CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE

BARDIC PARALLELS IN JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE'S

THE TINKER'S WEDDING

A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in

English

by

Kathy Keely Blundo

August, 1988 The Thesis of Kathy Keely Blundo is approved:

Dr. Richard Lid

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE

ii DEDICATION

To PAUL - the love of my life whose support and encouragement made this thesis possible.

and

To NINA and MIKEY - two of the most wonderful, loving kittens in the world. They died suddenly of distemper after their love carried me through the final stages of this thesis. There will always be an empty place in my heart for them.

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE Page 1. Introduction 1 2. The Goddess Culture 4 3. The Conquest of the Goddess Culture 12 4. The Druid Priests 15 5. From Cultural Blend to Patriarchal Domination 18 6. The Druids in Ireland 29 7. Synge's Bardic Education 45

CHAPTER TWO - THE TINKER'S WEDDING 1. Background Information 52 2. The Author's Preface 54 3. Plot 56 4. Characterization 59 a. Sarah 59 b. Mary 63 c. The Priest 66 d. Michael 68 e. Jaunting Jim 69

5. Act I 70

6. Act II 98 7. Notes 117 8. Bibliography 131

iv Q •

ABSTRACT BARDIC PARALLELS IN JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE'S THE TINKER'S WEDDING by Kathy Keely Blundo Master of Arts in English

This thesis attempts to prove that Synge's plays contain a rich assortment of prehistoric references. The first chapter provides background information by explain­ ing a variety of ancient cultures; the second chapter focuses on a thorough examination of these references in The Tinker's Wedding. The background information includes a brief synopsis of the goddess culture and its subsequent conquest by patriarchal cultures. Initially, the goddess culture blended peacably with its inferior conquerors, the druidic Aryans, and their unity furthered the progress of humanity. As time passed, however, these patriarchal

v p •

cultures evolved into the Judaic and Christian cultures we embrace today. They, in turn, obliterated the goddess culture. Synge was one of the most assiduous conservationists of the Irish Renaissance that ushered in the twentieth century. His studies in Celtic history and comparative mythology led him to the realization that the peasants of western Ireland had retained prehistoric archetypes in their culture. The oral tradition inspired by ancient druidic bards had preserved tales with parallels in ancient Indo-European literature. Synge strove to preserve the existence and vitality of these ancient archetypes by incorporating them into his plays. The Tinker's Wedding serves as an excellent example of Synge's preservation of antiquity. It is enacted in a timeless setting of tinkers who have remained the same since the Bronze Age. Through their conflict with a priest, the tinkers re-enact the ancient struggle between

a pagan blend of goddess and druidic cu~tures and the patriarchal Christian culture that eventually overcame it.

vi CHAPTER ONE

Introduction John Millington Synge's love for the Irish peasantry was unparalleled. His great fear was that its culture was fading and all traces of an early oral tradition were dying with it. The vibrant wisdom and beauty he found in peasant literature was sorely lacking in his repressed Victorian environment. He would often escape to rural retreats where he found the peasants' ancient tales as fascinating as the ancient ruins that surrounded them. In 1870, the year before Synge was born, Nietzsche summed up this Victorian malaise that later troubled Synge. He isolated it as a malaise over the death of the mythopoeic imagination in a rational age. Man today, stripped of myth, stands famished among all his pasts and must dig frantically for roots, be it among the most remote antiquities. What does our great historical hunger signify, our clutching about us of countless other cultures, our consuming desire for knowledge, if not the loss of myth, of a mythic home, the mythic womb? 1 Placed in a framework of extended metaphors, mythology had explained the foundations of social behavior through an elemental instruction in universal truths. Myths included archetypal symbols that taught social values and insights. When the scientific age began debunking myths and religions, artists such as Synge reached back into the

1 distant past to retrieve that elusive essence found in the ancient archetypes. Synge discovered a treasure trove of the ancient religions and mythologies that became archetypes in the stories recited by local bards. In an effort to preserve them in as natural a form as possible, he chose the literary vehicle of drama -- the perfect blend of oral and literary genres. He knew intuitively that the ancient lore of the bards contained a history of man's cultural evolution from animism, magic and promiscuity to monotheism and monogamy. As a modern day bard and an avid promoter of the Irish Renaissance; he strove to insure that such valuable historical data was preserved. The ancient references in Synge's plays, however, are not limited to bardic literary references, although those abound. There are also references to unrecorded goddess cultures who lived in Ireland in prehistory. The numerous invasions that followed these early settlements usually stopped short of the rocky hills and barren islands of western Ireland. There was little to be gained from conquering them. Untouched by the world, the peasants were able to maintain their primitive beliefs until the twentieth century. The bards had preserved not only vestiges of the earliest forms of worship, social­ ization and communication, but the human intensity that

2 had been lost through excessive cultivation. Chapter One will provide the reader with a frame of reference with which to analyze the archetypes Synge rep- resents in his plays. In order to demonstrate the numerous layers of religion embedded in peasant life and, subsequently, Synge's plays, this chapter will include an explanation of the goddess and druidic cultures that spawned the bards. It will also include highlights of Irish prehistory and a brief insight into Synge's bardic influences that will enrich the reader's appreciation of the play. The second chapter will provide an in-depth analysis of the numerous prehistoric and bardic allusions in The Tinker's Wedding. This play was chosen over Synge's other plays because it is relatively unstudied, and deserves far greater recognition than it has received. This analysis will provide evidence of the cultural layers compacted into this play by a playwright who was an authentic cultural conservationist of the Irish Renaissance.

3 THE GODDESS CULTURE

The oldest artifacts of the goddess culture found to date have been traced to the Aurignacian culture. Named after a French cave region, this culture spread from Palestine to France, and entered England around 30,000 B.C. The paleolithic paintings on the cave walls in Altamira, Spain and Arege in the French Pyrenees date from at least 20,000 B.C. The Altamiran paintings are the work of the Aurignacian people who have also left records of their rituals ... in Southern Rhodesia. At Domboshowa a Bushman painting ... shows the death of a king who wears an antelope mask and is tightly corseted; as he dies, with arms outflung and one knee upraised, he ejaculates and his seed seems to form a heap of corn. An old priestess lying naked beside a cauldron is either mimick­ ing his agony, or perhaps inducing it by sympathetic magic. Close by, young priest­ esses dance beside a stream, surrounded by clouds of fruit and heaped baskets ... and a huge bison bull is pacified by a priestess accompanied by an erect python. 2 This is the earliest proof we have of a well-developed fertility cult. It represents an ancient goddess religion in which both stag and bull were sacred to the Great Goddess. By the time the Bronze Age came around, this religion had spread throughout Crete, Greece, and Ireland. There is another Aurignacian cave painting in Cogul,

Spa~n that depicts the Dionysian sect of the goddess culture.

4 ' '

A young Dionysus with huge genitals stands unarmed, alone and exhausted in the middle of a crescent of nine dancing women who face him. He is naked, except for ... boots; they are fully clothed and wear small cone­ shaped hats. These wild women ..• grow progressively older as one looks clock-wise around the cres­ cent ... In between are three vigor­ ous golden-haired women ... (who) clearly represent the New Moon, Old Moon and Full Moon triads.... 3

The Triple Goddess represented the underworld, the earth and the sky. These three categories were often expanded into nine to accomodate all the roles assigned to the Goddess. As Goddess of the Underworld she was concerned with Birth, Procre­ ation and Death... As goddess of the Earth, she was concerned with the three seasonsof Spring, Sum­ mer and Winter; she animated trees and plants and ruled all living creatures. As Goddess of the Sky she was the Moon in her three phases of New Moon, Full Moon and Waning Moon. 4 This Triple Goddess was a personification of primitive 5 woman as creatress and destructress. Numerous cave walls and tombs of the Paleolithic period demonstrate that woman's sexuality was a major preoccupation. "We mainly find hunting scenes and female representations, such as the Venus of Lespugue or the

Venu~ of Willendorff, statuettes with greatly exaggerated 6 sexual characteristics." Markale notes that "woman was a

5 (~ .

a magical creature, in touch with the divinities and uniquely indispensable for the survival of the species ... 7 But fertility was not associated with sexuality." The next group to make themselves known to archae- ologists were the Gravettians, hunters who had populated an area ranging from South Russia to Spain. By the period of the Gravettian Tradition, 22,000- 18,000 B.C., man had begun to exhibit some of the rudiments of civilization, starting with burial and the ceremonies that evo 1 ved around it. The Gravettian ceremonies included full dress, ornaments and a sprinkling of red ochre. This may be the earliest indication we have of ancestor worship. Organically speaking, man was still an animal during the Gravettian age. Housing was still quite primitive: caves, tents, and semi-subterranean houses were his shelters. However, this was the age when man developed religion, law/government, kinship systems and art. Archaeologists have found numerous niches carved in the walls of Gravettian caves to hold pregnant statuettes, so goddess worship was widespread.

Numerous groups of people migrate~ toward Europe during the Stone Age. From one of these groups, the Magl-emoseans, the druidic culture gradually formed. The last group of Mesolithic or

6 Middle Stone Age arrivals into England were 'forest folk' called Maglemoseans. They introduced 'heavy industry' in the form of manufacture of stone and bone tools for use in carpentry and hunting. 8 Evidence that the goddess culture continued through the centuries was found in an archaeological dig in Turkey. Forty goddess shrines were unearthed dating back to 6500 B.C . ... The female figurines were idols of a 'great mother' cult, practised by the non-nomadic Aurignacian mam­ moth hunters who inhabited the im­ mense Eurasian territories that extended from Southern France to Lake Baikal in Siberia. 9 Thus goddess worship had endured from the days of cave men to the days of settled farming communities. In light of its profound impact on man's development, a brief description of this culture .is pertinent. In his simplistic state, man never connected coitus with childbirth, so it appeared to him that women were the sole providers of life. Children belonged to their mothers only, and this led to matrilineal, matrilocal and matriarchal social social structures. Property, wealth and authority passed from mother to daughter to grandaughter. This theory expanded when women developed horticulture, a more reliable source of sustenance than hunt-ing. As the religion developed, sexual love became a form

7 of worship, thus there were few sexual restrictions. Some women were polyandrous. Others chose never to marry; instead, they raised their children in the outer

courtyards of the temple. These holy women helped male worshipers honor the goddess by sleeping with them. Often from wealthy, prestigious families, those holy women who decided to marry retained the right not only to divorce their husbands, but to return to the temple for periods of 10 time while they were still married.

The matriarchal social structure placed women in control of not only the temple but all aspects of society. They were rulers, judges, warriors (herein lies the source of the Amazon myth), businesswomen and prophetesses. Their men were sent home to weave. Each city developed its own personalized goddess so there appears to be a whole host of them, but they all adhered to the same precepts and rituals. After ruling alone for millenium, the goddesses acquired sons or brothers who served as consorts and thus 11 inspired men to "pay woman spiritual and sexual homage."

The main "theme" for the vast array of related goddess cultures stemmed from the nature worship of an ancient vegetative cult. Early people prayed each winter for -the return of Spring. They fe 1 t they needed to exchange human life for the vegetative life of Spring.

8 The Theme, briefly, is ... the birth, life, death and resurrec­ tion of the God of the Waxing Year; [it] concern[s] the God's losing battle with the God of the Waning Year for love of the capri­ cious and all-powerful Threefold Goddess, their mother, bride and layer-out ... Her names and titles are innumerable. 12 It was a great honor and privilege to be chosen as a

consort, for the reward was to be treated royally for a

year. However, at the end of this year, the consort was

sacrificed immediately after uniting with the goddess in a

sacred sexual union. This sacrifice ensured the return 13 of spring. The names of the goddess and her son varied. He was

known as Damuzi, Tammuz, Attis, Adonis, 9siris or Baal. He died in his youth, and each year the worshipers of the goddess mourned the death of her lover. As time progressed, his life was spared, but he was forced to undergo a ritual castration. Those who worshiped Attis tied his representative to a tree and castrated him. He would then rush down the street and fling his severed member at a home, and those residents had to provide him with w~men's clothing. This predilection toward androgyny was part of the worshipers' desire to resolve the male-female conflict within everyone and reach greater wholeness. This

9 struggle for wholeness was symbolized by the number seven, a number frequently found in goddess literature. It also appears in druidic religious rites, in mythology and, ultimately, in Synge's writing. There is an interesting connection between the number seven and the moon and a woman's menstrual cycle as well which can be traced in Sumerian literature. The snake played a pivotal role in this religion since snake imagery is found throughout goddess art and literature. Some have theorized that it represents a reverence for Loch Ness monsters who survived the Ice Age while others consider it simply a phallic symbol. The art motif often pictures two snakes twisted together mating, another sign of fertility. Since snakes slough off their old skin, they symbolize rebirth, an important symbol in early vegetative cults who prayed for the return of spring. There are also numerous references connecting

snakes ~o wizardry. The priestess of a goddess temple kept sacred snakes at her temple and allowed them to b~te her. She gradually built up a resistance to the snake venom until a bite caused visions only, without the physical side effects. A present-day snakehandler has verified this hallucinogenic effect. American Indians believed the snake-bite victim would gain "great wisdom and insight

10 into the workings of the universe and the ~eaning of all 15 things."

11 (l •

THE CONQUEST OF THE GODDESS CULTURE

The invention of the wheel in 5,000 B.C. and the development of writing in 3,000 B.C. took place in goddess-worshiping communities. There was one invention, however, that proved detrimental to them. Bronze was discovered by the Aryans. The Aryans are a hypothetical tribe descended from the Maglemoseans who migrated from Russia and the Cauca­ sus region through Iran to Mesopotamia and Canaan. They are considered the prototype of a large variety of cultures who speak an Indo-European dialect. Bronze weaponry blazed a path to Iran where iron had theoretically been discovered. The Aryans' new iron swords and shields quickened the defeat of the various goddess cultures in their path. They revolutionized the art of war with their horse-drawn war chariots and slowly established a new warrior aristocracy across the land. As the Aryans migrated, they instituted patriarchies by rearranging the politics, religion and family life of the people they conquered. The myths of both the goddess and the Aryan cultures reflect the suppression of goddess worship. It is probable that many of these myths were written by priests of the invading tribes. To justify installing a king, they connected him to a male deity who created everything. He was most often portrayed as a

12 storm god, high up on a mountaintop or volcano, blazing with the fire of 1 ightning. They introduced these patriarchal gods through the druidic priests who were eventually found in most ancient cultures.·

Sometimes the goddess cultures were completely transformed, sometimes they created a positive blend, and sometimes the goddess culture just took on a different appearance.

Whatever triggered it, the quest for knowledge or for land, Indo-Europeans swooped down on the goddess cultures for centuries, massacring them and forcing them to become patriarchal by marrying into the families of their leaders and their priestesses. Gradually, they changed the laws and the myths to reflect the conquest over matriarchy. Women lost all their rights and men transferred their wealth and their leadership through their sons, patriline­ ally. As a superior culture, the goddess worshipers were able to adapt and blend by sharing their advanced know­ ledge with their conquerors. The Aryans became more civil­ ized and grew to revere many of the cultures they had conquered. What happened historically explains the correlation in religion and myth between Hebrew, British and Greek cul~ures. The similarity in their early myths is a common ancestry - all three races were civilized by the

13 16 same defeated Aegean people.

The key ploy in the patriarchal takeover was the institution of monogamous, patriarchal marriage.

The revolutionary institution of fatherhood, imported into Europe from the East, brought with it the institution of individual marriage. Hitherto there had been only group marriages ... every child's maternity was certain, but its paternity de­ batable and irrelevant. Once the revolution had occurred, the social status of woman altered: man took over many of the sacred practices from which his sex had debarred him, and finally declared himself head of the household, though much property still passed from mother to daughter. 17

14 THE DRUID PRIESTS

The druid priests were members of a stratified, aristocratic caste. They prayed to a supreme father god and sometimes a young warrior god. Their religious ceremonies were held in groves of their revered oak trees. The Aryans assumed that the sacred fire-churn or chark was also used to kindle the fires of heaven. The chark was called a pramantha, and from this word came the legend of Prometheus, the Titan who stole fire from

heaven. Sacred wood was used to make the chark: laurel or thorn for the stick, and ivy or fig for the perforated block. These fire worshipers created a sun deity to whom they offered sacrifices in huge bonfires.

Cromm Cruaich was a cruel, hungry god who demanded life for life. As his power waned at summer's end, the strength of the gods of winter, darkness and the under- world increased. To offset their conquest, the druids sacrificed human victims on Halloween (Samhain). "Milk and and corn they would ask from him in return for one-third of their healthy issue," states a line in a poem to Cromm Cruaich. The Spartan custom of killing off weak offspring may have originated from these druids who sacrificed their children as well as their war captives in huge bonfires.

