Вестница смерти – хозяйка судьбы. Образ женщины в традиционной ирландской культуре

The old Irish saga Togail Bruidne Da Derga (TBDD) is usually regarded as a

locus classicus for the mythology of kingship. However, let us not forget that two women played a crucial role in the destiny of the ill-starred king Conaire: the old woman Cailb and the young Etain. Etain was a woman of the side, whom the king Eochaid married in the beginning of the saga. According to J. Rhys, the aes side were a real people, the pre-Goidelic inhabitants of Ireland; that’s why a marriage to a woman of the side was considered possible. In the Irish folklore, a red-haired woman is always a supernatural being, who brings bad luck upon her husband. Etain’s hair is compared in the TBDD to the ailestar,

the iris flower. The maiden’s golden-yellow hair and bright green cloak vividly recreate the image of a flower, growing on the brink of a dangerous bog. In this aspect, Etain can be compared with the treacherous «flower-wife» of the insular Celtic literature (Blodeuedd «the flowery face» in the Welsh Mabinogion and the Irish Bláthnat). After marrying Etain the king Eochaid dies, as it seems, a natural death. Nevertheless, there are obvious similarities between this story and the story of king Muirchertach’s tragic death (Aided Muircherthaigh maic Erca): 1) The king sees a lonely yellow-haired woman in green (Ir.

uaine, the colour of natural green); 2) He falls in love at the first sight; 3) The woman reciprocates his love and lets the king know that this was the actual purpose of her coming; 4) She has already known him by rumour; 5) She is connected with the world of the side; 6) She wants something or stipulates something for herself; 7) The king dies.

The motif of woman as a personification of Sovereignty, Eros and Death in Early Irish literature is well studied. The metaphor of death as marriage is an international phenomenon, which lies outside the limits of epic literature. For example, quite recently some Satanist sectarians in the Russian city of Tomsk were reported to have met a «lady in red» before committing a ritual suicide. This is a 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.