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Author
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Comment
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Helen
Registered User
(10/29/03 10:45 am)
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Women & Transformation in Medieval Europe ...
Dear All:
I'm trying to put together an annotated bibliography on women and transformation in medieval Europe. At this point, I'm finding two distinct categories: saints and witches, or women who turn into animals to avoid persecution as opposed to women who turn into animals in order to commit various forms of mischief (or, persecute others). If any of you happen to know of literary sources, folktales, or "real" accounts (i.e., trials) of women turning into animals, please point me in their direction ... I'm looking for primary and secondary sources. Thanks in advance!
Best,
Helen
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Blackwolf
Unregistered User
(10/29/03 9:53 pm)
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A good platform to start with.
Before I start, let me say that I am greatly heartened. And exhilarated.
Women and transformation in medieval Europe - a topic which I have
always wanted to look into!
Mmm. Okay, a good platform to start with is a secondary source:
"The Beast Within" by Adam Douglas.
There are a few good chapters on women and transformation. Check out - especially - the Arthurian legends. Also quite good are the references to the Eddas and the Norse sagas - women turning into animals (wolves) by using magic. You might want to check out the practice of seidhr-craft as well.
Another secondary source to look at is Montague Summer's 'The Book of Werewolves'.
I will try to sift through my own collection for more references.
Blackwolf
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Blackwolf
Unregistered User
(10/29/03 10:01 pm)
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Something interesting.
"Witches, Werewolves,
and Fairies:
Shapeshifters and Astral Doubles in the Middle Ages "
by Claude Lecouteux
www.themagicalblend.com/~...10963.html
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Helen
Registered User
(11/2/03 11:18 am)
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Thanks!
Dear Blackwolf:
Thanks for the suggestions! The title of the Lecouteux book rang a bell; it's been sitting in my "Waiting to be Read" pile for a week or two. The frustrating thing about attempting to research this topic is that, while it's received a great deal of attention in French and German academia, very little of the material has been translated ... and neither my French nor my German is good enough for me to do my own translations. Sigh - talk about a tangible encouragement! It's an area that really fascinates me - so many medieval philosophers adhered to the doctrine of the feminine as being more animalistic than the masculine, and yet, ironically enough, there seem to be so few first-hand accounts of female transformation, as compared with, say, the Lais of Marie de France, or the overwhelmingly masculine werewolves of the Middle Ages - not until the Early Modern Period and the witch trials were women commonly seen to shift to animal forms. It's an almost inexplicable paradigm shift ... and an irresistible conundrum. Thanks again for the suggestions!
Best,
Helen
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Blackwolf
Unregistered User
(11/2/03 9:07 pm)
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No problem. ;)
... I have to agree with you here. There are so few first-hand accounts of female transformation in the Middle Ages which I find tantalizingly strange. I have to ask: "Why?" It is indeed a paradigm shift. (no pun intended!)
Likewise, werewolfism seems to be a highly gendered thing as seen in the masculine werewolves in the Middle Ages. I am not sure about this reference but I have read - somewhere - in Portugal, there are female werewolves called 'lubin' but their behavior are stereotypical: they cry a lot and tend to run away in retreat.
Again, no problem.
*grins*
Blackwolf
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ariberk
Unregistered User
(11/7/03 11:45 am)
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women and transformations
Need the transformation be from human to animal? If this aspect is open, you might have a look at the story of Math son of Mathonwy in the Welsh Mabinogion wherein flowers are transformed into a wife (Blodeuedd) for Lleu Skilful Hand with not entirely delightful results.
Also, a number of medieval and renaissance authors derived, retold and/or adapted stories from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Most of Ovid's stories include a transformation (often of a woman) either into animal, plant, or enduring metaphorical image...though most frequently, this is done without the express permission of the subject.
There is also the well-known medieval tale of the Green Children. The eldest of the two loses her green Otherworldly color, begins to speak English and marries....a transformation of culture, hue and identity.
Hope this helps!
Ari Berk
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RebeccaM
Unregistered User
(11/8/03 11:25 am)
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re: women and transformations
I believe Blodeuedd is also changed into an owl in punishment for her betrayal of Lleu.
I, too, have read how popular Ovid's Metamorphoses was during the Middle Ages; one book that specifically addressed this from a feminist perspective is Reading the Ovidian Heroine: 'Metamorphoses' Commentaries 1100-1618 by Kathryn McKinley. I'm not sure how helpful it would be to you, but it might be worth checking out.
Another book that you've probably already come across is Melusine of Lusignan: Founding Fiction in Late Medieval France, ed. by Donald Maddox and Sara Sturm-Maddox, which is a great book (and the only one I've found in English) dedicated to the Roman de Melusine.