-The goddess culture shared more than their knowledge of the stars and natural healing. They taught the Druids

15 to count by nights (hence the term fortnight) and measure time with the moon. The roles of the various grades in the druid caste changed. The vates or manteis found omens in the entrails of wrens rather than humans. Druids found cuckoos and other birds sacred as well. Instead of warriors priests fighting with nature to survive, they became known for their love of nature and the wisdom nature provided. The fili branch were seers and wise men. They were the repositories of all oral traditions -- myth, genealo- gy, history, secret language and prosody. The ollave .. had to be master of one hundred fifty oghams, or verbal ciphers ... [he had to] be able to repeat at a moment's notice any one of three hundred fifty long tradi­ tional histories and romances, to­ gether with the incidental poems they contained, with appropriate harp accompaniment; to have memorized other poems of different sorts; to be learned in philosophy; to be a doctor of civil law; to understand the his­ tory ... to be skilled in music, augury, divination, medicine, mathematics, geo­ graphy, universal history, astronomy, rhetoric and foreign languages; and to be able to extemporize poetry in fifty or more complicated metres. 18

The branch known as the Brehon lawyers devised and maintained druidic law; the fili served as their jurists. The bards ranked 1 owest in the druidic hierarchy of priests. They were the storytellers and musicians who

16 recited th~ ancient tales and thus preseived their oral tradition. The commoners relied on the various branches of the druidic priesthood for their entire oral education in history, culture, law, medicine, etc. Each king ruled his clan according to the advice given by his personal druid. For instance, he would never go to battle unless his druid had determined that the day was right for it. Druids could ban an individual or a tribe from attending the sacrifice ritual simply for not accepting druidic rulings. The offenders. were religious outcasts - a terrible fate in their day. The land-owning nobility ranked just below the king in this patriarchal aristocracy. Just below them came the aes dana, or men of art. These were the expert craftsmen: poets and musicians, lawyers and genealogists, and even blacksmiths and bronzeworkers. Last came the freeman commoners.

17 FROM CULTURAL BLEND TO PATRIARCHAL DOMINATION

When man developed trade routes, the different cultures around the world discovered one another. At first there appears to have been a positive blending that led to highly advanced civilizations. In 1900 B.C., a mysterious sun-worshiping tribe began building Stonehenge, a religious structure of enormous size built from an astronomically precise architectural blueprint. The 35 0 burial mounds that surround Stonehenge all appear to be the tombs of women, evidence that the goddess culture had blended so well with the Aryan culture that women were given preferred burial sites. Both Diodorus and Pliny recorded that it was women who possessed this incredible knowledge of astronomy. The history of Sumer (southern Iraq) is a good example of how the Aryan and goddess cultures blended. Some consider Sumer to be the cradle of civilization since it was here that writing was invented and the first cities were built.

In the fourth millenium B.C., the Su~erians arrived in Sumer after a brief stay in Iran . ... their arrival led to an extra­ ordinary ethnic and cultural fusion with the native population that brought about a major creative spurt for the history of civilization. 19

18 (l •

This exemplifies the positive results of this blend of Aryan and goddess cultures.

In 1900 6 archaeologists unearthed clay tablets in Sumer and eventually their inscriptions were published. Unfortunately, they were fragmentary to the point of being unintelligible, so it was not until 1963, in its fourth revision, that a near complete version of the Cyc!e of Inanna could be published. Inanna ... by her epithet Queen of Heaven and Earth, subsumed the many local cults to the goddess and combined the earlier, more peaceful Fertility Goddess with the attribut~s of the more direct­ ing and directive Goddess of Love. 20 The long struggle for cultural dominance can be seen in the changing aspect of Dumuzi, Inanna's consort. The Sumerian Dumuzi, who comes from the agricultural, more traditional area of southern Sumer, Eridu, which emphasized order (the me), is charac­ terized as the force in the grain and as the priestly lover and attendant of the Fertility Goddess, Inanna. The Akkadian Dumuzi, coming from the northern nomadic peoples who emphasized the arbitrary will and power of the gods, is characterized as the shepherd, the astral heavenly bull, and the king who has 'godlike ' powers. 21 The Huluppu Tree, the first story, introduces the cycle's hypnotically repetitious style. In this tale, Enki, who is the water god and the god of wisdom, journeys to confront the queen of the underworld. In this version of

19 genesis, the gods take what they want and· the goddess is assigned the underworld. This storyline strongly sug- gests Aryan plunder and goddess culture subjugation. When the Sky God, An, carried off the heavens, And the Air God, Enlil, had carried off the earth, When the Queen of the Great Below, Ereshkigal, was given the underworld for her domain. 22 It appears that An and Enlil carried it off from Ereshkigal, who is the dark side of the Triple Goddess. The sky god, An, may have once been the goddess named Ana who was also known as the Moon Goddess Minerva. The goddess Ana later found her way to Ireland. When Enki, the son of An, confronts Ereshkigal, a great storm arises. Hailstones strike hi~ and the sea is compared to wolves and lions. As a result of this confrontation, a tree is planted next to the Euphrates. The tree is the perfect archetype - the source of 1 ife that draws on all the elements. It can be found in almost all religions. Trees also represent letters. Each religion had a secret name that was written in "trees". If a name was discovered, that religion was superseded. This reverence for sacred words filtered into the develop- ment of druidic .lore. The tribes of Amathaon and Gwydion in the Cad Godeu encounter were as intent on keeping the secret name of their own deity as on discovering

20 that of their opponents. 23

The animistic South Wind ripped the tree out and it floated down the Euphrates until Inanna plucked it and planted it in her garden. I nann a is the primary goddess in the Sumerian pantheon. Known as the Morning and Evening Star, she symbolizes the healing aspect of blending rather than warring. After a few years, three creatures that represent In anna's dark side, started inhabiting the tree: the serpent, the Anzu bird and Lilith. Tree roots are often pictured as snakes because they provide a "fertile" under- ground source for the tree's sustenance. The snake also represents the power of the underworld since it is under- ground and it cannot be charmed, thus making it immune to laws. The Anzu bird has the wings of an eagle and the head of a lion, a throwback to the early combined creatures man saw in the clouds. It craves power and knowledge. Lilith, however, is most representative of a goddess culture that continued to fight for survival. In Hebrew legend, (Lilith) was the first bride of Adam; but, insisting on her own equality, she refused to copulate with him, for she did not want to be underneath him. She fled from Adam and remained forever out­ side human relationship or regulation, possessed by an avid, insatiable sexu­ ality. She was cursed by the daily death of a hundred of her demon chil-

21 dren, for which she takes continual revenge by stealing, injuring, or killing human infants. 24

The patriarchal takeover caused former goddesses to sink to the level of demons and bogeys. Graves defines this deliberate misrepresentation as "iconotropy". The meaning of the icons is converted to create a "profound change in the existent religious system - usually a change from matriarchal to patriarchal. .. " Like the Semitic Akkadians, the Semitic Levites considered women the enemy culture, and their attitude was clearly aggressive. The Levite laws of the Israelites from the time of Moses onward, de­ manded virginity until marriage for all women, upon threat of death by stoning or burning, and, once married, total fidelity, only upon the part of the wife, also upon threat of death. Perhaps the pen­ alty of death for a married or be­ trothed woman who had been raped most clearly exhibits the Levite insistence upon knowledge of paternity. 26 Autonomous sexuality in women must have been extremely threatening to the Levites, for they made infidelity analagous to betrayal of Yahweh - it was the ultimate sin. If a man find a damsel that is a virgin which is not betrothed and 1 ay ho 1 d on her and they be found, then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver and she shall be his wife. 27

22 ·. This decision was not moral, it was patriarchal. The husband is god-like and the wife is property. Apparently, it was acceptable to lay free claim to this property, for the violent rape of a virgin was honored as a declaration of ownership and brought about a forced marriage. In The Cycle of Inanna, Inanna' s paternal grandmothers were both raped, so this fit in with the patriarchal takeover plan. If a husband suddenly found his wife unappealing he could divorce her for being "unclean." Without her vir- ginity, she was unmarriageable; and without any legal rights to her husband's assets, she was reduced to beggary. The fear of such a plight relegated many Hebrew wives to lives of subjugation. Often they would have to be members of a group of wives all serving the same authoritarian husband and calling him by the Hebrew word for Lord. Hebrew hi&tory reflects many instances of returning to the goddess. King Solomon almost lost his kingdom and Queen Maacah was dethroned, both for worshiping Ashtoreth, the Queen of Heaven. Ashtoreth was another name for the goddess. Solomon's famous harem of seven hundred may have been a politically motivated system of gaining control of the land by marrying the heiresses. Still the goddess religion lingered.

23 Many Bible passages report that idols of the female deity, referred to as 'asherah', were to be found on every high hill, under every green tree and alongside altars in the temples. They were a symbol identified with the worship of the Goddess as Asherah and may have been a pole or a living tree, per­ haps carved as a statue. 28 The Levites were so threatened by woman's reproductive power that they reversed basic biological laws when they wrote Genesis. They chose to depict a woman being brought forth by a man, from a most insignif- icant bone - the rib. This patriarchal proclivity can be found in the legends of Athene springing from Zeus' head and Dionysus springing from his hip. When Eve gave Adam the apple, it represented the Goddess giving the apple of immortality to Dionysus, who was commemorated as the kid stuffed with apples. Hercules, who combined Dionysus and Apollo in a single person, was also connected with apples. Hercules ... was called Melon because apples were offered to him by his worshippers; and because he was given the bough with the golden apples by the Three Daughters of· the West -- the Triple Goddess again. 29 Aside from this association with the son of the Goddess, the cross-section of an apple also symbolized goddess reverence.

For if an apple is halved cross­ wise each half shows a five-pointed

24 star in the centre, emblem of immor­ tality, which represents the Goddess in her five stations from birth to death and back to birth again. It also represents the planet Venus -­ Venus to whom the apple was sacred -- adored as Hesper the evening star on one ha 1 f of the app 1 e, and as Lucifer, Son of the Morning, on the other. 30

The apple is considered a symbol of consummation in

European folklore. Thus, the fruit in the Genesis story

was understood as an apple in Europe despite the fig leaf 31 context.

Once they ate the fruit, Adam and Eve grew ashamed of

their nakedness. Eve's punishment was the pain of childbirth and the knowledge that her poor judgment had

led to the suffering of all men and women. Thus, from the very outset, the bible cast woman in the role of

evil seductress.

It cast her as the cunning and contriving arouser of the phys- ical desires of men, she who offers the appealing but dangerous fruit. In the male religions, sexual drive was not to be regarded as the nat­ ural biological desires of women and men that encouraged the species to reproduce itself but was to be viewed as woman's fault. 32

The Levites taught their people to associate guilt and

shame with sexuality. By suppressing such a vital feature of the goddess religion, they ensured economic and political authority through controlled patrilineage.

25 The Indo-European counterpart to the Semitic Eve is Pandora, the woman created by Prometheus, who lets out of her box all the evils from which humanity suffers. 33 The goddess religion still persisted when Christian- ity began to spread from Rome, a city where Cybele, the Roman representative of the goddess, was still worshiped. The new Church chose to revise the familiar legend of the mother and dying son. Initially, Christianity was a gynaecocratic rebellion against patriarchy. Jesus was born to a virgin and descended from King David through his mother's line. It 34 was an effort to restore the mother to her true role. Robert Graves states in The White Goddess that what Frazier didn't say was that "almost the only original 35 element in Christianity is the personality of Jesus." The theme reasserted itself popu­ larly with the Virgin as the White Goddess, Jesus as the Waxing Sun, and the De vi 1 as the Waning Sun .... 3 6 Unfortunately, this rebellion was swiftly quelled. With the help of St. Paul and others, Christianity became just as patriarchal as the Judaic religion. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed and then Eve and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. 37

26 In time, Christianity conquered. The Emperor Constantine closed the ancient sanctuary of Ashtoreth at Ahpaca in 300 A.D. and suppressed goddess worship through- out Canaan. In 380 A.D., Emperor Theodosius closed down the temple of the goddess at Eleusis, the temples of the goddess in Rome, and the 'seventh wonder of the world,' the temple honoring Artemis in Anatolia. The Parthenon, a goddess shrine since 1300 B.C., was converted to a church in 450 A.D. Finally~ in that same century, Emperor Justinian converted the remaining temples of Isis into 38 churches. By suppressing the ideas of the divine mother ... man has upset the mechanics of instinct, which orig­ inally kept the balance. But in­ stinct is what is natural to us, and in denying it man opens the way to those mental disorders that af­ fect patriarchal societies. 39 Throughout this time, the Church continued to preach against women. Anatolia was the ancient name for Turkey, which was the center of goddess worship in the ancient world. When St. Peter preached the gospel there, he con- demned pagans for their 'lust of defiling passion.' He warned, 'Likewise ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands.' St. Clement denied women the pleasure of physical sports, relegating them strictly to spinning, weaving and cooking. St. John Chrysostom and St. Augustine, both of the fifth century, also belittled the

27 status of women, as did Martin Luther and John Calvin later on. In the days of Luther and Calvin, witch hunts represented a suppression of the goddess religion; this is clear from the sexual overtones in the accusations. It is written. A daughter is a vain treasure to her father. From anxiety about her he does not sleep at night; during her early years lest she be seduced, in her adolescence lest she go astray, in her marriageable years lest she does not find a husband, when she is married lest she be childiess, and when she is old lest she practice witchcraft. (The Talmud) 40 Thus, over the millenium, the stubborn goddess culture was routed out and the repressive, patriarchal culture gained absolute control. Although there were numerous rebellions against patriarchy besides that of the first Christians, they failed. The creation of Blodeuwedd [the Flower Daughter], Pandora and Lilith must surely be symbolic of the great upheaval that took place ... when the cult of the father replaced the cult of the mother goddess, and ... the civil­ ization of reason, which builds, organizes, divides, legislates and geometrises, replaced the civilisation of the instinct which is essentially feminine and based on feeling, emotion and sexuality. 41

28 THE DRUIDS IN IRELAND

As the Roman Empire spread over the whole Mediterranean and parts of Western Europe, they eliminated all socio-political threats to their system. The Druids had a system so dissimilar to the Romans that they became one of those threats that had to be eliminated.

The Druids represented an ab­ solute threat to the Roman State because their science and phil­ osophy dangerously contradicted Roman orthodoxy. The Romans were materialist, the Druids were spiritual ... The Romans looked upon women as bearers of children and objects of pleas­ ure, while the druids included women in their political and religious life .... 43

The Roman army gradually pushed the Druids into Gaul and then Britain.

When the Indo-European Ce 1 ts first migrated to western Europe, they were deeply influenced by the non- patriarchal ancient populations of Gaul, Britain and 44 Ireland. The resulting Celtic civilization was based on an equality between the sexes.

The women enjoyed privileges that would have made the Roman women of the same per­ iod green with envy. Here was a harmony between the roles of men and women that was not dependent on the superiority of one sex over the other, but on an equal­ ity in which both could feel comfortable. 45

29 Every religion in the world once honored the Goddess, and the Druid religion of the Celts was no exception. Their mythology contains traces of a mother goddess and

some religious practices reveal the worship of women. It would appear that this background and the influences of western Europeans may have aroused a mild renaissance of modified goddess worship. "Images of goddesses are to be found on the decorated monuments of the Roman period in 46 Gaul and Britain." Unfortunately, there is no written record as to whether the Celts returned to the worship of

an ancient Indo-European sun goddess, but she is "represented in iconography and inscriptions as the 47 goddess Sul honoured in Bath .... " This 1 ack of historical proof enhances the importance of Celtic myths and legends since they represent the original ideas of a culture. The myth of Tristan and Iseult is just one of a series of parallel Celtic tales in which the woman is the revered protagonist. This could represent a retention of goddess worship within the patriarchal structure of Celtic society .

