Broken Order

Home , Chapter One (restaurant), Ernst Windisch, Geas, Immram, James Henthorn Todd, Petty kingdom

Broken Order Shapeshifting as Social Metaphor in Early Medieval England and Ireland Gwendolyne Knight Academic dissertation for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History at Stockholm University to be publicly defended on Friday 18 January 2019 at 10.00 in hörsal 7, hus D, Universitetsvägen 10 D.

Abstract Shapeshifting narratives appear in cultures all over the world, throughout human history. At each point, these narratives give expression to culturally contingent anxieties and preoccupations. This study examines shapeshifting narratives in early medieval England and Ireland in order to uncover what preoccupations informed the meaning of 'shapeshifting', and also what social functions these shapeshifting narratives could serve. It begins with a lexical analysis of the verbs and nouns most associated with shapeshifting narratives; then, it examines shapeshifting narratives on the one hand, and comparisons between humans and animals on the other; finally, the study turns to the sociocultural role of shapeshifting narratives. It demonstrates that, although shapeshifting manifests differently in English and Irish contexts, the importance of performance, in particular the proper performance of in-group behaviour, is a consistent theme between them. Often, shapeshifting narratives visually confirm or demonstrate changes that have already taken place. Although the transformation of a human into something else would appear to break the natural order, such a wondrous disruption ultimately reveals divine power, and reinforces the divine order.

Keywords: Anglo-Saxon England, Early Christian Ireland, Shapeshifting, Historical Anthropology, Early Medieval European History.

Stockholm 2019 http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-162270

ISBN 978-91-7797-482-6 ISBN 978-91-7797-483-3

Department of History

Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm

BROKEN ORDER

Gwendolyne Knight

Broken Order

Shapeshifting as Social Metaphor in Early Medieval England and Ireland

Gwendolyne Knight ©Gwendolyne Knight, Stockholm University 2019

ISBN print 978-91-7797-482-6 ISBN PDF 978-91-7797-483-3

Cover image: "Werewolves of Ossory", ca. 1196-1223; Public domain, from "Topographia Hiberniae", London, British Library, MS Royal 13 B VIII, ff 1r-34v at 18r.

Printed in Sweden by Universitetsservice US-AB, Stockholm 2018 For Marsha

Contents

Acknowledgements...... 1 Abbreviations ...... 3 Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 6 Background ...... 6 Research Aims and Questions ...... 11 Previous Research ...... 13 Discourses of the Body ...... 13 Shapeshifting and Werewolf Studies ...... 16 Theology and History of Religion ...... 23 Theory and Methodology ...... 24 ‘Eine Geschichtswissenschaft in anthropologischer Zielrichtung’ ...... 26 Comparison between Early Medieval England and Ireland ...... 32 Source Material and Source Criticism ...... 33 Works of Wonder and Philosophy ...... 36 Hagiography and Related Religious Narrative ...... 38 Epic Narrative and Poetry...... 41 Implications ...... 43 Disposition and Presentation ...... 45 Chapter 2: Transformations of Spirit and Body ...... 47 Verbs of Transformation ...... 50 Nouns Transforming ...... 72 Discussion ...... 82 Differentiation of Concepts and Semantic Overlaps ...... 82 Turning, Conversion, and Metaphor ...... 82 Shape, Form, and Natura ...... 83 Conclusion ...... 84 Chapter 3: Humans and Animals, Humans as Animals ...... 87 Animals in Early Medieval England and Ireland ...... 89 Humans into Animals ...... 96 Serial Shapeshifting ...... 106 Where Wolves? ...... 107 Souls of the Dead as Birds ...... 112 Animals into Humans ...... 115 Secular Transformation ...... 115 Transformations in Religious Narratives ...... 116 Animals into Animals ...... 117 Shapeshifting in verbis...... 118 Implied Metamorphosis ...... 118 Behavioural Transformations...... 120 Discussion ...... 124 Loss and Gain of Human Status ...... 124 Wild vs. Domestic Animals in Transformation ...... 126 Conclusions ...... 126 Chapter 4: Marginality of Metamorphosis ...... 128 Disability and Body Theory ...... 129 Monster Theory ...... 131 Social Identity Theory ...... 133 Change of Social Status ...... 135 Performance of Human Status...... 138 Educating Religious Behaviour ...... 141 Physical and Abstract Transformation ...... 143 It’s an Illusion! Perception and Society ...... 144 Normalized Boundary Transgressions ...... 146 Discussion ...... 147 Conclusions ...... 151 Chapter 5: Breaking Order to Reveal Order ...... 152 Shapeshifting Narratives as Conversion Narratives ...... 157 Human Transformations and the Performance of Human Status ...... 158 Transformation and Concepts of Change ...... 160 Cultural Significances: Why Write about Shapeshifting?...... 162 Methodological Evaluation ...... 163 Concluding Remarks ...... 163 Appendix 1: List of Transformations ...... 167 Table 1: Transformations of Humans ...... 167 Table 2: Transformations by Humans ...... 169 Summary ...... 171 Sammanfattning ...... 177 Bibliography...... 183 Manuscripts Cited ...... 183 Printed Sources ...... 183 Image Sources ...... 188 Electronic Publications...... 188 Literature ...... 189 Acknowledgements

There may only be one name on the cover of this book, but it could not have been accomplished without the support and expert assistance of many, many more. First and foremost among these are Roger Andersson and Cordelia Heß, without whose guidance, patience, and comments this work would not have been possible, and Thomas Ertl, whose support and advice were likewise in- valuable. Inka Moilanen was not only a careful, thoughtful, and precise oppo- nent in the final seminar; she has also been a friend and mentor since answering a random email from a master’s student before she’d even formally started her postdoc at Stockholm University. My thanks also to Heiko Droste, the ‘third reader’ for this thesis, for his thorough reading and insightful comments. Additional support for this project has been provided by the K A Wallenberg Foundation, and the Helge Axelsson Johnsson Foundation. Their generous contributions are gratefully acknowledged. For their encouragement and guidance since my beginning as a master’s student at Stockholm, I wish to thank Elisabeth Elgán, Gabriela Bjarne Lars- son, and Olle Ferm. The Centre for Medieval Studies at Stockholm University has provided me with an interdisciplinary medieval ‘home’ in addition to the History Department itself. Many thanks go to Kurt Villads Jensen, the head of the Centre, as well as one of the leaders for the PhD student seminar, for advice, comments, and good conversation. During my time as a doctoral student in Stockholm, I have been grateful for the support and community provided by my PhD student colleagues. From friendly faces around the department and social engagements after work, to inspiring and interesting discussions during the PhD student seminar, they have greatly enriched my experience here. In particular I am indebted (in no particular order) to Charlotta Forss, Otso Kortekangas, Lisa Hellman, Lisa Svanfeldt-Winter, Fredrik Charpentier- Ljungqvist, Mari Eyice, Eva-Marie Letzter, Jenni Merovuo, and Ale Pålsson. Last, but certainly not least, I am grateful for the collegiality of my ‘academic siblings’ in Uppsala, Alexander Engström, Craig Kelly, Katarina Nordström, and Gustaf Johansson. Many thanks to the friends and colleagues in the audience of several presentations over the past five years, who have offered comments and feed- back on various parts of this project, which frequently led me to explore un- expected but ultimately fruitful and fascinating directions in my research. I am particularly grateful to Karen Bek-Pedersen, Tarrin Wills, Mart Kuldkepp,

1 Barbora Wouters, Rebecca Merkelbach, Jan Odstrčilík, and Hörður Barðdal, as well as all of my colleagues in the VDA Medieval Studies. My sincere ap- preciation to Clare Downham and (again) Inka Moilanen, who read and offered comments on full drafts of this manuscript. For sharing their own manuscripts in whole or in part with me in advance of publication I wish to thank Roderick Dale, Sarah Künzler, Zuzana Stankovitsova, and Adam Mearns. Thanks to Kate Mathis for being available for questions regarding Irish translations, and to Megan Cavell, David Stifter, and Alaric Hall for their willingness to answer a variety of (sometimes slightly odd) questions. Finally, but no less importantly, thanks to Sanna Byrd, Roger Andersson, and Charlotta Forss for their proofreading of the Swedish text of the summary. Any errors or in- accuracies that remain there and elsewhere are entirely my own. Finally, I wish to extend sincere and deep-hearted thanks to my friends and family, without whose unwavering support none of this would have been possible. Emily, Rachel, Ali, Sara, Victoria, Kim, Reinet, Catrina, Sanna: The world, and my life, is a better place with all of you in it. The Lappin Sisters, the Laubenstein clan, Knights and Scharnbergs small and tall (though even the small ones will be tall before long)—it’s a wonderful collection of a family I’ve got, and I love you all. Jim deserves a special mention, as do the memories of Marsha, Dan, Geoffrey, and Choco (there’s a dog and cat in there some- where; I’ll leave you to figure out where). Thanks are due also to Erik, without whom I would not be the person I am today. Even the cats, whose concept of a doctoral dissertation must perforce be somewhat nebulous, kept me from getting too bogged down by work with demands for playtime and general odd- ball adorableness.

2 Abbreviations

ASD Bosworth & Toller’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary DMLBS Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources DOE Dictionary of Old English eDIL Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language LNS Lewis & Short Latin Dictionary MGH Auct. Ant Monumenta Germaniae Historica Auctores antiquissimi MIr Middle Irish OE Old English OIr Old Irish PdE Present-day English TLL Thesaurus linguae Latinae TOE Thesaurus of Old English TSG Thesaurus Sean-Ghaeilge (Thesaurus of Old Irish)

100 miles

Jarrow Uonkwearmouth

Repton MIDDLE Tamworth. Peterborough MERCIA ANG~LES

•Canterbury KENT Glastonbury* Winchester W E S S E X SUSSEX

Isle of Wight

•T-s Map 1: Anglo-SaxonMa Englandp i Anglo-Saxo ca. 700 –n ca. England 900. Credit:, 700-90 Keynes,0 Simon, in Rosamund McKitterick, ed., The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. II: c.700–c.900 (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press), 18–42 at p. 22; reproduced by permission of .CC5898:CCambridgeD, UniversityCambridge 75689 C7C9 HistoriesPress. 3C7C49065 Online © Cambridge UniversityC1C5,, Press, 2008 H697C95689 C99C:H9555695D, 75689 C7C99 D,8C C /20

4 lisfarne

Limerick iy. "Cashel Eoganacht MUNSTER -LismoreWexford

OUa's Dyke LlandeiloFawr St David's J DYFED * GWENT BRYCHEINIOG LYWYSIN

Map 2: Ireland, MaWales,p 2 Irelandand Sco, Waletlands ca.and 700 Scotland – ca., 1000 joo—c.. Credit 1000 : Donnchadh Corrain, in Rosamund McKitterick, ed., The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. II: c.700– c.900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 43–63 at p. 44; reproduced by per- .CC5898:CD,Cambridge 75689 C7C9Histories 3C7C49065 Online © Cambridge UniversityC1C5,, Press, 2008 H697C95689 C99C:H9555695mission of CambridgeD, University75689 C7C99 Press. D,8C C /20

5 Chapter 1: Introduction

Background As folklore motifs go, few are as enduring or as ubiquitous as that of human transformation. Human bodies give their owners a tangible sense of identity: to possess a human body is, in most cases, to identify oneself as human. And yet, as much as these bodies are objectively present, they are also culturally and socially constructed. In this thesis, I examine concepts of change and how they operate within particular cultural contexts, and how different contexts can both create and make use of different conceptual structures. Shapeshifting is uniquely positioned as a tool to explore these concepts: writing about shapeshifting in the context of Greek werewolf stories, Richard Gordon observes that,

The theme of shapeshifting might be used in many different ways […] it might evoke the gulf between the immortals and mortals, the moral distance between then and now, the permeability of ontological boundaries, say between humans and animals, humans and plants, enrich a physical location with an indelible narrative association, open up any of a variety of metonymic associations.1

Caroline Walker Bynum has identified two broad trajectories that reflect both potentials: The first considers the body as a physical, biological, and overall lived object; this includes the location of the physical body within society. The second sees the body largely as symbolic or constructed, and refers “to desire, potentiality, fertility, or sensuality/sexuality [...] or to person or identity as malleable representation or construct”.2 This project proposes to explore both the concrete and the abstract interpretations of shapeshifting presented by Bynum, in order to uncover their range of meaning within a variety of cultural

1 Richard Gordon, “Good to think: Wolves and Wolf-Men in the Greco-Roman World” in W. de Blécourt (ed.), Werewolf Histories (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015), 25–60 at p. 32. 2 Caroline Bynum, “Why All the Fuss About the Body? A Medievalist's Perspective”, Critical Inquiry 22:1 (1995), 1–33.

6 contexts in early medieval England and Ireland. It will thereby probe the concepts of change that inform these narratives and the social functions that they served. By comparing Anglo-Saxon England and early medieval Ireland, this study will gain additional insights into broader, shared cultural moments, as well as identify and attempt to explain differences between the applications of shapeshifting narratives between them. The texts included in the study range from ca. 650 to ca. 1000; in spite of the fact that the early historical period in Ireland already begins in the fifth century, the earliest texts containing shapeshifting narratives of any kind don’t start to appear until around the mid- seventh century, and the earliest Anglo-Latin texts do not appear until the early- to mid-eighth century. The end date of 1000 must be regarded as an arbitrary one with some flexibility. It is guided by the dates of two significant battles: first, the Battle of Clontarf in Ireland (1013) wherein Brian Boru and his forces met an army of Leinstermen and Hiberno-Norse and other Scandi- navian forces victoriously at the cost of his and his son’s lives; and, secondly, the Battle of Hastings (1066) wherein the English defeat initiated the Norman conquest of England. These battles marked the initiation of significant political paradigm shifts in both cases, and thus serve as appropriate guidepoints in rounding off the time period covered by this study.3 The dating and selection of sources will be discussed in more detail below. In some ways, the cultures of Britain and Ireland shared significant cultural touchstones: as Christianity rose to prominence, and then dominance, in Ro- man and post-Roman Britain, Ireland, and finally the kingdoms of Anglo- Saxon England, it created a common font of learning and symbolic reference as well as practical and political concerns, demonstrated not least by the Synod of Whitby (664), where the Northumbrian King Oswald ultimately decided that his kingdom would calculate Easter according to the Roman calendar, and not that in use by the monastery of Iona, run by Irish monks. Linguistic, archaeological, and documentary evidence indicate consistent movement certainly between Ireland, Dál Ríata (settlers from Ireland whose overkingdom covered roughly modern-day Argyll in Scotland and County Antrim in North- ern Ireland), Pictland (whose territory covered north and east Scotland), and the British fringes (see Map 1), but also Anglo-Saxon England (see Map 2). In addition, the Scandinavian incursions from the end of the eighth century onwards affected all of Britain and Ireland, causing devastation and displace- ment as the raiders cut a swathe of debatable parts destruction and settlement. Although textual production appears to have continued in Ireland throughout

3 Nevertheless, it should be noted that the political paradigm shift that took place with the Nor- man invasion of Ireland was greater than that marked by the Battle of Clontarf. Indeed, the phrase ‘early medieval Ireland’ typically covers the period from ca. 400 to the Irish Norman landings of 1169. See for example chapter headings in Dáibhi Ó Cróinín, ed., A New History of Ireland, vol. I: Prehistoric and Early Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

7 the period of Scandinavian raiding,4 English textual production suffers a significant gap from the end of the eighth century until King Alfred the Great (r. 871–899), allegedly appalled at the state of learning in England, instigated his programme of translation and education.5 Although some writings in Old Eng- lish survive from the earlier period up to the end of the eighth century (and, as mentioned below, we have reports that Aldhelm of Malmesbury (d. 709) wrote in Old English, though none survives today), and plenty of Anglo-Latin survives from the tenth century onwards, the two periods are generally characterized as dominated by Latin in the earlier so-called Conversion Period (ca. 600 – ca. 850), and by translations into and new compositions in Old English from the late ninth century onwards. However, in other ways the peoples of early England and Ireland were separated by significant cultural differences, clearly reflected in the surviving textual and archaeological evidence. Grave goods, for example, while common in pre-Conversion English graves and tapering off through the Conversion Pe- riod, are markedly uncommon in Irish graves from the same period.6 Ireland’s conversion period had begun nearly two hundred years before that of the An- glo-Saxon kingdoms,7 around the same period when the peoples who would form those kingdoms were intensifying their invasions and settlement of post- Roman Britain. In the early hagiographies of Sts. Brigid and Patrick (up to the mid-eighth century), we can see efforts to demonstrate and consolidate the power of the monastic communities at Kildare (Brigid) and Armagh (Patrick), and a certain rivalry between the two can be detected.8 Nevertheless, much more ‘secular’9 vernacular literature and legal material survives in Ireland than

4 Richard Sharpe argues that “it cannot be established that the Vikings’ attacks had any particular impact on the hagiography or on the intellectual activity of Irish schools generally”, Rich- ard Sharpe, Medieval Irish Saints’ Lives: An Introduction to Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae (Ox- ford: Clarendon Press, 1991), p. 21 5 For Alfred’s dismay at the state of learning in England, see the preface to his translation of Gregory the Great’s Cura Pastoralis (Pastoral Care) in Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, eds., Alfred the Great, Asser's Life of King Alfred and other contemporary sources (Harmonds- worth: England, Penguin: 1983), p. 126. 6 For an overview of grave goods in early and Conversion period Anglo-Saxon graves, see Helen Geake, The use of grave-goods in conversion-period England, c. 600 – c. 850 (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1997); for Irish grave goods see the database Mapping Death. Online source available at: http://www.mappingdeathdb.ie/idlocs. 7 Christianity is generally agreed to have come to Ireland in the mid-fifth century, and Stevenson argues that pagan elements are clearly present well into the eighth century if not later (Jane Stevenson, “Literacy and Orality in Early Medieval Ireland” in D. Eder (ed.), Cultural Identity and Cultural Integration: Ireland and Europe in the Early Middle Ages (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1995), 11–22 at p. 11). 8 See: Elizabeth Dawson, “Brigit and Patrick in Vita Prima Sanctae Brigitae: Veneration and Jurisdiction”, Peritia 28 (2017), 35-50. 9 Nearly all texts at this time were composed in and transmitted through ecclesiastical or monastic communities. No opposition existed between secular and Christian texts in the sense that we would understand these categories today; this study departs from the point of view that all

8 in England (little textual evidence survives from Wales and Dál Ríata during this early period, and nearly none from Pictland10). Jane Stevenson suggests that this had less to do with a conscious effort to erase pre-Christian culture among the Anglo-Saxons than with the fact that at the time of Christianization the Germanic peoples who had settled in England effectively had to re-form as gentes as particular ‘tribal’ groups coalesced not only politically, but also socially, into kingdoms and sub-kingdoms:

The susceptibility of the law of the Germanic peoples to influence […] of Ro- man law, and the almost total loss of pre-Christian vernacular culture among the Franks, Goths, and Anglo-Saxons may be associable with the fact that these peoples were literally déraciné: they moved onto new territory. […] Much of the lore of traditional societies is place-linked: myth, hero-tales and geography interact to produce a people knitted together into the fabric of their landscape.11

Effectively, the common culture the Anglo-Saxons shared was one they were in the process of creating. The formation of new cultural identities in the fifth and sixth centuries would most likely lose or demote those people (such as poets, priests, and singers) who acted as guardians of those aspects of culture most closely linked to the homeland: they would have served only as a limited source of wisdom in a new, and newly expanded, world. While one may surmise that familiarity with writing existed among the pre-Christian Anglo-Sax- ons, it was primarily with the adoption of Christianity that literacy (both in the present-day sense of the basic capacity to read, as well as in the medieval sense of being able to read Latin) and book-culture took hold. British and Irish missionaries had been active in the English kingdoms since the Christian Ro- mano-British were pushed to the western fringes of the island. However, literacy and learning truly began to flourish in the wake of the mission from Rome in 597. Conversion was often a case of political expedience, in both the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and in the Irish ones, and hagiographies from throughout our period testify to the difficulty of monastic groups as well as particular saints in managing relationships with heathen power structures. Of course, within hagiography, the saint prevails; however, outside of it, the Christian status of a particular petty kingdom could depend heavily on who had taken control upon the previous king’s removal or death.

texts from this period are, simply, Christian. There are, however, certain genres where the Church, Christian teaches, and the saints and martyrs do not play a pronounced or explicit role; these texts are what are referred to by the label ‘secular’ here and elsewhere in this study. 10 What does survive from Pictland from the early Middle Ages are the enigmatic symbol stones scattered across present-day Aberdeenshire. Their precise meaning and historical significance remain hotly debated. See for example Gordon Noble et al., “Between prehistory and history: the archaeological detection of social change among the Picts”, Antiquity 87 (2013), 1136-1150 at p. 1138, and Sally M. Foster, Picts, Gaels, and Scots (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2014), esp. ch. 5. 11 Stevenson, “Literacy and Orality”, p. 15.

9 Not only did Ireland not see the same scale of invasion as Britain – even the Scandinavian incursions made less impact in Ireland than they did on the Continent or England – but Stevenson estimates that experiments with literacy and writing began well before the advent of Christianity in Ireland.12 These two factors contributed to the creation of space for a tradition of writing that maintained a certain degree of independence from the concerns of the Church, and resisted attempts by churches and monastic centres to impose their preferred way of doing things. Charters, for example, were used in early medieval Ireland almost exclusively for the transfer of property between churches: laypeople did not rely on written documentation the way the Church did, and wanted them to.13 By contrast, charters from the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms provide us with vital information about power relationships between the kingdoms (even to try to tease out at what point the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms became a desired outcome of power consolidations) as well as how power was exercised by elites. Charters are often used to compliment the narrative evidence provided by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as well as Bede’s His- toria Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, and both the presence and absence of certain names can reveal much about relationships and alliances at the time of a particular charter’s drafting.14

The departure point for this study draws on the long-term interest in shapeshifting as a folkloric motif, evidenced by its persistent occurrence in nearly every culture in both narrative and documentary texts of varying kinds (including legal codes and penitentials as well as theological works), from Gilgamesh through to the present day. Because of the significant semantic overlap of shapeshifting, metamorphosis, and transformation in PdE, this study uses ‘metamorphosis’, ‘transformation’, and ‘shapeshifting’ interchangeably unless otherwise indicated. With ‘shapeshifting’ should be understood a change from one physical state to another whereby the original and resulting forms are mutually unrecognizable. Throughout this study, despite the interchangeability of terminology, I prioritize the term ‘shapeshifting’ to describe the phenomenon of a human turning (physically or visually) into something or someone else, and use ‘metamorphosis’ synonymously in this sense; ‘transformation’ is prioritized when a more general sense of radical change is indicated. While there is no lack of shapeshifting narratives in early medieval Irish sources, they are remarkably uncommon in Old English and

12 Stevenson, “Literacy and Orality”, p. 17. 13 Stevenson, “Literacy and Orality”, pp. 11–13. 14 For a resource for published editions of many of the Anglo-Saxon charters, as well as a bibliography, see the project Anglo-Saxon Charters. Online source available at: http://www.aschart.kcl.ac.uk/ See also Simon Keynes, “England 700–900” in Rosamund McKitterick, ed., The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. II: c.700–c.900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 18–42 passim.

