What a long strange trip it’s been.
Indeed.
While researching information about the beloved Saint and triple Goddess, Bride, Breed, Brighid, Brigit … Her name changes as much as Her legend spans space, as well as time. Beloved by so very many people, peoples, tribes, villages, counties, countries and cultures! -Not to mention, diametrically opposed religions. (I daren’t mistake to assign Her to only one or another or any of the above!) Bridey: beloved far and wide, across time and space.
Not only a saint, but an Abbess, and one with a unique permission, for a female, to assign or select the local bishops. Whom, She insisted were goldsmiths before they would even be considered! (I feel so impressed by the many attributes, that I can hardly contain myself not to use exclamation points throughout!)
During my reading, I keep wondering, where do people get their information? Reading things that just don’t riddle out, that is, just don’t seem to sound right or ring clear or true.
For example, “corn dollies”. I have found instruction for making Brighid’s Cross by weaving or plaiting wheat or make a dolly with corn husks to lay in a basket on the eve of Her feast day, February 2nd, which is also known as Ground Hog Day, Candlemas and Imbolg or Oimelc. (Which is often translated to mean “ewe’s milk” and “in the belly”, likely both referring to lactation, but neither in the O.E.D.) I know a corn dolly when I see one, they were still being made and sold when I grew up in New England. They are dolls, made with corn husk. I also know wheat weaving when I see one; they are made from plaited grain, usually wheat, sometimes Black Bearded wheat. Wheat weavings were never called corn dollies. They were called wheat weavings, grain weavings, or plaiting’s and all of them considered good luck charms. Originally Scandinavian, they were intended, made, and used for blessing and protection, and normally hung in an obvious place, up high, in high regard within the home and even on both exterior ends of homes and barns. They were not toys, nor simple decorations as it seems nowadays. And were certainly not the corn husk dolly’s we see today.
So, just to set the record straight… when the fruit/berry/germ/seed ripened, it hardened, that is, a verb, not a noun, it kerned, korned, or corned, its kernel ripened, just as the salt from the sea will harden or kern along rocky shorelines. In some english speaking areas they were called kirn-baby's (recorded as early CE 1770’s). They were generally fashioned from the last sheave of grain harvested and dressed with ribbon and a piece of white cloth and fastened to the reapers sickle or cutting tool.
Which somehow I managed to stumble upon Rapunzel.
Oh for cryin’ out loud… now where did I read that the so called famous idiom, (which not only was regularly rewritten, apparently regularly misquoted.
Let down your hair.
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, (rapunzel a portion of land, as in agriculture, soil for growing or raising food, and a plant, possibly a grain or campanula roots, not our radish, not our maize, but like a kernel, as in it comes to bear its fruit, ripe and hardened, and golden colored). “Let down your golden hair”. Which is more likely the bardic or poetic way of ‘telling the story’, of Nature’s nature-al way of doing all things seasonally, describing the harvest and the effect of the changing of seasons.
“Rapunzel, let down your golden hair.” Literally says, when wheat/wheatgrass/oat/rye, etc. grain) are healthy and ripe, their tops literally droop down under the weight of the kernels/germ/berries. Kernel/kern/korn/corn, but not our corn on the cob, not our maize.
-I think I read that in 1209 CE, the church began banning traveling minstrels and musicians from perfroming in public, which, thus began the beginning of the end of the re-telling and reenactments of the old stories and so, the beginning of the end of sharing information, or passing on the lessons and wisdoms from one generation to the next, from one era, and one area, to another. But if those olde poets and bards are to be heard, the grain is heavy when ripe and ready! And golden!
So, I see Rapunzel as a metaphor for a story about Mother Nature. (Disney’s Tangled aside, having become modernized and managed to substitute the “W” word, for the “B” word, that is Bitch, instead of Witch. Yah, well, whatever, and still we do not protest, but pay it forward. Okay, I digress.)