... So Iseult, like Grainne and Deirdre, could well be the most recent face of the ancient sun goddess, whose image has been perpetrated within a totally male-oriented society. 48

.These myths also represent the rebellion of women

30 against the constraints of enforced patriarchal marriages. Iseult, Grainne and Deirdre all refused to live with the man they had been assigned; instead, they fought for the 49 lover of their choice. A similar Welsh tale with Pygmalion overtones carries the idea even further. A "perfect wife" is formed from flowers to represent the molding of women to a patriarcha 1 way of life. However, even this flower daughter runs away away with her lover. Celtic society blossomed in the third century B.C. At that time, Celts could be found throughout Europe. Unlike the Romans, however, their hold on their subjects was only tenuous; Celtic civilization began to decline the following century. Britain fell to the Romans in 51 A.D. Ten years later the Romans massacred Druids on the Isle of Mon (Anglesy). This atrocity fomented a Briton revolt "under the leadership of Boudicca (Boadicea), Queen 50 of the Iceni, but to no avail." This historical warrior queen validates the probable accuracy of the mythical warrior queens. The Celtic spirit found in these myths and legends may actually be a better source since myths "transcend reali~y and become the purest expression of a people's ideals." Since the Romans never conquered Ireland, the tribes who migrated there were never organized into a country.

31 At the beginning of the Chris­ tian era a rather astonishing ethnic mixture may be distin­ guished: prehistoric and mega­ lithic populations (the Fomors and the Tuatha de Danaan of mythology); Gaels, who still bore their generic name of Scots; and Gallic, British and Belgian tribes (Fir Gallicon, Fir Domnann and Fir Bolg) who settled there from the middle of the first century B.C. 52 According to Keatings' History of Ire_!and, a god named MacColl or MacCool (Son of Hazel) .was one of the

three earliest rulers of Ireland. The derivation of his name is significant. The hazel tree is well represented in tree lore, one of man's first forms of communication. The letter 'Coll' (hazel) was used as the Bardic numeral nine -- because nine is the number sacred to the Muses and because the hazel fruits after nine years. The hazel was the Bile Ratha,'the venerated tree of the rath' -- the rath in which the poetic Aes Sidhe lived. 53 The Aes Sidhe have come to be regarded as fairies, but they were once real people. They were a tribe of warriors and poets who lived in raths, or rounded, stockaded forts. A very fair-skinned people, the Sidhe were ruled by two virgin born kings and were sexually promiscuous. MacColl is.significant in Ireland's ancient religious community because he and his brothers joined with the existing matriarchal community by marrying the Triple

32 Goddess. This legend appears at first sight to record the overthrow of the matriarchal system by patriarchal invaders; but ... the invaders were doubtless Goddess worshipers themselves and merely transferred their filial allegiance to the Triple Goddess of the land. 54 MacColl may have been the new consort of the Triple Goddess. He competed with Diarmuid for her love, thus inspiring the legend of Diarmuid and Grainne. This tale has many ancient Mediterranean parallels. Set, the Egyptian Sun-god, dis­ guised as a boar, kills Osiris, the lover of the Goddess Isis. Apollo, the Greek Sun God, dis­ guised as a boar, kills Adonis ... the lover of the Goddess Aph­ rodite. Finn MacCool, disguised as a boar, kills Diarmuid, the · lover of the Irish Goddess Grainne. 55 Thus it appears that Ireland was the host to numerous goddess cultures that sought escape from the advancing Indo-Europeans. One of the most advanced of these groups was the Tuatha de Danaan. The Tuatha de Danaan invaded Ireland during the middle of the Bronze Age. Their name means "the folk of 56 the God whose mother is Danu." They were a confederacy of tribes whose kingship was passed on through matrilinear succession. According to the Book of Invasions, they were driven northward from Greece following a Syrian

33 0 •

invasion. They eventually reached Ireland by way of 57 Denmark, to which they left their name, and North Britain around 1400 B.C. The texts say they came from an island in the Northern world where they learned "science, magic, 58 Druidism, wisdom and art." Their legends are many and varied, but all extol the advanced skills of the de Danaan. The Fir Bolgs revered them after being conquered by them, and even the Milesians, their conquerors, thought of them as necromancers and built mythologies around them. The Milesians were a tribe of Gaels, or Celts, who lived in Gaul (Spain). Their ruler, Milesius, married Scota who had royal blood and was quite skilled in the arts of war, a characteristic of the goddess culture. She gave birth to many sons, both mighty warriors and wise druids. Graves, however, reports that there was more than one Scota. Scota ... is apparently Scotia ('The Dark One'), a well known Greek title of the Sea-goddess of Cyprus. The Milesians would naturally have brought the cult of the Sea-goddess and of her son Hercules with them to Ireland .... 59 This shows decided matriarchal roots in a culture most historians have labeled patriarchal. It also explains the Milesian glorificaton of the de Danaan goddess culture. When their land in Gaul grew barren during the first

34 ,, .

millenium B.C., the sons of Milesius set sail for Ireland. The wise de Danaan druids prophesied their arrival and created a magic fog in the shape of a pig which caused the Milesians to capsize offshore. All but three of the famous sons of Milesius perished in the disaster. Amergin, the poetic druid, survived, and p'rovided history with the earliest remnants of bardic writing. His famous "Song of Amergin" is our earliest example of Celtic writing. More advanced in metallurgy, the Milesians easily defeated the Fir Bolgs who were thereupon assimilated as serfs in Celtic fiefdoms. The Tuatha de Danaan, however, were superior in every way, including their respect for the complex druidic rituals of a war they were disinclined to wage. Anticipating defeat, Amergin's warrior brothers, Eber and Eremon, decided to conquer through deceit. They did not consult Amergin. As a peacemaking druid, he would have abhorred their approach. "One of the poet's main functions was to part combatants, and he himse 1 f took no 60 part in battle." Eber and Eremon attacked the unarmed de Danaan and massacred thousands of them. Soundly defeated, the Tuatha de Danaan took their magic to the hills and the Gaels

(Cel~s) ruled for the next thousand years.

35 The deeds of their ancestors were very important to the Celts, so the commoners sought out the fili, the members of the druidic caste who were the repositories of their communal lore. In ancient times, these fili were peripatetic. When pre-Christian Celtic Ireland was divided into perhaps 150 small fiefdoms, the fili would roam from one to the other with a band of followers. They commanded royal treatment from their hosts and generally 1 i ved an elevated lifestyle of teaching, writing.and performing various priestly functions.

To be eligible for one of the many druidic seminaries/bardic colleges that were erected throughout Ireland, the applicant had to be from a druidic family and be skilled in memorization and lyrical ability. Students who did not pass had to repeat a course until it was mastered. Depending on their powers of retention, they might attend school for as few as seven or as many as twenty years. Students would spend their school day listening to the teaching fili, recreate what they had learned in th early evening, and then retire to concen­ trate on memorizing that day's lesson. These long, dark nights of memorization plus occasional periods of monastic seclusion left many bards blind in later life. Celtic women were permitted to join this sacred brot~erhood. There is no proof that they were Druidesses,

36 but ther~ is evidence that they were sorceresses, prophetesses and priestesses. In earlier days, mysteriously powerful warrior women who were half witch and half Amazon instructed Celtic heroes like Cuchulain and Finn in the arts of war. They also acted as sexual initiators in a sacred form of prostitution. In the early Christian era, these holy women attended monasteries 61 and celebrated Mass. Some of the students were natural poets, but others were simply gifted in expression and adornment of the rudimentary legends they memorized, so there was a vast hierarchy of talent. To attain the barred cap and title of Ollamh, or teacher, they had to study for a minimum of twelve years. There are legends about women who attained this rank of ol1ave. Court bards were required to know 350 chief stories and 100 substories. Simple heralds, known as seanachies, were the lowest division of the bards. Rank meant little to the commoners. They were in awe of the entire druidic hierarchy, for the druids provided them with not only religion but history, law, current events and entertainment. He was, in fact, a professor of literature and a man of letters, highly trained in the use of a polished lit­ erary medium ... [and in] the history and tradition of

37 his country and his clan. He discharged ... the func­ tions of the modern jour­ nalist. He was not a song­ writer. He was often a public official, a chronicler, a political essayist, and a keen and satirical observer of his fellow countrymen. 62

Although they were havens of rigid academia, the bardic schools also retained a rebellious spirit within their walls. This led to an almost cocky penchant for satire, a trait that became a hallmark of the bards.

Everything about the schools -- their cult of secrecy, of tradition; their power to as­ suage to excite, to wound; their security, the rivalry between them -- all were of a nature to induce satire, ei­ ther bitter or humorous. 63

Much later, when laws were instituted to regulate bards, their wealth and power, even their use of hunger strikes, kept bardic scholars always a little above the law. Their rebellious spirit and gift for satire were absorbed by the commoners over the centuries until they became personality traits of the Irish that eventually surfaced in Synge's characters.

The Irish version of the Iliad is the Tain, or Cattle

Raid at Cool:_ey, one of the oldest and most famous tales of the Ulster cycle. This story has been connected to a well-established bull cult .

... by the time of the Ulster hero,

38 Cuchulain, the traditional date of whose death is 2 A.D., the royal bull cult was well established. His des­ tiny was bound up with that of a brown bull-calf, son of Queen Maeve's famous Brown Bull .... At the close of the war, the Brown Bull, Cuchulain's other self, kills his rival ... it then goes mad with pride, char­ ges a rock and dashes out its brains. It is succeeded by its calf, and Cu­ chulain dies. 64

The traditional goddess culture characters are all there: the competing consorts, one man and one animal, who die and are reborn as the Waxing and Waning Year. This bull cult in Ulster is comparable to the Leinster deer cult of the Finn 1 egends since the cow and bu 11 are the Medi ter- 65 ranean equivalents of the hind and the deer.

Caesar noted that the druids in Gaul went to Britain for post-graduate studies. His report is backed up in an Ulster cycle tale that describes a female fili capable of prophecy. The high position this woman held offers further proof of the lingering Celtic goddess culture.

So, immediately after Medb has set off for Cooley, she meets a female fili, or faith, who has just returned to Ireland after studying the crafts of the fili in Britain. She asks the woman to 'look' and to prophesy for her what will happen to the Connaught army. The woman duly 'looks', and reports that she sees red; that is to say, she consults her second sight and sees the army stained with blood. 66

- Since Rome never conquered Ireland, ancient paganism remained intact until St. Patrick changed the course

39 of Irish civilization in the fifth century. Setting an example for other missionaries, Patrick burned 180 druidic books in a bonfire. This brand of evangelism swept over Ireland and caused the devastatinglossof nearly all of

Ireland's native literature. Next to St. Patrick, who died in 461, the most famous

Irish prelate was St. Columcille, who died in 597. "Irish

Christianity had very unusual features, showing a Druidic 67 influence, epitomised in St. Columcille." Trained in

Gaelic poetry, Columcille pleaded the case of the fili at Drumceat.

One of the three issues in which his counsel prevailed was the reform of the learned order of Fili. The poets had become so extortionate that it was proposed to banish them from Ireland, but the saint secured the withdrawal of this threat .... 68 St. Columcille also devised a system of intense education for his monks that w~s reminiscent of the druidic seminaries. These highly educated Irish monks soon won fame throughout Europe for their advanced learning. Thus the druidic priesthood had blended its characteristic struggle to gain great wisdom into the Christian priesthood. Leaders of this cultural blend such as Columcille singlehandedly created the concept of a

Celtic Church.

40 The C~ltic Church was dismantled in the seventh century when Ireland's independence from Rome ended. The

Church would no longer tolerate Irish or classical heathendom. When the druids protested, they were defeated in the Battle of Moyrath in 637. As an outlawed religion, the ranks of druidism gradually compressed and dwindled until the bards took over the role of the. fili in the twelfth century. The popularity of the Ulster cycle waned and the Fenian cycle

became widely popular. The stag was the royal beast of the Fenians; they honored a hind goddess named Sadv who was Oisin's mother. She is related to Artemis/Diana, the sun goddess of the people who came to western Europe before the Indo- 71 Europeans. Oisin's father's name, Finn, means small deer and his son's name, Oscar, means he who loves the deer. Oisin was born of the deer-goddess Sadb and at the end of his life, when mounted on the fairy-steed qf Niamh of the Golden Hair and sped by the wailing Fenians to her island paradise, he was shown a vision: a hornless fawn pursued over the waters of the sea by the red-eared white hounds of Hell. The fawn was himself. 70 As patriarchal ideas developed a stronger hold in Ireland, the myths were changed to reflect this takeover. The revered deer goddess became the quarry of patriarchal hunte.rs.

41 A few heroes, such as Finn ... continued to protect her but the patriarchal order represented by the priesthood of all religions endeavoured to dismiss her forever. So the Druid Fir Doirche (Black Man) furiously pursued Sadv and trans­ formed her into prey once more. Yet the image of the goddess is fixed so deeply in man's subcon­ scious that she still reappears .... 72 The Fenian cycle included The Dialogues of Oisin and

Patrick in which Patrick applies the effective conversion technique of combating pagan pride with the Christian

virtues of resignation, subjection and humility. St.

Patrick condescends to listen to Oisin's tales during the dialogue, but remains unimpressed. 'Thou hast heard my story,' says the old bard in conclusion; 'albeit my memory groweth weak, and I am de­ voured with care, yet I desire to continue still to sing the deeds of yore, and to live upon ancient glories ... 'Let thy songs rest,' says Patrick, 'and dare not to compare thy Finn to the King of Kings, whose might knoweth no bounds: bend thy knees before Him, and know Him for thy Lord.' It was indeed necessary to surrender, and the legend relates how the old bard ended his days in the cloister, among the priests whom he had so often used rudely, in the midst of these chants that he knew not. 73

The bardic tradition lingered longest in the north where the last book of classical bardic poetry, The Book of

Clanaboy, was compiled in 1680. A large number of the

Irish Franciscans who provided the Church with great

42 ecclesiastic scholarship in this century came from bardic families. Loyal to the old Irish cause, they struggled for Irish nationality. The Franciscan College of St. Anthony at Louvain in Belgium, founded in 1606, became the university of the Gaelic world for a hundred years. Thus, over the centuries, the rivalry between bards and clergy evolved into a mutual support system. The friars' press provided Ireland with the only books then printed in Gaelic. The Annals of the Four Masters was begotten when Poor Brother Michael O'Clerigh began his fifteen year trek through Ireland to gather historical material. He and three other scholars (hence the Four Masters) arranged his material in Donegal in 1632. "It was written in the tragic belief that the history of Ireland was closed, and in the desperate endeavour to save the past from what seemed otherwise 74 certain oblivion." Written in the old historian dialect and including some obvious fictions perhaps for the sake of retaining the poetic tradition, the work is an amazingly accurate record of a thousand years of Irish history. Synge was particularly fond of the historical records and translations of Dr. Geoffrey Keating (1570 - 1650). As a-priest living in hiding, Keatings wrote his History of Ire.!_and, the first popular Irish history. In an

43 article he wrote in 1900, Synge praised Keatings for his rich Gaelic vocabulary and the dramatic force of his poetry. During the penal oppression of the eighteenth century, Catholic, Gaelic-speaking Irishmen lost property, political liberty, racial symbols, schools, and their printing press; the result was not very different from enslavement. Courts of poetry arose as the poets began to gather in barns and kitchens. Hedge-schoolmasters taught in illegal schools. As illiteracy grew, prose composition dwindled. Without patrons, even translations decreased. This age, consequently, became the age of songwriting, an oral tradition that cost nothing. Putting colloquial vocabulary into traditional airs, they sang of love, mirth, sorrow, religious devotion, and political subjuga­ tion -- the national keen. The poets were laborers, hedge school-masters and wandering fiddlers. They strove to master the classics, but their illiterate audiences craved something more understandable. A few of these bards still existed when Synge traveled through western Ireland recording tales in his notebook.

44 DRUIDIC AND GODDESS INFLUENCES IN SYNGE'S LIFE

Synge was raised by his mother and grandmother in an evangelical household. He was shocked to discover as a child that Darwin's theory proved the Bible wrong. This discovery started him on a path of rebellion against standardized Christianity that persisted throughout his life. In spite of their religious differences, Synge remained very close to his mother all his life. When she died in 1908, just a year before his death, Synge wrote a glowing tribute to her as a paradigm of motherhood. It was from this mother-son relationship that Synge's lifelong reverence for the precepts of the goddess culture emerged.

