They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die: Speech and Silence in Medieval Fairy Narratives Kalamazoo 2008

I'm going to be doing a link-post to others who are blogging Kalamazoo, and maybe add some general impressions of my own, in a bit. I've uploaded my paper on medieval fairies, and speech and silence in Sir Orfeo, Thomas of Erceldoune, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight "'They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die': Speech and Silence in Medieval Fairy Narratives" here. Mostly I'm smug that I aimed for a fifteen minute paper, and I nailed it, even though it meant reducing about twelve thousand words to three thousand.

Weblogs and the Academy: Professional and Community Outreach through Internet Presence

I've decided to live-blog a blogging session at the 2008 Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo. I'm not a transcriber, so I'm not in any way doing the presenters the kind of justice their thoughtful papers deserve.

The session was organized by Elisabeth Carnell, Western Michigan Univ., and Shana Worthen, University of Arkansas–Little Rock, with Elizabeth Carnell presiding.

These are the papers that are being presented:

"Do I Know You in Real Life? Building Scholarly Communities and Professional Networks through Anonymous Weblogs"  Julie A. Hofmann, Shenandoah University

"Text in Motion: Navel-Gazing as Pedagogical Strategy"  MacAllister Stone, Independent Scholar

"Unlocking Wordhoards: Popular Medievalist Communities"   Richard Scott Nokes, Troy University

Julie Hoffman maintains Carnivalesque, and is a pseudonomyous blogger. She came to Web blogs via the now defunct Invisible Adjunct blog, and the blog of Cranky Professor, and a number of other blogs, none of them medieval. When Julie Hoffmann began commenting on these blogs, it became clear that they were colleagues, anonymous or not. Most of the anonymous bloggers were women, and junior faculty, like her.

The act of blogging under a pseudonym served to create a collegial environment, that crossed the conventional lines of academic rant. She mentioned the real-world phenomena of people at conferences who look at name tag to check an institutional affiliation. Online it doesn't matter; the public place of the Internet creates an intimacy that creates a way to see past the c. v. and into the scholarly process. People connect not only on the scholarly level, but on a more personal level. Blogging provides an immediate way to pass the collegiality test.

Blogging under a pseudonym seems to add another set of measurements to be used by our peers. She has had real-life opportunities from blogging, from people who had never met her in real life but did know her blog.

Julie Hoffmann spoke a little about the differences between men and women blogging; men are more likely to use their real name. She notes that women who blog tend to write more about their academic lives and their teaching. Men seem to blog more about their scholarly interests and reach out to their students, but that there are sex-linked differences. These gender differences don't seem to matter in terms of networking. She spoke about the rarity of medievalists on many campuses and the consequent isolation. She spoke about creating a protected writing group for medieval scholars on LiveJournal.

MacAllister Stone opened with a quote from John Gower, and the nature of text, digital and otherwise. She talked about the nature of fluid, deletable text, and a professor who wondered where the words went when he deleted them, and referred to a story by Stephen King in which the writer's word processor was somehow tied to reality; deleting a name, deleted a person.

MacAllister Stone also spoke about the fluid nature of text, and the potential for outreach that medievalist have, and the support for community building. You can read her paper here.

Scott Nokes spoke about popular Medievalism, and communities built around them. He spoke about the distinction between subject and object, or perhaps in terms of Weblogs, academics/medievalists, and those outside the profession. Medievalism doesn't have to be historically accurate, and is often mythic. Since it isn't historical, Medievalism can't be anachronistic. He spoke about mythic transference, with a nod at Northrup Frye. He spoke about transference from the present into the past (Twain's Connecticut Yankee) or from the past into the present (Don Quixote).

Scott Nokes discussed the subject/object role (defined in terms of grammar as a metaphor) and supplied examples from the SCA. A movie goer watching a film about Robin Hood, and is expected to some extent, to identify with the characters—but is not supposed to believe that she is that hero.

