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(Note: In Old Irish transcriptions, "7" is standard notation for the character the scribes put for "ocus," meaning: "and.")
In the case of Mis, the onset of her illness occurs in trauma, when she goes to seek her father's body on the battlefield. "After finding the body with a multitude of bloody wounds he had taken, she proceeded to suck the blood out of the wounds." (...iar bhfagh_il an [51] chuirp go n-iomad créachta di, gabhus ag súgha 7 ag ól na fola as na cr_achtuibh,)
This may be in some way related to assuming ancestral power. In some cultures, a person's ancestors call them to become a shaman.38 In others, the ancestors are honoured by being eaten after death. Amongst the Yanomamö, for example, the ashes of dead relatives are mixed with water and drunk.39
In other cultures, such as the Jívaro, it is held that there is a vital soul that resides in the blood.40 Of course, the idea of the blood or flesh of a being transmitting their power continues to the present in the form of the Christian communion.41 A thorough investigation into the theme of drinking the blood of loved ones, a feature that appears even into comparatively modern times in Gaelic culture,42 is beyond the scope of this paper, but is certainly of interest for future work.
The significance of Mis' blood drinking, or at least blood line, is supported by the emphasis upon lineage in some of the Queen tales. The deranged women who sometimes figure in them are viewed as being of noble blood and desirable in marriage. For example, Fingen leaves his wife for Mór Muman, saying she is of better race.43
This leaves us with some questions. Is Mór Muman of a higher status family than Fingen's wife? If so, how? Is the status social, or is it connected to her derangement, which is the focus of the tale? Perhaps both. It might be because these deranged women are of a druidic or other family viewed as possessing spiritual power. Their illness in that case would illustrate that they possess a high level of this power.
After she falls ill, Mis runs off into the mountains, and her hair and nails grow. She can run like the wind and levitate. She grows a clúmh,44 a coat of what may be fur or feathers. Feathers might be seen as being more shamanically significant, as I've noted above, and DIL does seem to have more examples of this word used for feathers than for fur.45 Suibhne has a similar sort of experience, fleeing a battlefield, sprouting feathers, and acquiring powers of levitation. It may of course be that the later written story of Mis borrowed this component from Suibhne.46
There is an interesting parallel on two levels here to the initiation of Wurajeri Australian shamans. Baiami, the creator, appears in the physical form of a shaman. Kali, holy water, flows from his mouth over the students. The water flows into their bodies, penetrating their skin, without a drop being lost, and this causes them to "soon sprout feathers from their arms, which later grow into wings."47 The similarities being: the taking into the body of a special fluid from a person of power, in one case drinking blood, in the other kali, which is supposed to be liquid quartz crystals, being absorbed through the skin. This fluid comes from a senior or important being, in one case, Mis' father, in the other, the creator himself, embodied as a shaman. In both cases, this is followed by the sprouting of feathers.
"Moreover, the flightiness of her madness gave her such an impetus that she would run like the wind, so that she would overtake anything she wanted to in the world." (Do chuir fós foluamhain a gealtachais an seoladh siubhail sin f_ithe go ritheach mar an ngaoith ionas go sáruigheadh a rith , nídh ar bith budh mhian l_,)48
She would then consume all she wanted of their flesh and blood. Mis caused the Barony of Clan Maurice became like a desert.49
Footnotes
38 Eliade, 1974, p. 67 |
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