People like Yeats who sneer at o~d­ fashioned goodness and steadiness in women seem to want to rob the wor 1 d of what is most sacred in it. I cannot tell you how unspeakably sa­ cred her memory seems to me. There is nothing in the world better or nobler than a single-hearted wife and mother ... It makes me rage when I think of the people who go on as if art and literature and writing were the first things in the world. There is nothing so great and sacred as what is most simple in life. 75 Growing up with the Irish Renaissance, Synge embraced the pantheism and vibrancy of the ancient myths. He also appears to have been aware of a resurgent .interest in the

45 goddess culture. While visiting art museums with Cherrie Matheson, Synge witnessed a man sobbing on the floor of

the Louvre, overwhelmed by the beauty of the statue of Venus de Milo. While Synge was in Paris in 1897, he met Stephen MacKenna who became a close confidante. Synge became interested in spiritualism, noting in his diary that he saw "manifestations." After reading the spiritualist books MacKenna recommended, Synge began a series of impressionistic essays which only MacKenna could read. Together they attended lectures on moral action, feminism

and the Breton revival. During this 1897 period of spiritualism, Synge wrote Under Ether after undergoing surgery on his swollen g 1 ands. In it, he mentions reading Spinoza whom he 76 describes as "the great pantheist." Spinoza was excommunicated for his "frightful 77 heresies" which amounted to pleas for freedom of thought in religious and civil matters. Like Erigena and the ancient pagans, he espoused an absence of evil in the universe . ... It is this lack of the perfect knowledge that causes these affec­ tions .and passions to wear in man's temporal experience the appearance of what is evil. This delusion of evil is the bondage of passion... 78 The pantheists' ability to find God in everything is

46 traceable back to the Song of Amergin. Synge woke up during surgery and realized that the doctors and nurses were laughing at what he was saying while under the influence of ether. He roared, "I'm an initiated mystic, I could rend the groundwork of your 79 souls!" To quiet him, the doctors gave Synge another dose of ether which brought on an out-of-body experience. The next period I remember but vaguely, I seemed to traverse whole epochs of desolation and bliss. All secrets were open before me, and simple as the universe to its God. Now and then something recalled my phys­ ical life, and I smiled at what seemed a moment of sickly infancy. At other times, I felt I might return to earth, and laughed aloud to think what a god I should be among men. For there was no more terror in my life. I was a light, a joy. 80 For the rest of his life, Synge believed he had died on that operating table and had then come back to life. Throughout his 1 i fe, Synge put himse 1 f on a reading regimen that would have filled the library of a bardic college. In 1892, he read The Children of Lir and Diarmuid and Grainne. It had a wild, fantastic exaggeration not found in the Greek classics he had read. In the story of Diarmaid and Grainne, the woman uttered the magic incantation and, given the

47 traces of a gynaecocratic system apparent in Celtic society, it is not unreasonable to suppose that her action recalls some former age when women, as priestesses, law­ givers, or even witches, were able to impose their will by ritual, religious and magic means. 81 Synge read Irish literature and history with the avidness of a bardic student. His bardic readings included Thomas Davis' Ball ads, James Hardiman's Irish Minstrelsy and Songs of the Munster Gae_!ic Poets of ·the Eighteenth

Century. In 1898-1899 alone, his reading list included:

Ce_!tic Fairy Ta_!es, Gipsy Sorcery, The Science of Fairy

Tales, Hibbert Lectures on Celtic Heathendom, and Celtica.

In 18 96, Synge heard Anatole le Braz lecture on Breton life and at once beame a passionate student of

Celtic lore and an avid reader of Le Braz. It impressed Synge that Le Braz had gotten an international audience for Breton folklore by writing about it in French rather than Breton. It may have inspired him to develop his Anglo-Irish dialect.

Le Braz' major point was that the various genres of modern writing, as we know them, derive from common sources in ancient literature and folklore [which could provide] the basis of a modern national drama ... 82 While Synge was in Brittany, he discovered Breton enthusiasts who were striving devotedly to preserve any remnants they could find of early Celtic civilization.

48 After also·reading Breton writers Pierre Loti and Ernest Renan, Synge understood and shared the Breton fear that their language and ancient customs were disappearing forever.

In the first paragraph of "The Poetry of the Celtic

Races," Renan (1823 - 1892) compared the Bretons to the

Scottish highlanders and the Irish found "when one buries oneself in the districts of Ireland where the race has 83 remained pure from a 11 admixture of a 1 i en b 1 ood." This alone must have lured Synge to explore western Ireland.

Renan felt that sufficient attention had not been paid to this ancient race. Protected from external influences, these peasants had remained faithful to ancient memories, custom and genius. Renan reaffirmed

Synge's growing suspicion, borne out of studies in compar- ative literature, that these peasants possessed a medieval literature that "changed the current of European civili- zation, and imposed its poetical motives on the whole of 84 Christendom."

Renan also provided some clues that a goddess culture existed in prehistoric Brittany through his initial description of the Celts as a feminine race.

No human family has carried so much mystery into love. No other has conceived with more delicacy the ideal of woman, or been more fully dominated by it. 85

49 He believes the Celts were the true authors of not only

chivalry but the romantic tradition in literature that began with Arthur. He explained that in the Mabinogian 86 "the principal part always belongs to the women" and 87 warriors lived to "serve a woman and merit her esteem." In 1904, after Synge had acquired a degree of fame, his colleague, R.I. Best, published his translation of a review Synge had written in French on a book published by his academic mentor, M. d'Arbois de Jubainville. In this brief review, Synge reveals how steeped he was in the subject matter of The Irish Mythological Cycle and Celtic Mythology. For instance, he makes reference to the pantheism found in Erigena and the skepticism it arouses .

.. . the interest and value of the work are beyond dispute. Some of the views it gives, such as the estimate of early Celtic pantheism and its relation to the system of Scotus Erigena, have been questioned by some authorities ... 88

Synge goes on to praise this and other works by

D'Arbois whom he credits for raising Old Irish studies to its proper level of importance. He substantiates this claim to importance with new evidence on the antiquity of the Irish language .

... continental philologists are beginning to find Old Irish nearly, or quite, as important in the study of certain portions of Aryan grammar - Latin etymology, for instance - as Sanscrit itself; ... Irish mythology

50 has been found to give, with the oldest mythology that can be gathered from the Homeric poems, the most archaic phase of Indo-European religion. 89

This passage offers proof that Synge was indeed curious about the earliest religions of mankind and proud of

Ireland's connection to that ancient past. Synge's exten- sive research in comparative mythology is evident here along with his curiosity about the pagan sources of these widespread myths.

51 THE TINKER'S WEDDING

BACKGROUND INFORMATION Synge began The Tinker's Wedding in 1902 during that prolific summer at Castle Kevin when he created two other plays. Like The Shadow of the Glen and The Well of the

~aint~, it was a translation of his experiences in Wick low. In 1905, he was still worried it would 90 "displease ... a good many of our Dublin friends." Yeats was in need of short plays so he asked Synge to submit The Tinker's Wedding for publication in Samhain. His attitude toward its unpopularity was al- most playful. You have such a bad reputation now it can hardly do you any harm. But we may find it too dangerous for the Theatre at present ... 91 Synge's attitude was equally playful regarding this theatrical pariah. (I was) afraid to set my pious relations to hunt for it among my papers for fear they would set fire to the whole. 92 In 1906, Synge wrote to his German translator Max Meyerfield that it was "thought too immoral and anti- 93 clerical." Mey~rfield felt it was "too undramatic and too Irish" and did not translate any more of Synge's plays. The Tinker's Wedding was rejected twice more by pub-

52 94 lishers for being "too dangerous." These rejections

stalled its publication until December, 1907. Considered too radical by Irish theater companies, it was finally produced by an English company shortly after Synge's death in November, 1909. Unfortunately, the poor quality of this performance drove Yeats to leave angrily after the first act. To this day, The Tinkers Wedding is considered one of Synge's lesser plays. This thesis purports to reinterpret the play as one of Synge's remarkable conser- vations of a primitive culture he had witnessed in west

Ireland. Having done extensive studies in Irish history and comparative folklore, he was in a position to ascertain ancient references and preserve them in a more readable format. In this regard, he should be hailed as a key figure in the conservation of ancient literature, a task that was pivotal to the success of the Irish

Renaissance.

53 THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE

After philosophizing on the value of humor and the dangers associated with being humorless, Synge voices his fear that some Irish were becoming too morbid. The country people, however, who are the mainstay of Ireland, do not suffer from this malaise. Synge believes they are good-humored enough not to "mind being laughed at without 95 malice." Synge's original version of this line is more specifically directed to the clergy and clearly proves an absence of malice on his part: I do not think these country clergy, who have so much humour- and so. much heroism that everyone who has seen them facing typhus or dangerous seas for the comfort of their people on the coasts of the west must acknow­ ledge - will mind being laughed at for half an hour without malice, as the clergy in every Roman Catholic country were laughed at through the ages that had real religion. 95 Paganism and Christianity were coterminous for centu- ries, and during that time the bards and priests built up a sense of brotherhood toward one another. St. Columcille spoke for all the clergy of Ireland when he pleaded the case of the bards. They might have been religious rivals but, between playful barbs, they respected one - another's scholarship and devotion.

54 ,, '

Corkery notes in The Hidden Ireland that even as late as the eighteenth century a priest lamented the passing of a local bard more than the passing of one of his brother priests. Synge shows the bardic side of this brotherhood - the kindly yet mischievous attitude of the bards toward the clergy. Beneath their playful banter, both helping professions recognized one another's devotion to the welfare of their countrymen.

55 PLOT

The plot of The Tinker's Wedding is simple. Three vagrant tinkers -- Sarah Casey, Michael Byrne and his mother, Mary Byrne -- have pitched their tents to await the fair. Carryovers from the seasonal festivals of the early pagans, these fairs provide an ideal source of cus­ tomers for tinkers and beggars. Sarah has become self­ conscious about not being properly married to Michael and wants the local priest to marry them. She convinces the priest to accept her gold coins plus the gallon tin can Michael is finishing as payment for the ceremony. Mary, an aging alcoholic, decides to steal the tin can and buy another jug of porter with it while Michael and Sarah are off stealing hens for dinner. To stall their discovery of her theft, Mary places three empty glass bottles in the sack that held the tin can. The next morning, the priest hurries them toward the church door so he can finish the ceremony before the bishop arrives for one of his periodic inspections. He insists on opening the sack and grows furious at the deception. He says he hears the peelers, the British law enforcers, and threatens to call them and accuse the tinkers of various crimes. To prevent him from doing that, they hit him, gag him

56 and put him in a sack. He is released after promising not to turn them in to the peelers. As they leave, the priest announces that he has only promised not to tell the peelers. He begins calling on God with loud maledictions in Latin. The tinkers fear his curse and scatter. Within this plot is the classic conflict between Christian and pagan, between Patrick and Ossian and Ronan and Sweeney. The admitted "heathens" tend their precious fire, bang out tin, and poach for dinner just as their counterparts did in the beginning of the Bronze Age. Like Maeve, Grainne, Deirdre and many other Irish representatives of the goddess culture, the two women in the play are headstrong and authoritative. Hyde's unpublished Songs in Praise of Women, which Synge read, is certain to have contributed to this picture of a culture in which women retained some control. The Aryan suppres­ sion that eradicated the goddess culture in the rest of Europe had only been partly successful in the primitive areas of Ireland. Thus, a plot involving matriarchal pagans in playful conflict with a Christian cleric is quintessentially Irish. In The Tinker's Wedding, the pagan characters feign ignorance of Christianity in order to cajole the priest intQ granting their wishes. Mary says she has never heard a prayer but she seems to know all about Judgment Day.

57 Not sharing the automatic deference of parishioners, the pagans regard the priest as quite human. They call him a scholar, which infers their assumption that he was educated in a bardic college. Mary and Sarah represent the peasants' efforts to preserve their ancient pagan heritage by incorporating bardic characteristics into their own personalities. In fact, most of Sarah's actions throughout the play are motivated by her desire for praise and her fear of satire -- key motivating factors for bards. She would like a litany of praises to be attached to her name and she grows apoplectic when she feels she has been ridiculed. The tinkers' respect for the priest's druidic powers explains their fearful reaction to his curse. The bardic colleges produced hybrids of druids who required clerical approval before initiating a curse and priests who "pro­ fessionally" cursed their foes. This reli~ious blend in their cultural background validates the tinkers' fears. Though the priest would deny it, he shares a cultural heritage with the tinkers. However, when the English peelers appear to be a threat, the scales are then tipped against the tinkers. Once the representatives of foreign conquest join hands, the native Irish know their defeat is inev~table. Theyflee from the invaders just as their an­ cestors fled from them time and again throughout history.

58 CHARACTERIZATION

Sarah The tinker family was joined together by an act of patriarchal aggression that is only briefly referred to by Michael in one of his longest lines: I'm thinking on the day I got you above at Rathvanna, and the way you began crying out and we com­ ing down off the hi 11, crying out and saying, 'I' 11 go back to my rna,' and I'm thinking on the way I came behind you that time, and hit you a great clout in the lug, and how quiet and easy it was you came along with me from that hour to this present day. 96 Sarah's unusually quiet response that she was "a big fool" assures the reader that Michael's account of the story is accurate.

One can only deduce that Sarah was "sold" to Michael against her will. Synge could be implying that Sarah was bought like biblical Sarah was. Her defiant procla- mation that she would go back to her mother (not father) hints that she may have been torn away from a matrilinear family. Her quiet reaction may stem from hopelessness rather than compliance. The undercurrent of angry frustration the reader senses in Sarah throughout the pla~ may have developed from this youthful denigration. tinused to subjugation, Sarah rules her new family

59 with an iron fist. When she dictates to Michael he is usually meekly compliant. Mary is also fearful of Sarah's violent nature. Proud and intelligent, Sarah resents the satiric gibes of Christian customers who mock her unwed state. In order to marry, however, Sarah needs to convert. Although she might only be feigning a desire to convert in order to gain superior social status, Sarah may see Christianity as feminine and goddess-like and therefore attractive. Synge became aware of the parallels between matriar- chal paganism and Christianity when he read Renan's "The Poetry of the Ce_!tic Races." Renan concluded that the bloodless Celtic conversion that left not a single Celtic martyr could be explained by the many parallels between Christianity and a primitive goddess culture. The Celtic pagans may have sensed that their ancient goddess reli- gion had returned in another form. In his "bible," Gregory's Cuchulain of Muirthemne, Synge found an excellent example of a matriarch in Queen Medb (Maeve), the chief warrioress of the Ulster cycle. After telling her husband, King Ailell of Connaught, that she was a powerful ruler before she married him, Maeve goes on to list her youthful accomplishments: ... of the six daughters of my father, Eochaid, King of Ireland, I was the best and the one that

60 was thought most of. As to divid­ ing gifts and giving counsel, I was the best of them, and as to battle feats and arms and fight- ing, I was the best of them. It was I had fifteen hundred soldiers, sons of exiles, and fifteen hundred sons of chief men. And I had these,' she said, 'for my own household; and along with that my father gave me one of the provinces of Ireland... 98 Maeve then tells Ailell of her numerous refusals of marriage offers from kings who did not meet her require- ments. Her ideal mate was "a man without stinginess, 99 without jealousy, (and) without fear." In the following passage, Maeve wants a man who is equal to her in courage yet respectful of her power to attract men:

... it would not be fitting for me to be with a man that would be cowardly, for I myself go into struggles and fights and battles and gain the victory ... and it would not be fitting for me to be with a husband that would be jealous, for I was never without one man being with me in the shadow of another. 100

In Ce 1 tic society, the spouse with the greatest assets dominated the relationship. Thus, when Maeve accuses Ailell of being in the service of a woman, she has legal backing for her statement. This was called "fer fognama," mean­ ing "man of service," or even "fer for ban thincur," "man under the power of woman." In many of the epic narratives it was King Ailill

61 who had absolutely no say against the decisions of Queen Medb. 101 Maeve's warrior prowess and her rebellion against the confinements of monogamy represent key aspects of the goddess culture. Maeve's generosity with her body is yet another feature of this culture. If it benefited her tuath, King Ailell had to accept the "friendship of her 102 thighs" as a necessary political ploy. In The Tinker's Wedding, Sarah Casey's character embodies the ancient matriarchal culture of Ireland, and Michael's character reflects the patriarchal Gaels who conquered them. Like Maeve, Sarah is reluctant to give up control. Since her songs and probably her f"l irtations sell Michael's metalware, he is dependent on her for income. Resistant to the takeover by Michael's patriarchal culture, Sarah asserts matriarchal control over her family and attempts to upgrade their cultural status. Her social climb may include upgrading her mate-- trading Michael in for a superior consort just as the ancient priestesses once did. It is clear that she dominates their relation- ship when we see Michael hurriedly finishing her ring. Sarah takes the priest's betrayal as a sign that she should retain her pagan status. His hypocrisy proved that progress and propriety were to be feared, not desired. This was the belief of most of the peasants Synge met. t

62 Mary is the most pagan character in the play yet she is given the name of the mother of God. This may reflect the rebellion against patriarchy that the earliest Chris- tians represented. In medieval Irish poetry Mary was equally plainly identified with Brigit the Goddess of Poe- try: for St. Brigit, the Virgin. as Muse, was popularly known as 'Mary of the Gael.' Brigit as a Goddess had been a Triad: the Brigit of Poetry, the Brigit of Healing and the Brigit of Smith­ craft ... Her Aegean prototype seems to have been Brizo of Delos, a moon­ goddess ... whose name was derived ... from the word 'brizein,' 'to enchant' ... her healing powers being exercised largely through poetic incantation at sacred wells. 103 Mary Byrne is the representative bard/ druid of the Tinker's Wedding. She tries to heal Sarah of her ailment with stories since she could not get an herbal cure remedy from the priest. She also plans to conduct business down by the well. Perhaps the parson's daughter is paying for a brace of lies that will heal her or enchant her. Mary sings, tells tales, speaks of herbal cures, visits wells, gives advice, and provokes/pacifies family wars. Much of the play's action stems from Mary's alcohol- ism.- The alcohol allows her to escape her loneliness and t fear of death. Centuries of bards had bred a desire for

63 illusions and dreams in the Celts. Renan wrote in The

Poetry of th~ Celtic Races that the prevalence of alcohol­ ism was a direct result of these Celtic yearnings. This quite possibly filtered into Synge's mind when he was 104 creating Mary's character. Mary enters singing a hanging song. This also in- traduces her bardic role, for penal laws had reduced the bards to songs. The subject of her song shows a pagan fearlessness in the face of death: And when we asked him what way he'd die, And he hanging unrepented, Begob, says Larry, 'that's all in my eye, By the clergy first invented. 105 Synge admired the pagan belief in the afterworld. There was no recrimination for evil in Tir na nOg. Larry is free to repent nothing, laugh in the face of a noose, and mock the clergy who "invented" sin and shame. After singing her way back to camp with her near- empty jug of porter, Mary offers the priest a drink. She begins a drinking song and then stops. She fears her song will encourage him to drink more heavily than he already does. This form of quick, satirical humor can be found in the bardic drinking songs popularized in the eighteenth century. Mary provides humor throughout the play, thus fulfilling her role as ent.ertainer. The

~riest, on the other hand, seems almost humorless.