10 Anglo-Latin literature. This is particularly puzzling when one adds the perspective of Old Norse literature: even the earliest poetic texts, contemporary with some of the later material used in this study, demonstrate an easy familiarity with shapeshifting motifs which is largely absent from the Anglo-Saxon material. Also shaping our expectations are the intrigue and the growth of shapeshifting narratives in the high medieval period. It is this period which has received the most concentrated attention from present-day medieval scholars, who have approached the shapeshifting phenomenon from a variety of angles including identity formation and continuity; concepts of change and ‘humanness’; and the integrity of the human body. These approaches are explored in more detail in the review of scholarship below. Suffice to say at this point that potential interpretations of shapeshifting in early medieval texts remain comparatively underexplored: indeed, many of the studies that contain broad surveys of pre- modern shapeshifting or werewolf motifs skip directly (to take the most prominent examples of each period) from the theological analysis of St Augustine of Hippo to Marie de France’s twelfth century lai Bisclavret. Both Old Ice- landic and early medieval Irish transformation narratives are often relegated to high medieval ‘inheritances’, spicing the shapeshifting of the romances with themes of sex and violence.15 Early medieval England frequently receives no mention whatsoever in this context.

Research Aims and Questions That early medieval Irish shapeshifting narratives have mainly been viewed within the context of later medieval metamorphosis, and that early English shapeshifting has received next to no attention at all, has created not only a gap in the scholarly literature, but has potentially also caused scholars to over- look a significant tool to help us understand the mentalities of the early medieval period. At nearly every point in time when they have appeared, shapeshifting beings have been shown to reveal or to play out certain cultural

15 The issue of Nordic shapeshifting based on concepts of martial violence frequently centres around the figures of the berserkir and ulfheðnar, elite warriors who, according to some, could transform literally or figuratively into bears and wolves in the heat of battle. I find the association of berserkir with shapeshifting problematic; however, it is beyond the scope of this study to engage with the question in detail here. For a more detailed discussion of this and other matters related to reassessing the phenomenon of shapeshifting in Old Norse sources, see: Ro- derick Dale, Berserkir: a re-examination of the phenomenon in literature and life (PhD Disser- tation: University of Nottingham, 2014); Gwendolyne Knight, “Categorizing the Werewolf; or, The Peopleness of Shapeshifters” in G. Knight and R. Merkelbach, eds., Old Norse Alterities (Turnhout: Brepols, in preparation); Rebecca Merkelbach, “Eigi í mannlegu eðli: Shape, Mon- strosity and Berserkism in the Íslendingasögur” in Santiago Barreiro and Luciana Cordo (eds.), Shapeshifters in Medieval North Atlantic Literatures (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018), pp. 83–105.

11 preoccupations and anxieties; one reason why early medieval shapeshifting may have remained largely ignored is that the preoccupations and anxieties of the late antique and Patristic narratives on the one side of them, and high medieval narratives on the other, have led scholars to look in the wrong places for shapeshifting narratives and to seek interpretations that do not fit the historical and intellectual contexts of the time. In filling this gap, therefore, this study not only takes aim at an area largely understudied, but it also provides a crucial step between the late antique or Patristic concepts of shapeshifting, and those explored by Bynum and others beginning in the long twelfth century. Studies of later medieval shapeshifting in particular tend to isolate themselves from the period directly preceding, and one purpose of this study is to contribute to correcting this isolation in the following ways: Firstly, it will connect the phenomenon of shapeshifting with changes that took place during the period ca. 650 – ca. 1000, demonstrating the social function of this motif; additionally, through a comparison between England and Ireland it will situate these functions within their local contexts as well as illuminate areas of inter- connectedness. Secondly, it will interrogate the range, or valence, of meaning that shapeshifting narratives could have (i.e., what these narratives said to the people who read or heard them). Finally, it will show that although the interpretations of shapeshifting relevant for other periods are frequently not suffi- cient for understanding early medieval shapeshifting, the concept of shapeshifting can nevertheless be a useful and important tool for making sense of certain aspects of early medieval England and Ireland. Furthermore, far from being isolated within their own period, these narratives informed the changes that took place in the long twelfth century, and by understanding the earlier period more thoroughly we can only improve our approaches to shapeshifting in later cultural moments. I take an anthropological perspective towards the phenomenon of shapeshifting in early medieval England and Ireland. The primary question of the study is, what did shapeshifting represent for the writers and audiences of these texts? In other words, why write about shapeshifting? As an image, it interrogates the aspects of society that might be understood in terms of shapeshifting, and which more abstract concepts might be most usefully clar- ified by employing the more physical imagery of shapeshifting as a tool to aid instruction or comprehension. This study will address the question of cultural meaning and social function, and thereby contribute to the cultural history of these two regions, with the support of literary and linguistic evidence. Build- ing upon research into shapeshifting from other periods and cultural areas, I hypothesize that shapeshifting narratives will be intimately connected to concepts of change, but also that the range of representation could be broad and malleable, depending greatly on context and intent. For this reason I have approached the surviving textual evidence without the filter of historical documentation versus literary production: from an anthropological point of view,

12 these are all representations of cultural moments that construct meaning, reinforce norms, and fulfill social functions. In order to accommodate such an approach to the textual ‘image’ of shapeshifting, I have developed an innova- tive methodology, whereby the corpus of selected material is analysed in three stages: lexical, rhetorical, and socio-cultural.

Previous Research Research on medieval shapeshifting has been varied, and of varying quality. In general, the vast majority of scholarship on this topic has focused on literature from the twelfth century onwards; this research has served as a useful departure point for the present study. Shapeshifting scholarship has furthermore tended to congregate around a collection of themes, explored in more detail in the subsections below. Discourses of the human body often act as a foundation for studies of shapeshifting, in contexts of non-standard bodies but also exploring the potential connections between appearance and particular social concerns. European werewolf studies span ancient and Classical literatures through to present-day popular culture; indeed, these sometimes contain some thoughtful considerations of werewolves in early Irish literature. Be- cause these studies frequently consider the phenomenon through a broad dia- chronic lens, werewolf studies provide vital critical insight to more general shapeshifting traditions over time, even when their treatment of the early Mid- dle Ages might remain somewhat spurious. Finally, studies within the fields of theology and history of religions have considered questions of shapeshifting related to sacraments such as the Eucharist; but they have also treated shapeshifting within the context of mirabilia and miracula, and where on this scale one might usefully locate shapeshifting as a phenomenon.

Discourses of the Body Perhaps unsurprisingly for an object as physically immediate as it is conceptually malleable, the human body often brushes against and even violates the rules of general order. It does this differently from culture to culture, depending on how that particular cultural system has determined that a body should look and operate. In their introduction to the Cambridge Companion to the Body in Literature, David Hillman and Ulrika Maude summarize the predica- ment of the non-standard body:

[The] disabled body, the ageing body, the maternal body, the racialized body – all, in their acknowledgment of varying forms of difference or subjectification, pose challenges to established orders, showing the ways in which we see ‘a failure of society to accommodate itself to the needs and changed abilities of

13 the old’…; for ‘old’, one can insert any number of ostensibly ‘non-standard’ bodies.16

In the Middle Ages, as in every time period, there was no single view of the body that could be said to be definitive; a variety of discourses serving particular cultural needs competed, and came into conflict.17 However, Michael Ca- mille and others remind us that no matter the ‘standard’ or ‘ideal’ body established by a given medieval discourse, it invariably meets with bodies that cause it problems—whether because they are disabled, aged, maternal, racialized, or, indeed, transformed.18 Connections between bodily appearance and certain social concerns can be observed in various degrees in medieval texts, from direct parallels such as those drawn between physical perfection and moral uprightness in Irish heroic tales, as described by Damian McManus,19 to more allegorical links such as those presented by Sylvia Huot in her essay “Self and Society”, where she analyses the lesser-known romances La chan- son d'Yde et Olive and De la fille d’un roy. In both cases, a woman who dresses as a man is ultimately transformed into a biological man by divine miracle. Huot identifies in both romances a friction between social behaviour and biological sex, a lack of fit that causes tension at both the individual and narrative level. This friction and its eventual resolution send a clear message that the physical body, its appearance, and its social role must be brought into accord.20 Within the broad corpus of medieval literature, it is possible to observe bodies that are described or highlighted in a certain way in order to emphasize or engage with particular social, political, or cultural concerns within the world created by that particular text. While this textual world may be seen as a largely independent universe created deliberately and continuously within a

16 David Hillman and Ulrika Maude, “Introduction” in D. Hillman and U. Maude (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Body in Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 1–9 at p. 6. For a greater consideration of the role of disability theory in particular in relation to shapeshifting, see Chapter Four of this work. 17 Bill Burgwinkle, “Medieval Somatics” in D. Hillman and U. Maude (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Body in Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 10–23 at p. 10; Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Medieval Identity Machines (Minneapolis: University of Min- nesota Press, 2003), p. xviii. 18 Michael Camille, “The Image and the Self: Unwriting Late Medieval Bodies” in S. Kay and M. Rubin (eds.), Framing Medieval Bodies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), 62–99 at p. 72. 19 Damian McManus, “Good-looking and Irresistible: The Hero from Early Irish Saga to Clas- sical Poetry”, Ériu 59 (2009), 57–109. 20 Sylvia Huot, “Self and Society” in L. Kaloff (ed.), A Cultural History of the Body in the Medieval Age (Oxford: Berg, 2010), 203–218 at p. 204.

14 given text, I argue that such a narrative unit can and ought to be seen as influenced by the historic world in which it was produced.21 As Tomás Ó Cathasaigh observes, with reference to Meyer Abrams, a given work is taken

to have a subject which, directly or deviously, is derived from existing things— to be about, or signify, or reflect something which either is, or bears some relation to, an objective state of affairs.22

Huot also deserves mention here for her explorations of the distinctions of identity, and particularly how what is negotiated through the body applies to its place in society, both in “Self and Society”, and in her earlier book, Mad- ness in Medieval French Literature.23 As this study does, Huot examines literature, in this case medieval French romances, as historical sources for medieval modes of thought and cultural mores. In Madness in Medieval French Literature she cites two bases for identity, both connected to the body: the materiality of the body itself, and the performance that it stages.24 Literature is unique as a historical source in that it combines both formations of identity in a single narrative, which is one reason why it is so important to include literature in historical studies of culture: it is a rich resource for representation and cultural expression. This will be addressed more fully below, and its importance to the study at hand will be seen especially in Chapters Three and Four of this work. On a more fundamental level, Maurice Bloch observes

that because all cultures interpret, and have to interpret, the fact that we go in and out of each other in sex and birth, they also have to interpret the consequent fact that for us (as with coral) there is indeterminacy concerning the physical boundaries of individuals. […] These statements are interesting […] because they are in part motivated by the very real fact of the indeterminacy and arbi- trariness of the boundaries of biological units.25

Such interpretations occur at varying levels: in the production of the text; within the text by those within the textual world; and finally, at the stage of reception and reproduction. In early Irish literature, but also in other genres such as hagiography, bodies are read, as Künzler puts it, intradiegetically; that

21 Cf. the conclusion reached by Sarah Künzler, “A Spectacle of Death? Reading Dead Bodies in the Táin Bó Cúailnge II”, Studia Celtica Fennica 12 (2015), 35-48 at pp. 35-6. 22 Meyer Abrams, cited in Tomás Ó Cathasaigh, “Pagan Survivals: The Evidence of Early Irish Narrative” repr. in Coire Sois, The Cauldron of Knowledge: A Companion to Early Irish Saga (University of Notre Dame Press, 2014), 46-56 at p. 47. 23 Huot, “Self and Society”; Sylvia Huot, Madness in Medieval French Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 24 Huot, Madness, pp. 180–1. 25 Maurice Bloch, “Durkheimian anthropology and religion: Going in and out of each other’s bodies,” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 5:3 (2015), 285–299 at p. 288.

15 is to say, they are read by other characters and hence ‘within’ the text. How- ever, depictions of a character’s physical appearance also help the extradie- getic audience – i.e. the audience outwith the text – to establish for themselves that character’s social position as well as their narrative function.26

Shapeshifting and Werewolf Studies Most of the scholarship presented in this section comes from studies within the history of literature. However, during the early medieval period literature was not as fixed a concept, and the truth claims of a particular text are not always a given; while normative and documentary sources such as laws and penitentials make quite clear claims to authority, in other medieval texts truth claims are not always so distinct, and may be negotiated within the text itself. A work claiming to be historical may contain what would be viewed today as fantastical elements; a work that we would identify as literary might claim to be a true representation of events. Indeed, the distinction between truth and falsehood is one which many of the sources used in this study grapple with. While ‘fictitious’ may be used to express something ‘not real’, the concepts of ‘fiction’ and ‘fictionality’ in the sense of ‘fictional writing’, as we recognize them today, have their roots in the theories of Plato and Aristotle. However, in the Middle Ages they really begin to develop as concepts towards the mid- to late-twelfth century.27 How the relationship between fictionality and histo- ricity was precisely regarded in the Early Middle Ages remains a subject of discussion; of greater (and not identical) concern was the relationship or tension between the truth and falsehood of a given narrative. If we wish to make a historical study of the meaning and the social function of particular motifs, then we cannot limit ourselves to retroactively applied genre distinctions of ‘historical’ and ‘literary’ sources: they are all expressions of culture, and his- torically situated within a given social context. Joyce Salisbury’s The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages examines a variety of different aspects of animal-human relationships. Within this framework, she discusses human-animal shapeshifting, beginning with late antique sources such as Tertullian and St Augustine and then exploring how these ideas were received and reinterpreted in the high and late Middle Ages. Though her study is thorough, by largely skipping over early medieval sources she draws some curious conclusions. For example, she argues that, from the twelfth century onwards, “animals were no longer just property and food, but

26 Indeed, the latter occasionally derives much of its significance from the former. Künzler, “A Spectacle of Death?”, p. 36. 27 D. H. Green, The Beginnings of Medieval Romance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), passim.

16 also human exemplars […] the symbolism was a newly added dimension.”28 Although it is true that the symbolism represented by animals changed considerably in the twelfth century, the symbolic dimension to human-animal relations was by no means a new one, as we shall see in both Chapter Two and Chapter Three. Salisbury also makes one of the more prominent claims for Nordic and Irish precursors to the shapeshifting narratives of the high and late Middle Ages. She argues, without due critical attention, that the Nordic heritage draws predominantly from humanity’s repressed violent side, and the Irish from humanity’s repressed sexual side. Salisbury’s study does not concentrate exclusively on shapeshifting, so some generalities and omissions must be expected; nevertheless, her leap over nearly five hundred years of cultural and literary history is startling, as is the broad and unnuanced interpretation of Irish and Scandinavian literature. Leslie Dunton-Downer’s contribution to the edited volume Becoming Male in the Middle Ages, entitled “The Wolf Man”, discusses the ontological problem of humanness as it relates to the lai Bisclavret.29 Humanness, and the creation of identity, are here seen as products of the (sometimes nearly paradox- ical) basic systems of differentiation symptomatic, according to Dunton- Downer, of Western languages. Dunton-Downer posits that Western languages are drawn to the clarity and simplicity of binary oppositions, such that, for example, the assignment of sex to human people in Western cultures may be seen as the patterning of identities on grounds of differentiation (i.e. of identity and non-identity).30 In this essay, Marie de France’s lai becomes a text capable of transcending these imposed binaries (of which the male/female opposition is one, but not nearly the only one) in order to provide a deeper understanding of and reflection on universal twelfth-century humanness. Dunton-Downer discusses the semiotic value of violence, and how this level of meaning can itself reflect upon “the problematic nature of humanness and on the necessity of living (whether socially or spiritually, publicly or inter- nally) with the fragile distinction between [...] the animal and the human”.31 Furthermore, the transformation of the werewolf is connected to twelfth-century preoccupations with the nature of the Eucharist and the transubstantiation of Christ: from the twelfth through the early thirteenth centuries, scholastic and monastic theologians debated various aspects of change and identity which explored tensions between appearance and substance, as well as the potential for metempsychosis (more on this below). Metamorphosis lies at the heart of these questions, and in works of literature such as the lais of Marie de

28 Joyce Salisbury, The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 105. 29 Leslie Dunton-Downer, “The Wolf Man” in J. J. Cohen and B. Wheeler (eds.), Becoming Male in the Middle Ages (New York: Garland Press, 1997), 203-218. 30 Dunton-Downer, “The Wolf Man”, pp. 203-4. 31 Dunton-Downer, “The Wolf Man”, p. 211.

17 France, the story may probe the continuity of identity through changes in appearance. In this way, the lai presents an opportunity to reflect upon the human through the non-human. To Dunton-Downer, Bisclavret provides a space in which one may be and identify as human “above and beyond one’s gender or any other mark of identity”.32 Where Dunton-Downer viewed poetic shapeshifting as a phenomenon related to transubstantiation, Caroline Bynum, in a 1998 article entitled “Meta- morphosis, or Gerald and the Werewolf”,33 finds in representations of shapeshifting or metempsychosis (meaning body hopping, exchange, or eras- ure) reflections of a literal and material interpretation of the resurrection of Christ. Specifically, she pinpoints a fear of loss of self through loss of body: there persisted a strong conviction that a human person existed as a ‘psycho- somatic unit’, whereby the survival of one’s identity necessitated bodily continuity.34 This finds expression particularly in scholastic debates on the continuity of the body and individual identity between death and the resurrection, for example in the works of Thomas Aquinas.35 Indeed, Bynum shows evidence that ruminations on the changeability of earthly forms often led in poetry to ruminations on death.36 Regarding theologians and natural philoso- phers, Bynum demonstrates a concern to delimit species carefully and emphasize the lack of ability to cross these limits, which she interprets as symptomatic of a persisting interest in their violation. For example, “[c]hurch lawyers continued to employ the famous Canon episcopi of ca. 900 that prohibited as blasphemy the belief in metamorphosis or body exchange”, and “[n]atural phi- losophers used the principle ‘like begets like’ to impose order on the world and hold individuals in mostly immutable categories”.37 Bynum’s monograph Metamorphosis and Identity38 collects a series of articles and presentations that she has given on the topic of metamorphosis; aside from a reprint of “Ger- ald and the Werewolf” it also contains detailed introductions to metamorphosis within the context of what Bynum calls ‘medieval anthropology’, a term which is very well applicable to the present project as well. Udo Friedrich provides from the perspective of this study a very interesting exploration on the human body and the idea of humanness in his monograph

32 Dunton-Downer, “The Wolf Man”, pp. 213-4. 33 Caroline Walker Bynum, “Metamorphosis, or Gerald and the Werewolf”, Speculum 73 (1998), 987–1013. 34 Bynum, “Gerald”, p. 987. 35 For an overview of medieval views on the resurrection, see Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995); for Thomas Aquinas specifically see for example Brian Davies, Thomas Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles: A Guide and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 384ff. 36 Bynum, “Gerald”, p. 989. 37 Bynum, “Gerald”, p. 990. 38 Caroline Walker Bynum, Metamorphosis and Identity (New York: Zone Books, 2001).

18 Menschentier und Tiermensch.39 While in later chapters he does explore the phenomenon of shapeshifting, he also devotes a large section early in his book to investigating specifically those ways in which the human was set at opposition to, or identified with, the animal. He shows that this question provided medieval theorists both with contrasts to set humans apart from animals, as well as comparisons to show ways in which the body was associated with animals and the earth, while the soul was associated with angels and heaven. Furthermore, the threat of becoming ‘animalized’ was often used to cajole people into rational behaviour, a theme to which we will return in Chapter Four. Unique among the studies surveyed here is Aleksander Pluskowski’s largely archaeological approach in “Before the Werewolf Trials”.40 Pluskow- ski focuses mostly on Scandinavian evidence, but he does raise an intriguing question, and one that will be touched on in the course of this study: “Is there,” he asks, “any link between shape-changing and the use of disguise?”41 The context for this question is the article’s previous discussion of ritual animal disguise and martial mummery in early Scandinavia, and whether there is any continuity between the evidence for animal disguise, and later literary shapeshifting. Pluskowski ultimately concludes that, while the use of animal disguise might once have been a genuine ritual practice, as a phenomenon it was distinctly discrete from the phenomenon of metamorphosis at the heart of the later (in this case meaning closer in time to the werewolf trials of the later medieval and early modern periods than the Scandinavian Iron Age) rural and communal life and folklore. These metamorphoses relied more upon magical transformation.42 The sources of this study overlap only slightly with Plus- kowski’s, but his approach, and the question of ritual imitation, have been valuable here. Jan Veenstra takes yet another perspective, identifying in werewolf narratives negotiations of cultural change and cultural unease that themselves reflect intellectual and cultural struggles between Christian belief and pagan traditions.43 By focusing on periods of transition – that is, Late Antiquity, the period around 1200, and the Early Modern period – he examines how the werewolf became a site for expressing fundamental psychological concerns of transformation. One may view this concern on the one hand as representative of society, whereby the person who transforms into a wolf stands for questions that a given society has about itself, but also as representative of particular

39 Udo Friedrich, Menschentier und Tiermensch (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2009) 40 Aleksander Pluskowski, “Before the Werewolf Trials” in W. De Blécourt (ed.), Werewolf Histories (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015), 82–118. 41 Pluskowski, “Werewolf Trials”, p. 97. 42 Pluskowski, “Werewolf Trials”, pp. 91–102 passim. 43 Jan R. Veenstra, “The Ever-Changing Nature of the Beast” in J. N. Bremmer and J. R. Veenstra (eds.), The Metamorphosis of Magic from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period (Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2002), 133–187.

19 groups within society: Veenstra demonstrates that some late antique writers explored questions of madness through werewolf narratives. In the period around 1200, Veenstra identifies a fascination with “substantial transformation and metamorphosis” that saw elements of folklore and belief in transformation that “somehow titillated the intellect”.44 One element of many late antique werewolf narratives, the person transformed through magic, returns in the narratives’ medieval counterparts in the form of spells and demonic possession, whereby intercession from a person of holy stature frees the werewolf from its transformative state and returns it to the true faith. Notable here is the rise around 1200 of what Veenstra calls the “humane werewolf”,45 a creature very different from those which he had identified in late antique sources because, while they inspire fear, they are not in and of themselves frightening creatures. For his consideration of medieval werewolves Veenstra consults a sampling of both scholastic and literary texts including William of Paris and Gerald of Wales on the one side, and on the other the perennially popular Bis- clavret, as well as Biclarel, Melion and Arthur et Gorlagon, the latter two romances being core parts of what has come to be known in werewolf studies as ‘The Werewolf’s Tale’. Somewhat puzzlingly, he dismisses the romances as ‘tainted’ by “the apprehensions of court and clergy” in contrast to the Scandi- navian sagas;46 as these were central institutions to the cultures that consumed the romances as entertainment, one would think that such apprehensions would be of great use when exploring lycanthropy as a form of cultural nego- tiation. Nevertheless, by comparing the French romances and Scandinavian sagas, he concludes that the werewolf stories of Europe have cultic roots, based not in malevolence but in heroism. Willem de Blécourt has also approached the shifting representations of werewolves in medieval texts. In contrast to many described here, he has done so from a similar perspective to this study; that is, from the perspective of historical anthropology. In “Animal Shapeshifting: Between Literature and Everyday Life”, de Blécourt explores the different contexts in which episodes of animal shapeshifting have appeared, and what conditions and qualities their appearances in said context can have.47 He develops this further, and expands his discussion of the historical contingency of werewolf characterizations specifically, as well as his method of approaching them as a variety of werewolf histories (as opposed to ‘werewolf history’ or a ‘werewolf tradition’) in “The

44 Veenstra, “Ever-Changing Nature”, pp. 147–8. 45 Veenstra, “Ever-Changing Nature”, p. 150. 46 Veenstra, “Ever-Changing Nature,” p. 152. 47 Willem de Blécourt, “Animal Shapeshifting: Between Literature and Everyday Life” in Wil- lem de Blécourt and C.A. Tuczay (eds.), Tierverwandlungen (Tübingen: Francke Verlag, 2011), 7–12.

