Somewhere in the back of my mind I have the notion that the sight of a
woman's genitals chased the devil away and Sheela-na-Gigs had little to
do with fertility as such. There's a sheela-na-gig website that can be
reached simply by typing in the word(s) in the search area.
KWildgen
[log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> 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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