64 Humour is surely reconcilable with devotion to the White Goddess ... [as opposed to] ... a Catholic priest, whose goings and comings are far more strictly circumscribed than a poet's, and whose Bible contains not one smile from Genesis to the Apoc­ alypse. 106

When she hears the priest agree to ma~ry Sarah, Mary nudges her son and comments on how much Sarah has changed since the last moon - a clear reference to the primitive powers of the moon. In Sumerian mythology, the wild and terrifying aspects of Inanna's personality were attributed to the period of seven days when the moon has disap- peared and a woman suffers the disequilibrium that pre- cedes menstruation. It was comforting to primitive cul- tures to know that life's disorders were followed by periods of calm in a predictable cycle. Mary appeals to Michael's Aryan possessiveness next. She claims the moon causes Sarah to whisper to all sorts of men. Her ineffectiveness indicates that Michael repre- sents the peaceful blend of goddess and Aryan cultures noted earlier in the portrayals of King Ailell. Mary has the sweet tongue of the bard in her feigned praise of the Beauty of Ballinacree whom she fears, and in her feigned praise and sympathy for the priest whom she is fatirizing. Mary's despair at losing audiences for her prarrd stories of queens echoes the decline of bardic poetry and the keen of the last bards.

65 The Priest

The priest is an interesting blend of pagan and Christian. He respects the burden of restraint put on him him by his office yet he is envious of Ma.ry' s freedom to drink when she wants and answer to no one. His markedly uncharitable attitude toward the tinkers echoes playful bardic accusations of clerical stinginess. Personality switches from a reproving cleric to a freedom-loving party-goer exemplify a blend of Christian and pagan val­ ues. In spite of the ignominy he suffers, the priest stands tall and bard-like at the end as he bellows out his curse. This curse echoes the "saintly curses" of St. Ronan that were hurled at Sweeney in the popular medieval tales about the Buile Shuibhne or The Frenzy of Sweeney. Sweeney was a seventh century king who refused to allow St. Ronan to build a church in his kingdom. He compounded his offense by throv1ing St. Ronan's psalter in the water and slaying his psalmist. Sweeney was cursed to lose his mind and wander naked through the forest, sleeping in the trees. St. Ronan also cursed him to die by Spearpoint which he does at the hands of the jealous husband of a

~oman whc left him food. t In a similar tale, The Death of Muirchertach, a king

66 falls in love with a witch who ousted the queen instead of

accepting her fate as a legal concub~ne. The queen

complained to the Bishop, but the king still could not

resist the witch's charms. " ... [Bishop] Cairnech cursed 107 him in a ritual that was more Druidic than Christian." In an interestingly primitive twist, the king's men side with him against the bishop.

An example of the complex ramifications of just one of these formidable curses will explain why the tinkers fled. The "glam dicin" is a kind of sa­ tirical incantation directed aga~nst a particular person and having . the strength of an obligation ... It pitched the victim of the satire into a state of shame, sickness or death. Rejected by society, the victim was beyond further help, even if pitied. 108

67 (l '

Michael

Michael is the least interesting character. Synge reminds himself in his notes to give Michael some lines to say, showing an innate reluctance to develop this charac­ ter. He is submissive to both women and ignores the priest unti 1 he announces he is not afraid to hit him. A true pagan, he wins Sarah over to paganism with his defiance and Arthurian defense of his goddess in distress. In this regard, Michael resembles Gilgamesh rescuing Inanna. Both men are noted for their physical strength, yet both defer to the goddess they have rescued.

68 Jaunting Jim

Jaunting Jim is the character the audience never meets. As one of the "rich" tinkers, he presents a better marriage prospect to Sarah. Rich from selling a foal, he has "a grand eye for a fine horse and a grand eye for a 109 woman." This grand eye is accompanied by grand talk, for it is he who has assigned Sarah the title "Beauty of Bal- linacree." She believes Jaunting Jim would allow her to drive his horse and cart proudly while he follows on foot. His goddess-worshiping praise of Sarah and his missing surname give even this absentee character an aura of time- less antiquity. In primitive cultures, similar first names are distinguished with nicknames such as Jaunting rather than Tall Jim, or lineage identification. In Synge's Playboy of the Western World, Pegeen Mike is so called because her father's name is Mike. One reason for Jim's absenteeism might be to save Michael's life. If Sarah is a goddess, then Michael is the god of the waning year and Jim is the god of the waxing year. If they were to meet, they wou 1 d have to do battle for her,. and Michael would have to die. His life wouldhave to be sacrificed so that the new life of Spring could return to the earth.

69 ACT I

The play opens with Sarah's excited announcement that the priest would be passing by that night. When she urges Michael to finish her wedding band quickly, he whines like a child: ... it's the divil's job making a ring, and you'll be having my hands destroyed in a short while the way I' 11 not be able to make a tin can at all maybe at the dawn of day. 110 By calling the ring the devil's work, Michael foreshadows the trouble it ultimately brings them. His grudging compliance shows that he has acceded to Sarah's decision to marry even though it goes against all his pagan in- stincts. Michael's closing phrase, "dawn of day," appears frequently in Syngean dialogue. Dawn was the hour for druidic religious ceremonies. During his trips through the Irish countryside, Synge noted that the peasants would frequently walk out of their front door~ and joyfully greet the return of the sun. "Dawn of day" is of additional interest from a semantic perspective. Along with many other Syngean phrases, it imitates noun-centered Gaelic speech patterns. Synge's intimate familiarity with peasant Gaelic brought

70 greater authenticity to his translations from a language one linguist compared to an Elizabethan dialect. Of course, "dawn of day" is also alliterative, another commonplace Syngean carryover from the bardic tradition. Sarah quiets Michael's whining by saying his speeches would choke a fool, so he takes the word "fool" and volleys it back at her. She is the fool who wants to get married now after raising a family with him for years. This begins the tennis match of classic Irish banter that keeps a fast pace throughout the play. Suddenly they grow quite primitive as Synge sets up the timeless quality in the characterization of Sarah and Michael: MICHAEL [angrily]. Can't you speak a word when I'm asking what is it ails you since the moon did change? SARAH [musingly]. I'm thinking there isn't anything ails me, Michael Byrne; but the springtime is a queer time, and it's queer thoughts maybe I do think at whiles. 111 This connection between a woman's mood and the 1 unar and seasonal pulses of nature reflects a goddess culture con- cept that women are the source of the earth's fertility. Michael chooses the word "queer" to hurl back at her; he proposes that she is queer enough to change her mind .the day after they marry:

71 It's hard set you'd be to think queerer than welcome, Sarah Casey; but what wi 11 you gain dragging me to the priest this night, I'm saying, when it's new thoughts you'll be think­ ing at the dawn of day? 112

He apparently anticipated swift release from her state of monthly disequilibrium.

Sarah picks up "dawn of day" and banters back that this would be a fine time to go off with Jaunting Jim. In

Celtic society, this was not a shocking announcement since divorce was fairly commonplace.

Surprisingly enough, even in the Christian era it [divorce] was an incredibly easy matter for the Celts ... [Marriage] was nothing more than a contract with certain conditions. When the conditions were not respected, the contract became void ... The Celts always wavered between monogamy and polygamy, and even polyandry. 113

Michael therefore responds to Sarah's threats with fearful dismay; Sarah's departure is a very real possibility.

MICHAEL [with dismay]. It's the like of that you do be thinking! SARAH. The like of that, Michael Byrne, when there is a bit of sun in it, and a kind air, and a great smell coming from the thorn trees is above your head. 114

In this volley of banter, "the like of that" is the re- peat-ed phrase. Sarah's description sounds like the set- ting for a spring fertility ritual. The power of the sun

72 is acknowledged along with the animistic assistance of a "kind" air and a "great" smell. The thorn trees are the hawthorn trees that were considered fertility symbols in ancient times, especially in the spring when they bloom with white flowers. The fact that Synge called them the "white trees" in an earlier draft indicates that he was thinking of the flowering hawthorn. The ancient reli- gious ceremony stage is completed when Michael, the replaceable consort designated for spring sacrifice by fire, burns himself while fulfilling the wishes of his flower-crowned queen. Michael's pain is greeted with imperial scorn and another command to hurry: SARAH [scornfully]. If you are (scalded), it's a clumsy man you are this night [raising her voice]; and let you make haste now .... 115 Michael might let Sarah dominate, but he is not her slave. His Aryan instinct for superior physical strength surfaces and he threatens to hit her "a great clout" like he did when he acquired her. Sarah changes the subject back to Jaunting Jim and the great price he would get for his foal. By describing him as the first to call her the Beauty of Ballinacree, she implies that her devotees are growing in number. When she ~escribes this title as a "fine name for a woman," Michael replies that it sounds more more like a fine name

73 for a horse: MICHAEL [with contempt]. It's the 1 ike of that name they do be putting on the horses they have below racing in Arklow. It's easy pleased you are, Sarah Casey, easy pleased with a big word, or the liar speaks it. 116 Comparing Sarah to a horse is an archetypal reference. In the Welsh Mabinogian, the "Saga of

Rhiannon" is a tale about the queen of horses. She first appears as a horsewoman seeking the love of King Pwyll -- the fairy carrying the mortal to the land of eternal youth. The horse is a symbo 1 of the sun, for it draws the chariot of the sun and travels through the space of night. But from this it follows that the horse­ woman is an image not only of death but also of resurrection since she comes from the night on a horse the co 1 our of day­ light. 117 Mytho 1 ogists connect Rhiannon with tb.e Romani zed Gallic goddess Epona. Monuments and inscriptions in her honor can be found throughout Gaul and the Rhineland.

[She is depicted] " ... sitting on a horse or colt, standing in front of a horse or between two or more horses, and, more rarely, lying half naked on a horse. Sometimes she is carrying a horn of plenty, a goblet or even an ordinary bowl. ... she was in fact the true image of the first mother goddess of the Celts ... Rhiannon-Epona is the divine mare

74 who has brought her powers from the land of the mounds. 118 Michael's cynicism toward Sarah's naive dreams persists throughout the play and creates an even balance between their characters. Michael's patience indicates that Sarah's infatuation with Jim is almost forgivable since he has a gift for big words and ~ies, the oral poetry of an oral culture. The latter day bards, especially Owen Roe O'Sullivan of the Munster poets, were notorious for breaking the hearts of the women in the towns they visited. Sarah is offended by Michael's cynicism. She proves her qualifications as a goddess by listing the attention of other devotees: SARAH [indignantly]. Liar, is it? Didn't you ever hear tell of the peelers followed me ten miles along the Glen Mal ure, and they talking love to me ·in the dark night, or of the children you'll meet coming from school and they saying one to the other, 'It's this day we seen Sarah Casey, the Beauty of Ballinacree, a great sight, surely. 119 In an ear 1 ier version, Sarah describes 1 adies at the seashore who ran around her trying to sketch her face. This completes_the picture of men, women and children showing reverence for the goddess. There is a subtle matriarchal overtone in the depiction of the men as

75 {1 '

despicable peelers and the women as artists, or superior beings. Michael quickly retorts that he pities her misguided followers. In reply, Sarah proudly predicts his loneli- ness when she is gone: SARAH .... you' 11 be waking up in the dark night and thinking you see me coming with the sun on me,and I driving a high cart with Jaunting Jim going behind. 120 She is the sun goddess who brings his day, the goddess whom Jim will worship by letting her ride up high (a place for icons) while he walks deferentially behind. This also hails back again to Rhiannon-Epona in her chariot of dawn. Perhaps Sarah is the new representative of the Irish sun goddess; the last one was Grainne, whose story greatly impressed Synge at an early age. At this point, the pace quickens as the priest nears. He is returning from a night of cards and drinking at the doctor's house. Sarah excitedly sets her trap for this "big boast of a man with a long step on him and a 121 trumpeting voice." She prepares herself as the beautiful goddess, dazzling in the firelight, thus combining the two earliest religions - goddess and sun/fire worship. She assigns Michael the far more plebeian task of looking industrious. Since the priest is "after drinking his 122 glass," Sarah gleefully anticipates striking a great

76 bargain for their wedding fee. When Sarah steps in front of the priest, she startles him. nwhat kind of a living woman is it that you are at 123 at all?" he asks. Sarah ignores his fear and proudly announces herself and her title. It's Sarah Casey I am, your rev-. erence, the Beauty of Ballinacree, and it's Michael Byrne is below in the ditch. 12 4 Her title and Michael's location suggest her status as the dominating matriarch. The priest presumes they are beggars and tries to pass them. When they persist, he throws a halfpenny and orders them from the road. Sarah sweetly explains their sacramental needs and tosses the halfpenny back, convinced he would not charge even that of them since he is such a 125 "kind man with the poor." She even suggests he might chip in to pay for the ring. Unfortunately for Sarah, alcohol has not dulled the priest's business acumen. When Sarah asks where they would ever find a pound, the priest accuses them of having the money from selling their wares and "stealing east and 126 and west." Realizing that she will not succeed by pleading poverty, Sarah changes her tack. Playing up to his obvi-ous weakness for money, Sarah entices him with a sovereign, irreverently describing it as "a nice shiny one

77 127 with a view on it of the living king's mamma." This reflects primitive man's reverence for metal as a talis- man, a knowledge reinforced by working with metal as a tinker. The reference to the queen as "mama" could be an allusion to the old matrilineal aspect of the throne. It could simultaneously refer to women being subsequently relegated to the commonality of coinage. When Claud Levi Strauss reflected that women have never been 'indi­ viduals in their own right along with men,' but media of exchange like coins, many societies even applying the name of their cur­ rency to them, he was referring to a state of affairs that is now worldwide. 128 The priest stubbornly holds to his price. Sarah responds dramatically, half sobbing into her apron as she curses the poverty that has denied her a decent marriage. This emotionalism is similar to that found in the goddess worshipers who mourned the death of the consort; it persisted in the Aran Islands where women keened dramatically at funerals. As they speak, the priest hypnotically nears the fire, the ancient, hallowed symbol of warmth and security that is still the center of clan life for the tinkers. Much of the humor in this play comes from the priest's lingering, subconscious attraction for the primitivism he purports to abhor.