20 Differentiated Werewolf: An Introduction to Cluster Methodology”.48 Alt- hough his delineation of clusters, or culturally specific werewolves, has been informative for this study, as have his efforts to “[penetrate] the historical concepts underneath” literary texts,49 he at times falls into the familiar pattern of disregarding the earlier medieval ‘clusters’ of shapeshifting: The high medieval literary discourse may only have developed into an intellectual one once late medieval demonologists became interested in the “possible reality” of shapeshifting, but we will see in the chapters to follow that an intellectual discourse on shapeshifting (albeit concerned with different problems) existed already in the early Middle Ages—and even before.50 In the realm of Francophone research in the history of literature, Cristina Noacco51 and Laurence Harf-Lancner52 have contributed greatly to metamorphosis studies. First, however, while not strictly speaking a study of metamorphoses in medieval Europe, Françoise Frontisi-Ducroux53 provides a thought- provoking look at the “invention of metamorphosis” in the classical world. She observes that, while stories of shapeshifting abound in Greek literature and other texts from that period, none of them use the word ‘metamorphosis’; from Homer to Plato, they all use much more generic verbs to describe the act of transformation. Metamorphosis, as a noun or a verb, almost seems to have been ‘invented’ by Ovid to title his collection of poetry. Curiously, the pattern repeats itself in French, where Noacco observes that early vernacular literature again eschews ‘metamorphosis’ in favour of generic verbs. Noacco provides a thorough, if at times somewhat haphazard, review of metamorphosis in French literature of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. She builds upon the research of Harf-Lancner, who identified two opposing themes in metamor-

48 Willem de Blécourt, “The Differentiated Werewolf: An Introduction to Cluster Methodol- ogy” in W. de Blécourt, Werewolf Histories (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015), 1–24. 49 De Blécourt, “The Differentiated Werewolf”, p. 3. 50 De Blécourt, “Animal Shapeshifting”, p. 8. 51 Cristina Noacco, La métamorphose: dans la littérature française XIIe et XIIIe siècles (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2008); Cristina Noacco, “De la métamorphose in factis à la métamorphose in verbis aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles” in C. Noacco and V. Adam (eds.), La Métamorphose et ses métamorphoses dans les litteratures européennes (Champollion: Presses du Centre universitaire Champollion, 2009), 35–47; Cristina Noacco, “Le funzioni della metamorfosi nella letteratura narrativa francese (XII-XIII sec.)” in Francesco Zambon (ed.), La metamorfosi (Milan: Medusa, 2009), 95–145. 52 Laurence Harf-Lancner, “La métamorphose illusoire: des théories chrétiennes de la métamor- phose aux images médiévales du loup-garou”, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 40:1 (1985), 208–228; Laurence Harf-Lancer, “La métamorphose au Moyen Âge: De l'illusion diabolique à la realite terrifiante” in C. Noacco and V. Adam (eds.), La Métamorphose et ses métamorphoses dans les litteratures européennes (Champollion: Presses du Centre universitaire Champollion, 2009), 65–77. 53 Françoise Frontisi-Ducroux, “L’invention de la métamorphose”, Rue Descartes 64 (2009), 8–22.

21 phosis literature: the Latin, clerical literature that denied the reality of metamorphosis and ranked it among diabolical illusions; and vernacular lay literature, which does not appear to place any doubt in the reality of metamorphosis. Harf-Lancner draws, as many in werewolf scholarship have done, on the writings of St Augustine; critically, he observes that St Augustine relegates shapeshifting to two registers: the diabolical, and the unreal. Indeed, Harf- Lancner argues that these two registers, their reconciliation and opposition, form the essence of metamorphosis not only for St Augustine, but for the medieval theologians who followed him.54 Studies of medieval Irish literature have produced several thorough studies of werewolves in Ireland, which occasionally touch on broader themes of metamorphosis, metempsychosis, and reincarnation. John Reinhard and Vernam Hull’s “Bran and Sceolang”55 amassed the available evidence for werewolves in medieval Ireland, and their study likely informed Carlo Ginzburg’s Hexen- sabbat (Carey points out that although Ginzburg does not cite Reinhard and Hull, much of his evidence seems to rest at least in part on “Bran and Sceo- lang”). Various studies by Kim McCone also draw heavily on this paper; most relevant for this study has been “Werewolves, Cyclops, Díberga and Fianna: Juvenile Delinquency in Early Ireland”, wherein McCone argues that the figure of the werewolf has its origins in that stage of life where a young man joins other unlanded, unmarried young men to go roving and raiding throughout the countryside—in short, to go a-wolfing.56 More recently, John Carey has re-examined the Irish evidence for werewolves, and concluded that “[by] far the greater part of the evidence for werewolves in Ireland is to be dated after the year 1000, with the most important items relating specifically to the werewolves of Ossory [MIr: Osraige].” However, he cautions, the “reasons for this association may not be retrievable.”57 Finally, Philip Bernhardt- House’s thorough monograph, Werewolves, magical hounds, and dog-headed men in Celtic literature,58 provides a comprehensive study of werewolves and related phenomena in (predominantly) Irish literature and folklore, connecting these and other shapeshifting episodes to a potential belief in a kind of reincarnation. These themes will be returned to particularly in Chapters Three and Four of this study.

54 Harf-Lancner, “La métamorphose illusoire”, p. 209. 55 John Reinhard and Vernam Hull, “Bran and Sceolang”, Speculum 11:1 (1936), 42–58. 56 Kim McCone, “Werewolves, Cyclops, Díberga and Fianna: Juvenile Delinquency in Early Ireland”, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 12 (1986), 1–22. 57 John Carey, “Werewolves in Medieval Ireland”, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 44 (2002), 37–72 at p. 71. 58 Philip Bernhardt-House, Werewolves, magical hounds, and dog-headed men in Celtic literature: a typological study of shape-shifting (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010).

22 Theology and History of Religion Through the course of this project, the importance of theology and religious writing to transformation narratives in early medieval England and Ireland has become clear. As described in the following section, the majority of texts with transformation narratives included in the corpus of shapeshifting narratives come from hagiography or other forms of religious writing. Aspects of transformation also play an important role in early medieval Christian teachings and theology. These may include miracles achieved by God through Christ, the prophets, or the saints; various teachings related to the Eucharist and less frequently the resurrection; and the conversion (and occasionally apostasy) of people or groups of people. For example, Martin McNamara has explored the presence of an ‘inverted’ Eucharistic formula in the eleventh century bilingual homily “In cena Domini”, located in Leabhar Breac (the Speckled Book): the homily contains the phrase Conuersio corporis et sanguinis [Christi] in panem et uinum, where the Irish translation has the (to present-day ears) more traditional “the pure mysteries of his own Body and Blood under the species of bread and wine.”59 He argues that the presumed inversion is probably best explained as a later development of a tradition of Eucharistic terminology that reaches back to Hiberno-Latin and vernacular texts of the seventh century, and even farther back on the Continent. Additionally, we may look to studies of Anglo-Saxon theology, such as Lynne Grundy’s Books and Grace: Ælfric’s Theology,60 which provides an important comparison of Ælfric’s theological writings with St Augustine’s, including on the Eucharist, as well as the more general approach taken to the writing and reception of religious texts in later Anglo- Saxon England within Clare Lees’ Tradition and Belief.61 Theological discourses allow us to come full circle, and refer back to the bodies that opened this section. Discourses surrounding the body have already been discussed above, but are revived here because of the explicit connection made between bodily drives and sin. Jacques Le Goff has described the body as a ‘grande métaphore’ describing society and its institutions: it is a symbol of cohesion or conflict, order or disorder, but, he writes, it is above all a symbol of organic life and of harmony.62 This creates, of course, a variety of the- ologically-influenced fields whereby the body may become a metaphor for disorder, or things out of harmony. For example, bodily drives are, in many

59 Martin McNamara, “The Inverted Eucharistic Formula Conversio Corporis Christi in Panem et Sanguinis in Vinum: The Exegetical and Liturgical Background in Irish Usage”, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: Archaeology, Culture, History, Literature 87C (1987), 573–593, at p. 573. 60 Lynne Grundy, Books and Grace: Ælfric’s Theology (Exeter: Short Run Press, 1991). 61 Clare A. Lees, Tradition and Belief (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999). 62 Jacques Le Goff, Une histoire du corps au Moyen Âge (Paris: Éditions Liana Levi, 2003), p. 14.

23 contexts, identified with sin; this identification is predicated on a body that resists the ‘symbolic order that determines subjectivity’, and creates a need to police the body so that this resistance may be quashed and the drives quelled.63 The dominatio necessary to beat the body’s bounds, as it were, reaches primarily over the fields of sexuality and violence, but also touches that of illness. Udo Friedrich identifies in particular desire, rage, and madness that threaten humans, and draw them into the realm of the animals.64 This echoes Salis- bury’s claims that medieval shapeshifting narratives brought humans into conflict and confrontation with the more animal sides of themselves. However, as we will see in Chapter Four, this is one aspect in which the early medieval material from England and Ireland contrasts with its successors.

Theory and Methodology In inquiring into the functions that shapeshifting served in past cultures, one must take care to avoid anachronistic assumptions about worldview and the self. For example, Chantal Bourgault du Coudray has observed the close relationship between Enlightenment philosophy and the werewolf’s role in elab- orating ways of thinking about selfhood in modernity. This vision of selfhood was predicated upon a conceptual separation between mind and body, and was reflected, reinforced, and elaborated through parallel binaries, or oppositions, the most prominent of which for Bourgault du Coudray – and werewolf studies more generally – are culture/nature, and conscious/unconscious.65 Indeed, the presence of stark binaries in medieval studies has recently encountered harsh criticism for establishing unnecessary, distracting, and even misleading polarities between concepts which acquired their opposition much more recently. In addition to culture/nature and conscious/unconscious, the opposition between Christianity and paganism, oral and written culture, natural and supernatural as well as individual and society have been problematized in these contexts.66 Bearing in mind that these dichotomies may in many cases

63 Huot, Madness, p. 193. 64 Friedrich, Menschentier und Tiermensch, p. 68. 65 Chantal Bourgault du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf: Fantasy, Horror and the Beast Within (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006), pp. 3–5. 66 This theme appeared in several papers presented at the International Saga Conference XVI (Zürich and Basel, 2015), including but not limited to Miriam Mayburd, “Paranormal contagion of natural environment and the collapsing self in Íslendingasögur”; Marie Novotná, “Hamr of the Old Norse body”; Robert Cutrer, “The Cartography of Dragons: Oddr’s Demarcation of Space in Yngvars saga víðförla”; Mart Kuldkepp, “Genre, Spatiality and Textualization of Su- pernatural Encounters in Sagas of Icelanders”; of which the abstracts are all contained in J. Glauser, K. Müller-Wille, A.K. Richter and L. Rösli (eds.), The Sixteenth International Saga Conference: Preprint of Abstracts (Zürich: Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Skandinavische Studien, 2015), pp. 202, 223, 83, 176.

24 be post-Enlightenment projections or exaggerations, one ought to problema- tize their relevance to the source material when they appear in secondary literature, and avoid sorting phenomena into convenient, ready-made boxes when analysing primary sources. This is one reason why the first section of this study examines the fundamental vocabulary used in shapeshifting narratives: so that we can, as nearly as possible, by analysing connotations and denotations, avoid these dichotomies and chart the cultural systems that inform and are informed by shapeshifting in early medieval England and Ireland. Peter Burke described one central aspect of historical anthropology as con- centrating on “the interpretation of social interaction in a given society in terms of that society’s own norms and categories.”67 In other words, anthro- pologically-oriented history becomes a matter of “catching hold of the web [of meaning] without crushing it.”68 As Fred Inglis explains,

Cultural systems systematize. They offer a persuasive account of a world set to rights, an account implying both ‘a model of’ that world at its best and a ‘model for’ its present betterment. They ‘formulate conceptions of a general order of existence’ […].69

In other words, cultural systems provide a narrative for how the world ought to behave (and thus Inglis’ ‘model for’ moving towards that ideal). Less rigid than a script for a dramatic piece, they approach more the rules to a children’s game that everyone knows but no one can remember how they learned them. Because everyone knows these rules, it is not generally required that partici- pants think very long and hard about them at all: the rules only become important when someone breaks them. At the same time, we ought to avoid fall- ing into a view of culture that relegates it to a static structure impervious to change: culture should be understood “less as an autonomous structure of meaning and […] instead, recast as a performative term, as a realm of meaning constantly produced and reproduced by historical actors”.70 Historical and cultural anthropology thus provide us with a vocabulary in which to express metamorphoses as symbolic actions taking place within a broader cultural system. Supported by theories of metaphor and meaning creation, discussed below, it also equips us to understand metamorphosis as comprised of different, some-

67 Peter Burke, The Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy: Essays on Perception and Communication (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 6. 68 Fred Inglis, Clifford Geertz: Culture, Custom and Ethics (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008), p. 113; see also Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 2000 [repr. orig. 1993]). 69 Inglis, Geertz, p. 119, citing Geertz, Interpretation, p. 93. 70 Gabrielle M. Spiegel, “Introduction to ‘The Concept(s) of Culture’ (William Sewell)” in G.M. Spiegel (ed.), Practicing History: New Directions in History Writing after the Linguistic Turn (London: Routledge, 2005), 76–7 at p. 76.

25 times competing and sometimes parallel, discourses. This project hypothesizes that metamorphosis presents a challenge to the prevailing cultural system: one that, in short, creates cracks or breaks within the accepted cultural order.

‘Eine Geschichtswissenschaft in anthropologischer Zielrichtung’ In order to answer these questions, this study uses an over-arching theoretical perspective heavily influenced by cultural, and in particular interpretative, anthropology. The guiding theoretical framework of study may thus be described as historical anthropology, as presented by Hans-Werner Goetz: “Eine ‘His- torische Anthropologie’ ist in diesem Sinne nicht eine historisch betriebene Anthropologie, sondern eine Geschichtswissenschaft in anthropologischer Zielrichtung.”71 The work of Clifford Geertz has been particularly significant for this study, providing it with its interpretative ‘anthropological direction’. In other words, it provides us with an interpretative framework in which to express shapeshifting as a symbolic action. The study presumes, firstly, that the composition of a text comprises not only a symbolic but a social action, and those who ‘act’, as it were, through the text include not only the creators, but also the audience. Thus, the study aims to examine metamorphosis narratives in order to state “as explicitly as we can manage, what the knowledge thus attained [i.e. both through composition and consumption of the text] demonstrates about the society in which it is found and, beyond that, about social life as such.”72 That is to say, it uncovers what functions particular meanings of shapeshifting had for the communities in which they circulated. Additionally, Geertz proposes two central ideas that are relevant for this study. The first of these is the idea that culture is best seen, not as complexes of behavioural patterns, but as a series of control mechanisms that govern behaviour. Secondly, he argues that humans are the animal most dependent on “such extragenetic, outside-the-skin” control mechanisms for ordering behaviour.73 This in turn builds on the assertion that human thought is both social and public: it relies on traffic in ‘significant symbols’, most of which will largely be seen as natural from the perspective of any given individual. Geertz thus conceptualizes cultural systems of significant symbols (i.e. a ‘semiotic concept of culture’) in very similar terms to Lakoff and Johnson’s conceptual metaphors in Metaphors We Live By. Lakoff and Johnson argue not only that the “conceptual systems of cultures and religions are metaphorical in nature,”

71 Hans-Werner Goetz, Moderne Mediävistik: Stand und Perspektiven der Mittelalterforschung (Darmstadt: Primus Verlag, 1999), p. 263. 72 Geertz, Interpretation, p. 27. 73 Geertz, Interpretation, p. 44.

26 but even more profoundly that our basic conceptual system is itself fundamentally metaphorical.74 This study looks at a very specific phenomenon within early medieval Eng- lish and Irish texts in order to examine the social function that shapeshifting narratives could serve in each of these societies. By viewing these texts as social actions, the study views them simultaneously as communicating within accepted semiotic systems and as imposing or reinforcing such control mechanisms as referenced by Geertz. In other words, the composers of these texts will have had to make them ‘make sense’ to the intended audiences; thus, the text needed to operate within a symbolic system that would have been understood. However, many of these texts had a didactic or persuasive element to them; in other words, their composers manipulated these symbolic systems in order to convey a certain set of norms to their audience. Shapeshifting depicts a fundamental physical change, but also one that by and large appears not to have been acknowledged as a natural human property.

To show metamorphosis as breaking order, or as a different perspective, we then require an ordered context, or a context of perspective in contrast to which the metamorphosis is, indeed, a different one. This is a reason why lim- iting the shapeshifting sources to those that involve complete humans (that is, humans in nature and not only appearance) is a critical criterion for the study: In order to confidently interpret transformations as metaphors, one must be able to say that they are “comprehending some entity from the point of view, or perspective, of another.”75 In a nutshell, this also summarizes supernatural beings’ grounds for exclusion: assuming another form lies in their nature; they maintain the same perspective, as it were, throughout the process of transformation. Typically, the ordered context comes in two forms: the narrative and the normative. Narrative ordered contexts are those such as one finds in literature, where shapeshifting occurs as part of a story, or in a tale recounted in a history. Most werewolf stories, for example, are metamorphoses within a narrative ordered context. By contrast, the normative ordered context is one in which the writer either explains metamorphosis, or uses metamorphosis as an explanatory tool. Perhaps the most famous example is St Augustine’s ruminations on werewolves and human-to-animal metamorphoses. Ultimately, Au- gustine concludes:

These things [i.e. these stories of shapeshifting] are either false, or so extraordinary as to be with good reason disbelieved. But it is to be most firmly believed that Almighty God can do whatever He pleases, whether in punishing or favor- ing, and that the demons can accomplish nothing by their natural power (for

74 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors we Live by (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 40; see also p. 3. 75 Christopher Tilley, Metaphor and Material Culture (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999), p. 4.

27 their created being is itself angelic, although made malign by their own fault), except what He may permit, whose judgments are often hidden, but never un- righteous. And indeed the demons, if they really do such things as these on which this discussion turns, do not create real substances, but only change the appearance of things created by the true God so as to make them seem to be what they are not. I cannot therefore believe that even the body, much less the mind, can really be changed into bestial forms and lineaments by any reason, art, or power of the demons […].76

This is echoed, albeit briefly, in the early tenth century penitential Canon Episcopi, recorded by the Benedictine monk Regino of Prüm:

For of our Lord it is written, “All things were made by Him.” Whoever therefore believes that anything can be made, or that any creature can be changed to better or worse, or transformed into another species or likeness, except by God Himself who made everything and through whom all things were made, is beyond a doubt an infidel.77

While Augustine had a significant influence on theological learning in both Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England, it appears that the Canon Episcopi was less influential: According to Anne Lawrence-Mathers, the ‘more dramatic’ Caro- lingian witchcraft texts were brought to England in the tenth century, with the introduction of new, composite penitential texts based on Carolingian editions.78 Even at this point, it is difficult to detect direct influences from these Carolingian texts in either England or Ireland during the period covered by this study; therefore, although the Canon Episcopi makes direct reference to shapeshifting and is important for discussions both of shapeshifting and of witchcraft, it and the related Carolingian texts are of limited relevance here and will not be featured prominently in this study.

76 “Haec uel falsa sunt uel tam inusitata, ut merito non credantur. Firmissime tamen credendum est omnipotentem Deum posse omnia facere quae uoluerit, siue uindicando siue praestando, nec daemones aliquid operari secundum naturae suae potentiam (quia et ipsa angelica creatura est, licet proprio uitio sit maligna) nisi quod ille permiserit, cuius iudicia occulta sunt multa, iniusta nulla. Nec sane daemones naturas creant, si aliquid tale faciunt, de qualibus factis ista uertitur quaestio; sed specie tenus, quae a uero Deo sunt creata, commutant, ut uideantur esse quod non sunt. Non itaque solum animum, sed ne corpus quidem ulla ratione crediderim daemonum arte uel potestate in membra et liniamenta bestialia ueraciter posse conuerti.” In: B. Dombart and A. Kalb, eds., De Civitate Dei (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955), XVIII.18; Marcus Dods, trans., “Au- gustine: Demons and Magic in the City of God” in M. Rampton, ed., European Magic and Witchcraft: A Reader (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018), 67-80 at p. 77. 77 Henry C. Lea, Materials Toward a History of Witchcraft (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1939), p. 179. 78 Anne Lawrence-Mathers, “The Problem of Magic in Early Anglo-Saxon England”, Reading Medieval Studies 33 (2007), 87–104.

28 This study’s use of social image and metaphor as tools for exploring conceptions of the individual and their place in society takes its inspiration from two major sources: the use of metaphor in historical texts, exemplified by Cordelia Heß’ Social Imagery in Middle Low German, and the field of historical anthropology, which also makes symbolism one of its central concerns.79 Heß describes social imagery as the sum total of textual images used as metaphors for society within a given language and genre context (in the case of her study, didactic literature in Middle Low German). This study will build upon the idea of social imagery, but with a twist: it uses the image of metamorphosis (the source domain) as its constant, and the target domains (i.e. what metamorphosis is a metaphor for) as its variables. Thus, instead of focusing on the imagery (i.e. the sum total of images designating society) it focuses on a single image and exploring what aspects of society are understood in terms of metamorphosis. Therefore, I speak of a ‘social metaphor’, rather than social imagery. In Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson write that “a metaphor works when it satisfies a purpose, namely understanding an aspect of the concept”.80 This takes the central question of this study, ‘Why write about shapeshifting?’, and draws attention to the other side of the coin: if shapeshifting is being used in a figurative or metaphorical sense to aid in the understanding of an abstract concept, then what is being conceptualized, or made more comprehensible, in terms or with the aid of metamorphosis? This idea of meaning created through metaphor aligns well with Clifford Geertz’ concept of culture, and with historical anthropology more generally. “Historical anthropologists try to show […] how ‘apparently trivial routines and rituals have an important role in maintaining or enforcing a certain world view’”81, while Clifford Geertz posits that looking at symbolic dimensions of social action (of which the creation of texts certainly is one) plunges one into the “existential dilemmas of life”, rather than turning one away from them.82 Geertz formulates a semiotic concept of culture, whereby humans are animals suspended in webs that they themselves have spun; if one takes culture to be those webs, according to Geertz, then the analysis of culture ought to be an interpretative science in search of meaning.83

This particular analysis of culture engages with different levels of meaning. It begins with a focus on meaning as constructed through language, then moves

79 Cordelia Heß, Social Imagery in Middle Low German: Didactical Literature and Metaphor- ical Representation (1470–1517) (Leiden: Brill, 2013). See also Burke, Historical Anthropol- ogy, pp. 3ff., as well as Clifford Geertz, Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretative Anthropology, 3rd ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2000). 80 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, p. 83. 81 Orvar Löfgren, “On the Anatomy of Culture”, Ethnologia Europea 12 (1981), 24–46; quoted in Burke, Historical Anthropology, p. 4. 82 Geertz, Local Knowledge, p. 30. 83 Geertz, Local Knowledge, p. 5.

