To All,
Being blissfully ignorant of the niceties and protocol regarding
cross-posting, I herewith do it anyway. I'm not really sure how much
subscriber overlap there is between the celtic-L and med -rel lists, hence:
Yesterday, I was showing my neighbor (a retired doctor) some prints of pics I
had taken on my last Irish trip this past September. I showed him one which
was a closeup of figure-carving high up on the east window of Kilfenora
Cathedral, Co. Clare, which showed a group of "dwarf clerics" (see p.6,
Cunningham's "Burren Journey West" booklet, for a similar - but, of course,
inferior photo of the same carvings). His first response upon seeing it was
"a fine example of priapism". I looked at it again, and, sure enough. How
could I have missed it?
A few pictures earlier, I had been showing him the sheela-na-gig (various
spellings allowed - "sheila" seems too Australian) over the doorway at
Killinaboy, also Clare. I got to wondering if the priapismic clerics were
considered, at the time, as a male equivalent of the sheela, i.e., a
fertility symbol? Are there other, similar carvings of clerics "exposing
themselves" in other stonework of the period? I can see that I have many
hundreds of prints to re-examine now.
Any and all comments gratefully accepted.
Pete Schermerhorn, in the glorious Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts
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