78 Sarah's monetary approach fails as well, however, for he tells her to get ten more shillings where she got that and he will marry them. Fearing he will escape without a marriage agreement, Sarah cranks the histrionics up to full throttle. The bards were a thespian lot and the peasants inherited this talent: SARAH [whining]. It's two years we are getting that bit, your reverence ... and if you don't marry us now, himself and the old woman, who has a great drouth, will be drinking it to-morrow in the fair [she puts her apron to her eyes, half sobbing], and then I won't be married anytime, and I'll be saying till I'm an old woman: 'It's a cruel and a wicked thing to be bred poor.'l29 Sarah has finally touched the priest. Perhaps she hit a nerve when she mentioned the dilemma of an alcoholic who spends every free penny on alcohol. However, he still finds it queer that this request would come from a woman who had spent her "whole life walking the roads," a refer- ence to the itinerancy of both bards and tramps. Sensing an advantage, Sarah continues in this vein.

She sobs. It took two years to earn her fee, she tells him, "making cans in the dark night, and blinding our eyes with the black smoke from the bits of twigs we do be 1.31 burning." This statement has both druidic and bardic

79 overtones since the druids counted by nights and many bards grew blind from working in the turf smoke. Finally capitulating, the priest offers a deal: a wedding for a crown and ten shillings plus the gallon can Michael was finishing. The tin can could represent a number of things. It has been found on Altamira cave walls and in Rhiannon's arms. Some say the Holy Grail was a sacred cup. The importance of this sacred cup can be traced to wombs, kettles and burial urns, all symbols of the Goddess' rule over life and death. The urn was a container, like the womb. As a cooking cauldron, it represented early man's newfound ability to cook his prey and therefore "marked 132 a refinement in civilisation." It also held the ashes of the dead. Given the symbolic importance of the jar or pitcher as the image of and substitute for the womb, it is easier to understand why the people of the first Iron Age cremated their dead and then shut away their ashes in urns, a cus­ tom retained in the majority of Indo-European societies. The Greek festival of Antihisteries was the fest of the dead, cele­ brated in the Spring with fan­ tastic drinking bouts, which began with the "Day of Open Jars" in memory of the jars con­ taining the dead of long ago. 132

It now seems appropriate to connect the tin can with

Mary's Byrne's drinking bout. Her choice of a hanging

80 song also takes on greater significance.

The tin can could also represent the magic cauldron

of mythology. "Cu Chulainn went with Curoi into a myster-

ious fortress to fetch a 'cauldron streaming with gold and

silver.' ... Taliesin, the Welsh bard, describes 'a caul- 134 dron that does not boil the blood of a coward.'

When Keridwen,the mother goddess, wanted to give her son (Avanc-Du) intelligence, and prepared a caul­ dron of inspiration for him, three drops of her brew fell by chance on the finger of Gwyon Bach, who imme­ diately possessed khowledge of the past, present, and future, and as a result became the bard Taliesin. 135

The tin cup could also possibly represent the cup of

sovereignty in another legend.

We have again come face to face with the memory of the worship of some ancient god- dess dethroned by a male god. This is clear from King Aman- gon's violent treatment of one of the divine maidens of the Castle of the Grail: he shaped his own fate by bending feminine power under his blind and brut- ish male force and stealing her sovereignty symbolised by a a cup. 136

This is an especially interesting parallel since the cup was stolen, just as the tin can was stolen in the play.

At this point, the reader can sense the direction of the plot. Sarah's smoothly running plan is upset, however, when Mary approaches singing tipsily. Michael

81 nervously i'whishts" Sarah and the priest away before Mary discovers their transaction and reacts to it drunkenly: Whisht, now the two of you. There's my mother coming, and she'd have us destroyed if she heard the like of that talk the time she's been drink­ ing her fill. 137 Michael's fears foreshadow Mary's anti-clerical, pagan stance. As the priest's religious rival, Mary would be quick to point out any hypocrisy she observed. The marriage negotiations ("that taik") would give Mary a wonderful opportunity to satirize the commercialization of sacraments. Michael knew after a lifetime of experiencing her acerbic wit that she could easily make fools out of all of them. Thus, Mary's bardic gift for stinging satire had won her that high position of the bards who stood above not only clergy but royalty.

Intuitively presuming the priest also enjoys drinking, Mary graciously offers him a drink from her jug. By acknowledging their common weakness, Mary establishes an equalness between them. Her satiric tongue is poised to strike:

God save your reverence. I'm after bringing down a smart drop; and let you drink it up now for it's a mid­ dling drouthy man you are at all times, God forgive you, and this night is cruel dry. 138 .In order to avoid any further irreverence, Sarah

82 (l •

holds Mary back when she tries to go toward him with the jug. The priest superciliously waves her away and tells her to keep off. At this, Mary changes her approach and suddenly becomes "persuasive": Let you not be shy of us, your reverence. Aren't we all sin­ ners, God help us! Drink a sup now, I'm telling you; and we won't let on a word about it till the Judgment Day. 139 Mary pours the priest a mugful of porter and hands it to him. By pleasantly cajoling him to drink, Mary ridi- cules his pretensions to propriety. To pagans who believe the afterlife is just a new life begun with a clean slate, Judgment Day must appear particularly harsh and therefore subject to satire. Mary begins to sing again but then breaks off out of feigned deference to the priest: It's a wicked song, Sarah Casey; and let you put me down now in the ditch, and I \'ITOn't sing it till himself is gone; for it's bad enough he is, I'm thinking, without ourselves making him worse .. 140 Mary deftly transforms her deference into mockery when she explains her fears that the priest will drink even more after hearing her wicked song. She continually points out his weaknesses in order to offset his pret"ensions to superiority. Mary's quick humor and her faci 1 i ty with praise and satire are traits bred into the

83 peasants by centuries of bardic tales.

After putting her to bed in the ditch, Sarah

apologizes to the priest for Mary's behavior. She says

Mary has no shame, which fits in with the theme that

pagans are free of the repressive fear of eternal damna- tion. Her freedom from guilt or shame shows up 1 ater in

her unabashed theft of the tin can. Mary simply weighs consequences without acknowledging that her actions are

evil. This form of pantheism was recorded in the ninth

century by Eriugena, but dates back through Celtic mythol- ogy to prehistory.

Mary brazenly continues to coax the priest with in- sults since the last remark had gone unchecked:

MARY ... Let you drink it up, I'm saying, and not be letting on you wouldn't do the like of it, and you with a stack of pint bottles above, reach­ ing the sky. PRIEST [with resignation]. Well, here's to your good health, and God forgive us all. [He drinks.] 141

When the priest responds to accusations of alcoholism by resignedly taking a drink, it becomes clear that Mary has pinpointed his greatest weakness. Delighted with his response, she continues her feigned flattery in the hopes of making a greater fool of him. She patronizes him for

84 (l •

stooping to consort with such lowly peasants. Mary's oxymoronic wit sparkles as she couches yet another insult within her specious humility: Isn't it a grand thing to see you sitting down, with no pride in you, and drinking a sup with the like of us, and we the poorest, wretched, starving creatures you'd see any place on the earth? 142 As the scene continues, the bardic gift for exaggeration is fully employed. Synge's stage directions encourage these bardic dramatics. His characters "sigh gloomily" and respond with "compassion," "despondency," 143 and "great sympathy." The priest replies with a doleful plea of self-pity now that he innocent 1 y assumes he has a sympathetic listener in Mary: If it's starving you are itself, I'm thinking it's well for the 1 ike of you that do be drinking when there's drouth on you, and lying down to sleep when your legs are stiff. [He sighs gloom­ ily.] What would you do if it was the like of myself you were, saying Mass with your mouth dry, and running east and west for a sick call maybe, and hearing the rural people again and they saying their sins? 144 As Irish as Mary but more shackled to a new way of life, he is envious of the freedom enjoyed by the impoverished pagans who surround him. Their unrepressed joie de vivre

85 is an alternate form of wealth passed down to them by centuries of bards. As the discussion continues, Mary appears most compassionate toward the awful ordeal of listening to sins on a fine spring day. Her feigned understanding leads him to confess his fears of the bishop's visit. Their roles are reversed and she is hearing his confession. She pats him on the back with great sympathy and offers her solution. She should "sing him songs unto the dawn of 145 day." Mary hoped to be the female bard greeting the druidic dawn after fulfilling her traditional role. Some of the goddess cultures included nocturnal orgies which must have seemed abominable to the celibate prelates. All seem to take their name from the Great Goddess Cotytto, or Cotys, who was worshipped orgiastically in Thrace, Corinth and Sicily. Her nocturnal orgie$, the Cottytia, were according to Strabo celebrated in much the same way as those of Demeter ... and of Cybele .... 146 Mary's outrageously pagan palliative startles the priest back into his role. Perhaps he is fearful that Mary will seduce him and live up to the Christian image of woman as the evil seductress. He is not going to accept her serpent's fruit or be found with her during an Aryan celebration of dawn. His haughty condemnation of

86 Mary echoes St. Patrick's response to Ossian's tale: Let thy songs rest ... and dare not to compare thy Finn to the King of Kings, whose might knoweth no bounds: bend they knees before Him, and know Him for thy Lord. 147 Like St. Patrick, the priest combats pagan pride with patriarchal demands for subjection and humility. He similarly dismisses the songs of a dying old bard. She, too, should kneel and pray for forgiveness: What is it I want with your songs when it'd be better for the like of you, that'll soon die, to be down on your two knees saying prayers to the Almighty God? 148 Unfazed by his rebuff, Mary simply changes her approach to keep the volley going. She picks up on

"prayer" and makes great game of shocki~g him with her pagan disregard for prayer: If it's prayers I want, you'd have a right to say one yourself, holy father; for we don't have them at all, and I've heard tell a power of times it's that you're for. Say one now, your reverence; for I've heard a power of queer things and I walking the world, but there's one thing I never heard any time, and that's a real priest saying a prayer. 149 Mary's dismissal of prayers and priests as queer, new things enhances the timeless antiquity of her character. Asking the priest to recite his prayers recalls the ancient quest for the secret name of a religion. Once the

87 secret was'found out, the religion was superseded.

Synge's satire is far more transparent in an earlier manuscript in which he has Mary imitate Latin with a

gabbling sound. This mimickry is an ancient skill passed on over the centuries from priestess to witch as a form of

satire. Most English poets have occa­ sionally indulged in left-handed satire ... but · there is nothing in the language to match the Irish poets in vindictiveness, except what has been written by the Anglo-Irish. The technique of parody is the same employed by Russian witches: they walk qui­ etly behind their victim, exact­ ly mimicking his gait; then when in perfect sympathy with him suddenly stumble and fall. .. 150 The priest's horror-stricken response of "The Lord protect us" inspires Mary to continue her scandalous talk.

She tells the priest it would be "great game to hear a

scholar, the like of you, speaking Latin to the saints

above." She quite openly tells him she wants to laugh at his prayers, yet she refers to him as a scholar rather than a priest. This reveals her awareness that the bardic colleges were converted into Christian seminaries and for a while educated both poets and priests. From Mary's primitive perspective, priests and bards were related branches of an aristocratic class of scholars.

~he priest calls Mary an "old vagrant heathen" and

88 rises to leave, but Mary catches hold of him and pleads for a prayer. She mocks him further by offering her "blessing" and the last sup from the jug in exchange for this queer noise (prayer). When the priest breaks away, he accuses her of hard abominations, the same term the Bible applied to the goddess-worshiping Canaanites. Sarah follows the priest as he leaves and uses his response to Mary as a bargaining tool. Calling Mary an old, wicked heathen, Sarah pleads that she will turn out the same way if she never marries. This ploy succeeds. To avoid responsibility for Sarah becoming another Mary, the priest agrees to marry Sarah the next morning for the "bit of gold" and Michael's tin can. Synge had trouble with the priest's exit and rewrote it numerous times. In an earlier version, Synge has Mary

ask the priest for advice in natural medicine. She is concerned that Sarah is suffering ailments which she sati- rically notes stem from her crazed qbsession with converting to Christianity: It's little I want with prayers, your reverence, but whisper till I tell you holy father that young woman is gone crazy with her talk­ ing of priests and prayers ... and the marriage vow. You're a wise man your reverence and maybe you'd learn us some mixture that would cure her now, for it's hard set I am to know what ai 1 s her if it's wind within her belly or the strengthening of the sun. 152

89 Mary assumes that the priest's education in a bardic college included instruction in natural medicine. A know- ledge of herbal cures was a goddess culture skill known to priestesses and druids. There are countless references to the healing aspect of the goddess. The Isle of Avalon [was] thick with apples and grapes ... nine sisters ruled over it ... and one of them surpassed all the others in beauty and power. Her name was Morgan and she taught how plants could be used to cure illness. 153 Morgan is derived from "the sea" just as Mary is. This may be a carryover from the sea goddess revered by coastal Indo-Europeans. In one of the Welsh tales about the Lady of the Lake, she disappears under the water, taking her herd with her. She returned only once, and that was to teach her sons 154 medicine. When Tristan landed in Ireland, he was was 155 cured by Iseult. The Muses of Helicon were connected with healing as well. The worship of the Muses on Helicon ... was concerned with incantatory cursing and incan­ tatory blessing; Helicon was famous for the medicinal herbs which supplemented the incan­ tations - especially for the nine­ leaved black hellebore used... · as a cure for the Daughters of Proteus, which could either

90 I •

cause or cure insanity and which has a stimulative action on the heart like "digitalis" (foxglove). 156 Upon discovering that this skill still lingered in west Ireland, Synge recorded this Kerry man's advice on natural cures in his travel journals: ... for you know we 11 it was the Holy Mother of God who cured her own Son with plants the like of that, and said after that no mother should be without a plant for ever to cure her child. 157 Along with Mary's ancient conceptions of biology and medicine, she also exhibits prehistoric religious

concepts. Her belief in Tir na nOg is reinforced in this same earlier manuscript when she blesses the priest: Well the blessing of God on your [reverence] and that we may have a long life and meet in heaven. 158 In the priest's version of heaven, she would not be welcome. In her pagan version, everyone is equal and no one suffers recriminations for their behavior in the afterlife. Mary has shrewdly seen through the priest's pretenses to holiness and found someone very human to tease. When the priest talks to Sarah, Mary shrilly warns her away from "talking whisper-talk with the like of him 159 in the face of the Almighty God." She talks about him as

~s if he was already a social outcast, the rejected victim .of a satire.

91 While· the marriage arrangement is being secured by

Sarah, Mary turns to Michael and reminds him of something

he had said earlier, that the moon has had a strong effect

on Sarah this month:

Did you see that, Michael Byrne? Didn't you hear me telling you she's flighty a while back since the change of the moon? With her fussing for marriage, and she making whisper-talk with one man or another man a 1 ong by the road. 16 0

This primitive belief that the moon creates disequilibrium in women every month can be traced to the ancient Sumerian tale, The Cycle of Inanna and elsewhere.

The magical connection of the Moon with menstruation is strong and widespread. The baleful moon dew used by the witches of Thessaly was apparently a girl's first menstrual blood, taken during an eclipse of the Moon. Pliny devotes a whole chapter of his Natural History to the subject and gives a 1 ong 1 ist of the powers for good and bad that a menstruating women possesses. 161

Mary may be worrying about Sarah's flirtatious behavior because it is Spring - the time the goddess acquires a new consort.

Once the priest leaves, Mary describes his fearful- ness. Her global scope implies the primitive notion of a very small world:

... and he the fearfullest old fellow you'd see any place walk­ ing the world. 162

92 Mary cannot imagine why Sarah would want the constraints

of Christianity. It must be the moon affecting her mind.

Michael responds by warning Mary not to say anything

lest Sarah retaliate with violence:

Whisht now, or she'll knock the head of(f) you the time she comes back. 163 This warrioress quality is a carryover from the goddess culture. Sarah returns and whispers exultantly to Michael about her success with the priest. Mary starts to sing and then decides her bardic tales are the remedy for Sarah's

flightiness. She coaxes Sarah to listen by beginning with a litany of praise: But if it's flighty you are itself, you're a grand hand­ some woman, the glory of tink­ ers, the pride of Wicklow, the Beauty of Ballinacree. 164 This hypnotic repetition of titles in praise of the goddess is also found in the Cycle of Inanna. The follow- ing fragment of a litany to Ishtar/Innana provides an excellent parallel: ... To the Queen of Heaven, the Goddess of the Universe, the one who wa 1 ked in ter­ rible Chaos and brought life by the Law of Love ... 165 Series of similar titular praises are found in Christian litanies, bardic panegyrics, and Gaelic runs.

93 One of the few existing texts written in Gallic consists of two invocations to the mother goddess ... [They bear] a resem­ blance to a Catholic prayer, like the expressive Litanies of the Blessed Virgin. 166 Mary achieves her full identification as a bard when she presents her grand story to Sarah .