29 to meaning at the level of the individual episode: what that particular shapeshift likely conveyed to its audience. Finally, it examines the social function of these narratives, or what they meant for the society in which they were read and produced. The empirical chapters to follow are interlocking case studies. They build upon each other and make use of the same source corpus; however, they each draw upon specific and distinct methodologies as well as theoretical perspectives. These will be outlined here, and discussed in more detail in the introductions to each chapter. Chapter Two undertakes a philological study of the vocabulary employed in shapeshifting narratives, and examines both the denotations and connotations of these lexical items within and beyond such narratives. What verbs express the shapeshifting process? What nouns are used for the beginning and ending states, what nouns for the more general terms of shape or form? The verbs are analysed on (a) whether they are passive or indicative; (b) whether the agent of passive verbs is known or whether indicative verbs are reflexive, and more broadly who does what to whom (discussed in more detail below); and (c) meaning. In the case of meaning, the context of the episode is considered, as well as connotations indicated by other sources and by present-day dictionaries. Furthermore, in the case of compound verbs, the verb’s base and prefix are analysed individually as well as jointly. It examines not only the extent to which certain connotations with other usages may have influenced which vocabulary was used to refer to metamorphosis under which circumstances, but also what these connotations might tell us about how the meaning of shapeshifting itself was structured, and what connotations it brought to bear on its vocabulary. Often in current research one sees metamorphoses approached with a very specific set of expectations or categories. I again cite Clifford Geertz:

I do not think that meanings are out there to theorise about. One tries to look at behaviour, what people say, and make sense of it - that is my theoretical approach to meaning. … [Phenomenologists] concern themselves with general issues of meaning independently of any empirical case. I am concerned with what some thing means.84

Many researchers take the path of the phenomenologists: they use shapeshifting to exemplify a general issue or concept, which they either carry as a pre- conceived conviction or have formed through reading and overly relying on earlier theorists (often Augustine; sometimes he is featured most prominently among other Church Fathers). I, on the other hand, want to look at behaviours – what people have written – and attempt to make sense of it.

84 Arun Micheelsen, “‘I Don’t Do Systems’: An Interview with Clifford Geertz”, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 14 (2002), 2–20 at p. 6.

30 Chapter Three extends the study of meaning creation to rhetorical strategies of comparison; specifically, those of metaphor and simile. On the level of individual humans, the most common transformations are to and from animals; animals also frequently form bases for comparison, and are used as rhetorical examples for human appearance, behaviour, and characteristics. Therefore, the examination of rhetorical strategies of comparison at use in transformation narratives will use human-animal transformations as its frame of reference and examine the rhetorical strategies at work here in contrast with and with reference to those comparisons made between humans and animals where transformation is not in focus. This project hypothesizes that transformations between humans and animals are fundamentally different from comparisons between the species, and that they employ different rhetorical strategies: particularly a predominance of metaphor over simile. Both this chapter and the chapter preceding it are to a large degree language-focused, and while they do not themselves engage directly with linguistic structuralism, they can be said to presuppose an understanding of representation that is heavily influenced by it. We may recall here the textbook ‘common sense’ definition of representation: the use of language “to say something meaningful about, or to represent, the world meaningfully to other people”;85 the influence of linguistic structuralism, therefore, may be seen in the analysis of language as a symbol of representation and a key agent in meaning construction. Chapter Four takes a different approach, and examines the socio-cultural role and function of metamorphosis narratives. The interpretations made in Chapter Four are guided primarily by disability/body theory; monster theory; and social identity theory. These three theoretical concepts, both supporting and to some degree contrasting with each other, provide us with useful tools for the analysis of metamorphosis narratives within the context of the texts in which they operate, and for extrapolating these conclusions to a broader socio- cultural context. Postcolonial studies had been examined as a potentially fruitful theoretical influence for this material, particularly with tensions between centre (the community) and periphery (the transformed person(s)) and with the concept of alterity; however, upon examination of the evidence it became clear that the data do not support a postcolonial reading. Whereas the above sections concerned itself with the aspects of metamorphosis most closely related to the act itself, this section focuses on, so to speak, the next step along the path: you’ve undergone metamorphosis, now what? What are the consequences of this change, for the individual who shapeshifted, as well as for their social group? Additionally, it examines the role of the narratives themselves in order to probe the purpose of writing, adapting, or including shapeshifting narratives. Building upon the linguistic and rhetorical evidence of what

85 Stuart Hall, “Representation, Meaning, and Language” in S. Hall, J. Evans, and S. Nixon (eds.), Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publishing, 2013), 15–30 at p. 15.

31 shapeshifting can mean, this chapter looks at what shapeshifting does within a social context.

Comparison between Early Medieval England and Ireland One cornerstone of this study’s methodology is the comparison between early medieval Irish and English sources.86 As recently as 2016, Dáibhí Ó Cróinín observed that “it is a curious fact that the picture of early Ireland that most people have is of a society that was abnormally static, cut off from the great historical events in Europe, and as a consequence inward-looking and back- ward.”87 He points out that although Ireland did not experience invasion on such a scale as Britain during the fifth century, nor were the Viking attacks and settlements as disruptive to the island as they were elsewhere (especially in comparison with the Danelaw), change was constant during this period and the continuity of ‘Irish culture’ through and beyond the early medieval period remains hotly debated. It is clear that the island underwent significant changes during the period studied here: conversion to Christianity remained an active process, as did the negotiations of political power—both secular and monastic. Regarding Anglo-Saxon England, fewer people would claim that society was particularly static, but a view of the island as somehow isolated from Europe remains persistent, despite recent efforts to counteract it. Indeed, in both cases such presumptions of isolation are far from accurate. By a similar token, many studies seem either to take isolation between Anglo-Saxon England and early medieval Ireland as given (despite no such compunctions regarding Ireland and Dál Riata, the Picts, or the Welsh), or to simply concentrate on their side of the Irish Sea to the exclusion of the other. However, just as the evidence makes clear that there was significant contact between both Anglo-Saxon England and early medieval Ireland and Europe (sometimes even beyond), both textual and archaeological evidence indicates that these two cultural areas were far from isolated from each other. Beyond the violent interactions between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and those of the Picts, Dál Riata, and Romano-British, we find evidence, for example, for Irish missionaries in heathen England, English monks in Ireland, as well as distinctive ‘insular’ artwork perhaps best characterised by the Book of Kells which combines distinctive features from around the British Isles. Nevertheless, while we may be confident of contacts across the Irish Sea, we also notice stark differences between early medieval England and Ireland at a greater scale than the regional variabilities that we see within each of these cultural areas. Thus, while comparisons between different cultures are important to

86 These are the two cultural realms with significant textual survival; the kingdoms of the Picts and the Welsh did produce written sources during this period, but only a very limited amount, and this output does not contain material relevant for the study at hand. 87 Dáibhi Ó Cróinín, Early Medieval Ireland 400–1200 (London: Routledge, 2016).

32 contextualisation in any case, early medieval Ireland and England present us with a particular case of two different cultural contexts with a high potential for interaction. In addition to this, the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to Christianity (ca. 650 – ca. 800 A.D.) means that the British Isles could increasingly lay claim to and communicate by means of a shared cultural symbolism and superstructure. Using shapeshifting as a focal point for this study highlights this range of connections and differences. Sources from both cultural contexts make use of Biblical references, though these are generally more common in Latin (e.g. the change of water into wine in the Vita Cuthberti) than Old English or Old/Middle Irish sources. Similarly, the same genre (i.e. hagiography) produces a relatively significant proportion of the sources in each data set. At the same time, however, Ireland has a tradition of vernacular narrative that engages much more directly with a non-Christian mythology and non-Christian past, leading to the presence of a data set completely lacking in the Old Eng- lish or Anglo-Latin corpora.

Source Material and Source Criticism The source material used in this study spans broadly across genre in order to assess the range of contexts in which shapeshifting could be applied. The languages covered by these sources are Hiberno-Latin, Anglo-Latin, Old English, and what I am choosing to call Old Irish, although the Irish vernacular in this period underwent considerable transformation, and towards the end of the study’s range was characterized by a general and occasionally haphazard mix- ing of Old and Middle Irish elements.88 Early medieval England and Ireland were both active in producing translations from Latin into their respective ver- naculars; the adherence to the Latin original, however, could vary greatly from translator to translator. In some cases, the vernacular version of a given work is so interpretative that it bears more resemblance to what we would today call an adaptation than a translation. In the case of the translations produced by King Alfred and those connected to his court (such as the Old English De Consolatione Philosophiae, which certainly falls under the heading of more adaptation than translation) in the late ninth century, we may be confident that the translations occurred within the context of a concentrated educational programme.89 In Ireland, by contrast, the express agenda for translation is less

88 Paul Russell, “Irish Language” in John C. Koch, ed., Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclo- pedia, vol. 1 (Oxford: ABC CLIO, 2006), 985–993 at p. 990. 89 Alfred’s goal – though it remained unaccomplished – was that the children (at least, as Helmut Gneuss notes, the sons) of all free Anglo-Saxons should be able to read English. See: Helmut Gneuss, “Bücher und Leser in England im zehnten Jahrhundert” in H. L. C. Tristram (ed.), Medialität und mittelalteriche insulare Literatur (Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1992), 104– 130 at pp. 110–111.

33 forthright; however, we already see bilingual and code-switching material written in the eighth century. Translations in Old English or Old/Middle Irish from Latin were included in the corpus, because the vocabulary choices the translators or adaptors made, and the particular adaptations undertaken, demonstrate the priorities and judgement exercised by those creating the vernacular version of the text. Part of the challenge in approaching these texts as a historian is the fact that at this early period, we do not often have named authors, or indeed very much information about the precise location or year that a certain text was produced. On linguistic or palaeographic grounds we can narrow the window sometimes quite specifically – certain scriptoria, for example, produced remarkably recognizable hands, and regional dialects are detectable in Old English, though not in Old/Middle Irish – but where the text is preserved only in a later manuscript, we must rely on internal evidence, and the evidence of the surrounding texts in order to piece together the historical context of the work. Regarding the hagiographies of St Brigid and St Patrick, for example, it is very clear that Kildare and Armagh were two of the most powerful early Christian communities in Ireland, and were working to build their support base. Similarly, although Bede is a critical source for the history of the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, his position in Northumbria necessarily makes him more aware of certain situations than others, and his interpretation of history is also clearly biased; for example, he obscures the presence of Irish missionaries and monks, and he also presents a deceptively stable view of what is known today as the Heptarchy, the seven major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that had coalesced by the mid-eighth century. In the presentation of the sources below I have attempted to provide as much historical detail regarding individual works as possible. Sources were identified through a combination of broad reading and pointed vocabulary identification, whereby both methods would be applied to a text usually as a control for each other. This method is discussed in more detail in Chapter Two, where it relates directly to the method of analysis used for the lexical portion of this study. Initially, no material was excluded in sampling of sources: in order to identify the range of contexts for which discourses of shapeshifting held relevance, the initial appraisal of potential source material was intentionally vast. At this point, the criteria at play were primarily the date of composition and location of composition. Texts were selected that were composed between the mid-seventh and early-eleventh centuries, as discussed above; regarding the location of composition, I have restricted myself to texts produced within Britain and Ireland or translated into Old English or Old Irish during this time period. This means that I have excluded from analysis (though not necessarily from supportive reading) those texts imported to or copied in Britain and Ireland that did not originate there. It is important to note that more texts were in use than those composed within these particular cultures; nor were the texts composed in Britain and Ireland isolated from the intellectual milieu that included Patristic and Classical texts: Indeed, as far as

34 we are able to reconstruct the contents of early medieval libraries in England and Ireland, and identify the sources of texts produced in these areas, it is clear that, far from being intellectual backwaters, Irish and Anglo-Saxon intellectu- als not only drew from, but also both participated in and contributed to a tradition of thought and learning that situated them within a geographic context that reached beyond Europe even as it centred on the Latin West.90 The texts produced in Anglo-Saxon England and early medieval Ireland should therefore be seen less as representatives of their respective cultural areas, and more as reflections of what was seen as important, worth communicating, and by what means these ideas could be made communicable. When representation appears in this study, it refers to representation within the text, rather than the text itself acting as a kind of cultural representative. As mentioned above, texts from genres not traditionally considered ‘historical’ were included in the initial sampling of material: Because the anthropological perspective with which I approach my subject matter encompasses as thorough an analysis of this particular cultural element as may be achieved, I did not in the first instance allow my sampling to be limited by genre restrictions. Indeed, I find the opposition between historical and literary texts to be, for the early Middle Ages at least, distracting and needlessly oppositional. Similarly, by excluding a large number of texts read within Anglo-Saxon England or early medieval Ireland in favour of those texts produced within an Insular context, I choose to focus on that portion of the respective cultural systems that were actively selected to be communicated further. Book learning was a critical aspect of monastic life, and Christian development depended on the consumption of written commentaries, either in full or as compilations of excerpts in florilegia;91 research by scholars such as Michael Lapidge for Anglo-Saxon England and Pádraig P. Ó Néill for medieval Ireland has demonstrated that the acquisition of texts by particular monastic centres was extensive and far-reaching. However, it is in the production of texts that we see how this learning was put to use, selected for importance, and adjusted to suit the intellectual and cultural milieu in which it had been apprehended. Additionally, Anglo-Saxon England and early medieval Ireland both developed active programmes of vernacular literature

90 See for example Michael Lapidge, The Anglo-Saxon Library (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Pádraig P. Ó Néill, “Celtic Britain and Ireland in the Early Middle Ages” in E. Leedham-Green and T. Webber (eds.), The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ire- land (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2006), 69–90; Fontes Anglo-Saxonici: World Wide Web Register. Online source available at: http://fontes.english.ox.ac.uk/; Sources of An- glo-Saxon Literary Culture. Online source available at: http://www.saslc.org/. 91 Florilegia are an example, besides the Bible, of what Maria Arvidsson does not consider a multitext book, since the collection of texts contained therein effectively becomes a new whole, or a new unit, and is transmitted as such. Therefore, it is no longer seen by the copyist as a collection of discrete parts. For more on multitext books, see below. Maria Arvidsson, En handskrifts tillkomst- och bruks historia (Uppsala: Svenska fornskriftsällskapet, 2017), p. 11 incl. fn. 5.

35 and learning, which clearly demonstrates an intended audience closer to home than the potential breadth of Latin Christendom. Within this body of potential material, I searched for episodes of shapeshifting that involved the transition of one physical form to a different one, visible within the textual world, where one of these forms was explicitly human. Using shapeshifting episodes in late antique, Old Norse, and high medieval romance as a guide in this area, it appeared reasonable to expect that metamorphosis would be marked as an unusual occurrence, and that the visible aspects of the change in question would be highlighted within the text. Although the range of texts sampled was broad, certain patterns did begin to emerge during the process of data collection. While relevant vocabulary did appear in legal material and material from chronicles and annals, these, as well as charters, do not provide us with any episodes of shapeshifting.92 Although English penitential literature does mete out penance for acts of magic or sorcery, as do the Irish laws, none of the supernatural acts mentioned in either genre include the transformation of another person into something non-human, or the alteration of a person’s appearance through sorcery or witchcraft. Similarly, medical texts (translations and adaptations from Mediterranean exemplars, such as the Old English Herbarium and Medicina de quadrupedibus as well as the putatively more ‘domestic’ Leechbooks of Bald93) with very few exceptions do not appear to concern themselves with matters of either transformation or shapeshifting. We do not, for example, see lycanthropy treated here as a medical condition, either literally or in the sense of someone deluding themselves into wolfish behaviour, as occasionally appear in Classical and late antique medical texts, and which gain particular traction in the context of the early modern werewolf and witchcraft trials.

Works of Wonder and Philosophy Allegories contained within philosophical texts, such as the Old English versions of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae or of Augustine’s Solilo- quies, contribute more to the data set, as do occasional entries in various kinds of literature of wonder. Often, however, transformations in wonder tales are disqualified because of a lack of human presence on one side or the other of transformation (e.g. serial shapeshifting characterizes a particular monster or

92 Examples of the relevant vocabulary that appears in these sources is presented in Chapter Two. Isolated examples potentially related to werewolves do occur, but they do so by means of a vocabulary that putatively relates to werewolves rather than as representations of transformation. 93 For more regarding the origins of the Anglo-Saxon medical texts see M. L. Cameron, Anglo- Saxon Medicine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) and Stephen Pollington, Leechcraft—Early English Charms, Plantlore, and Healing (Hereward: Anglo-Saxon Books, 2000). As far as I am aware, the surviving corpus of Irish medical texts does not include any texts older than the later Middle Ages.

36 demon). The Old English adaptation of De Consolatione Philosophiae was composed as part of Alfred the Great’s translation and education campaign in the late ninth century; it is important to remember, however, that even at the point where important philosophical texts, like this one, and religious texts such as Gregory the Great’s Cura Pastoralis were being translated into the vernacular, the Old English that we see in manuscripts was a comparatively highly standardized language. Additionally, the translation of De Consola- tione was fairly free in that the translator clearly adapted the text to an audience that lacked the depth of knowledge regarding Classical myth and storytelling that Boethius’ would have had several centuries earlier, but nevertheless was familiar with figures like Ulysses and saw themselves as central actors – in both a narrative and genealogical sense – in a historical tradition that reached right back to Troy itself. This is particularly clear in the episode with the most relevance for this study, Circe’s transformation of Ulysses’ men into animals: the translator adapted Ulysses into the familiar figure of a hero-king and added details regarding Circe (particularly her heritage), while clearly pre- suming a familiarity with the Trojan War and its actors. The slightly earlier Liber Monstrorum, composed in the late seventh or early eighth century in Latin, also clearly bears this Classical influence, though it is also one of the few texts outside of Beowulf to also mention King Hygelac. The text is a catalogue of marvellous or monstrous humans, land animals, and sea animals, and contains an account of King Midas’ transformative powers, as well as a small number of animals who are said to be able to change their appearance. It has been suggested that the text is somehow connected to, or potentially even written by, Aldhelm of Malmesbury, who was a disciple of Hadrian, Ab- bot of St Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury (d. 710 and who, according to Bede, was a man of North African heritage; he had accompanied Theodore of Tarsus, who became archbishop of Canterbury, to England in 668), and a scholar and a poet in addition to becoming the abbot of Malmesbury Abbey and Bishop of Sherborne. His Latin bears the influence of Hiberno-Latin models, and although it would have been fascinating to see the effect this might have had on his writing in English, none of the Old English poetry ascribed to Aldhelm by William of Malmesbury in his Gesta Rerum Anglorum has survived. That leaves, nevertheless, a significant body of work in Latin: the prose and poetic versions of his treatise on virginity, known collectively as De virginitate, are perhaps the most famous, but it is the Enigmata, Aldhelm’s verse riddles that display a thorough Classical education, which contains an account of Circe’s transformation of Scylla. In general, however, both the Enigmata and the later Old English riddles of the Exeter Book manuscript rarely contain examples of shapeshifting: This may be because they often describe a static object or being, and metamorphosis draws the audience’s focus to the dynamic process more than either the beginning or the ending state. A uniquely Irish genre that contains several non-human transformations (or transformations not necessarily the result of shapeshifting, such as human

37 souls that become birds after death; see Chapter Three) is that of the Immram (pl. immrama), or voyage. In the case of the immrama, Christian and Irish mythological elements blend during the heroes’ nautical search for the Other- world. Perhaps one of the most clearly Christian elements of these stories is that the heroes in question are usually men of the Church (either monks or priests), or undertaking their journey as an act of penance. Although the specific quest that has driven the heroes to their journey varies from immram to immram, they share the common structure of a band of men sailing from island to island and either enjoying, or narrowly escaping, the wonders there as they search for the particular island that holds what or whom they seek. Three of seven recognized survive: Immram Curaig Mael Dúin; Immram Curaig Ua Corra; and Immram Snégdusa acus Mec Riagla. In this classification, the voy- ages of Bran (Navigatio Sancti Brendani and Immram Brain maic Febail, the latter being a different story rather than a translation) are typically classified as echtrae, “adventure” tales about the hero’s travels in the Otherworld, but these particular two stories also share important elements (e.g. travelling among different islands of wonder). The immrama combine elements of Christian and pre-Christian Irish mythology, and it has been argued that the genre may have borrowed from or been inspired by existing Christian genres such as saints’ lives or peregrination; i.e., the Irish monks who during the early Middle Ages travelled to the Continent. It has, however, also been suggested that they may have been inspired by exaggerated retellings of actual historical journeys. Like the Liber Monstrorum, the emphasis is typically on the wondrous beings that the heroes witness, and thus visual transformations are frequently innate to the creature in question and do not involve humans. Within the immrama, the most important contribution to this study comes from the Immram Brain, the Irish version of the voyage of Brandon, which engages in the legend of the shapechanging figure Mongán mac Fiachna. A full list of shapeshifting episodes from the immrama appears in the Appendix; a discussion of the engagement with the motif of souls of the departed appearing and communicating as birds comes in Chapter Three.

