Вестница смерти – хозяйка судьбы. Образ женщины в традиционной ирландской культуре - Татьяна Андреевна Михайлова

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: * weid-wel-sam ‘to know + to see + superl. suffix’, cf. uidluias in the Larzac inscription, a G. Pl. of *uidlua ‘the knowledgeable one’, according to [Lambert 1997]. Feidelm’s prophesies in the LU and LL TBC could be interpreted in different ways. In the LL, Feidelm is ‘a lone woman’ on the road of warriors, a harbinger of disaster, who uses the word as a weapon. The LU Feidelm is a professional prophetess, who prophesizes / creates the destiny. But in both cases she is a forerunner of tragedy.

Leborcham the great sorceress

In the stories of the Ulster cycle there is a character named Leborcham. In the story of Deirdre, Leborcham acts as a trickster, a trouble-maker. Deirdre lived in isolation and was only allowed to see a restricted number of people; nevertheless, Leborcham managed to get an access to her because ‘she was not the one to be refused’. Attracting Deirdre’s attention to Noise, she eventually causes death of both lovers and brings shame on Ulster