a changeling (e. g. the well-known story of Bridget Clery).
Women in Early Irish literature are, in spite of their common liminality still unlike each other. The aim of this book is to distinguish and describe the main archetypes or proto-characters of liminal women, marked by the mythical names of Etain, Fedelm, Gormflaith and Leborcham. We’ll learn to recognize those mythical beings and discover what is hiding beneath their names and characters.
Etain-Sin-Cailb: An Otherworld wife
The old Irish saga Togail Bruidne Da Derga (TBDD) is usually regarded as a locus classicus for the mythology of kingship. However, let us not forget that two women played a crucial role in the destiny of the ill-starred king Conaire: the old woman Cailb and the young Etain. Etain was a woman of the side, whom the king Eochaid married in the beginning of the saga. According to J. Rhys, the aes side were a real people, the pre-Goidelic inhabitants of Ireland; that’s why a marriage to a woman of the side was considered possible. In the Irish folklore, a red-haired woman is always a supernatural being, who brings bad luck upon her husband. Etain’s hair is compared in the TBDD to the ailestar, the iris flower. The maiden’s golden-yellow hair and bright green cloak vividly recreate the image of a flower, growing on the brink of a dangerous bog. In this aspect, Etain can be compared with the treacherous «flower-wife» of the insular Celtic literature (Blodeuedd «the flowery face» in the Welsh Mabinogion and the Irish Bláthnat). After marrying Etain the king Eochaid dies, as it seems, a natural death. Nevertheless, there are obvious similarities between this story and the story of king Muirchertach’s tragic death (Aided Muircherthaigh maic Erca): 1) The king sees a lonely yellow-haired woman in green (Ir. uaine, the colour of natural green); 2) He falls in love at the first sight; 3) The woman reciprocates his love and lets the king know that this was the actual purpose of her coming; 4) She has already known him by rumour; 5) She is connected with the world of the side; 6) She wants something or stipulates something for herself; 7) The king dies.
The motif of woman as a personification of Sovereignty, Eros and Death in Early Irish literature is well studied. The metaphor of death as marriage is an international phenomenon, which lies outside the limits of epic literature. For example, quite recently some Satanist sectarians in the Russian city of Tomsk were reported to have met a «lady in red» before committing a ritual suicide. This is a primeval archetype, described by Jung as Anima, the human soul, an angel of light and darkness. That explains why an old hag and a young maiden in Irish tradition could eventually be the same person, a double-faced female deity, a personification of sex and death in the same time. Ugly women, e. g. Cailb are described as having unusually large genitals, so we can compare them with the Sheela- na-gig, the representations of women displaying their genitals, who probably embodied fertility and death. If there are obvious parallels between a woman of side – Sin, who was responsible for the death of king Muirchertach and Etain, could be something in common between the beautiful Etain and the monstrous Cailb? Both are sexually aggressive, both are connected to the Otherworld. The dissimilarity between the two (beauty / ugliness) is actually immaterial. The characters named Etain and Eithne in Old Irish sagas are in fact the same character. This is a ruler’s consort, closely connected with the Otherworld. She is always beautiful and immortal, but in the same time, she brings chaos and destruction (see also [Dagger 1989]).
The etymology of the name Etain / Eithne is a moot point. In our opinion, it is composed of three deictic particles: * (s)in-t-an and means something like ‘she-this-one’. In this case, this is not even a name in the proper sense but a denomination for the female Eros. Strange as it sounds, Cailb may be Etain herself. If Conaire is the son of Etain’s stepdaughter, when he became king, she ought to be about 60 years old. Perhaps, she was still trying to destroy her stepdaughter’s son. This suggestion would seem strange to the mediaeval author himself. Nevertheless, in the mass consciousness the archaic archetype may come along with a typical folk story.
The story of the meeting between the Connacht queen Medb and a prophetess named Feidelm occurs in the Irish epic Táin bó Cúalnge (TBC) and it is very well known. Feidelm, asked by the queen about the outcome of this expedition, gives an emblematic answer: «I see it all over in red, I see it in scarlet». Of course, this would imply a tragic ending, and, eventually, proves to be true. Why a lonely girl named Feidelm appears on the way of the Connacht army? The girl asserts that she «cares for the queen’s well-being» (LL). In the LU, she says that she’s just arrived from Britain, where she studied the art of prophecy. In the LL, she identifies herself as a «slave» of the queen and a prophetess from the Sid Chrúachna. This may mean that Feidelm comes from a tribe that was enslaved by the Connachta, and, perhaps, her real aim is to take revenge for the destruction of the Sid Chrúachna, described in Echtra Nerae as one of the remscéla of the TBC. Her prophecy of defeat is actually a curse, because in the Irish tradition a prophetess is in the same time a shaper of destiny. Feidelm can see the defeat; the seeing is equivalent for creation. In some traditional stories warriors before the battle can perceive a visual image of the future. In Togail Bruidne Da Choca the king Cormac and his warriors meet a woman by a ford. She washes bloodstained harness – «a harness of a king, who will die». Cormac’s reply: «Your coming is the reason for great disasters» gives support to our suggestion: the future could be shaped by means of verbalization and/or visualization.
The LL Feidelm is one of those lone women, who predict defeat to kings and warriors. However, the meeting of a king and a woman not always had such fatal consequences. «The lone woman» could be a personification of Sovereignty, but in all cases she is the «mistress of his destiny». In the LU, Feidelm possesses the faculty of imbas forosnai – a special technique of prophesy, described by the king Cormac in his 10th century Glossary. Medb’s question: In fil imbass forósna lat («Is there / Do you have the imbas forosnai with you») may imply that Feidelm has learned the technique in Britain, but it may also suggest, that the young woman is in the (ecstatic) state of imbas forosnai now. The form of the verb of being used here goes back to the IE root *wel- ‘to see’ and here it suggests the meaning like «I can see it = it is there now».
The perception of women as dangerous beings is a universal phenomenon. The peculiarity of the character of Feidelm is that she is portrayed not as a supernatural or quasi-supernatural being, but as a real woman, speaking to another real woman (Medb), at least, in the LU. The «real» identity of this woman may be disputed. In the world of Ulster epic, there are a number of women named Feidelm, e. g. Conchobar’s daughter and Feidelm, daughter of Elcmar. However, no one of them is endowed with prophetic abilities. The etymology of her name is also disputed. In our opinion, it is derived from the IE *w(e)id- ‘to know’ and is, in fact, a composition: *