Hagiography and Related Religious Narrative The most substantial portion of the corpus of episodes containing shapeshifting, however, comes from the genre of hagiography. The rate of transformations is higher in the Irish hagiographies (including the preface to the Amra Choluim Chille); however, there are many more English hagiographies dated to this period than Irish (in both cases including Latin sources). Religious writing in general, and hagiography and martyrology specifically, is a particularly tradition-bound endeavour; indeed, much of the scholarship surrounding An-

38 glo-Saxon hagiography and homiletic writing has focused on identifying Pa- tristic and other hagiographic sources.94 The potential audiences of hagiography were diverse. Personal devotion, increasingly a feature of later medieval book culture, was less common during this time, but would not be outside the realm of possibility for wealthy, aristocratic laypeople. Vitae and miracula could be read in paraliturgical settings within monasteries, or in liturgical settings; the homilies were of course intended to be read to congregations of the faithful. Ælfric, for example, mentions explicitly in his prefaces that his Cath- olic Homilies were intended to educate those without Latin in Christian faith. First, however, let us turn to the Irish saints’ lives and related religious literature, where in the late seventh century four named authors produced lives of Ireland’s principal three saints. Nevertheless, as Richard Sharpe points out, “they all differ completely from one another in their approach to their task and in their use of Latin. On this basis, one could not define any set of characteristics of Hiberno-Latin hagiography in the seventh century.”95 Adomnán, abbot of Iona (d. 704), wrote the Vita S. Columbae in the 690s and used literary and hagiographic models such as Sulpicius Severus’ Life of St. Martin, Evagrius’ Life of St. Anthony, and Gregory the Great’s Dialogi. In contrast, the Vita Sancti Patricii written around the same time by Muirchú moccu Machthéni boasts a dramatic style that represents Patrick as a hero-saint who defeated paganism in contest. In the Book of Armagh (807), Tírechán’s Vita is presented as a sequel or complement to Muirchú’s (although it was probably written earlier), but focuses more on establishing Patrick’s successors’ claims to the churches mentioned in the Vita, and hence extending the influence of the community at Armagh. The two Vitae of Brigid, Cogitosus’ from the seventh century and the anonymous Vita Prima, potentially from the seventh century but likely not later than the ninth, and focused geographically on the area around Kildare, round out the early Hiberno-Latin Vitae, and after this point we find no Latin Vita of an Irish saint written in Ireland before the late eleventh century. The appearance of the early Irish Vitae corresponds to the period (ca. eighth–ninth centuries) when Latin texts first become translated into Irish, such as the translation of the Lambeth Commentary on Matthew. Bethu Brigte and Bethu Phátraic are both translations of the earlier Latin Vitae; the incom- plete nature of Brigid’s has led to suggestions that the Life may have begun as an interlinear gloss, but Patrick’s is much more complete, and indeed, not unlike Tírechan’s Vita, is one of the most valuable witnesses to the Irish political geography of the ninth and tenth centuries. Although few homilies survive from this early period, and those that have were included in this study, there are two additional texts involving Colum Cille (St Columba): a colloquy between the saint and the youth Mongan, and the introduction to a panegyric poem composed in his honour. It is clear that part of the aim in both the Vitae

94 Lees, Tradition and Belief, p. 31. 95 Sharpe, Medieval Irish Saints’ Lives, p. 14.

39 traditions of Patrick and Brigid involved establishing not only each saint’s territory, but also in reinforcing the claims of their successors to particular churches. Jane Stevenson has argued that there is “abundant proof” that Ire- land’s own conversion period lasted well into the eighth century, and that the interactions in the hagiographies between the saints and prominent people within Ireland aimed to establish Christianity as a political as well as a spiritual power on the island.96 The volume of hagiographies from Anglo-Saxon England is greater than in early medieval Ireland, but to a large extent the character of these Vitae was more conservative as well. Whereas the Irish material did not produce homilies that contained shapeshifting, several significant cases of transformation are to be found in Old English homilies. Both homiletic and hagiographical material depend on a body of Latin Christian doctrine and writing (in the time of Archbishop Theodore and Hadrian this could conceivably have included Greek as well) to a significant degree, and source identification has formed an important part of the study of some of the most significant named writers of prose – Aldhelm (late seventh century) and the Venerable Bede (late seventh and early eighth centuries) in Latin; in Old English the scholar, homilist, gram- marian, abbot, and central figure of the Benedictine Reform, Ælfric of Eynsham (late tenth century), as well as Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, homilist, and drafter of law codes for both Æthelred the Unready and Cnut the Great (late tenth–early eleventh centuries). While most of the laity lacked direct contact with Latin, literacy was not altogether uncommon among the ar- istocracy, leading Olga Timofeeva to postulate that at least some of these must also have been literate in Latin. At this time, among the clergy, one required Latin proficiency in order to pursue an ecclesiastical career. However, judging by the topos in Anglo-Saxon writings of parish priests’ poor Latin, the proficiency of the lower secular clergy often did not equal that of the higher clergy and those who had taken monastic orders.97 A significant body of the religious material used in this study, however, was composed in later Anglo-Saxon England (from about the mid-ninth century onwards) in the vernacular. As mentioned above, we must resist the temptation to see Old English as a ‘folk’ language or a ‘language of the people’ at this time; as Elizabeth Tyler has pointed out, written Old English had itself achieved elite status.98 Although Ælfric makes clear on multiple occasions that he writes his didactic material in English for the benefit of those who do not understand Latin, the reforms and education programmes undertaken were, for the most part, of a top-down

96 Stevenson, “Literacy and Orality”, p. 11. 97 Olga Timofeeva, “Anglo-Latin Bilingualism before 1066: Prospects and Limitations” in Al- aric Hall, Olga Timofeeva, Ágnes Kiricsi and Bethany Fox (eds.), Interfaces between Language and Culture in Medieval England: A Festschrift for Matti Kilpiö (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 1–36. 98 Elizabeth Tyler, “Reading Roman Antiquity in Old English” (Vienna: The Medieval Trans- lator Conference Presentation, 18 March 2017).

40 nature, developed in elite centres of learning. In the seventh and eighth centuries, during the time of Aldhelm and Bede, Anglo-Saxon England was still undergoing the process of conversion. Bede himself wrote “with a largely didactic purpose for an audience which needed vivid and concrete demonstration of the power of God and of virtue”.99 Much of the early Latin writing, not only from Bede, is fairly distinct because the miracle stories reinforce religious teachings in preference to the merits of a shrine or cult.100 Conversion and apostasy are major themes in early religious writings, and remain so, as Lees observes:

The project of Anglo-Saxon Christianity primarily addresses the dangers of heathenism and apostasy […] As far as we know, vernacular discourses of the other [sic] – the Jew, heathen, or heretic – are largely symbolic and ideological methods of educating a Christian society.101

The major difference, simply put, is that while Latin didactic writing aimed to create and reinforce an idea of Christian society, vernacular didactic writing of the late Anglo-Saxon period maintained and reformed the idea of Christian society.

Epic Narrative and Poetry Next to hagiographies and religious narrative, epic narratives form the greatest portion of this study’s corpus of shapeshifting episodes. These texts are almost exclusively Irish in both provenance and language. Jane Stevenson has identified two particular indications of such a distance from the Church as might have resulted in the greater presence (or preservation) of such seemingly secular stories: firstly, there is a large amount of information of pagan deities, and secondly, one occasionally finds irreconcilable elements between surviving law-tracts with Christian morality.102 Francis Byrne has suggested that plagues which swept Ireland in the 660s and 680s may have served as the impetus for the production of vernacular narrative texts in the late seventh and eighth centuries.103 The specific stories which fit the criteria of this study belong to the Ulster Cycle and Kings’ Cycles. The Táin Bó Cúailnge is perhaps the best-known story of the Ulster Cycle, but the cycle includes many stories of the heroes of the Ulaid, set during and around the reign of King Conchobar mac Nessa. Nevertheless, the cycle depicts a time when no central authority existed in

99 James Campbell, Essays in Anglo-Saxon History (London: The Hambledon Press, 1986), p. 5 100 Campbell, Essays in Anglo-Saxon History, p. 5 101 Lees, Tradition and Belief, pp. 108–9. 102 Stevenson, “Literacy and Orality”, p. 11. 103 Stevenson, “Literacy and Orality”, p. 20.

41 Ireland. The Kings’ Cycles, on the other hand, concern themselves almost exclusively with the legendary kings of Ireland, from purely mythological figures through to Brian Boru, who, as mentioned above, fought the Vikings and was killed at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. As is often the case, the stories that make up the Kings’ Cycles blend mythology and historical events; by modern genre standards, they should be seen more as literary texts than bio- graphical ones. Both the Ulster Cycle and the Kings’ Cycles contain prose interspersed with poetry, and are preserved in a stage of Irish that mixes Old and Middle Irish. There remains debate, especially among the tales of the Ulster Cycle, regarding the extent to which pre-Christian traditions have been ‘preserved’ and the degree to which Biblical and Classical sources have influenced their current form. As in the case of the Anglo-Saxon sources above, most of the surviving texts were written in, and preserved by, church institutions. Alt- hough the extent to which the texts may have been adapted in their written form to make them more acceptable to Christians remains contested, it is now generally agreed that such a process did take place. It is clear, for example, that almost all references to pagan religious practices were removed, and particular deities became more like genii loci or inhabitants of fairy mounds.104 With reference to James Carney’s argument for a “mixed Christian classical culture of the early monastic period”, Brent Miles suggests that the concept of a division between pagan and Christian Latinity may have felt forced to scholars in medieval Ireland, and Ralph O’Connor observes (himself with reference to Michael Herren) that Irish scholars had access to as wide a range of Classi- cal authors as anywhere in the Latin West would have had.105 Although the poetic and philosophical class of the filid106 will have been expected to present traditional tales to their patrons, Tomás Ó Cathasaigh and others continue to debate the audience of those works of literature produced within a monastic setting (which, as mentioned above, is most of what found its way into writing). Some of the tales may have been intended as ‘exemplary mythology’, with designs upon an audience that must be swayed by it, not unlike the persuasive nature of miracles. However, Ó Cathasaigh concludes that the degree to which ideology and mythology were communicated outside

104 David Noel Wilson, Honour and Early Irish Society: A Study of the Táin Bó Cúailnge (Mas- ter’s Thesis: University of Melbourne, 2004), p. 12. 105 Brent Miles, Heroic Saga and Classical Epic in Medieval Ireland (Woodbridge: DS Brewer, 2011), p. 15; Ralph O’Connor, “Irish Narrative Literature and the Classical Tradition, 900– 1300” in Ralph O’Connor, ed., Classical Literature and Learning in Medieval Irish Narrative (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2014), 1–24 at p. 2. 106 Although the word originally referred to seers or diviners, the class of persons referred to here aligns more closely with the definition given by eDIL as ‘Poet (historian, panegyrist, sati- rist), man of learning’; eDIL s.v. fili.

42 of monasteries by means of texts written in monastic scriptoria remains unclear.107

Implications Although the initial sampling of sources took in a broad scope of genres, the majority of the texts that have been included in the study itself comes from a more limited range. To wit, the majority of metamorphoses are to be found in religious narratives: hagiographies, homilies, immrama (which given the context I think makes sense to classify with the religious narratives), and various texts surrounding St Columba. The second most coherent genre of texts is that of the Irish Ulster and Kings’ Cycles, followed by isolated episodes in wonder literature and philosophy. Firstly, this means that we must emphasize the importance of the Classical mythological and Biblical, Patristic, and Carolingian contexts that conditioned both the education offered within the monastic en- vironments where most of these texts were produced, and the production and reception of the texts themselves. The extent of influence of Classical and various Christian traditions can be debated, particularly in regard to those texts of a less overtly religious nature, but the participation of English and Irish writers in such traditions is clear. Whether they build upon the learning of St Augustine, or draw upon Greco-Roman motifs in works of literature, or interpret a history for themselves that reaches back to a Classical past, these traditions had a significant impact on learning and thus on textual production in English and Irish monastic scriptoria. Attempts to separate out Classical, Pa- tristic, and Biblical influences from native ‘English’ or ‘Irish’ concepts about shapeshifting are often more counterproductive than instructive; however, identifying influences from these areas will inform the conclusions that we are able to draw regarding their cultural relevance within English and Irish contexts. Similarly, the limitation of episodes relevant to this study to only a few specific genres naturally limits and defines (to a certain extent) the social environment in which these narratives belonged. It is significant that most of the shapeshifting episodes that will be analysed in this study belong to a moral, didactic, religious context, and that, in hagiographic and homiletic sources especially, shapeshifting is presented as a miracle; this conditions us, therefore, to ask whether shapeshifting episodes behave in the first instance as textual elements in the same or similar way that miracles do, to argue for Christian belief, proof of sanctity or virtue, or as a tool to convince the audience of a

107 Ó Cathasaigh, “Pagan Survivals”.

43 particular theological message, within different textual and pragmatic contexts.108 This could potentially contrast with the function of shapeshifting episodes in texts with a less explicitly didactic function, such as those within the Ulster and Kings’ Cycles. Above all, we must view these texts as contemporary documents, pursuing interests relevant to their authors or translators/adapters at the time they were written, and appealing to the contemporary concerns and comprehension of their audience. Even in such conservative genres as hagiography and sermon-writing, the received traditions will have been adapted according to the specific interpretation that the author sought to emphasize, such that E. Gordon Whatley goes so far as to characterize these interpretations as “the rich instability of hagiographic texts”.109 Another implication of the source material for the corpus of shapeshifting is simply that shapeshifting was more important in certain contexts than others. The most important of these is a context of miraculous, and in particular conversion events, as the hagiography episodes listed in the appendix make clear. It is also clear that shapeshifting was a consistent feature of Irish storytelling; while it is tempting to contrast this with the paucity of evidence for shapeshifting in English literature prior to the twelfth century, however, we should remember that what Jane Stevenson called the “concerns of the Church” were more immediate and had greater primacy in Anglo-Saxon Eng- land. This highlights an aspect of both English and Irish early medieval history and literature: we can be sure, based on the manuscript evidence, that there was an extensive tradition of learning and textual production, as well as oral storytelling outside of monastic scriptoria. However, it is also clear that not nearly as much has survived as was produced; in the case of oral history and oral storytelling, the presence in the historical record is near to impossible to detect. Additionally, much of the shapeshifting corpus survives in later manuscripts and has been dated to the early medieval period on linguistic grounds or based on transmission evidence. This can provide valuable evidence for our earlier period as well, however: By looking at the groupings of particular texts in the manuscripts in which they were preserved in the twelfth, thirteenth, or fourteenth centuries, we can glean implications for the value assigned to particular texts, the genre perceptions that influenced the grouping of texts, and even potentially the audiences that these texts could (or possibly even did) reach. The groupings of texts in multitext books is a concept explored in detail by Maria Arvidsson in the methodological presentation of her doctoral thesis; although the study itself concerns one particular manuscript specifically, her

108 Axel Rüth, “Representing Wonder in Medieval Miracle Narratives”, Modern Language Notes 124:4 (2011), 89-114 at pp. 89-90. 109 E. Gordon Whatley, “An Introduction to the Study of Old English Prose Hagiography: Sources and Resources” in Paul E. Szarmach, ed., Holy Men and Holy Women (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996), 3–32 at p. 13.

44 discussion of compilation manuscripts and multitext books is a thorough and valuable reference of broad applicability.110 We may here consider multitext books, as Arvidsson does, books which contain two or more texts regardless of the book’s physical structure (i.e. there is no separation between books where all texts were copied as a unit, and those which originated as discrete texts but were later bound together). The texts may be heterogenous or homogenous; however, in order for the book to be considered ‘multitext’, these should be texts that do not usually circulate together as a unit (for example, the Bible or translations of it would not be considered ‘multitext’, because the different books of the Bible are usually transmitted as parts of a coherent whole). When multitext books are considered here, therefore, what is typically under investigation is the textual content, rather than the physical book; the only exceptions are when the physical structure of the book makes clear that the texts contained within it were compiled at a date too far removed from the time period under examination here to bear meaningfully on the discussion.

Disposition and Presentation This study is comprised of three empirical chapters; these chapters discuss particular aspects of shapeshifting narratives and in so doing build upon each other. Chapter Two is a lexical and semantic study based around the thematic perspective of the inner person, in other words of transformations of body and soul. This chapter contributes primarily to answering the research question of identifying the semantic fields of words most commonly used in the context of shapeshifting. Doing so will help us to establish the connotations of these words when used within the shapeshifting narratives themselves. Chapter Three then looks at the individual transformation narratives, and in particular at the rhetorical strategies at work in these narratives. The thematic focus for this chapter is the individual, and their transformation into animals. This chapter addresses both questions of meaning, and questions of social function. Fi- nally, Chapter Four primarily addresses the aspect of social function by examining the social and cultural consequences surrounding the shapeshifting narratives, focusing on the community and the individual’s participation in it.

Finally, some notes on presentation: I present all verbs in the infinitive, for the sake of consistency. In Latin, I follow the orthographic convention in presenting the capital letter as ‘V’ and its lower-case equivalent as ‘u’. In Old English, þ and ð are both written as ð, excepting quotations, where I follow the orthographic convention of the edition. Expansion of abbreviations and use of punc- tuation similarly follow the convention of particular editions. Lexical units are

110 Arvidsson, En handskrifts tillkomst- och bruks historia, ch 2; esp. pp 8–17 for the terminology surrounding multitext books.

45 presented in their dominant spelling; notes on regional differences are given as appropriate. Translations into present-day English are mine unless otherwise indicated. Relevant lexical elements within quotations are marked with bold text; otherwise editorial markings follow those in the relevant editions. Verse sources are here quoted in verse; prose narratives are consequently quoted in continuous prose.111 I have chosen in nearly all cases not to silently correct or emend editions, and mention problems where relevant; where I have extended abbreviations or corrected translations, these changes are indicated with square brackets within the quotation. Biblical references in this thesis follow the numbering of the Latin Vulgate and quotations from the Psalms similarly follow the Vulgate numbering. The version of the Vulgate used is that available via Tufts University’s online Perseus platform.112 English ren- derings of Biblical references are from the King James Version unless otherwise indicated. The symbol ‘⁊’ appears where used in printed editions, and represents the meaning ‘and’. Similarly, letters and words are transcribed in italics here according to their presentation in printed editions, where they typically represent abbreviations expanded from the manuscript rather than emphasis.

111 The writings of Ælfric have been partially edited as verse, due to the poetic nature of his language; I have used my own discretion in presenting quotations from his works as verse or as continuous prose. 112 Latin Biblia (Vulgata @ Perseus). Online source available at: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0060&redirect=true.

46 Chapter 2: Transformations of Spirit and Body

Caroline Walker Bynum’s observation that it is possible to “learn about a cultural moment by asking what conception of change dominates various discourses”113 is no less true during the early Middle Ages than it is during the ‘long twelfth century’ that Bynum focuses on. This study focuses specifically on various discourses surrounding changes to the human form. As described in the introduction, there are three major focal points of metamorphosis discourse at work in the Old English, Anglo-Latin, Old/Middle Irish, and Hi- berno-Latin texts of our corpus, corresponding broadly to the three levels at which all texts have been read: (a) a correspondence between conversion and apostasy and physical transformation, best highlighted at the lexical level with a focus on the semantics of transformation; (b) the level of meaning creation where metamorphosis exemplifies the differences between simile and metaphor, most clear through the lens of human and animal comparisons; and (c) the marginality created by metamorphosis at the narrative level, where the metaphor resides in the allegory as a whole and within which the metamorphosis acts as a pivotal point. These chapters build upon each other in theoretical and methodological complexity as they expand from the individual’s inner life, to their character and outward attributes, to their social relationships and interactions. This chapter will examine the first of these, exploring the semantics of transformation and its role in meaning creation. Specifically, this chapter uses the lens of inner and outer transformations, or transformations of spirit (or ‘soul’) and body, in order to probe the elasticity of the verbs and nouns used to describe them, and what impact these choices have on the transformations that they are called upon to express. It would not be out of place to suggest that the category which this study investigates, i.e. human transformation, is externally defined, and thus of limited value in reconstructing conceptual categories or metaphors of any kind: “To reconstruct early-medieval concepts and conceptual categories, we should build our reconstructions up from our primary evidence, rather than positing categories and then seeking evidence for them.”114 Therefore, some additional notes on methodology are warranted. It is true that no single word or phrase denoting exclusively ‘shapeshifting’, ‘metamorphosis’, or ‘transformation’

113 Bynum, Metamorphosis and Identity, p. 21. 114 Alaric Hall, Elves in Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2009 [repr. orig. 2007]), p. 9.

47 appears in the corpus, from which we may build a reconstruction from ‘the bottom up’, as Hall puts it.115 Nevertheless, transformation in the sense of a complete visible change from one physical form to another occurs throughout the corpus: the phenomenon is ingrained enough to lack a specific vocabulary, but unusual enough to receive particular attention when it appears. In this way, we begin our investigation led by the primary sources: instead of beginning with a word, we begin with a phenomenon, and seek the words that the sources use to describe it. Using the vocabulary from clear examples of the phenomenon, we proceed with a two-pronged approach: a survey of primary sources, and a triangulation between medieval glossaries,116 and present-day dictionar- ies117 and thesauruses.118 These two approaches must be taken in concert, since thesauruses especially can be problematic tools if approached uncritically: they are often compiled by means of the kind of top-down approach which we wish to avoid here, and can lead to a somewhat distorted view regarding the relative significance of particular lexical elements. Glossaries, on the other hand, are typically contemporary to the corpus, but it is important to remember that glosses are not definitions in the modern sense, and a gloss unattested elsewhere may be of etymological interest, but limited historical or cultural applicability. It was hypothesized above that the primary social function of human metamorphosis is likely to be metaphorical in character; if this hypothesis is correct, the question then becomes, what kind of transformation metaphors are culturally relevant, and why? This empirical chapter presents the lexical and semantic foundations of transformation, and of the metaphors that these transformations potentially represent, a critical first step in assessing the impact of transformation diction: Ongoing debates within metaphor theory have drawn attention in particular to a division between what may be called conceptual metaphors on the one hand, and creative metaphors on the other. Nearly all these debates take as their foundation the work of Lakoff and Johnson, who describe conceptual, or conventional, metaphors as those which “structure the ordinary conceptual system of our culture, which is reflected in our everyday

115 Hall, Elves, p. 9. 116 For Old English, see: British Library, Cotton Tiberius A, VIII; British Library, Cotton Cle- opatra A, III; British Library, Cotton Vespasian D, VI; Glosses on Archbishop Ælfric's Vocab- ulary (Oxford, Bodleian Junius 71); British Library, Cotton Julius A II; CCCC XCLIV.I; Glosses on The Colloquy of Archbishop Alfric (British Library, Cotton Tiberius A, III); MS. Harley 3376. For Old and Middle Irish, see Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, eds., Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus : a collection of Old-Irish glosses, Scholia prose and verse vols. 1 & 2 (To- ronto: University of Toronto Press, 1901). 117 Dictionary of Old English (DOE); Bosworth & Toller's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (ASD); Dic- tionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources (DMLBS); Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language (eDIL); Lewis & Short Latin Dictionary (LNS). 118 A Thesaurus of Old English (TOE); Thesaurus linguae Latinae (Thesaurus of the Latin Lan- guage) (TLL); Thesaurus Sean-Ghaeilge (Thesaurus of Old Irish) (TSG).

48 language.”119 Creative metaphors arise through conscious wordplay: though they also provide coherent structure to our experiences, they are capable of creating new meaning and even “may create realities for us, especially social realities.”120 In addition to these two categories, we must take into account the presence of ‘dead metaphors’, those which cannot be followed through to an underlying, coherent structure: they are “idiosyncratic, unsystematic, and isolated”;121 they are hardly recognized as metaphorical at all. We, like Megan Cavell,

have three types of metaphor to navigate—those in the foreground (creative), those that exercise power over thought processes from their place in the background (conceptual) and those that have undergone such significant semantic change that they are entirely bleached (dead).122

Through lexical analysis, we may examine the various ways in which the concept of transformation is grounded and structured. This provides us with a basis on which we may begin to determine what function these metaphors serve in the scenes that they’re a part of. Metaphor does not occur at the lexical level alone, as the following chapters will demonstrate; however, the lexical foundation that this chapter establishes will inform the subsequent analysis profoundly. A comparative lexical analysis further permits us to explore the meanings of words from the perspective of the assumptions that are dictated by the choice of a given word or phrase.123 The methodology employed in this chapter is closely related in both form and underlying principle with systemic functional linguistics, developed by Michael Halliday and his followers to study language and its functions in social settings. The basic assumption of SFL, indeed a widely acknowledged theoretical framework in the field of linguistically oriented text research, is that language and text production are ways of creating social meaning.124 In this chapter, I will analyse the lexical elements, first verbs then nouns, that are used within Old English, Old/Middle Irish, and Anglo- and Hiberno-Latin to describe shapeshifting. The discussion that follows will compare the results of this analysis and consider their consequences for the chapters that follow. In the interest of a comprehensive survey, this chapter includes transformations effected by humans and transformations of non-human beings, as well as transformation by humans. This chapter uses qualitative analysis, though for

119 Lakoff & Johnson, Metaphors, p. 139. 120 Lakoff & Johnson, Metaphors, p. 156. 121 Lakoff & Johnson, Metaphors, p. 55. 122 Megan Cavell, Weaving Words and Binding Bodies (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016), p. 6. 123 C.J. Filmore, Form and Meaning in Language (Stanford: CSLI Publications, 2003), p. 212. 124 For more detail see Michael Halliday, Lexicology and corpus linguistics: An Introduction (London: Continuum, 1994).