And if you haven't read anything by Caroline Walker Bynum I would highly recommend her work.
Hope this is of some help to you. I would be very interested in seeing your finished bibliography, if it's not incredibly huge and you feel like posting it...
Rebecca
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arbydean
Registered User
(11/11/03 1:28 am)
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Re: re: women and transformations
An excellent resource for your work (and for anyone interested in women and gender in the Middle Ages) is Feminae: The Medieval Women and Gender Index. This is a searchable online database that collects book reviews, essays, and journal articles from many different sources and sorts them into all kinds of handy categories. Some entries even provide links to the actual articles. You can find it here:
www.haverford.edu/library...i/mfi.html
The Feminae database is near to my heart because I'm one of the peons in charge of keeping the records updated. ^_^
I also second the Bynum recommendation. Most of her work examines the relationship in medieval times between the (female) body and Christianity (especially the Eucharist/eating), in my somewhat limited experience with her, so I don't know how pertinent it would be to your animal theme.
Good luck, and please do keep us posted on your work.
--Robin
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arbydean
Registered User
(11/12/03 4:50 pm)
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Re: re: women and transformations
Something else I just came across that might be helpful: a Middle English ballad called "The Two Magicians" wherein a lady goes through a series of transformations into various animals and objects to evade a lusty blacksmith and preserve her maidenhead. The blacksmith wins out in the end, but it's an interesting song. I found mine in "Medieval English Literature," the Oxford collection edited by Trapp, Gray, and Boffey. I'd guess you'd be able to find similar themes of transformation to escape a pursuer (might be similar to your "persecution") in other ballads/folktales.
--Robin
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atrayu
Registered User
(11/13/03 11:51 pm)
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transformation in myth
Helen,
Hello, the first thing that comes to mind is in northern European myth. I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for (depends on how you define "folklore" I guess!)
Frigg in the Norse myths has a magic falcon skin that Loki uses for shape shifting (interesting how female magic is used by the male character).
Rhiannon in the Mabinogi is cursed and must carry people on her back as a horse for 7 years; a kind of transformation. She is thought by many to be associated strongly with horses and perhaps the Celtic horse goddess.
Manawyden in the Mabinogi also finds mice eating his crops and catches a fat one who he finds out is a pregnant woman disguised as mouse.
That's what I can think of for now! I'll let you know if I think of anything else...
(by the way, hi everyone, I just found this site!)
-A
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Laura
McCaffrey
Registered User
(11/14/03 8:19 am)
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Re: transformation in myth
The Mabinogian also has the Cerridwen/Keridwen, etc. transformation story. It isn't in the Penguin edition but is in Lady Charlotte Guest's. Look at salon tales, perhaps, for literary versions like the White Cat.
I'm not sure that you need stories of creatures who aren't quite mortal and transform back and forth like swan and seal maidens?
Also, on another tangent, there is the Loathly Lady or Lady Ragnell. While not actually an animal transformation, it does have parrallells to other animal bridegroom stories. Chaucer's version is the most well-known.
LauraMc
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Gregor9
Registered User
(11/14/03 3:34 pm)
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Beasts and Bread
Helen,
You might want to look at (as references):
Beast within: Animals and Bestiality in the Middle Ages
Joyce E. Salisbury
An interesting book about the relationship between society and beasts through the Middle Ages. (I used it a lot for a TV show on werewolves)
Bread of Dreams: Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Europe
Piero Camporesi, David Gentilcore (Translator)
and/or
Poisons of the Past by Mary Matossian, Yale University Press.
*These latter two are about ergot in the grain that kept people pretty much hallucinating all the time. Matossian in particular did painstaking work correlating bad rye crop (via climate conditions) with outbreaks of withcraft, trials, etc. Very provocative.
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Helen
Registered User
(11/15/03 11:22 am)
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Gratitude ...
Dear All:
Wow! Thanks for all of the fascinating suggestions. When I first started thinking about this topic, I was operating under the certainty that there would be a plethora of sources ... there are some very interesting implications in the fact that almost all of the accounts of transformation, while their extant versions date to the correct period, appear to come from older traditions. The people of the Middle Ages don't appear to have used the idea as a major theme until the very late Middle Ages, crossing over into the Early Modern period, when it seems to become an almost hysterical fear. I'm definitely going to have to look into the idea of the ergot as a factor (I wonder if there's any correlation between the outbreaks of suspicion, and some change in farming technique or long-term weather conditions that would have brought matters to a boil specifically *then,* as oppossed to a century or two before...), and the ballad of "The Two Magicians" (which sounds *exactly* like what I needed). Thanks also for introducing me to Feminae - what a resource! I'll post findings when I manage to get a better idea of what's out there ...
Best,
Helen
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