... So let you sit down there by the big bough, and I'll be tel­ ling you the finest story you'd hear any place from Dundalk to Ballinacree, with great queens in it, making themselves matches from the start to the end, and they with shiny silks on them the length of the day, and white shifts for the night. 167

Only bards would brag of having the finest stories in an area and only bards would know stories of the ancient queens. Her stories take on an ancient flavor when she mentions queens but not kings. These illustrious queens chose their own mates, seemingly as often as they wished. Celtic women had the right to ceremoniously choose their own husbands; they could not be married against 168 their will. Divorce laws included community property rights. Divorcing wives took their dowry and their half of the profits with them. Synge heard stories about ancient queens from bards in the Aran Islands. One of these legends was called "The

~ Stocks of the Dead Women."

... for one time a boat came

94 ashore there with twelve dead women on board her, big ladies with green dresses and gold rings, and fine jewelries... 169 Mary's goddess culture association, however, seems most pronounced when she describes not only the shiny silk

dresses of these queeris, but their eveni~g shifts which are the color of the moon. Only a bard from the goddess culture would celebrate the garment for an evening of love. Although Sarah has refused to listen, Mary continues to parade her colorful tales. Storytelling, she proposes, is inspired by the seasons, a throwback to ancient pagan festivals that celebrated the beginning of each season. I' 11 be telling you a story would be fit to tell a woman the like of you in the spring­ time of the year. 170 Sarah still refuses her, so Mary employs bardic praise. She compares Sarah to the queens in her tales.

They are all beautiful, authoritative and battle-ready classic traits of female goddess worshipers . ... I've a grand story of the great queens of Ireland with white necks on them the like of Sarah Casey, and fine arms wou 1 d hit you a s 1 ap the way Sarah Casey would hit you. 171 This is another excellent example of Mary damning with

~eint praise. Her exaggerated, oxymoronic blend of praise and satire creates a startling brand of humor.

95 Unfortunately for Mary, Sarah does not succumb to her entreaties. After wrapping the can which will be their wedding fee in sacking to protect it from rust, she and Michael leave Mary and walk off to poach for hens 172 "roosting in the ash-tree above at the well." Disappointed at being alone, Mary begins to pity herself; she is a bard without an audience or alcohol to brighten her sorrow. Her lament sounds a great deal like Ossian's in Renan's version of his dialogue with St. Patrick. She also sounds like the bard Synge met who knew all the families in Wicklow. This bard also had "a 172 noise in his head." It's gone they are, and I with my feet that weak under me you'd knock me down with a rush, and my head with a noise in it the like of what you'd hear in a stream and it running between two rocks and rain falling ... What good am I this night, God help me? What good are the grand stories I have when it's few would listen to an old woman ... 173 Mary begs Sarah for two coppers for a jug. As a goddess culture matriarch, Sarah controls the family money. When she refuses, Mary decides to buy her jug by selling the tin can Sarah has wrapped up. She fears the violence of Sarah's wrath but, for her, the end justifies the means . . . . maybe if I keep near the peelers tomorrow for the first

96 bit of the fair, herself won't strike me at all; and if she does itself, what's a little stroke on your head beside sit­ ting lonesome on a fine night, hearing the dogs barking, and the bats squeaking, and you saying over and over, it's a short while only till you die. [She goes out singing 'The night before Larry was stretched.'] 174

Mary incorporates the maudlin melodrama of Ossian and all the bards who mourned the passing of the bardic tradition.

Her pagan vitality, however, allows her to embrace nature and face death with a song that defies the Christian fears associated with death. She has maintained her spirit in spite of her predicament.

97 ACT II

Act II takes place the next morning. Stage directions from an earlier version place a flowering hawthorn tree over Sarah's head. The hawthorn tree is connected to the worship of the Goddess Cardea who cast spells with a hawthorn. It gradually represented bad 1 uck. While it was in flower in May, people wore old clothes and abstained from sex to ward off the bad luck it brought. It is still considered unlucky to wed in May. The Greeks propitiated her [Cardea] at marriages -- mar­ riages being considered hate­ ful to the Goddess -- with five torches of hawthorn-wood and with hawthorn blossom be- fore the unlucky month began. 175

In Welsh mythology, the hawthorn is a Giant who persis- tently tries to prevent the marriage of his daughter.

Although the hawthorn represents enforced chastity in some cultures, it is a powerful sexual symbol in others .

... its later orgiastic use which corresponds with the cult of the Goddess Flora, and which accounts for the English medi­ eval habit of riding out on a May Morning to pluck flowering hawthorn boughs and dance around the maypole. Hawthorn blossom has, for many men, a strong scent of female sexuality; which is why the Turks use a flowering branch as an erotic symbol. 176

This diverse symbolism seems appropriate since the wedding

98 represents'the blend of goddess and Christian cultures. The final stage directions, however, place Sarah over

a bucket, washing her face and plaiting her hair. Michael also cleans up while Mary sleeps. The washing can be traced to an ancient wedding ceremony in which the woman chooses her mate. 'When there was a daughter to be married, a great feast was organised to which all young people were invited. The girl herself would choose, offering water to the man of her choice to wash his hands' [Fulgose, book II). 177 Synge's specific direction that Sarah plait her hair can be traced to the queens of Celtic mythology who also plaited their hair. In the Ulster cycle, for example, Conchobar dreams that a beautiful queen with yellow- plaited hair appears to him. To celebrate their marriage, Sarah buys two handker- chiefs - one red and one green - for Michael and herself. These two colors dominate the color scheme in the Ulster cycle - green for fertility and red for death. Fertility and death are the two main functions of the goddess. Scarlet thread was sacred to the Moon goddess and green is the color that has always been associated with the fairy kingdom. -While Mary sleeps, Sarah and Michael quietly prepare for the church ceremony. When Sarah warns Michael to

99 remove his hat in church, he responds with candid practi-

cality. [gloomily] God help them that do have this trouble and mess­ ing every week of the year. You'd as 1 ief be shut up in the Union I'm thinking, or in the Gaol of Kilmainham itself, as be washing and fooling every Sunday, and walking to mass. 178 The idea of enduring such repressive restrictions is unimaginable to Michael. The "Union" he refers to is the

workhouse, which is not much better than jail to a

wandering tinker. Mary wakes before they leave and Michael fears her satire once she learns what they are doing: "She'll be

crying out now, and making game of us, and saying it's 179 fools we are surely." Sarah is concerned also and calls

her a "divil's scholar the like of her turning the priest 180 against us for sure maybe with her godless talk."

The term "divil's scholar" is especia~ly interesting.

It describes someone well-educated in other than the Christian mysteries. When the original people of Ireland, the Tuatha de Danaan, were overcome, the peasants kept

their spirit alive with stories of fairies and ghosts.

The Christians converted these "little people" into f devi~s. The "divil's scholar" could therefore refer to a peasant hybrid that blends devils with the ancient,

100 scholarly goddess worshipers, the Tuatha de Danaan. More specifically, Mary might represent a special class of female sages like the woman file Synge had discovered in the Ulster cycle. When Queen Medb met this file on the road, she asked her to foretell the fate of the war the queen was waging. So, immediately after Medb has set off for Cooley, she meets a female fili or faith who has just returned to Ireland after studying the crafts of the fili in Britain .... 181 The primary proof that Mary represents the druidic and bardic traditions, however, is her quick wit which crackles from the moment she rises in the morning. That's fine things you have on you, Sarah Casey; and it's a great stir you're making this day, washing your face. I'm that used to the hammer, I wouldn't hear it at all, but washing is a rare thing, and you're after waking me up, and I having a great sleep in the sun. 182 Once again Mary couches an insult in the midst of a seemingly bland nicety.

When Sarah sweetly coaxes her to return to sleep, Mary immediately becomes suspicious. She prefers to

~antheistically embrace the dawn and discover their plans. That's a sweet tongue you have, Sarah Casey; but if sleep's a

101 ·grand thing, it's a grand thing to be waking up a day the like of this, when there's a warm sun in it, and a kind air, and you'll hear the cuckoos singing and crying out on the top of the hills. 183

She includes an animistic wind, an animistic/druidic bird, and an Aryan hill to complete the bardic picture.

Hoping to keep Mary occupied and away from the wedding ceremony, Sarah te 11 s her to go off and beg from the early fair-goers. When she refuses, Sarah loses her temper. She authoritatively informs Mary that she is not welcome to stay with them if she refuses to beg or sleep when told to do so.

Once again Mary attributes Sarah's i~l temper to the moon. To forestall her comeuppance, Mary offers to sell the non-existent can at the fair. For Sarah, Mary's threat to sell the can is a threat to her marriage, so her rage increases dramatically. Knowledge of Mary's theft enhan- ces ~his scene's humor for the reader. Although it is audible throughout the whole play, bardic alliteration seems most boncentrated in these dramatic scenes.

You'd go drinking the can and the dew not dried from the grass? 184___ __ t Mary claims her heartburn requires water from the

'tb.lesse

102 from the previous night's drinking. She hopes to sell the can and a "brace of lies" to the pa~son's daughter down at the well. Synge allows the reader to imagine this parson's daughter paying handsomely to have Mary ease her repression with magical tales at the druidic well. Mary allays Sarah's fears that she will exchange the can for more to drink by noting the lack of drinking houses en route. Now that Sarah has run out of phony reasons for keeping the can, she resorts to violence rather than explain the can is a marriage fee. She takes after Mary with a hammer, then pushes her and tells her to leave. The priest approaches quietly and is shocked by Mary's retaliatory bardic curse.

If I go, I'll be telling old and young you're a weathered heathen savage, Sarah Casey, the one did. put down a head of the parson's cabbage to boil in the pot with your clothes and quenched the flaming candles on the throne of God the time your shadow fell within the pillars of the chapel door. 185 The priest starts back at the sound of such pagan irreverence for the parson and his altar and, in a startling reversal, refuses to marry her. Sarah is enraged. Bound to an oral culture, Sarah feels that breaking a verbal agreement is like breaking a vow;- she becomes vehemently self- righteous .

... would you be turning back

103 upon your spoken promise in the face of God! ... If you don't stand to your spoken word, holy father, I'll make my own com­ plaint to the mitred bishop in the face of all. 186 By threatening to ridicule him in front of everyone, she employs the tool that set bards above everyone, even kings. Sarah's vow to walk "to the city of Dublin with 187 blood and blisters on my naked feet," is another example of the colorful, bardic penchant for dramatic exaggera- tion. Sarah's dramatic threat convinces the priest to marry them the next morning. When Mary overhears their conversation, Sarah admits that she is marrying Michael and cites her reasons.

I'll be married now in a short while; and from this day there will no one have a right to call me a dirty name and I se 11 ing cans in Wicklow or the city of Dublin itself. 188

Sarah is bent on saving face,and employs all her bardic talents to do so. Now Mary has a subject for satire worthy of her skills. It is not Sarah she attacks, however, but her son, the weaker of the bridal couple. Well, she's a tight, hardy girl, and it's no lie; but I never knew ti 11 this day it was a black born fool I had for a son. You'll breed asses, I've heard them say, and poaching dogs, and

104 il .

horses'd go licking the wind, but it's a hard thing, God help me, to breed sense in a son. 189 Mary's matriarchal attack certainly suggests that men are inferior to women. Michael's reply, however, is less than patriarchal. He feebly explains that he is going along with the marriage because Sarah is a good worker and he does not want to lose her. If I didn't marry her, she'd be walking off to Jaunting Jim maybe at the fall of night; and and it's well yourself knows there isn't the like of her for getting money and selling songs to the men. 190 Michael's reference to Sarah "selling songs to the men" suggests a debased bardic tradition since bardic tales had been gradually reduced to traditional airs. Michael's restriction of those sales to "the men" is ambiguous. However, since it is one of the only references to men in the play, it suggests that Sarah's talent is based on her sexual attractiveness. As a member of the goddess culture, she is proud of this sexuality and feels no Christian drive to repress it. As to Michael, he appears to be caught in a matriarchal web. Losing Sarah to Jim would mean losing a vital means of support. Sarah is the breadwinner who con- trols their finances, which implies she has a goddess culture relationship with Michael.

105 [l

The "divil's scholar" explains the flaw in Michael's 1 ogic by pointing out that there are no guarantees Sarah will stay with him if they do marry. And you're thinking it's paying gold to his reverence would make a woman stop when she's a mind to go? 191 Mary invokes the headstrong independence of all women, another throwback to the goddess culture. In an earlier manuscript, Sarah contends she has a right to make herself safe from Almighty God, perhaps as insurance against the potential threat of hell. Mary's response is pantheistic. Safe from the Almighty God is it! What is it he'd care for the like of you. You wouldn't see the Al­ mighty God going up into the sky after the larks and swallows and the swift birds, or after the hares do be racing above on a fine Spring, and what would he want following us and we not troubling him at all. 192 Once again there is the affinity for birds found so frequently in ancient literature and mythology. Some goddesses turned into birds and occasionally prophetic birds were consulted. Hares, like birds, are symbols, of the regenerative powers of Spring -- hence the existence of the Easter bunny. In the lines Synge allowed to remain, Sarah says she has as much right as any speckled female. This term can be traced to Synge's record of a Kerryman' s description of a

106 Turkish gy~sy woman as "an old speckled looking Kruger of 193 a woman." It would seem odd for a Kerryman to know about Turks, except for the fact that ancient Turkey, o.r Anatolia, was the center of the goddess culture. Whether Synge intended this or not by referring to the gypsy, it is a fact that Turks worshiped the goddess there as early as 6500 BC. and and up through classical times. Shortly before the birth of Christ, Strabo recorded a matriarchal culture in Ana- tolia in which even aristocratic children took their 194 mother's name; illegitimacy did not exist. Although Sarah may be asserting her right to marry, Mary is equally bent on dissuading her. She sets Sarah thinking by saying marriage would not keep her any younger or safer from pain. Mary's reasoning is primitive but logical: Dublin women suffer more during childbirth than peasant women do .

. . . when it's the grand 1 adies do be married in silk dresses with rings of gold, that do pass any woman with their share of torment in the hour of birth ... 195 Mary's advice to Sarah may be Synge's personal satire on the Genesis story. Eve's punishment for enticing Adam to sin was the pain of childbirth. Synge may be joking that the Bible forces Christian women to suffer the fate of Eve while pagans enjoy painless childbirth.

107 Another source for this comment might be an Irish tale called The Illness of the Ulstermen. The goddess Macha came to live with a peasant named Crunniuc and became pregnant. After Crunniuc bragged to the Ulstermen, the king insisted that Macha race his horses. Macha, arguing her advanced state of pregnancy, asked for a delay, but the king was un­ moved. She won the race and gave birth to twins. However, she put a curse on the U 1 ster­ men and their descendants, who at certain times would have to suffer the pangs of childbirth for four days and five nights. 196 Sarah understandably questions Mary's experience with

the ladies of Dublin. Mary's reply is quintessentially bardic. If you do be drinking a little sup in one town and another town, it's soon you get great knowledge and a great sight into the world. You' 11 see men there, and women there, sitting up on the ends of barrels in the dark night, and they making great talk would soon have the 1 ike of you, Sarah Casey, as wise as a March hare. 197 Mary is hailing the bardic tradition of traveling from town to town and gaining great wisdom by sharing stories. The bards were the sole source of wisdom for the peasants they entertained with "great talk. " Michael agrees with his mother now and asks Sarah why she is wasting their money. Sarah insists on sticking to

108 the good b~rgain she has made with the priest, however, and no one argues with her. When Sarah describes this bargain, Mary suddenly realizes the gravity of her theft: the tin can she stole was Sarah's marriage fee. The full force of Sarah's punishing wrath could only be imagined! Mary's first reaction is to start off to the fair before her theft is discovered; her second reaction is to stall that discovery. She convinces Sarah not to unwrap the sack by preying on her highly activated fear of satire. Let you not take the can from the sack, Sarah Casey; for the people is coming above would be making game of you, and pointing their fingers if they seen you do the like of that. Let you leave it safe in the bag, I'm saying, Sarah darling. It's that way will be best. 198 After starting off to the fair, Mary changes her mind and heads over to the chapel to seek sanctuary from the blows she expects to receive from Sarah. Caught going in the wrong direction, Mary explains to Sarah that she is going to the chapel to hear the priest pray and to be safe from the marauders on the road. The priest meets them at the chapel gate and demands his fee. Sarah hands him the coin and the sack, passing on Mary's warning not to open it lest the people make fun of them. He sees no shame in a tinker making a can for

109 him, and opens it. To his amazement, he finds three empty

bottles. Sarah cries out and accuses the devil of the theft just as the pagans would accuse the Sidhe of pulling a prank. The priest, however, feels she is lying. He sug- gests that she probably sold the can to buy alcohol. This naturally plants the idea that Mary may have done exactly

that. To avoid having Sarah consider this possibility, Mary intercedes as the peacemaking druid. She maintains that Sarah is not a drinker and does want to get married. By describing the priest's appearance of well-being, Mary satirizes his petty greed regarding this marriage fee. "What differ would an empty can make with a fine, rich, 199 hardy man the like of you?" When Sarah offers to make him a new can, he refuses to trust them again. He therefore lacks not only charity but forgiveness. It would appear from this that Synge is satirizing all the moneychangers in the priesthood. Realizing her own fate if Sarah cannot marry, Mary pleads with the priest to marry them. Sarah figures out Mary's motives and accuses her of stealing the tin can and making a fool out of her. It's making game of me you'd be, and putting a fool's head on me in the face of the world. 200

110 In her rage, Sarah attacks Mary with a bottle. Mary hides behind the priest and entreats him to prevent bloodshed at the door of the church. When he complies by trying to shoo Sarah away, she loses all respect for him and all desire to marry. They are now simply equal enemies, and she holds the advantage. .d I've bet a power of strong lads east and west through 1 the world, and are you think­ ing I'd turn back from a :::.. priest? Leave the road now, or maybe I would strike your­ self. 201 Clearly, this goddess culture warrioress is no stranger to battle. Having defeated a number of strong men in combat, 1e Sarah sees no threat in the priest. Her references to the eastern and western world exhibit her primitive concept of living at the center of a small world. Sarah gives him an angry ultimatum. Either they are wed for ten shillings, a fair fee for a priest "near burst with the fat," or she breaks Mary's head. The priest responds with the rage of Christ expelling the moneychangers.