49 comparative purposes presents relative frequencies of particular words using quantitative language.

Verbs of Transformation In this section I analyse verbs from both within and outwith the corpus of shapeshifting narratives. By doing so, I am able to demonstrate the different contexts in which these verbs are utilized, and to draw conclusions based on the range of applications of particular verbs or verb groupings. Generally, verbs are more consistent than nouns across episodes of transformation, both within individual works and between different authors, as well as different genres. This is consistent with metamorphosis itself, since the emphasis of metamorphosis lies on the act of transformation, or the transition from one state of being to another, in contrast to the hybrid where two or more forms combine in a single, static state of existence. However, there remains a degree of versatility in all three languages surveyed for this study.

1. Old English

a. Verbs denoting ‘to turn’ In Verbs of Motion in Medieval English, Michiko Ogura categorizes Old Eng- lish motion verbs according to the manner of motion concerned, and into one of these categories Ogura places verbs denoting, at the simplest and most re- ductive level, ‘to turn’.125 I have chosen to consider this class of verbs together in one section, rather than individually, because on the whole they are treated as largely interchangeable throughout most of the Old English period.126 A variety of prefixes may have surprisingly little effect on the denotation of a given verb, and may have depended on the alliterative needs of the passage.127 The precise denotations vary depending on a variety of factors (and often overlap without clear distinctions), but these verbs all share a foundation within the domain of ‘to change direction’. This may be understood literally, as when (ge)cyrran or (ge)wendan is applied within the idiom ‘to return home(wards)’; however, it is also clear that so-called ‘verbs of turning’ played a prominent

125 Michiko Ogura, Verbs of Motion in Medieval English (Oxford: D.S. Brewer, 2002), p. 22. 126 See the tables of manuscript alternations in Ogura, Verbs of Motion, pp. 118ff. 127 Both simple and prefixed ‘verbs of turning’ may denote ‘change’, either in a specific sense or one of general mutability. As Ogura observes, prefixes may be “used to convey different shades of meaning, but often the meanings seem, in context, not to convey definite distinctions in sense.” Indeed, the most common prefixes applied to wendan, ge-, a- (

50 metaphorical role as well, whereby an act of spiritual or physical transformation falls within the prototype category of spatial reorientation. A person (or their mind) may convert or become apostate by turning towards or away from God; the body returns to ash after death; translation is often expressed as turning one language into another; and physical transformation is overwhelmingly most often expressed as one thing turning into another. Unlike insular Latin, where the association between conuertere and the denotation ‘to convert’ is consistently stronger than other forms of uertere,128 Old English can vary widely depending on a variety of factors, including genre and autho- rial preference: Ælfric, for example, frequently uses awendan to speak of both conversion and turning in his Catholic Homilies and Lives of Saints, while the word does not appear in the Old English Martyrology at all (there forms of (ge)cyrran are used most often in both figurative and literal senses of turning), and the Alfredian translations (particularly the OE De Consolatione Philoso- phiae) tend towards (ge)hwearfan or (ge)hweorfan. The first example, from The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle, demonstrates the potential of different verbs from this class to express similar, potentially overlapping, meanings. The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle is a fictional letter from Alexander the Great to Aristotle, his teacher, detailing his travels to the East, and is found in the same manuscript as the Wonders of the East and Beowulf (London, British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius A XV). It is a translation from the Latin original, and, in comparison with its source, it relegates the marvellous elements to a secondary level in favour of emphasizing Alex- ander’s qualities as a leader.129 Here, oncyrreð and hworfeð almost seem to break down the process of transformation, implying oncyrreð in the change from one thing and hworfeð in the change to something else. Both of these verbs appear frequently based on the Latin source (the rightmost frame in the table below), the theme of transformation is clear, even though the Old English adapts rather freely from its source.

128 See sections 3a (uertere) and 3b (conuertere), below. 129 Omar Khalaf, “The Old English Alexander's Letter to Aristotle: Monsters and Hybrids in the Service of Exemplarity”, English Studies 94:6 (2013), 659–667 at p. 659.

51 The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle Ac swa hit oft gesæleð on But as it turns out so Sed ut aliquid ple- þæm selran þingum ⁊ on often in better and rumque in secundis þæm gesundrum, þæt seo sounder things, fate rebus fortuna ob- 131 wyrd ⁊ sio hiow hie oft and appearance often strepit… oncyrreð ⁊ on oþer change them, and turn hworfeð…130 them into something else…

Verbs of turning also appear in translations of the Bible, such as the Old Eng- lish translation of the Heptateuch (i.e. the five books of the Torah, being Gen- esis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, as well as Joshua, and the Book of Judges); in the example below, Genesis 19:26 contains the transformation of Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt. In this case, the Old English translation preserves the turning verb used in the Vulgate, as seen in the following example:

The Old English Heptateuch Þa beseah Lothes wif But his wife looked respiciensque uxor eius unwislice underbæc, ⁊ back from behind post se versa est in wearð sona awend to him, and she became statuam salis anum sealtstane…132 a pillar of salt.

The translation of the Heptateuch also includes the two signs of Exodus 4:1- 7; that is, the transformation of Moses’ staff into a serpent, and the transformation of Moses’ hand to one that is leprous, and back to a healthy hand. The first sign uses wendan, the other (as in the Vulgate) does not use specific lexical indications of transformation. The example below contains the transformation of the staff into a serpent, and back into wood (Exodus 4:3-4).

130Andy Orchard, ed. and trans., The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle, in Andy Orchard, Pride and Prodigies (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), pp. 230–1, §12. Orchard’s translation reads ‘fate and fortune’ (p. 231), but I find ‘appearance’ to be a more accurate translation of ‘hiow’. 131 Orchard, Letter, p. 207, §12. 132 Richard Marsden, ed., The Old English Heptateuch and Ælfric’s Libellus de Veteri Testa- mento et Novi, Volume One: Introduction and Text (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), Genesis 19:26.

52 The Old English Heptateuch ⁊ Drihten cwæð: Wurp And he said, Cast it on ait proice eam in terram hy on þa eorðan. ⁊ he the ground. And he proiecit et versa est in wearp, ⁊ heo wæs cast it on the ground, colubrum ita ut fugeret gewend to næddran, and it became a ser- Moses dixitque Domi- swa þæt Moyses fleah. pent; and Moses fled nus extende manum from before it. And the tuam et adprehende ⁊ Drihten cwæð: Lord said unto Moses, caudam eius extendit et Astrece þine hand ⁊ Put forth thine hand, tenuit versaque est in nim hire steort. ⁊ he and take it by the tail. virgam astrehte hys hand ⁊ nam And he put forth his hig, ⁊ heo wæs gewend hand, and caught it, eft to gyrde…133 and it became a rod in his hand. For the New Testament, we may turn to the Old English translation of the Gospels (often referred to as the Wessex Gospels). Generally, the translator prefers weorðan, ‘to become’, e.g. when the Devil tempts Christ to transform stones into bread (Vulgate: fieri), or wyrcan, ‘to work, make’, e.g. the transformation of water into wine at the wedding at Cana (Vulgate: facere), but (ge)cyrran is used in Luke 1:16 during the angel’s appearance to Zacharias.

The Old English Version of the Gospels And manega Israhela And many of the chil- et multos filiorum Isra- bearna he gecyrð to dren of Israel shall he hel convertet ad Domi- Dryhtne heora Gode.134 turn to the Lord their num Deum ipsorum God.

However, a homily known as “The Healing of the King’s Son”, written by Ælfric and found in MS Bodley 343, does use awendan in the context of transforming water into wine:

“The Healing of the King’s Son” Ure Hæland com hwilon to Chanan Our Lord came at one time to Cana, þam tune on Galileiscre scire, ðær that town on the shore of Galilee, ðær he swyðest bodede, and on þam there where he preached most pow- tune he awende hwilon water to erfully, and in that town he turned wine, six fate fulle mid þam fyrme- at one time water into wine, six vats stan wine.135 full with the best wine.

133 Old English Heptateuch, Exodus 4:3–4. 134 R. M. Liuzza, ed., The Old English Version of the Gospels (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), Luke 1:16. 135 Susan Irvine, ed., Old English Homilies from MS. Bodley 343 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 19.

The following examples demonstrate the valence of verbs related to awendan. Neither the ASD nor the DOE list anwendan as a headword, but onwendan is marked in the ASD as a variation of awendan. The initial four examples come from the Old English translation of Orosius’ Historiae aduersus paganos; however, Janet Bately observes that the Old English version is more of a paraphrase than translation, making out of Orosius’ polemic a “survey of world history from a Christian standpoint”.136 The final example comes from the second of three volumes that comprise Bald’s Leechbooks. The first two volumes show heavy influence from Classical medical tradition, though they are not themselves direct translations from any one particular medical handbook.

The Old English Orosius ⁊ þæs ymb an gear Somnite gefuhton And after a year the Samnites fought wið Romanum ⁊ hie gefliemdon ⁊ against the Romans and put them to hie bedrifon into Romebyrg, ⁊ hræd- flight, and drove them into the city lice æfter þæm Somnite awendan on of Rome, and immediately after that oþre wisan ægþer ge heora sceorp, the Somnites changed to another ge eall heora wæpn ofersylefredan, appearance, both their apparel and to tacne þæt hie oþer woldon, oððe all their weapons they covered over ealle libban oþþe [ealle] licgean.137 with silver as a sign that they wanted [one or the] other: either to all live, or to all lie [dead].

Hit wæs þeh swiþe sweotol þæt se It was nevertheless thus manifest ilca Crist se þe hie eft to cristendome that the same Christ who had again onwende…138 converted them to Christianity…

Bald’s Leechbook II [Sio] biþ buton sare ⁊ þonne se man [It; i.e. the hardness of the liver] is mete þigð þonne awyrpð he eft ⁊ on- without sore, and when the man wendeð his hiw ⁊ hæfð un- taketh meat then he casteth [it] up again, and changeth his hue, and gewealdene wambe ⁊ þa hath not under control his wamb micgean…139 [belly] and his mie [urine]…

In other instances, this sense of ‘change’ or ‘conversion’ is expressed by a generally similar variation on the verb (ge)cyrran, as in the examples below,

136 Janet Bately, ed., The Old English Orosius (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. xciii. 137 Orosius, p. 75. 138 Orosius, p. 104. 139 Thomas Oswald Cockayne, ed. and trans., Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England, vol. 2 (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864), pp. 204–5.

54 taken, in the first instance from the Old English translation of the medical tract, Medicina de Quadrupedibus, and in the second instance from the introduction to Alfred the Great’s “mighty” law code, which included the laws of King Ine of Wessex—hence, the Laws of Alfred and Ine. In the examples from Medicina de Quadrupedibus below, the Latin term from the source text translated by the Old English is provided in brackets.

The Old English Medicina de Quadrupedibus To slæpe gate horn under heofod To sleep place the horn of a she- geled, weccan he on slæpe gecyrreþ goat under the head; he will wake [conuertit].140 from sleep changed.

This example below, also from the OE Medicina de Quadrupedibus, is particularly interesting, because there are certain werewolf traditions in which a man becomes a werewolf by urinating on clothing. One specific scene takes place in Petronius’ Satyricon, written ca. mid-first century C.E., and so could conceivably have influenced the creation of the original Medicina de Quadrupedi- bus; however, Petronius has his werewolf urinate on clothing, not the spot where a dog has urinated, and makes no mention of the man’s capacity – or lack thereof – to ‘rest’ with his wife later. Sadly, the warning in Medicina de Quadrupedibus gives us no more information than that the man’s ‘body changes’, so any relationship between the werewolf tradition and the warning must remain speculative.

Warna ðe þæt ðu ne mige þær se Beware that you do not urinate hund gemah, sume men secgað þæt where a dog has urinated; some men þær oncyrre [conuerti] mannes say that a man’s body changes lichama, þæt he ne mage, þonne he thereby, so that he cannot rest with cymeþ to his wife, hyre mid geres- his wife when he comes to her. tan.141

The introduction to the laws of Alfred and Ine, however, returns us to the association between verbs of turning and turning towards God and Christianity:

140 H. J. de Vriend ed., The Old English Herbarium and Medicina de Quadrupedibus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 254. 141 OE Herbarium and MdQ, p. 264.

55 Introduction to the Laws of Alfred and Ine Ða æfter his ðrowunge, ær þam þe his Then, after his suffering, before his apostolas tofarene wæron geond ealle apostles went their separate ways eorðan to læranne, ⁊ þa giet ða hie across the earth to teach, and at that ætgædere wæron, monega hæðena time it occurred that many heathen ðeoda hie to Gode gecerdon peoples turned to God. [conuerterunt]. […]142

For examples of hwearfian (‘to turn, change, roll about’), hweorfan (‘to turn, change, go, return’), and hwerfan (‘to turn, to change, to exchange’),143 we may look first to the Old English adaptation of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae. In the example below, ahwerfan describes the action of turning from good to evil, changing a person’s character from something better than human, to something less than human. The passage, which we shall examine in more detail in later chapters, continues by instructing that humans who have thus turned to evil should indeed not be called humans at all, but beasts.

OE De Consolatione Philosophiae Ac swa swa manna goodnes hi ahefð But just as the goodness of people ofer ða menniscan gecynd to ðon þæt raises them above human nature to hi bioð godas genemnede, swa eac the point that they are called gods, hiora yfelnes hi awirpð under þa so too their wickedness casts them menniscan gecynd to þon þæt hio beneath human nature to the point bioð yfle gehatene; þæt we cweðað that they are called evil; that, we sie nauht. Forþæm gif ðu swa say, is nothing. If you meet some- gewlætne mon metst þæt he bið one so debased that he is turned ahwerfed from goode to yfle, ne from good to evil, you cannot meaht þu hine mid ryhte nemnan rightly name him a human but a man ac neat. 144 beast.

Early in the OE De Consolatione Philosophiae, the translator uses hwearfian/hwearfan to express the concept of unpredictable change that characterizes worldly happiness:

142 F. Libermann, ed. and trans. [German], Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, vol. 1 (Halle a. S.: Max Niemeyer, 1903), pp. 42–3. English translation my own. 143 ASD s.vv. hwearfian; hweorfan; hwerfan; see also DOE s.vv. gehweorfan; gehwyrfan; hwearfian; hweorfan. 144 Susan Irvine and Malcolm Godden, eds. and trans., The Old English Boethius (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), pp. 306–7.

56 Nu þu wast hwelce þeawas þa Now you know what customs the woruldsælða habbað and hu hi worldly felicities have and how hwearfiað. […] Hwi ne hwearfost they change. […] Why do you not þu eac mid him?145 change along with them?

b. (Ge)bre(g)dan The verbs (ge)bredan and (ge)bregdan belong to a related paradigm whose dominant meanings refer to weaving, braiding, and binding. However, like the ‘verbs of turning’ above, (ge)bre(g)dan has a range of meanings that includes ‘to draw (e.g. a sword)’, and ‘to change appearance’. The prefixed form forbredan also appears as a denotation for this kind of change. Megan Cavell points out that the aspect of ‘suddenness’ joins many apparently unrelated meanings together, and when applied to the meaning of ‘change’ may imply a nonpermanent or sudden change in appearance.146 By way of contrast, the mapping of ‘physical transformation’ onto the semantic field of ‘weaving, braiding, binding’ (i.e. the concept of appearance as a woven entity) does not appear to be relevant in Old English.

The first set of examples are three entries from Ælfric of Eynsham’s Lives of Saints, two of which describe the devil taking on a variety of appearances (Forty Martyrs and St Martin) and one in which the power of a sorcerer transforms a girl (St Macarius). In the case of demons and the devil, shapeshifting belongs to their nature and, while visually it must give an impression of shock, it does not violate the accepted order of demonic behaviour; thus, I call these transformations ‘normalized’ boundary transgressions (and discuss them in more detail in Chapter Four). It is worth noting that, in the three entries from the Lives of Saints where variations of (ge)bre(g)dan appear, the verb is applied twice to demons or the devil, and once to human sorcerers. This is a powerful indication not only of the kind of change wrought (i.e., a temporary change of appearance), but also of the attitude towards sorcery and its source that Ælfric wanted to instill in his audience.

Ælfric’s Lives of Saints Forty Martyrs [þ]a bræd se sceocca hine sylfne to Then the devil turned himself menn . gewrað his sceancan and into a man, writhed his shanks wánode him sylfum . 147 and bewailed himself…

145 The Old English Boethius, p. 36. 146 Megan Cavell, personal communication, 17 November 2016. 147 W. W. Skeat, ed., Ælfric’s Lives of Saints (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1890), pp. 252– 3, ll. 220–1.

57 St Macarius Þæt mæden wæs swa forbroden swylce That maiden was transformed heo an myre wære . 148 so as to seem like a mare […]

St Martin Mid þusend searo-cræftum wolde se With a thousand wily arts did the swicola deofol þone halgan wer on treacherous devil strive in some sume wisan beswican . and hine ge- way to deceive the holy man, and sewen-licne on manegum scin-hiwum he showed himself visible in di- þam halgan æteowde . on þæra hæþenra vers [sic] phantasms to the saint, goda hiwe . hwilon on ioues hiwe . þe in the appearance of the gods of is ge-haten þór . hwilon on mercuries . the heathens; sometimes in þe men hatað oþon . hwilon on ueneris Jove’s form, who is called Thor, þære fulan gyden . þe men hatað frieg . sometimes in Mercury’s who is and on manegum oþrum hiwum hine called Odin, sometimes in that of bræd se deofol on þæs bisceopes Venus, the foul goddess, whom gesihþe .149 men call Fricg; and into many other shapes the devil transformed himself in the bishop’s sight.

In these examples, we may indeed observe a distinct emphasis on changes in appearance (hiw) which, in nearly all cases, is neither long-term nor permanent. The maiden changed into a mare was not even truly changed: St Mac- arius tells her parents that he sees her as a maiden, not a horse, and upon re- ceiving his blessing they, too, perceive her correctly once again. The other cases both involve the devil, a being who, along with his demons, still at this time occupied an indeterminate shape and thus, when becoming visible to humans, routinely assumed the appearance of other people or beings. In this context it is worth recalling Augustine’s argument that transformations wrought by demons were nothing but transitory illusions.

c. Wrixlan Wrixlan appears in glossaries mostly in association with mutuare, meaning ‘to borrow’ or ‘to lend’; however, in prose and poetry it sees a broader use through its denotation ‘to exchange’, often extended to changes of appearance or the exchange of one thing for another. The first example below, from the Old English rendering of St Augustine’s Soliloquies, contains a repeated use of both wrixlan and hwearfian and demonstrates a subtle differentiation between these two related concepts:

148 Ælfric’s Lives, pp. 471–2, l. 475. 149 Ælfric’s Lives, pp. 264–5, ll. 710–8.

Old English Version of St Augustine’s Soliloquies [Be] þara anlicnesse þu astyrst and [After] the image of these [i.e. night wildest æellum þis middangearde, and day] Thou dost govern and swa þæt ealle gesceafta wrixliað swa wield all this world, so that all crea- dæg and nyht. Ðu recst þæt gear and tures change even as day and night. redst þurh þæt gewrixle þara feower Thou rulest and fixest the year by tyda, þæt ys, lencten and sumer and the alternations of the four seasons herfest and winter; þara wrixlað ælc – to wit, spring, and summer, au- wyð oððer and hwerfiað, swa þæt tumn, and winter; each of which al- heora ægðer byð eft emne þat þæt ternateth and varieth with the hyt ær wæs, and þær þær hyt ær wes; other, so that each of them is again and swa wrixlað eall tunglai and exactly what and where it formerly hwerfiað on þam ylcan wisan, and was; and so all stars change and eft se and ea; on ða ylcan wisan vary in exactly the same manner— hweorfiað ealle gescæafta.150 likewise the sea and the rivers; in the same manner all creatures suffer change.

The change of direction, or turning, denoted by hwearfian and its related forms hweorfan and hwyrfan often bears a dimension of revolving or an exchange of positions not unlike wrixlan. When used with the connotation of ‘mutability’, wrixlan appears to refer to cyclical changes that take place in the natural course of God’s plan. The Old English adaptation of De Consolatione Philoso- phiae introduces wrixlan in a very similar context to the Old English Solilo- quies: in order to express the cyclical change of creation, embodied by the change of seasons and the movement of stars. This particular mutability repeats endlessly, and represents a predictable pathway of change.

OE De Consolatione Philosophiae “Heafð se ælmihtiga eallum gesceaftum Ðæt gewrixle geset þe nu wunian sceal; lencten deð growan leaf grenian, þæt on hærfest eft hrest and wealuwað.”151

“The almighty has established for all creatures the mutability which must now continue; spring makes the leaf grow and become green that will decay and shrivel in au- tumn.”

150 Henry Lee Hargrove, ed. and trans., The Old English Version of St Augustine’s Soliloquies (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1902), p. 9. 151 The Old English Boethius, p. 122–3 ll. 55–8.

Wrixlan also appears in the Old English version of the Gospels as a noun (gewrixl) denoting ‘an exchange’.152

d. Weorðan Old English does not appear to use an equivalent to facere to describe something as being ‘made’ into something else. However, weorðan, ‘to become’ also has a connotation of ‘to be made’, or ‘to become something else’ and is occasionally used in the context of transformation, as in the case of Riddle 7 from the Exeter Book:

Ic þa wiht geseah on weg feran heo wæs wrætlice wundrū gegierwed Wundor wearð on wege wæter wearð to bane153

I saw the wight going on its way. It was splendidly, wonderfully arrayed. The wonder was on the wave; water became bone.

The changes described by weorðan are typically gradual, and imply an effect on the substance, rather than the appearance, of something. One could say that they describe a change that is less a transformation than a transition.

e. Forscyppan Of the Old English verbs used to describe transformation, forscyppan has the most specific, and limited, application. The DOE (s.v. forscyppan) gives its definition as ‘to change, metamorphose, transform (someone / some creature) for the worse’. It occurs in ten locations: about half of these are Classical mythological contexts for the transformation of Scylla or Ulysses’ men, both by the demigoddess Circe; the other half are found in homiletic contexts (including the poem Genesis B) describing the expulsion of the rebellious angels from heaven and their transformation into demons by God. In its past partici- ple form, it can be used as an adjective meaning ‘deformed, misshapen’. It is not unlikely that the latter influenced the lexical choice in the former.