In one version, the neighbor guy stole “rapunzel” (radish? rape? grain?) from the garden of Mother Gothel, aka Frau or Dame Gothel, later vilified to become notoriously mean, old and ugly “the sorceress”. Obviously an older womin, left to tend /fend her way in this world alone, for whatever reason, and righteously caught the thief who had been stealing her food from her garden every day to satisfy his young wife’s craving who apparently threatened him to get it -or else… she would leave him, she would just die… yadda, yadda, the story details totally depend on the location and year of publication. It has been retold since the tenth century, from Persia to Italy to France, and eventually Germany with the Grimm Brothers, who rewrote it regularly to republish it to sell more. Well, you know that story.
So, Mother Gothel, having caught him plain and simple, they make a deal. I think instead of turning him over to the authorities for theft, she said, sure, take all of my food, (all the rapunzel), all you want of it, if you give me your next child to raise as my own, as a mother would. Who knows what penalty theft could get you in their village. Right? She said, I will love her, protect her and take care of her like she is my own.
(Now, I gotta say, Mother Gothel, really reminds me of my Auntie Bernice, a widow, who never had children. She had a tiny house at the end of a dirt road. She had a turtle that lived under a rock by the corner of the shed, which was the original house her father built. She had a dog, a Welch Corgi named Dutchess. She hung bird cages in the trees in Summer and even grew peanuts in her garden! She canned everything and ground her own meat and shoveled the coal into a furnace to keep the house warm in Winter. And she liked to drink alcohol at the end of the day and put her feet up. (in the end, that's just how they found her body.) She never went to church. She wasn’t afraid of anything, she owned a gun, but never needed or used it, and liked the snakes and deer that wandered through her yard. I think I was a little bit scared of her when I was little, but now wish I had known better and wish I had known her better.)
Anyway, so, the thief, agreed.
When his wife delivered a child, Mother Gothel, came to take her home, and named her ”Rapunzel”.
Along comes a young handsome virile dude on a fine lovely day, and hears her soft sweet song upon the breeze. “Oh Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your golden hair.” Several versions of the same tale across old Europe say that the young prince, climbs, and visits her, regularly, and it is finally when she no longer fits into her own dress, i.e., is preganant, with twins!, (without clergy, hmm, begging for a rewrite!), so, her angry (step) mom, cuts off her long golden locks…
Sound familiar to anyone familiar? Demeter, Persephone? Cailleach and Bridey? Winter/Spring…
Take a bird’s eye look at the mature feminine aspect of initially great assuming power over the young maiden, who gradually, steadily, continues growing, unseen, ripening and finally too big to hide, contain, or handle. This truth is discovered by Frau/Dame/Mother Gothel, (aka Winter), who loves, cares for, nurtures and protects, and has “kept” the maiden until she can no longer “keep” her. (To keep, originally used to be a good thing, protect, guard, give attention, care for, etc.,. Also, as a noun, it was the safest place and the last stronghold to defend.) So, yes, indeed, like a good mother, until her prime, until her time. So we see, the season’s progress, from the older female, alone, and perhaps lonely, which is why she asked for the child? Or finding a replacement to keep the natural order of things? Her ugliness is simply reflecting natural aging, withering, decaying of the nature-al world, the plants having finished their time in the Sun, seeded, sprouted, rooted, grown, harvested and now composting and returning to the soil. It is Winter’s time now. Old Mother, a common and respectful term, that became vilified as mean, ugly, evil. Oh, and the wicked “w” word, witch.
The young prince, courts, woos, seduces and impregnates the young maiden, who with him, becomes the Summer, the young, but pregnant Mother, robust and full and ripe until her harvest.
Okay, and yah, he pays, an ultimate sacrifice before being restored.
When she ages and withers to become the cold sleeping Goddess, blanketed by stillness and a mantle of white and ice. Winter, gradually losing her grip, Imolc, Vernal Equinox, Beltaine, and everyone comes outdoors to celebrate.
Okay! So, does any of this sound familiar? <];)
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