In terms of online communities, and popular medievalist communities is the present, and not the past. He used the example of the Disney film Prince Caspian, as inculcating a popular interest in allegory in the context of the film, for however brief a period. He discussed the differences between a scholarly online community and, for instance, a community built around a medieval-inspired community, and the ways in which a scholarly community, where the community is built around the model of expert to the group, shut down conversation for the non-medievalist. In a popular medieval community, the scholar has a privileged position, but not one that allows the shutting down of the community. Scholars in the online community need to attract those popular medieval community members and encourage them to participate rather than to observe in silence; they have been given a voice and we need to listen to it. You can see some of his outreach efforts here, at MediEvolution.

Merry Christmas!

The angel Gabriel from heaven came, his wings as drifted snow, his eyes as flame; "All hail," said he, "thou lowly maiden Mary, most highly favored lady," Gloria!

"For know a blessed Mother thou shalt be, all generations laud and honor thee, thy Son shall be Emmanuel, by seers foretold, most highly favored lady," Gloria!

Merry Christmas.

Carol Dana Lanham requiescat in pace

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine:
et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Carol, the beloved wife of Richard A. Lanham, died November 5, 2007 of a brain hemorrhage at age 71. Her husband of fifty years was at her side when she died. Carol was born in Englewood, NJ on January 18, 1936, the daughter of Irma P. and David W. Dana. She was educated at Marblehead High School, Marblehead, Massachusetts; and at Connecticut College for Women, New London, CT, where she graduated, in 1957, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She took her Ph.D. at UCLA in 1973, with a special field in Medieval Latin. She subsequently was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics at Brown University and tutored in Latin at the Getty Center. From 1978-87, she was Senior and then Principal Editor at the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. She was a member of the American Philological Association, the Medieval Latin Association of North America, and the Medieval Academy of America, where she served as a Council member, 2002-2005. She is the author of Salutatio Formulas in Latin Letters to 1200: Syntax, Style, and Theory (1975) and the editor of Latin Grammar and Rhetoric: From Classical Theory to Medieval Practice (2002). Her best essay, in her husband's estimation, is "The Bastard at the Family Reunion: Classics and Medieval Latin," which appeared in Classical Journal in 1975. Although her name does not appear on the title pages of her husband's books, her learning and good sense appear on almost every page of them. She is survived by her husband, Richard; by her aunt, Marion Spear; and by her cousins, Kathryn Spear Lacey, Robert Spear, and Stephen Spear. A memorial will be held Tuesday, November 13, 2007, 5 p.m., in the Hacienda Room of the UCLA Faculty Center, 480 Charles E. Young Drive, East.

I can't begin to describe how much Carol affected my life, as friend, mentor and role model. She taught me more about editing and scholarly ethics than anyone, just by watching how she worked. This is a sample of the kind of thoughtful, intelligent, and solid scholarship she routinely produced, with care and joy.

In paradisum deducant te Angeli:
in tuo adventu suscipiant te Martyres, et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem.
Chrous Angelorum te suscipiant, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere aeternam habeas requiem.

Bridget Cleary, Sex, Death, Fairies and Other

This is the third in a series of posts about fairies as other. I promised, in my first post, to concentrate on fairies as other, particularly in the context of sex and death, because, as MacAllister Stone notes "other is all about sex and death." Last time I looked at the tragic death of Bridget Cleary, burned because her husband Michael thought Bridget was the victim of a fairy abduction. This time I want to look at the story of Bridget Cleary in the context of sex and death.

In Bridget Cleary we have a woman who is seen as other, an outsider in her community because of her differences, differences which are particularly marked for a woman in nineteenth century Ireland where an assertive, opinionated and financially independent woman without children is very much seen as an anomaly. In the March 29, 1895 Cork Examiner special report on her death, the reporter, having interviewed locals, describes Bridget as

"a bit queer" in her ways, and this they attribute to a certain superiority over the people with whom she came into contact . . . Her attire . . . is not that of every woman in the same social plane (Bourke 2000, 43).