2. Old/Middle Irish a. Soïd (Con-soí, Comthód, Do-soí, Imm-soí; verbal noun Soud) Soïd is the ‘verb of turning’ most commonly associated with transformation in Old/Middle Irish hagiography; it is related to the much less common verb

152 Gospels, Mt. 16:26; Mk. 8:37; Lk. 1:8. 153 Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017 [repr. orig. 1977]), p. 106.

60 con-soí, whose turning reflects its infixed preposition and denotes specifically ‘turn towards’ in addition to ‘change’. Soïd, by contrast, is both a much more common verb and one with a more expansive set of denotations including turn, turn around, return, overthrow and, additionally, change, convert, and pervert. Related to soïd, do-soí also denotes turning, and specifically when it appears in conjunction with the preposition i n- denotes ‘turns, changes into’. As the examples show, there is a degree of flexibility in its aspect of change, but both of these clearly play on the prototype of turning (around): the honey does not just change into snow; it returns to its snowy nature. Similarly, in Bechbretha the ending of the period of immunity marks not just a change in the status of the beekeepers, but a return to the standard way of adjudicating bee damages.

Bethu Phátraic Fecht n-aili luid rechtaire ríg Bretan At another time, the reeve of the do chuinchid chísa grotha ⁊ imbe co King (that is, of the Britons) came to muime Pátraic ⁊ ní bai lée-si ní dora- Patrick’s fostermother to see tribute tad hisa cís. Is and sin dorigni of curd and butter, and nought had Patraic in gruth ⁊ in n-im dont she that was put into the tribute. snechta, co rucad don ríg. Uair ro Then of the snow Patrick made the taiselbath iarom don rig ro sóad curd and butter, and this was taken inna aicned snechta dorithissi. 154 to the King. So when it had been shown to the King it was turned again into its nature of snow.

Bechbretha (Bee Judgements) Mad inscuchud, ní dlegar ní doib If there should be a move, they owe acht cáin chuiscc no mían ngalair no only the due of reparation or the de- allabruig n-aí, ar dlegair doib-som sire of [one in] sickness or allabrig íarnaib téoraib blíadnaib soíre; is íar n-aí for they owe [a gratuity] after sin soid fora téchtae.155 three years of immunity; it is after that that it changes to [being decided according to] their dues.

b. Con-imchloí (verbal noun: Coímchloud) and Imm-clói Con-imchloí denotes ‘to change, alter’, including a pejorative sense similar to forscyppan above, as well as ‘to exchange’. According to eDIL, while the verb con-imchloí adds a potentially negative value judgement to a particular change, the verbal noun coímchloud can denote a conversion as well as a

154 Kathleen Mulchrone, ed. and trans., Bethu Phátraic: The tripartite life of Patrick [I. Text and sources], (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, 1939), p. 9, ll. 182–187. 155 Thomas Charles-Edwards and Fergus Kelly, ed. and trans., Bechbretha: an Old Irish law- tract on bee-keeping (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1983), pp. 64–5, §25.

61 change for the worse. The first of our examples may not utilise the full pejorative force of con-imchloí, but the change that Máel Dúin and his men use the sticks to experiment with is one that terrifies them: when the sticks change colour, they race away from the island in fear.

The Voyage of Máel Dúin [Is] ed as maith dun, ar Mael Duin, ‘It would be well for us,’ Máel Dúin cuirem ar mbunsacha isan indsi dia said, ‘to throw our sticks onto the claechload dath claechlobamuitne island. If they change colour we dia tisom indte.156 shall change [as well] if we go into it.’

Our second example comes from the story Scél Tuáin meic Chairill (The Story of Tuan, son of Cairell). Again, here we do not see the pejorative force of con- imchloí at work; indeed, Tuán’s father Cairell appears to be recognized as one of the first recorded kings of the Dál Fiatach in Ulster, and according to Carey is said elsewhere to have accepted Christianity.157 Tuán’s capacity for shapeshifting appears to have come to him in a dream, and allowed him to a certain extent to reincarnate himself in different animal shapes before being born as a human again (cf. below, the Tidings of the Resurrection).

Scél Tuáin meic Chairill Ar is i n-oenmagin no claemcloind For it is in one place I used to sea na delba so uili.158 change all these shapes.159

Another example comes from the Irish epic, Táin Bó Cúailnge; here, the prophetess most likely refers to Cu Chulainn’s ríastrad, the warp spasm or monstrous distortion which he undergoes in battle. After having returned to his normal appearance, Cu Chulainn very deliberately walks among the poets and the young women to show them his beautiful countenance: although the warp spasm is critical to his success in battle, within society it is detrimental to his good standing. It’s not clear whether the change of appearance mentioned here refers to the change to or from the ríastrad.

156 H.P.A. Oskamp, ed. and trans., The Voyage of Máel Dúin, (Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff Publishing, 1970), pp. 124–5, ch. 12. 157 John Carey, ed. and trans., “Scél Tuáin meic Chairill”, Ériu 35 (1984), 93–111 at p. 97. 158 “Scél Tuáin”, p. 102. 159 “Scél Tuáin”, p. 105.

62 Táin Bó Cúailnge Fer i cathfochrus bruit deirg This man wrapped in a red mantle dobeir in cosmail cach leirg sets his foot on every battle-field. ardaslig tar fonnad clé Across the left wheel-rim of his cotagoin in ríastarthe chariot he attacks them. The dis- delb domárfas fair co se torted one kills them. I see that he atchíu imrochlád a gné.160 has changed from the form in which hitherto he has appeared to me.161

c. Do-gní Do-gní in its most basic definition denotes ‘to make, to do’, but it is an extremely versatile verb with a wide range of more precise meanings, among them ‘makes x of y’ and ‘changes x into y’. Both of these usages are present in the corpus of shapeshifting narratives. Consequently, it is similar to the use of Latin facere, as a so-called ‘verb of making’. In this example below, we see the initiation of Cu Chulainn’s ríastrad in that he ‘makes a red hollow’ out of his face—and things only get more (comically) grotesque from there.

Táin Bó Cúailnge And sin dorigni cúach cera dá gnúis Then his face became [lit. makes] a & dá agid fair. Imsloic indara súil dó red hollow (?). He sucked one of his ina chend ; iss ed mod dánas tairsed eyes into his head so deep that a wild fíadchorr a tagraim do lár a grúade a crane could hardly have reached it h-iarthor a chlocaind. Sesceing a to pluck it out from the back of his sétig co m-boí fora grúad sechtair. skull on to his cheek. The other eye Ríastartha a bél co úrtrachta.162 sprang out on to his cheek. His mouth was twisted back fear- somely.163

Another example from the Irish literary tradition comes from Tochmarc Étaíne (The Wooing of Étaíne), where Fuamnach’s jealousy causes her to strike Étaíne with a stick that causes her to become a puddle of water.

Tochmarc Étaíne Amal dofeisigh Edain isin cathair When Étaín sat down in the chair in for lar an taigi nos ben Fuamnach co the middle of the house, Fuamnach fleiscc caerthinn corcrai co nderna struck her with a rod of scarlet & lind n-usci dí for lar in tighi, & quickentree, and she turned into a

160 Cecile O'Rahilly, ed. and trans., Táin bó Cúailnge: Recension I (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1976), p. 3. 161 Táin, p. 127. 162 Táin, p. 69. 163 Táin, p. 187.

63 dothaed Fuamnach coa haite, co Bre- pool of water in the middle of the sal, & do leic Midir in tech don usciu house; and Fuamach comes to her dorigni do Édain. Baí Midir iar sin fosterfather Bresal, and Midir left cen mnaí.164 the house to the water into which Étaín had turned. After that Midir was without a wife.

d. Fáelad This verb comes from the noun fáel, meaning ‘wolf’; however, rather than ‘to go a-wolfing’, fáelad instead denotes ‘to become or behave like a wolf’, and where it appears in text is usually translated as ‘to go into wolf-shape’. How- ever, unlike the fairly specific conricht, which sees use across a spectrum of texts, fáelad is hardly seen outside of this example from Cóir Anmann (‘Fit- ness of Names’, an explanation of various names), and David Stifter has suggested that it is more likely to be a “special technical term”;165 given that fáel is likely to have been the normal word for ‘wolf’ at this time, it is perhaps likely that fáelad is simply a rare verb form of this word. Given the limited attestation in our sources, it is difficult to say with any certainty what fáelad might have referred to as a technical term, but references to ‘wolfish’ behaviour are, as we shall see in the next chapter, not unheard of. In the quotation from Cóir Anmann below, we also see the taboo term mac tire, ‘son of the land’, and conricht, ‘dog/wolf shape’. Whether this refers to shifting into wolf- shapes, or more figuratively into a wolfish state of mind or behaviour, however, remains enigmatic.

Cóir Anmann Laighnech Faeladh .i. fer eissidhe no Laighnech Fáelad, that is, he was the theghedh fri faeladh .i. i conr[e]ac- man that used to shift into fáelad, htaibh .i. ar[e]achtaibh na mac tire i.e. wolf-shapes. He and his off- téghedh intan ba h-áil dó, & teighdís spring after him used to go, when- a sil ina dheóidh, & domharbhdáis ever they pleased, into the shapes of na h-indile fó bés na mac tíre, co- the wolves, and, after the custom of nadh aire sin isberthí Laighnech wolves, kill the herds. Wherefore he Fáeladh fris-sium, ar is é cétna was called Laighnech Fáelad, for he dochóidh i conrecht díbh.166 was the first of them to go into a wolf-shape.

164 Osborn Bergin and R. I. Best, eds. and trans., “Tochmarc Étaíne”, Ériu 12 (1934–1938), 137–196 at pp. 152–3. 165 David Stifter, personal communication, 29 July 2018. 166 Whitley Stokes, ed. and trans., “Cóir anmann (Fitness of names)”, in Ernst Windisch and Whitley Stokes (eds.), Irische Texte mit Wörterbuch, vol. 3:2 (Leipzig: Verlag von S. Hirzel, 1897), 285–444, 557 at p. 376–7.

64 e. Sénaid Sénaid, when used in connection with transformation, invokes the divine power of God to change things from their true nature into something else. The holy person in question blesses an object until it becomes a different thing:

Bethu Brigte Do-breth di-si iarum, & sensi co m- It was brought to her then, and she bó lemnacht inbrothach, & ba ógslan blessed it so that it became warm statim filia ubi gustavit. Condat da new milk, and the maiden was im- firt-sin simul, id est lactis de aqua mediately completely cured when factio, sanitas filiae.167 she tasted of it. So that those are the two miracles simultaneously, i.e. the changing of water to milk and the cure of the maiden.

Bethu Phátraic Ro ucc Patraic iar sin lestar lais Then Patrick took a vessel to the wa- docum ind uisci, ⁊ ro lín ⁊ ro sén in ter, and filled it, and blessed the wa- n-uisce coro sóad i mmil, ⁊ ro ícc ter, so that it was turned into cech ngalar ⁊ cech n-ainces forsa honey, and it healed every disease tardad (.i. roboí do chretraib léo). 168 and every ailment to which it was applied, that is, they held it a relic.

Sensi co m-bo and ro sén […] coro sóad both predicate the transformation of a particular object (water into milk and water into honey, respectively) on its having been blessed by a saint (Brigid or Patrick) in a manner evocative of Christ’s miraculous transformation of water into wine. This reinforces the association between transformation and the miraculous, and demonstrates that such occurrences come to pass by God’s power or influence.

3. Latin In contrast to the differences observed between the verbs used to describe the transformation of people and transformations made by people in Old English and Old/Middle Irish, the evidence from Anglo-Latin and Hiberno-Latin is remarkably consistent, and consistent between the two forms of Latin.

a. Vertere Like the ‘verbs of turning’ discussed above in Old English and Old/Middle Irish, uertere denotes both a change of direction in physical space, as well as a metaphorical ‘turning’ of one thing into another. The two examples below

167 Donncha Ó hAodha, ed. and trans., Bethu Brigte (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1978), p. 8, §24. 168 Bethu Phátraic, p. 8, ll. 170–2.

65 demonstrate the use of uertere to refer to the changing, or ‘turning’ of one thing into another: the first comes from the Anglo-Latin catalogue of wonders, Liber Monstrorum, and refers to the well-known (though, according to the writer of LM, false) story of King Midas; in the second, St Cuthbert reasons that the anniversary of Christ’s baptism, and the anniversary of his having performed the miracle of changing water into wine, makes it possible that Christ might perform a miracle and help them in their distress.

Liber Monstrorum Fuit quidam homo mirabilis naturae There was once a person of marvel- quem Midam appellauerunt, qui, ut lous nature whom they called fabulae fingunt, omnia quae tetigerat Midas, who, as the tales allege, in aurum uertebat. Quod nemo nisi turned everything which he ueritatem spernens credit.169 touched into gold. And no one believes this unless scorning the truth.

Life of St Cuthbert Suadens autem, dixit eis, Eamus et Thereupon he urged them, saying, queramus petentes a Deo secundum “Let us go and seek, asking God to id quod promisit dicens, Petite et fulfil his promise when he said: dabitur vobis. Querite et inuenietis. ‘Ask and it shall be given you, seek Pulsate et aperietur uobis. Puto enim and ye shall find, knock and it shall quod aliquid nobis Dominus do- be opened unto you.’ For I think that nauerit, ad celebrandum diem in quo the Lord will give us something to magi cum muneribus adorauerunt celebrate on the day on which the eum, et in quo spiritus sanctus in Holy Ghost on the form of a dove specie columbe baptizato in Iordane descended upon him at his baptism super eum descendit, et in quo aq- in Jordan, and on which he turned uam in Chana Galileae uertit in ui- water into wine in Cana of Galilee num […] 170 […]

b. Conuertere Unlike in the case of Old English ‘verbs of turning’ above, the prefixed verb conuertere will be considered separately from the related non-prefixed verb uertere. Although the differentiation between the two concepts is not absolute, it is consistent enough to warrant a discrete discussion of each. The examples below come from the two earliest Vitae of St Patrick by Muirchu and Tirechan; the uses in Anglo-Latin hagiography follow in this mould. Although

169 Andy Orchard, ed. and trans., Liber Monstrorum, in Orchard, Pride and Prodigies, p. 278. 170 Bertram Colgrave, ed. and trans., Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert: A life by an anonymous monk of Lindisfarne and Bede’s prose life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940), p. 82, 2.IV.

66 conuertere is used in the event of Patrick’s changing water into ice (third example), the much more usual application is that of a person’s conversion to Christianity, or of ‘turning one’s mind for the better’, as in the second example.

Muirchu’s Vita Patricii […] ille Palladius ordinatus et missus That man Palladius was conse- fuerat ad hanc insolam sub bromali crated and sent to this island in the rigore possitam conuertendam.171 cold north in order to convert it.

Qui corde propossuerat occidere [Díchu] had come with intent to kill eos, sed uidens faciem sancti them, but when he saw the face of Patricii, conuertit Dominus ad bo- holy Patrick the Lord changed his num cogitationes eius.172 mind for the better.

Vidensque sanctus Patricius hoc pro- When holy Patrick saw the kind of bationis genus uidentibus cunctis test to which he was being sub- benedixit poculum suum et uersus jected, he blessed his goblet in the est liquor in modum gelu et sight of all and the liquor froze like conuerso uasse cicidit gutta illa tan- ice; then he turned his goblet upside tum quam inmisserat magus, et it- down, and only the drop which the erum benedixit poculum, conuersus druid had added fell out. And he est liquor in naturam suam et blessed the goblet again: the liquor mirati sunt omnes.173 resumed its natural state, and they all were greatly astonished.

Tirechani collectanea de sancto Patricio Et frater illius uenit Mael et ipse And his brother Máel came and dixit: "frater meus credidit Patricio; said: 'My brother has believed Pat- sed non ego ita, sed reuertam eum in rick; not so I, but I will bring him gentilitatem", et ad Mathoum et back to heathendom', and he spoke ad Patricium uerba dura dixit. Et Pa- harsh words to Mathonus and Pat- tricius illi de fide praedicauit et rick. And Patrick preached the faith conuertit illum in poenitentiam Dei to him and converted him to the et ablati sunt capilli capitis illius, id penance of God, and the hair of his est norma magica in capite uidebatur, head was shorn off, that is, the (hair airbacc ut dicitur giunnae. De hoc est cut in) druidic fashion (which was) uerbum quod clarius est omnibus seen on his head, airbacc giunnae,

171 Ludwig Bieler, ed. and trans., “Vita Patricii” in The Patrician texts in the Book of Armagh (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1979), §I.8. 172 “Vita Patricii”, §I.11. 173 “Vita Patricii”, §I.20.

67 uerbis Scoticis, "similis est Caluus as it is called. Hence comes the say- contra Caplit", quia crediderunt in ing that is the most famous of all Deo.174 Irish sayings, 'Máel is like Caplit', because (both) believed in God.

c. Facere Facere appears both in the context of conversion (e.g. someone is made a Christian) and the context of transformation (e.g. something is made into something else, as in the case of Bethu Brigte in 2c, above). The use of the latter is often impersonal. Nevertheless, both of these are noticeably less common than conuertere and uertere, even given the fact that, as mentioned above, the Vulgate uses facere in John 4:46. Indeed, wherever the miracle at the wedding at Cana is mentioned in the early medieval sources, uertere and conuertere are nearly always preferred to facere.

d. Transformare/Transfigurare Although discrete verbs within both LNS and DMLBS, transformare and transfigurare will be considered together here due to the similarity of their denotations. Indeed, both verbs mean ‘transform’ or even depending on the context ‘to disguise’, but often refer either to the transfiguration or the transubstantiation of Christ. Circe makes another appearance here: she is said to ‘transfigure’ men into the forms of dogs and dolphins in the Liber Monstro- rum; otherwise, however, this particular verb is not particularly common in Early Medieval British sources. Similarly, aside from a couple of isolated instances in Bede’s homilies, transformare is generally uncommon outside of Biblical and liturgical sources at this time. Both phrases appear in a Eucharis- tic formula, as exemplified by the Pontifical of Egbert below, wherein they describe the mysterious transformation of the bread and wine to Christ’s body and blood (as described in the Introduction to this study). However, they appear only rarely (see the example of Circe mentioned above) and are overwhelmingly restricted to the context of the Eucharistic formula.

Pontifical of Egbert …ut per obsequium plebis tuae, cor- …so that through the obedience of pus et sanguinem fili tui immaculati your people, the body and blood of transformet (uel transforment).175 your immaculate son might be transformed.

174 Ludwig Bieler, ed. and trans., “Tirechani collectanea de sancto Patricio” in The Patrician texts in the Book of Armagh (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1979), §18–9. 175 William Greenwell, ed. and trans., The pontifical of Egbert, Archbishop of York, A.D. 732– 766 (Durham, London, and Edinburgh: The Surtees Society, 1853), p. 23.

68 e. Mutare Contrary to expectation, mutare is rarely used in relation to transformation of or effected by a human outside of exegetical material. In non-exegetical contexts, it most often appears in contexts such as ‘changing winds’ and changes (or lack thereof) made grammatically or rhetorically to a piece of writing. However, the Life of St Gregory contains a quotation from Gregory the Great’s Moralia that applies the verb to human habits, if not human appearance:

The Earliest Life of St Gregory “Diu,” inquit, “longeque conversa- ‘For a long time,’ he [Gregory] says tionis gratiam distuli. Et postquam ‘I put far from me the grace of godly cȩlesti sum desiderio afflatus, sȩcu- living: and even after I had been in- lari habitu contegi melius putavi. spired with heavenly longings I Aperiebatur enim mihi aeternitatis thought it better to wear the secular amore quod quererem, sed inolita me habit. For though the way of attain- consuetudo devinexerat, ne exteri- ing what I sought in my desire for orem cultum mutarem.”176 heavenly things was revealed to me, yet inveterate habits bound me so that I could not change my outer way of life.’

According to the DMLBS, mutare carries many aspects of change: exchanges, substitutions, and changes regarding natural phenomena dominate, with the denotation ‘transform, mutate’ comparatively weakly represented. A variation of mutare does, however, appear within the context of the eighth century Hi- berno-Latin Reference Bible, an exegetical text compiled out of extracts taken more or less faithfully from authority figures such as St Augustine, Cassian, and Isidore of Seville. Orchard notes that extracts of the Reference Bible have appeared in a late Anglo-Saxon manuscript, thus providing a clear link between Irish and Anglo-Saxon learned culture.177

Sicut legimus Circe que socios Just as we read of Circe who Ulixis motavit in bestias…178 changed the companions of Ulysses into beasts…

176 Bertram Colgrave, ed. and trans., The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great by an Anonymous Monk of Whitby (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1985), p. 74–5, ch. 2. 177 Orchard, Pride and Prodigies, p. 72ff. 178 J.E. Cross, “Towards the Identification of Old English Literary Ideas – Old Workings and New Seams” in P. E. Szarmach (ed.), Sources of Anglo-Saxon Culture (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1986), 77–101 at p. 82.

69 The densest appearance of mutare appears in Augustinus Hibernicus’ De mirabilibus sacrae scripturae (On the miracles of holy Scripture), a mid-seventh-century treatise divided into three parts: The Old Testament, the prophets, and the New Testament. Although Migne attributes the work to St Augus- tine of Hippo, it is now accepted as the work of an Irish scholar usually referred to as pseudo-Augustine or Augustinus Hibernicus, as above. In Book One, Caput XI bears the title De uxore Loth in statuam salis mutata (‘On Lot’s wife, changed into a pillar of salt’); Caput XVII is De duobus signis, id est manu in sinum conversa, et virga in colubrum mutata (‘On the two signs, that is, the hand converted in the chest, and the staff changed into a serpent’); the outlier is Caput XVIII, De aqua in sanguinem versa (‘On the water turned into blood’).179 Mutare appears throughout these three chapters, though its most significant use is not in its verb form:

…ac per hoc Deum in his non guber- …and through this we call God in natorem, sed mutatorem naturarum these [cases] not the Governor, but dicemus…180 the Changer of nature…

So far when we have seen transformations from the Bible paraphrased, quoted, or translated, the biblical verses they refer back to do not use mutare; indeed, mutare does not appear in the Gospel, nor do its appearances elsewhere necessarily refer to change specifically, beyond general senses of movement and exchange. Thus, De mirabilibus sanctae scripturae is unique in its preference for this verb. Nevertheless, mutare does appear at points in Bede’s In Principium Gene- sis where he paraphrases or quotes Jerome’s Interpretationes nominum He- braeorum. The names Jabal (Gen. 4:20) and Kadesh (Gen. 20:1) are interpreted as Mutatus and Commutata, respectively, where Jabal ‘changed’ his place in the world from righteousness to punishment, and in Kadesh people resolved to life a ‘changed’ (i.e. ‘improved’) life.181 Bede also retains mutare in his quotation from Augustine’s De Genesi ad Litteram (Gen. 9.3)

179 Jacques-Paul Migne, gen. ed., Sancti Aurelii Augustini, Hipponensis episcopi, opera omnia: post Lovaniensium theologorum recensionem, 12 vols, vol. 3:2: Opera exegetica, Patrologia Latina 35 (Paris: Ed. Garnier frères et J. P. Migne, 1841), 2149–2200 at 2162 and 2164–5. 180 Sancti Aurelii Augustini, p. 2164. 181 Beda Venerabilis, Hexameron Sive Libri Quatuor In Principium Genesis, ed. J.P. Migne, Patrologia Latina 91 (Paris: Ed. Garnier frères et J. P. Migne, 1850), bk. II, col. 73 and bk. IV, col. 181; Bede, On Genesis, Calvin B. Kendall, trans. (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008), pp. 156 and 310.

