from: Viking: Hammer of the
North; M Magnusson & W Forman; Orbis 1976
The Vikings;
Graham-Campbell J, Kidd D; BCA 1980
The Vikings; Pendlesonn K R G;
Windward 1980
The Viking World; Jacqueline Simpson; BCA
1980
Follow the Vikings; Carlsson D, Owen O, eds; Viking Heritage,
Visby 1996
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Ingemar Nordgren informs me
that: "Brisingamén means
'sunglow' and is merely another name for what is also called 'Draupnir',
etc. This is a ring, or a necklace, which in fact is the sun. Freja, in
her capacity as earth and moon goddess, takes possession of it during the
winter, and returns some of its light during this dark time of year. When
Heimdallr and Loki fight for the ring in the shape of seals it is a battle
between day and night, with Heimdallr representing light, and Loki
representing darkness." On another occasion Loki cut off the locks of
Siv's hair, as he relates in Lokasenna. Dr Nordgren sees this as a total
eclipse of the sun. He adds that "Siv was an earlier sun goddess before
she became one of the Aesir, and Thor's wife. She had previously been the
wife of the elf Ivalde, as his second consort after Groa, and foster
mother to Sviþdagr, the sun god who later espoused Freja, as well as the
mother of another sun god, ÚllR." Myth is fluid; it slips your grasp and
glides away.
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These objects were
found in Iceland. Can the left-hand figure really be the Thunderer
with his mighty Mjöllnir? His oddly divided beard, terminating in an
inverted trefoil, doesn't look much like a hammer to me. I suppose
it's identified as one because of the amulet, centre, sometimes
called the wolf-cross. And who is the mournful chap on the right?
Pious C19th folk-lorists might suggest he was "a fool, opening his
heart to the devil". See here or here. In
fact he seems close kin to the recently popular Sheela-na-Gig, of
various explanation. Put "Sheela-na-Gig" into Google for a cauldron
of conceptions.
The one here on the right is the best-known. Click
picture for source. However, I see this figure as directly descended
from the Hagebyhöga Freya, by virtue of her splayed legs, her
bulbous head (triangular?),
and her akimbo arms, which seem to derive at several removes from
the large ring encompassing the Freya. A 6th century date is
suggested for the brooch (?), about 600 years earlier than the
Sheela, which is a corbel on a church. |
FREYA
FULL FRONTAL
The White
Goddess
Hagebyhöga,
Östergötland
Silver brooch: "Seated Woman"
says Jacqueline
Simpson
The Sheela-na-Gig
of Kilpeck Church, 1140 AD
Herefordshire,
England
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A comment
from a website [here]:
"Some scholars link the Sheela to the goddess Brigit, who presides
over the spring festival. It could be that she is the split off,
sexual aspect of this otherwise virginal goddess (who was absorbed
into the Church as an emblem of chastity: a nun who became a
saint)." [Jack Gray Crow]. In The White Goddess, 1948,
("through which scholarship and inspiration walk, for once, hand in
hand"; James Laver), Robert Graves says this: "In mediaeval Irish
poetry Mary [the mother of Christ] was ... identified with Brigit
the Goddess of Poetry ... In Gaelic Scotland her symbol was the
White Swan, and she was known as Bride of the Golden Hair, Bride of
the White Hills, mother of the King of Glory. In the Hebrides she
was the patroness of childbirth. Her Aegean protoype seems to have
been Brizo of Delos, a moon-goddess to whom votive ships were
offered, and whose name was derived by the Greeks from the word brizein,
'to enchant'. Brigit was much cultivated in Gaul and Britain in
Roman times ..." (p 392).
Who could resist linking Nordic Brisingamen with
Aegean Brizo, derived from brizein, to enchant? Graves does
not seem to know much about Nordic mythology, being an out-and-out
classicist (and adoptive Welshman), and only refers to the northern
pantheon in passing. It is possible, however, to see Rydberg's
Teutonic Mythology, 1889, as a precursor of The White
Goddess, in the sense that it also attempts a pan-European
unification of prehistoric myths and concepts. T.G.E.Powell, in
The Celts, Thames & Hudson 1959, notes: "There must have
been a shading off of cultural, linguistic and political
affiliations from one major natural region to another, and the
process must go back to a time when there could be defined neither
"Celt" nor "Teuton" but only zones of "Old Europeans". (p.165.) The
vague term "Celt" is more and more coming to be seen as a rather
meaningless ethnic concept, comparable perhaps with "African",
"Asian", "Indian" or "Native American". A Celt was, approximately, a
non-Roman European, since the average centurion was not too pedantic
about the individual traits of the tribes he was bludgeoning into
his Empire. |
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Another Sheela-na-Gig
Kiltinan
Castle
Fethard, C. Tipperary
see here
or click
picture
Cemetery Stone, Gotland
När Parish, Smiss (3);
see
Stones, Ships
and Symbols
or click picture
don't bother: the link's been hijacked
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"Snake-Witch" or Freya (?); Gotland
The Sheela-na-Gigs are "usually found on Norman
churches", but also on castles and other buildings. They occur over
most of the British Isles, but predominantly in Ireland. Although
stated to be of "Celtic" origin, they all seem to be post-Conquest;
vestigial memories of pre-Christian concepts, transformed and/or
demonized by the Church. Erik Nylén remarks of the Gotland
"snake-witch" that it is unique for the island. "But the snake motif
was popular as symbol and decoration ... The snake plays an
important role in the transition from paganism to Christianity ...
The motif has been associated with early Celtic art ... it is an
example of how long popular motifs can live on through the
centuries, different in style but basically identical in design."
(p.40). To use Professor E.G.Stanley's phrase, the "search for
Anglo-Saxon paganism" in the text of The Seafarer may perhaps
be regarded as misdirected, rather than as utterly misguided.
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Said to be
Ereshkigal.
Appears to be the mother of the others.
bird divide man other sea ship sun
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