Bridget was perceived as an outsider, "a bit queer," even by another outsider.

The attention paid to Bridget Cleary's clothing and body in the descriptions of her "cure," in the careful details about the extent of her clothing in the court testimony (presumably, as Bourke suggests, to remove any thought of sexual impropriety) underscore the sexual subtext of the situations. Bourke observes that despite the "prudery" in the eye witness accounts

the violence meted out to Bridget Cleary before her death has an unmistakeably sexual character. On Thursday, when he used a metal spoon, and again, on Friday, when his weapon was a burning stump of wood, Michael Cleary's actions amounted to a kind of oral rape. On both occasions Bridget Cleary was pinned down and prevented from struggling free, while a substance was forced into her body. . . . [the inquest revealed signs of injury to her mouth and throat] The violence used in holding Bridget down was certainly not sufficient to kill her, but its scale and ferocity would have been enough to terrify her, and to show her and anyone watching just who was master (Bourke 2000, 120).

Michael Cleary may very well have felt he needed to assert himself, not only against the uncanny malice of fairies, but as a man with an assertive, financially independent wife, a wife who may well have had a lover. Most of all, he may have felt it was imperative to assert himself given community pressure regarding his relationship with a wife who had not born him any children, which would have been very much seen as a failing by the community. One reason Bridget was taken by the fairies might have been her childless state; the unvoiced assumption being that since she had no children, that there was some sort of sexual failure, a situation that wasn't helped in the least by the fact that Michael was nine years older than Bridget and that they spent most of the first few years of their marriage apart except on weekends (Burke 2000, 96).

The standard academic way to refer to fairies taking mortal women is to call it fairy abduction, or, more commonly, fairy rape, particularly in medieval texts. Corinne Saunders, writing about Middle English romances that involve fairy abductions and rapes points out that "What is most striking in all these works is the association of the otherwold with sexual violence or desire for possession of the woman's body" (Saunders, Corinne J. Rape and Ravishment in the Literature of Medieval England. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2001. 233).

Both Bridget Cleary and Heurodis are perceived as victims of a fairy rape.The fairy king threatens to tear Heurodis limb from limb if she doesn't come willingly, and tells her that she'll be taken to the otherworld even if they take her in pieces. Bridget is mistreated physically, dosed with "cures," verbally abused, then doused with human urine before being burned. The overt physicality of the way Bridget Cleary was treated, the man-handling of her, is an inversion of the customary fairy threat to a mortal victim; with Bridget Cleary, we see mortals abusing what they think is a fairy changeling, though she is a mortal woman—her sex is a huge part of the reason she is treated his way.

Women who are assertive, and independent, who dress better than their peers, women who are financially independent, women who have no children, forthputting women who approach men, fairy mistresses and otherworld women like Rhiannon, these are other. They are potentially dangerous to the community, because they disrupt the natural order, or the perceived natural order. These women who like Heurodis are in the right place and the right time, and who, like Bridget, go to the forbidden liminal areas, are just as disruptive as the ostensible external agency, the fairies, who take them. It's bad enough to have a child or lover taken by the otherworld, but what's worse for those left behind are the mortals who go off with their fairy wooer, quite happily, and the abducted mortal women who choose to stay in the otherworld, rather than return to their mortal husband and children.

Bridget Cleary was perceived as dangerous and engaging in risky behavior; Michael Cleary objected to her going to the rath, and did all he could to "bring her back." Underlying his frantic, desperate efforts, almost certainly, was the fear that Bridget might not want to come back. In court testimony from Johanna Burke, Bridget is said to have told her husband, shortly before he set her on fire, "Your mother used to go with the fairies, and that is why you think I am going with them." Michael Cleary asked Bridget, "Did my mother tell you that?" She said, "She did; that she gave two nights with them" (Folklore 1895, 375). There's a very definite sexual connotation to "she gave two nights with them," particularly given the numerous references to fairies taking mortal lovers in medieval literature and folklore.

