Francine Nicholson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>The extremism seems to be the essential quality, whether in hero or saint.
Thus, it takes many women to satisfy the insatiable Fergus mac Roich when his
wife, the deer-like Flidhais, or his lover, Medbh, is not around. When
enflamed with the hero's fury, Cu/ Chulainn must be dunked
in three successive vats of cold water to calm him down. Similar extremes were
required of the saintly actions.
>So my question is not why they did it in hagiography, but was it a real,
historical practice?
you mean, would Bareing-Ghoul (and/or his illustrious predecessors) lie
to us?
certainly hagiography is/was, de facto, herography, as you say.
but where should we draw the line, in our insatiable --and really quite
peculiar, you stop and think about it-- quest for historical "reality" when
reading one of these lil ditties?
when the hagiographic author talks (very incidentally) about, say, a building
under construction during the course of his saint's lifetime, or a war being
waged in the neighborhood, or whatever *mundane* thing (not directly connected
to the saintliness of his Subject) he might mention, the art or military or
whatever historians usually deam him to be a legitimate potential source
(although one subject to the same sorts of analysis which we might subject a
more "secular" source to).
but when the same fellow is carrying on about the heroic deeds of his
Guy (or Gal), we have to place him/her in a different catagory.
conversely, in his rambling and very informative, mostly "secular"
"autobiography", speaking of his mother (a sort of saint, at least to him),
Guibert of Nogent happens to mention, in an off-hand sort of way
and entirely in passing, that one day a little green devil appeared and (i
believe) spoke to her.
what struck me about this passage was not that he would mention this
happening, necessarily, but that he would mention it (if indeed i'm recalling
it rightly) in such a *casual* fashion --though not to say that he thought it
was not a reasonably important event, in and of itself.
clearly (i project), his [contemporary] *audience* was intended to take this
little incident in stride, nothing particularly unusual about it
--or at least nothing at all, inherently, incredible about it; which
would be, i submit, precisely the *immediate* response of *any*
"rational" (i.e., Western-educated) 21st c. reader.
so, i believe i'd add an additional catagory to your good one of "extremism,"
though i haven't the slightest idea what to call it.
skeptically speaking--from my vastly superior vantage point as a "rational,"
over-educated fellow-- i suppose i could call it "credulity" or somesuchlike
pious patronisation; but, for some reason, i'm not entirely comfortable with
that.
too many assumptions by half: assumes that the middlevil guy was just a child
(no matter what his age and evident accomplishments might have been);
or that the world really *isn't* a bloodie wierd place, with more in it than
may have been thought of in all my philosophies;
or that (heaven forbid) there really *aren't* parallel universes which share
our temporal space and that some of them couldn't *possibly* have been closer
and more available to our realm (and vice-versa) in the past than they are
now;
or that all other previous generations of human beings *without
exception* (save my own of course) were plagued by powerful belief
systems which they not only could not control, but weren't even aware of (like
the point just behind your head, which you can never turn round
quite fast enough to see); and that these ways of perceiving the world so
totally colored their ways of interacting with it that i must see them as
pitifully crippled --compared to myself-- no matter what their qualities and
accomplishments.
>And, if it was, how did the women feel about this practice
about ole Cu/ Chulainn's getting his serial dunkin?
quite relieved, i should think.
and, some of them, smug.
>--and how many women were raped in the process
countless.
>and who was blamed in such cases?
well, the woeman, obviously.
no-brainer.
duh.
what else? you going to blame the poor fellow who happened to awake to find
himself sleeping between two "lady" virgins??? yeahrite.
best from here,
christopher
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