CULTURE
10
JULY/AUGUST 2016 THE DESERT SHAMROCK
Mythical Women as Gatekeepers to Other Worlds
From Niamh Chinn Oir to Morgan Le Fay SHARONAH FREDRICK, PHD AND ANGELA LOEWENHAGEN, PHD STUDENT
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, Invoking the Ossian on the Bank of the Lora François by p Har a of ins Gods to the Stra [Niamh Chinn vas. can on oil 1, 180 ard, Gér Oir appears next to him]
he mythical lands of eternal of Youth in the Western ocean, known in Irish Gaelic as Tir Nan Og, were presided over by a supernatural queen, who, like her subjects, never aged or suffered any malady. Her name was Niamh Chinn Oir, The Bright Shining One of the Golden Hair, and she traveled ancient Ireland on horseback, never dismounting. Similar to the shunned Lilith of Judeo-Spanish tradition,
Morgan-le-Fay by Frederick Sandys, 1863-1864, oil on wood panel; Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
who ruled a subaquatic Red Sea kingdom where human time lost its meaning, Niamh Chinn Oir did not measure years as mortals do. When the hero Ossian, son of warrior Finn MacCool, fell in love with Niamh as he watched her ride her white horse through Ireland’s valleys, he had no way of knowing that one minute with Niamh was tantamount to many years. Space and time were suspended, and Niamh brought Ossian back to Tir Nan Og, a Paradise-like isle that sometimes overlaps with our living world. Nonetheless, Ossian missed Ireland, and asked Niamh to allow him to return. Sadly, she granted his request, begging him not to dismount from his horse. But dismount he did, and as he touched earth, the reality of the years came upon him, and he collapsed in dust…having been over three hundred years old. Niamh was left alone….or was she? Tir Nan Og, like its Welsh avatar of Avalon, The island of Apples, was a joyful resting place for those whose souls had departed the human world. Did Ossian then simply return to her? Could Niamh, like Morgan le Fay, ferry souls back and forth across the lifedeath divide? Celtic tradition simply does not have a rigid life-death divide. Like many of the civilizations of the Americas, the Mayas in particular, the Afterlife of Xibalba, the place of Fear, or Kan, the world of the jade sky, could be visited and revisited in life, death, and afterlife states. Like the Maya, the Irish and their Welsh cousins believed that women could “transition” between these states of being more gracefully than men. The most famous of all supernatural women, Morgan Le Fay, is a case in point. Morgan le Fay (Morgen, Old Welsh; Muirgein, Old Irish) exemplifies a Welsh mythological character whose role in the Arthurian cycle changed dramatically between the early medieval period and the pre-Renaissance introduction of Sir Thomas Malory’s L’Morte d’Arthur. Malory’s enduring, French storyline depicts Morgan as a fairy-like woman with low, dark desires for power, who committed incest with her half-brother,
Grandmother is from Tiree, an island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland
Grandmother is from Tiree, an island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland
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Arthur, and worked against him to bring ruin upon him. However, after spending decades to destroy her brother and after their son, Mordred, fatally wounded Arthur, Morgan then reverently took Arthur to rest on the holy Isle of Avalon. Here, a conniving and calculating woman hungered for power and destruction, while being sidelined amidst strong male characters. In stark contrast to this image, the earliest Welsh versions of Morgan’s legend portray her more like the Morrigán. One of three major Irish goddesses, the Morrigán was a fierce warrior, as well as a bringer of both fertility and death. Morgan le Fay was also a strong, fierce, magical leader. Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his 12th century Arthurian stories, described Morgan as the ruler on Avalon, a great healer, and a magical, shape-shifting being. Here is a strong female ruler in her own right, who ferried Arthur as an equal to Avalon. There are similarities between the medieval and Renaissance legends of Morgan. One is that of her magical powers and an otherworldly presence. The older stories depict Morgan as being goddess-like and powerful, while Malory’s version retains magical abilities in a human form, obtained under Merlin’s tutelage. The other clear similarity occurs at the end of Arthur’s life, when Morgan takes him to the elusive Avalon. Here, the old stories parallel the idea of the Morrigán in leading mortals into death, and Malory’s version suggests that leadership of mortals to the hereafter.
Sharonah Fredrick, PhD, is Assistant Director of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (ACMRS) at ASU. She has a PhD in Latin American Colonial Literature; MA in Renaissance History; and BA in Cultural Anthropology. She’s multi-lingual; attended Yeats Summer School and Merryman Literature Summer School in Ireland, as well as doing independent study in the Donegal Gaeltacht, and summer courses at Trinity College, Dublin.