Otherworld folk are not shy about making sexual conquests. Rhiannon is very much seeking Pwyll as her spouse when she comes to the gorsedd in the first branch of the Welsh Mabinogi, Pwyll Pendeuvic Dyfed. The fairy queen in Thomas of Erceldoune is more than willing to take Thomas as her lover, keeping him mute but with her in the otherworld for seven years, before returning him to the tree where she found him, saving him from becoming a human sacrifice. She leaves him with an unwelcome gift, the ability to prophesy, thus converting him from dangerous other, to magical other with a redemptive gift for the community.

In Sir Orfeo, Heurodis returns from the fairy otherworld because Orfeo rescues her, and both return to Orfeo's kingdom. At the end we are told Orfeo leaves the kingdom to his faithful steward since Heurodis has no children and Orfeo has no heir. We rarely hear or read of otherworld folk having progeny, and when we do hear about fairy offspring, say the child of the Grey Selchie, the offspring are the result of liasons between mortals and fairies, or other otherworld residents, and the children usually come to a bad end. Pwyll's otherworld bride Rhiannon is scorned by Pwyll's people because she is childless. Later, when Rhiannon has a child, the child mysteriously disappears. Rhiannon is typical in being less than fecund; otherworld folk are seemingly sterile, and, perhaps consequently, obsessed with taking fertile mortal women, and young children. Just as with other Others, say Gypsies, or whatever a given community's racial/ethnic minority is, or queers, in stories about fairies and otherworld intruders it's a case of "They want our women, and our children, and our women want sex/more sex/better sex, and so they voluntarily go with these Others, and leave us, and sometimes, they refuse to come back."

I think that fear--the fear that Bridget wants to be with the fairies, with the other, is what's underlying the Bridget Cleary horror. It's interesting to note, as Bourke does, that in the spring of 1895 that the Irish papers, and some of the English papers too, were carrying stories about the "witch burning" in Clonmel, Oscar Wilde was on trial for sodomy. It's also the date of the first attested use of "fairy" to mean queer. Both the OED and the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang cite the following reference from the American Journall of Psychology as the first use of fairy to mean queer, or as the OED has it " A male homosexual":

"The Fairies of New York" are said to be a similar secret organization. The avocations which inverts follow are frequently feminine in their nature. They are fond of the actor's life, and particularly that of the comedian, requiring the dressing in female attaire, and the singing in imitation of the female voice, in which they often excel" American Journal of Psychology VIII (1895): 216.

I've been looking at the connection between fairy and queer for a long time, and I think there are a couple of reasons for fairy being used to mean queer. First, I think it works because there's an association between fairies and an absence of progeny despite their overt eroticism, and the assumption, for many, that being queer has to do only with sex, that it's all about sex, and that it's sex without fear of progeny, just like real fairies.

Next time, I'm going to look again at medieval fairies as ways of dealing with other, and sex, and death.

Here are some references to match my citations.

• "The 'Witch-Burning' at Clonmel." Folklore. Vol. 6, No. 4. (Dec., 1895): 373-384. JStor link.. This is an anonymous article that reprints the newspaper coverage of the court testimony.
• Thomas of Erceldoune. Scroll down to the Appendix for the text as printed by Francis Child, as part of the versions of Child Ballad 57 "Thomsas the Rhymer." You can find Murray's 1875 edition of the romance here.
• Ford, Patrick K. trans. The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977.
• Bourke. Angela. The Burning of Bridget Cleary. New York: Viking Penguin, 2000. This really is the best study; there's another slightly more recent book that's vastly inferior.
• Saunders, Corinne J. Rape and Ravishment in the Literature of Medieval England. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2001.
• Sir Orfeo with text and ms. page images from the Auchinleck ms.
• Anne Leskaya and Eve Sedgewick's annotated Middle English edition of Sir Orfeo.
• A .pdf of a lightly modernized Sir Orfeo from the Norton Anthology of English Literature