> From: Pippin Michelli [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
>
> You could also relate this intactness or "perfect condition" to the
> business
> of keeping reliquaries in good repair. In Ireland there is abundant
> evidence of that, and you can see the object becoming less and less worth
> repairing as it gets more battered - I remember speculating in my thesis
> that there seemed to come a point when the object was considered "past
> praying for".
>
Great point!
How intactness relates to the kingship is that the king was the
vehicle transferring power from the "Otherworld" to the land/people and vice
versa (the word for inauguration--banfeis rigi--literally meant the king's
sleeping with a woman, the woman being the titular goddess of the
territory). A damaged conduit would not convey power well. Similarly, a
damaged relic would cease to be a good conduit, too, I imagine. Also, one
story in the Mabinogi relates how a king recharged himself by keeping his
feet in the lap of a virgin (a fully-charged battery, so to speak). When his
lap-holder was raped (by someone who wanted to marry her), he had to get a
new one.
Francine Nicholson
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