I wouldn't have you coming in lp- on me and soiling my church; for there's nothing at all, I'm thinking, would keep the like of you from hell. 202 to By throwing their money on the ground, the priest mimics

Judas, the disciple who valued money over religion. Lll

111 " .

not be chased off like a scared rabbit ·by a verbal

threat. His pagan pride wounded, he rises up like

Cuchulain with a strong physical threat.

Is it run from the 1 ike of you, holy father? Go up to your own shanty, or I'll beat you with the ass's reins till the world would hear you roar­ ing from this place to the coast of Clare. 206

This wonderful bardic exaggeration within a primitive

small world is typical of Celtic mythology. In Michael's

Ulster cycle world, this strength means power, and nothing

else really matters.

The priest returns with a threat that the "Lord would

blight his members," which sounds wrathful enough to be an

Aryan thunderbolt from a mountaintop. It could also be a

Christianized variation of the ancient castration rites.

The priest suddenly initiates these threatened

fisticuffs by shoving Michael who, in turn, comes after

him with the reins. Realizing he will lose; the priest

starts to run off, hailing the peelers passing by as he

runs.

When the priest rushes off, Mary reacts swiftly. She

hurriedly covers his mouth and orders the others to "knock 207 him down on the road." They do so, then gag and bag him.

Sitting atop the bagged priest, Mary chides him for med­ ciling with pagans.

113 ... but what did you want meddling with the like of us, when it's a long time we are going our own ways - father and son, and his son after him, or mother and daughter, and her own daughter again - and it's little need we ever had of going up into a church and swearing ...or with drawing rings on our fingers ... 2 0 8 Mary seems to point out a mix of the two cultures - patriarchal and matriarchal - when she talks about sons following fathers and daughters following mothers. She also maintains her fierce independence from Christianity. Once they have bundled up their goods, Sarah and Michael want to throw the priest into a ditch. Out of pity for a fellow drinker, Mary intercedes on the priest's behalf in a soothing, placating voice, like a druid peacemaker.

Let you not be rough with him, Sarah Casey, and he after drink­ ing his sup of porter with us at the fall of night. Maybe he'd swear a mighty oath he wouldn;t harm us, and then we'd safer 1 oose him ... 2 0 9

Although she has poked fun at the priest throughout the play, in the end she defends him. Her act mirrors the bard/priest brotherhood that grew out of the bardic monasteries. A truce is reached when the priest swears not to Fep6rt them. Mary trusts the solemnity of the priest's verbal oath just as Sarah did because their oral culture

114 values the spoken word. Sarah, however, has learned to

distrust the priest's promise. To ensure his good faith,

she hands the priest an Iron Age metal talisman - her

ring. There's the ring holy father, to keep you minding of your oath until the end of time; for my heart's scalded with your fooling; and it'll be a long day till I go making talk of marriage or the like of that. 210

By giving him the ring, Sarah confirms her decision to

remain single and pagan.

Mary stands up proudly and tells the priest that his kind have never been needed to help them fill their needs

of food, drink and love. In an older manuscript, Mary also practices her introduction to the wonderful bardic tale she will create about Sarah and the priest, thus assuring her bardic role .

. . . It's a great story I' 11 (be) telling this night and in the long nights of the year of the way Michael Byrne wasn't married at all to Sarah Casey, the Beauty of Ballinacree, on a grand morning, and we driving down the grey ass to the fair. 211

As Synge brings the play to a close, he ascertains the duplicity of the priest who tricks them all with his self-serving interpretation of his oath.

I've sworn not to call the hand of man upon your crimes today;

115 but I haven't sworn I wouldn't call the fire of heaven from the hand of the Almighty God. [He begins saying a Latin maledic­ tion in a loud ecclesiastical voice.] 212 Rather than following the Christian dictate to turn the other cheek, the priest invokes the fiery wrath of God. He begins a Latin malediction which serves as a euphemism for a bardic curse. Priests normally pray for intercession and forgiveness, not revenge against their enemies. Only pagans ritualistically curse an offender. The pagan tinkers quickly recognize the tremendous power of the priest's curse. The play closes with all three tinkers running for their lives. ~hey know their physical strength pales before the druidic powers of a "scholar."

116 NOTES

1 William Righter, Myth and Literature (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975) iv.---

2 Robert Graves, The White Goddess (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,-1.948)-217. ------

3 Graves 399.

4 Graves 386.

5 Graves 386.

6 Jean Markale, Women of the Celts (Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions Internationa~-Ltd., 1986) 13.

7 Markale 13.

8 Gerald S. Hawkins, John B. White, Stonehenge Decoded (New York: Dell Publishing, 1965) 34.

9 Merlin Stone, When God Was a Woman (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanich, Publ isher8;-197 6) 13.

10 Stone 153-155.

l1 Graves 11.

12 Graves 3-4.

13 Stone 133-34.

117 14 Stone 148-49. 15 Stone 212. 16 Graves 661. 17 Graves 388-89. 18 Graves 457. 19 Diane Wolkstein, Samuel Noah Kramer, Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth (New York: Harper & Row, 1983) 116. -

20 Wolkstein ix. 21 Wolkstein ix. 22 Wolkstein 4. 23 Graves 50. 24 Wolkstein 142. 25 Graves 219. 26 Stone 156. 27 Stone 191. 28 Stone i 75.

-29 Graves 257.

118 30 Graves 258.

31 Graves 253.

32 Stone 222.

33 Markale 225.

34 Mar kale 125.

35 Graves 242.

36 Graves 473.

37 Stone 225.

38 Stone 194

39 Graves 145

40 The Talmud

41 Mar kale 151.

42 Mar kale 15.

43 Mar kale 15-16.

44 Mar kale 23.

45 Markale 16-17.

.46 Markale 85.

119 47 Mar kale 240.

48 Markale 240.

49 Markale 256.

50. Markale 27.

51 Mar kale 17. 52 Markale 27.

53 Graves 182. 54 Graves 182.

55 Graves 210.

56 Graves 50. 57 Graves 50.

58 Markale 82.

59 Graves 132.

60 Graves 234. 61 Markale 38.

62 Daniel Corkery, The Hidden Ireland, (Dublin: Gil and MacMillan Ltd., 1984)77.

120 63 Corkery 92. 64 Graves 219-20. 65 Markale 109. 66 Kenneth Jackson, Window to the Iron Age (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni versity-Press;--1964) 27--:--

67 Markale 28.

68 Fallis, Richard, The Irish Renaissance (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1977) 69 Markale 111. 70 Mar kale 106. 71 Graves 216. 72 Mar kale 111. 73 Ernest Renan, "The Poetry of the Celtic Races," The Harvard Classics, Ed. Charles W. Eliot LLD (New York:P.F. Collier & Son, 1910) 177-78. 74 Fallis 75 David Greene and Edward Stephens, J. M. Synge, (New York: Macmillan Co., 1959) 295. 76 John Synge, "Under Ether," J.M. Synge Collected Works II: Prose, Ed. Alan Price. (WashingtonD.C.: The Cathulic University of America Press, 1982), 39.

121 77 Benedict de Spinoza, Philosophy of Benedict de Spinoza, trans. R.H.M. Elwes (New York: Tudor Publishing­ Co. 1941), vii. 78 Spinoza x. 79 Synge Prose 42. 80 Synge Prose p. 4 2

81 Markale 214 82 Declan Kiberd, Synge and the Irish Language, (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1979)-ro2.

83 Renan 143. 84 Renan 144.

85 Renan 149.

86 Renan 166. 87 Renan 166.

88 Synge, Prose 364.

89 Synge, Prose 365. 96 John Synge, "The Tinker's Wedding," Plays: Book 2, Gen. Ed. Robin Skelton, (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1982), xii .

. 91 Synge, Tinker's Wedding (TW) xii.

122 92 Synge, TW xiii.

93 Synge, TW xiv.

94 Synge, TW xvi.

95 Synge, TW 3-4 •

96 Synge, TW 9.

97 Renan 176-77. 98 Lady Augusta Gregory, Cuchulain of Muirthemne (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1975) 141.

99 Gregory, 141.

100 Gregory 141-2.

101 Markale 37.

102 Markale 99.

103 Graves 394.

104 Renan 150.

105 Synge, TW 17.

106 Graves. 456.

107 Markale 167.

123 108 Mar kale 212.

109 Synge, TW 11.

110 Synge, TW 7.

111 Synge, TW 7.

112 Synge, TW 7.

113 Mar kale 35-36.

114 Synge, TW 8.

115 Synge, TW 9.

116 Synge, TW 11.

117 Mar kale 8 8.

118 Mar kale 8 9.

119 Synge, TW 11.

120 Synge, TW 11.

121 Synge, TW 13.

122 Synge, . TW 13.

123 Synge, TW 13.

124 124 Synge, TW 13.

125 Synge, TW 13. 126 Synge, TW 15. 127 Synge, TW 15. 128 Mar kale 247.

129 Synge, TW 15.

130 Synge, TW 15. 131 Synge, TW 15. 132 Markale 59. 133 Markale 191. 134 Markale 191.

135 Mar kale 191.

136 Mar kale 201. 137 Synge, TW 17.

138 Synge, TW 17. 139 Synge, TW 17.

125 140 Synge, TW 19.

141 Synge, TW 19.

142 Synge, TW 19.

143 Synge, TW 19.

144 Synge, TW 19.

145 Synge, TW 19.

146 Graves 62.

147 Renan 177-78.

148 Synge, TW 21.

149 Synge, TW 21.

150 Graves 445.

151 Synge, TW 21.

152 Synge, TW 20.

153 Mar kale 7 9.

154 Mar kale 123.

155 Markale 203.

126 156 Graves 386.

157 Synge, Prose 246.

158 Synge, TW 2 0.

159 Synge, TW 21.

160 Synge, TW 23.

161 Graves 166.

162 Synge, TW 2 3.

163 Synge, TW 23.

164 Synge, TW 23.

165 Stone x.

166 Marka1e 118.

167 Synge, TW 23.

168 Graves 32.

169 Synge, Prose 264.

170 Synge, TW 25.

171 Synge, TW 25

127 172 Synge, TW 25

173 Synge, TW 25-27.

174 Synge, TW 27.

175 Graves 174.

176 Graves 176.

177 Graves 32-33.

178 Synge, TW 2 8.

179 Synge, TW 2 9.

180 Synge, TW 2 9.

181 Jackson 27.

182 Synge, TW 2 9.

183 Synge, TW 31.

184 Synge, TW 31.

185 Synge, TW 3 3.

186. Synge, TW 3 3.

187 Synge, TW 33.

188 Synge, TW 35.

128 189 Synge, TW 35.

190 Synge, TW 35.

191 Synge, TW 35.

192 Synge, TW 34.

193 Synge, TW 34.

194 Stone 45.

195 Synge, TW 37.

196 Markale 58.

197 Synge, TW 37.

198 Synge, TW 38-39.

199 Synge, TW 41.

200 Synge, TW 43.

201 Synge, TW 4 3.

202 Synge, TW 43.

203 Synge, TW 43-45.

204 Synge, TW 45.

129 205 Synge, TW 45.

206 Synge, TW 45.

207 Synge, TW 45.

208 Synge, TW 47.

209 Synge, TW 4 7.

210 Synge, TW 4 9.

211 Synge, TW 4 8.

212 Synge, TW 4 9.

130 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources:

Synge, J. M. Collected Works II: Prose. Ed. Alan Price. Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1982.

Synge, J .M. Co 11 ected Works IV: P 1 ays - Book 2. Ed. Ann S add 1 emeyer. Washington -D.C.: - . The Ca tho 1 i c University of America Press, 1982.

Secondary Sources on the Goddess/Druidic Cultures and and-rriSh History

Blacam, Aodh de. A First Book of Irish Literature. New York: Kennikat Press, 1934.-

Bonwick, James. Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions. New York: Arno Press, 1976. ---

Corkery, Daniel. The Hidden Ireland. Dublin: Gil and Macmillan Ltd~967. -----

D'Arbois, H. de Jubainville. The Irish Mythological Cycle. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis~Co. Ltd. 1903.

Dorson, Richard M. Peasant Customs and Savage Myths - Volume 1 and Volume 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968.

Fallis, Richard. The Irish Renaissance. New York: Syra- cuse University Press, 1977.

Gregory, Lady Augusta. Cuchulain of Muirthemne. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1975.

Hardiman, James, ed. Irish Minstrelsy. London: Joseph Robins, 1831. jiawkins, Gerald S. and White, John B. Stonehenge Decoded. -New York: Dell Publishing Co. 1965.

131 Hoebel, E.· Adamson, ed. Anthropology: The Study of Man, 4th ed. San Francisco: McGraw Hill, 1972.

Graves, Robert. The White Goddess. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1948. Hyde, Douglas. A Literary History of Ireland. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc. 1967. Jackson, Kenneth Hurlstone. The Oldest Irish Tradition: A Window on the Iron Age~ambridge: University Press, 1964. Knott, Eleanor and Murphy, Gerard. Early Irish Literature. New York: Barnes & Noble Inc. 1966. Llywelyn, Morgan. Bard. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1984. MacCormac, Earl R. Metaphor and Myth in Science and Religion. South Carolina: Duke University Press, 1976. MacManus, Seumas. The Story of the Irish Race. Old Greenwich, Connecticut: The-nevin Adair Company, 1979. Markale, Jean. Women of the Celts. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions International, Ltd. 1986. Renan, Ernest. "The Poetry of the Celtic Races," The Harvard Classics, Ed. Charles W. Eliot LLD. Ne~ York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1910. Righter, William. Myth and Literature. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul-;- 1975. ------

Spinoza, Benedict de, Philosophy of Benedict de Spinoza, trans. R.H.M. Elwes. New York: Tu-dor Publishing Co., 1941. Stone, Merlin. When God Was A Woman. San Diego: Harcourt Brace -Jovanich, Publ ishers,-197 6.

Wolkstein, Diane and Kramer, Samuel Noah. Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth. New York:Harper & Row, PubliShers-;- 1983. -----

132 Secondary Sources on Synge:

Corkery, Daniel. Synge and Anglo-Irish Literature: A Study. New York: Russell & Russell Inc., 1965. Frenze 1, Herbert. John Mi 11 ington Synge's Work as a Contribution to Irish Folklore and to the PsycholOgy­ of Primitive Tribes. Folcroft, PA:-The Folcroft Press, Inc., 1969. ·

Gerstenberger, Donna. John Millington Synge. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1964. Greene, David, and Stephens, Edward. J.M. Synge. New York: Macmillan Co., 1959.

Johnson, Toni 0'' Brien. Synge: The Medieval and the Grotesque. Totowa: Barnes & Noble, 1982. Kiberd, Declan. Synge and the Irish Language. London: Macmillan Press Lt~979.

Price, Alan. Synge and Anglo-Irish Drama. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd.;-1961. Skelton, Robin. J.M. Synge. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1972~--

133