70 In Principium Genesi Nam si Enoch et Elias in Adam non For if Enoch and Elijah, being dead mortui, mortisque propaginem in in Adam and bearing the seed of carne gestantes, quod debitum ut sol- death in the flesh, in order to pay vent creduntur etial redituri ad hanc which debt they are believed to be vitam, et, quod tandiu dilatum est, going to return to this life again and, morituri, nunc tantum in alia vita what was so long delayed, to die, are sunt ubi, ante resurrectionem carnis, now nevertheless in another life antequam animale corpus in spiritale where, before the resurrection of the mutetur, nec morbo nec senectute flesh, before the animal body is deficient, quanto justius atque prob- turned into a spiritual one, they abilius primis illis hominibus lack neither sickness nor old age, præstaretur sine ullo suo parentumve how much more suitable and worth peccato viventibus, ut in meliorem of approval would it have been for aliquem statum filiis genitis those first humans, living without cederent, unde sæculo finite eum any parent or sin, to turn into some omni posteritate sanctorum in angel- better state after the birth of their icam formam, non per carnis mor- children, from which at the end of tem, sed per Dei virtutem multo fe- time they would be changed with licius mutareuntur.182 all their prosperity of saints into angelic form not by the death of the flesh but far more fortunately by the power of God?183

This particular quotation ties together the inner, or spiritual transformations highlighted in this chapter, and the animal symbolism that frequently appears in association with transformation narratives, which will be explored in Chap- ter three. By contrast, to Bede’s retention of mutare in these quotations and references, the transformation of Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt is in Bede’s exegesis rendered using uertere and conuertere (Gen. 19:26 has uersa est): because she turned away from the path shown by God (avertisset) she was destroyed and turned into a pillar of salt (conversa est). Also, in contrast to the spiritual or virtuous/sinful changes described by mutare, Bede proposes that we may believe the transformation of Lot’s wife actually happened, because Flavius Josephus claimed that it stood in his time, and he had seen it.184

182 Beda Venerabilis, Genesis, bk. I, col. 49. 183 Bede, On Genesis, p. 120. 184 Beda Venerabilis, Genesis bk. IV, cols. 178–9; Flavius Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews, from which Bede derives his reference, was written in Greek and translated into Lain in the sixth century by an associate of Cassiodorus (Robert Browning, “Review of The Latin Jose- phus”, The Classical Review 10:1 (1960), 44–46 at p. 44.

71 f. Arripere Arripere appears only once in the context of physical transformation, but that single appearance is a spectacular one. A king, Corictic, refused to listen to Patrick’s admonitions to cease persecuting and murdering Christians, in re- sponse to which Patrick calls upon God to expel him from the present world. Corictic hears poetry composed against him, until finally:

Muirchu’s Vita Patricii Tunc ille, cum esset in medio foro, Then he, when he was in the middle ilico uulpeculae miserabiliter arepta of a public place, having been pitia- forma, profectus in suorum presen- bly seized by the form of a little tia, ex illo die illaque hora uelut fox, left their presence, and from fluxus aquae transiens nusquam con- that day and that hour was never paruit. 185 seen again, like the transient wave of the water.

According to the DMLBS, during the period this survey covers, arripere has two broadly possible denotations. The first is the Classical ‘to seize, lay hold of’, including the figurative ‘to take upon oneself’ or ‘to realize’. The second also references the act of seizure, but here it is seizure or attack caused by demoniac possession or disease. Looking to the phrase in question, ‘having immediately been miserably seized by the form of a little fox’ seems to align more closely with the latter, in that it involves an imposition of something negative on the object: in this case, a non-human form that compels Corictic to leave humanity behind. Assault by divine curse provides an interesting counter to one having been seized by demonic possession, though it is not one that I have come across elsewhere in either Anglo- or Hiberno-Latin sources.

Nouns Transforming Nouns of transformation are correspondingly more difficult to pin down: often something will not change shape or form; rather, it will simply change from THING1 to THING2. Alternatively, a transformation may occur ‘offstage’, meaning that within the text a certain person ‘appears in the shape of a THING’, in some cases even leaving open to interpretation the question of a stable or natural form.186 Additionally, the nouns used most consistently across transformation narratives are rarely used in connection with the verbs discussed in the previous section.

185 “Vita Patricii”, §I.29. 186 This occurs most often in cases of demons, non-Christian deities, and non-human characters such as the áes sídhe and their offspring (e.g. the Morrígan): They appear in a certain form, but rarely shapeshift within the space of the text.

1. Old English a. Hiw Hiw is a fairly malleable word that ranges in meaning from ‘form’ or ‘likeness’ to ‘hue’ or ‘colour’. These two excerpts from Ælfric’s Lives of Saints give an idea of the range of translations that PdE can provide:

Ælfric’s Lives of Saints Chair of St. Peter forþan þe hi wæron geclænsode . …because they were cleansed þurh cristes þrowunge . and he through Christ’s passion, and He sceolde hi awendan of þam wyrm- was to turn them from the likeness hiwe . þurh soðe lare . to ges- of the serpent by true doctrine unto ceadwisnysse. and to manna reason, and to the likeness of men gelycnysse . of þam laðum hiwe.187 from that loathsome form.

St. Martin Eac swilce þa deofla mid heora So likewise the devils with their searo-cræftum him comon gelome treacherous arts came to him fre- to . And he on-cneow hi æfre . for- quently; and he always knew them; þan-þe him nan deofol ne mihte be- because no devil could hide himself diglian hine sylfne . ne on agenre ed- from him, neither in his own sub- wiste ne on oþrum hiwe . Mid stance nor in any other form. With a þusend searo-cræftum wolde se thousand wily arts did the treacher- swicola deofol þone halgan wer on ous devil strive in some way to de- sume wisan beswican . and hine ge- ceive the holy man, and he showed sewen-licne on manegum scin- himself visible in divers phantasms hiwum þam halgan æteowde . on to the saint, in the appearance of the þæra hæþenra goda hiwe . hwilon gods of the heathens; sometimes in on ioues hiwe . þe is ge-haten þór . Jove's form, who is called Thor, hwilon on mercuries . þe men hatað sometimes in Mercury's who is oþon . hwilon on ueneris þære fulan called Odin, sometimes in that of gyden. þe men hatað fricg . and on Venus, the foul goddess, whom men manegum oþrum hiwum hine bræd call Fricg; and into many other se deofol on þæs bisceopes shapes the devil transformed him- gesihþe.188 self in the bishop's sight.

This example, again from the Old English version of the Letter of Alexander to Aristotle, demonstrates the manner of adaptation that could take place between the Latin foundation (right) and the Old English translation (left). Where in the Latin Fortune hinders or obstructs (obstrepit), in Old English

187 Ælfric’s Lives, pp. 226–7, ll. 104–4. 188 Ælfric’s Lives, pp. 264–5, ll. 706–18.

73 fate (wyrd) and appearance (hiw) are often changed (oncyrreð), and turned into (or perhaps in this context made to appear as) something else (on oþer hworfeð—note in both cases the verbs of turning):

The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle Ac swa hit oft gesæleð But as it turns out so Sed ut aliquid plerum- on þæm selran þingum ⁊ often in better and que in secundis rebus on þæm gesundrum, þæt sounder things, fate fortuna obstrepit…190 seo wyrd ⁊ sio hiw hie and appearance often oft oncyrreð ⁊ on oþer change them, and turn hworfeð…189 them into something else…

Hiw can appear in alternate forms: it has a verb form, hiwian, which denotes ‘to form, fashion, shape’, but also ‘to feign, pretend’, which reflects hiw’s connotations with form, appearance, and ‘seeming’. Given the connections between non-divine transformation and illusion as articulated by Augustine, the passage from Ælfric’s Life of St Martin given above becomes particularly poignant. We also see hiwung, denoting a shaping or a forming.

b. Gelicnes Partially synonymous with hiw, gelicnes (gelycnysse) has a more restricted meaning: it denotes a likeness or appearance. This usage that we saw above from Ælfric’s entry for the Chair of St Peter gains added resonance when we observe that gelicnes is used with reference to God’s ‘likeness’ in the Old English translation of Genesis 1:26 (here shown with the relevant passage from the Vulgate, at right):

The Old English Heptateuch Uton wircean man to Let us make man in faciamus hominem ad andlicnisse, and to úre our image, after our imaginem, et similitu- gelícnisse…191 likeness dinem nostrum…

189 Letter, pp. 230–1, §12. 190 Letter, p. 207, §12. 191 Old English Heptateuch, Genesis 1:27.

74 2. Old/Middle Irish a. Richt and Delb Both richt and delb denote a ‘form, shape, or guise’. However, richt is typically used in a more expansive or general sense to refer to the whole appearance. Thus, in this example from the Táin Bó Cúailnge, when Cú Chulainn undergoes his ríastrad, or warp spasm, he becomes completely unrecognizable visually, and one of the reasons for this is that his entire appearance becomes n-ilrechtach, ‘of many (or shifting) shapes’:

Táin Bó Cúailnge Is and so cétríastartha im Choin Cu- Then a great distortion came upon laind co nderna úathbásach n-il- Cú Chulainn so that he became hor- rechtach n-ingantach n-anachnid rible, many-shaped, strange and de.192 unrecognizable.193

Scéla Tuáin meic Chairill uses richt and delb nearly interchangeably to refer to the many shapes that Tuán has transformed into. However, while the author uses richt for the image Tuán saw while asleep, and for the shapechanging that he remembered, the other instances of transformation within the story all use delb.

Scéla Tuáin meic Chairill Cuman lim ⁊ rofetar dul asin richt i I remembered [the vision], and I n-araill. Lot sa i ndelb tuirc allaid.194 knew how to go from one shape into another. I went into the shape of a wild boar.195

Richt also sees use in other instances of ‘serial shapeshifting’, such as the character from Fled Bricrenn (Bricriu’s Feast) known in English translations usually as ‘Terror’, who has the capacity to change himself into a variety of forms.

Fled Bricrenn Fer cumachta mori dan in t-Uath A big powerful man was Uath mac mac Imomain sin, notolbad in cach Imomain, he used to fashion him- richt ba halic leis ocus no gniad dru- self into any shape desirable to him, idechta ocus certa commain. Ba sé and he used to practice magical arts sin dan in siriti on ainmnigthir Be- and occupation. Truly he was that shape-changing being (sirite) from

192 Táin, p. 68. 193 Táin, p. 187. 194 “Scél Tuáin”, pp. 101–2. 195 “Scél Tuáin”, p. 105.

75 lach Muni in t-Siriti, ocus is de as- whom Muni, the Shape-changer’s berthe in siriti de ar a met no delbad Pass, is named, and he used to be i n-ilrechtaib.196 called ‘shape-changer’ from the extent to which he fashioned himself into many shapes.

In the above example from Fled Bricrenn, we also see the verb form of delb, delbaid, meaning ‘to fashion, shape, or form’, but especially in the context of magical formations.197 Sirite is also a peculiar word: in other contexts, it usually denotes (with a pejorative connotation) a stripling or a whipper-snapper, such as people are generally wont to refer to Cú Chulainn before they have to meet him in battle. However, it appears that its older meaning was indeed some kind of shape-changer, and specifically Uath mac Imomain.198 Perhaps medieval audiences may have understood a reference in the Táin: Cú Chulainn is, after all, described as úathbásach during his ríastrad, and the quality of being n-ilrechtach applies to both of them.

In addition to ‘form’ or ‘shape’, delb also denotes ‘appearance’ or ‘likeness’, and in contrast to richt appears to have a more figurative potential, as when Cú Chulainn is described as having delb drecoin don chath, ‘a dragon’s form in battle’:

Táin Bó Cúailnge Dofil gnúis as gráto do His face is beautiful. He amazes dobeir mod banchureo women-folk. This lad of handsome duni óc is álaind dath countenance looks in the battle like dofeith deilb n-dracuin don chath.199 a dragon [or: goes with the shape of a dragon in battle].200

Similarly, in this brief episode relating the fate of the Crutti Cainbili (also contained in the Táin), the use of delb implies that the harpers escaped using the appearance of deer, without having changed more than their likeness:

196 Ernst Windisch, ed., “Fled Bricrenn”, Irische Texte mit Wörterbuch, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1880), 235–311 and 330–336 at p. 293, §75. 197 eDIL s.v. delbaid. 198 eDIL s.v. sirite 199 Táin, p. 3. 200 Táin, p. 127.

76 Is and sin dosnáncatár cruitti Caí- Then the harpers of Caín Bile came nbili ó Ess Rúaid día n-airfitiud. In- to them from Ess Ruaid to entertain dar leó ba du thoscélad forru ó Ul- them with music. But they thought taib. Doberat toffund forru co l-lotár that the harpers had come from the rempo i n-delbaib oss íarom isna Ulstermen to spy on them. So they coirthib oc Líac Mór antúaid, ar hunted them until they went before roptar druíd co móreólas.201 them into the pillar-stones at Lía Mór in the north, transformed into deer, for (in reality) they were druids possessed of great occult knowledge...202

b. Aicned This is one of the few instances where the inherent quality or substance of a thing is mentioned in connection with a change in its form or appearance. Aic- ned denotes such an inherent quality, including ‘essence, nature’, and in this example below from the Old Irish Life of St Patrick, we can see that the transformation which Patrick made was in the appearance of the snow only: he presumably did not have the capacity to affect its essence on his own.

Bethu Phátraic Fecht n-aili luid rechtaire ríg Bretan At another time, the reeve of the do chuinchid chísa grotha ⁊ imbe co King (that is, of the Britons) came to muime Pátraic ⁊ ní bai lée-si ní do- Patrick’s fostermother to see tribute ratad hisa cís. Is and sin dorigni of curd and butter, and nought had Patraic in gruth ⁊ in n-im dont she that was put into the tribute. snechta, co rucad don ríg. Uair ro Then of the snow Patrick made the taiselbath iarom don rig ro sóad inna curd and butter, and this was taken aicned snechta dorithissi. to the King. So when it had been shown to the King it was turned again into its nature of snow.

For our purposes here, aicned does not feature very prominently. However, when in the twelfth century Irish writers begin writing exegesis and commentary on the nature of the resurrection (of which Scéla na Esergi inso is an early example), and engage Neoplatonic arguments to do so, aicned (i.e., the nature of a human) becomes a critical concept.203

201 Táin, p. 30. 202 Táin, p. 151. 203 For more on this subject, see Elizabeth Boyle, “Neoplatonic Thought in Medieval Ireland: The Evidence of Scéla na Esérgi”, Medium Aevum 78:2 (2009), 216–231.

77 c. Enchendach Enchendach appears only once, in the context of the Ulster Cycle tale Togail Bruidne Da Derga (The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel), when a bird approaches the legendary king Conaire Mór’s mother, and sheds his enchendach, or ‘bird skin’, to appear to her as a human. Similarly, when Conaire violates his geas (magical taboo or prohibition) by attacking a bird, the birds shed their enchendach to confront him. The bird-people will be discussed in more detail in the following chapter.

d. Conricht Conricht is a particularly interesting lexical unit, because, as a combination of cú, ‘dog/wolf/canid’ with richt, ‘shape/guise’; it literally means ‘wolf-shape’, and it appears in multiple contexts, including this brief section from a text relating the “Tidings of the Resurrection” (Scéla na Esergi inso), where going into wolf-shape is brought into a rather odd juxtaposition with the Transfig- uration of Christ (tairmchruthad is most often used in this context) and the resurrection (which going into wolf-shape is not).

Scéla na Esergi inso §33 Ind esergi coitchenn tra bias tall Now the general Resurrection il-lo brátha, ni hinund ⁊ ind esergi which shall be beyond on the Day of dianid ainm isind augtartas Judgment is not the same as the res- praestrigia .i. esergi fuathaigthi, urrection which in the authority is amal in pitóndacht. Nó ni inund ⁊ called Praestrigia, that is, an appari- ind esergi dianid ainm reuolutio .i. tional resurrection, like the python- tathchor na hanma i corpaib ecsam- ism. Nor is it the same as the resur- laib iar ndesmirecht na tathcorthe. rection called Reuolutio, that is, the Nó ind esérge dianid ainm meta- transmigration of the soul into vari- formatio .i. tarmchrutad, iar ndes- ous bodies, after the example of mirecht na conricht. Nó ni inu[n]d ⁊ transmigrated persons. Nor the res- ind esérge díanid ainm subductio .i. urrection called Metaformatio, that fothudchetsu .i. amal bite lucht ind is, transfiguration, after the example remeca. Nó ind esérge dianid ainm of werewolves. Nor is it the same as suscitatio .i. todúscud marb tria mir- in the case of the prematurely dead. bail, iar ndesmirecht Lazáir.204 Nor the resurrection called suscitatio, that is, the awakening of the dead by a miracle, after the example of Lazarus.

204 Whitley Stokes, ed. and trans., “Scéla na Esergi inso [The Tidings of the Resurrection here]”, Revue Celtique 25 (1904), 232–259, 458 (corr. and add.), at pp. 250–1.

78 Carey also expresses some puzzlement regarding the presence of conricht:

It is also not clear why Irish conricht ‘wolf-shape’, a term elsewhere associated with werewolves, should appear in this context. All of these difficulties can be avoided if we take metaformatio to designate […] the soul’s temporary absence from the body, for this concept was fundamental to [St.] Augustine’s own theory concerning werewolves, as he expounded it in De Ciuitate Dei.205

This passage also causes us to wonder about the distinction made between the transmigration of the soul into various bodies on the one hand, and ‘Meta- formatio […] after the example of werewolves.’ Should there be, for example, a distinction between going into different shapes, and assuming different forms? Elizabeth Boyle makes this distinction: she hesitates to categorize conricht here as ‘werewolves’, cautioning that it may indeed refer ‘at least’ to ‘transfiguration’ into a dog-form or wolf-form (for more on the use of ‘transfiguration’ see metaformatio, below).206

e. Comthód (verbal noun of con-toí) The noun comthód denotes the action of turning or returning, the act of changing a letter, and religious conversion.207 Of these, the first two appear almost exclusively in glossaries; in the action of turning, they most consistently gloss the Latin apostrophe, ‘a sudden turn’,208 while in other instances they appear as part of explications and do not gloss specific lexemes in their respective Latin texts.

3. Latin a. Forma The variety of denotations for forma in the DMLBS coalesce around outward appearance, human features as well as handsome appearance specifically, and outlines, form and shape. Although hiw more often glosses species, forma more frequently appears within Latin works composed in the Anglo-Saxon and Irish kingdoms. In the examples below, we inded see that forma is often used to refer to appearance, or visible shape; in the Collecteana it almost seems to approach the sense of ‘recognizable shape’.

205 Carey, “Werewolves”, p. 47. 206 Elizabeth Boyle, “On the Wonders of Ireland: Translation and Adaptation” in E. Boyle and D. Hayden (eds.), Authorities and Adaptations: The Reworking and Transmission of Textual Sources in Medieval Ireland (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), 233–261 at p. 250. 207 eDIL s.v. comthód. 208 See Glosses on Priscian (St. Gall) in Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, eds., Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1901), 162a4 at p. 168; and The Milan Glosses on the Psalms in Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, eds., Thesaurus Pal- aeohibernicus, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1901), 20a16 at p. 29. In both cases the gloss appears as comthoud (or chomthoud) talmaidech, ‘a sudden turning’.

Liber Monstrorum Protheus quoque ceruleo corpore bi- Proteus also with his azure body is pedum equorum curru per aequora said to have been carried naked nudus uehi perhibetur et super omne through the sea in a chariot of two- piscium genus principatum habuisse legged horses, and to have had do- et in omnium rerum formas se uer- minion over every kind of fish, and tere potuisse describitur.209 is described as being able to turn himself into the shapes of all things.

Muirchú’s Vita Patricii Tunc ille, cum esset in medio foro, Then he, when he was in the middle ilico uulpeculae miserabiliter arepta of a public place, having been pitia- forma, profectus in suorum presen- bly seized by the form of a little tia, ex illo die illaque hora uelut fox, left their presence, and from fluxus aquae transiens nusquam that day and that hour was never conparuit.210 seen again, like the transient wave of the water.

Tirechan’s Collecteana (1) Deinde autem uenit sanctus Patri- (1) Then holy Patrick came to the cius ad fontem qui dicitur Clebach in well called Clébach, on the slopes lateribus Crochan contra ortum solis of Cruachu to the east, before sun- ante ortum solis et sederunt iuxta rise, and they sat beside the well, (2) fontem, (2) et ecce duae filiae regis and, behold, the two daughters of Loiguiri Ethne alba et Fedelm rufa ad king Loíguire, fair-haired Ethne and fontem more mulierum ad lauandum red-haired Fedelm, came to the mane uenierunt et senodum sanctum well, as women are wont to do, in episcoporum cum Patricio iuxta the morning to wash, and they fontem inuenierunt. (3) Et found the holy assembly of bishops quocumque essent aut quacumque with Patrick beside the well.(3) And forma aut quacumque plebe aut they did not know whence they quacumque regione non were or of what shape or form cognouerunt, sed illos uiros side aut what people or from what region, deorum terrenorum aut fantassiam but thought they were men of the estimauerunt, (4) et dixerunt filiae il- other world or earth-gods or a phan- lis: "ubi uos sitis et unde uenis- tom; (4) and the maidens said to tis?".211 them: 'Whence are you and whence have you come?'

209 Liber Monstrorum, p. 277. 210 “Vita Patricii”, §I.29. 211 “Collecteana”, §1–3.

b. Natura Natura hardly occurs in connection with transformation or metamorphosis narratives. Although a tension between substance and appearance may be in- ferred in many of the examples quoted here, this is not (excepting the case of aicned, above) explicitly stated or discussed. Again, the De mirabilibus sanctae scripturae presents us with a rather spectacular exception. At all three points where Augustinus Hibernicus raises the theme of transformation – Lot’s wife; Moses’ staff and hand; water into blood – he follows the presentation of the scriptural miracle with a discussion on the continuity of natura, and explains why the transformation wrought by God was in each case natu- raliter. In the case of Lot’s wife, for example, the human body contains salt, and therefore to change her into a pillar of salt was not a violation of natura. Augustinus Hibernicus returns to the theme of the manipulation of natura and the creation of new natura versus God’s ability to reveal hidden natura throughout the De mirabilibus sanctae scripturae. However, it may be pointed out that the preoccupation here, while certainly concerned with how to classify radical and miraculous transformation, does not create a tension specifically between appearance (forma or species) and natura.

c. Metaformatio

This unique and somewhat odd amalgam of the Greek metamorphosis (μεταμoρφωσις) and Latin transformatio appears in Scéla na Esergi inso, quoted above in reference to conricht. As far as I am aware, this is the only appearance of this word in the Hiberno-Latin corpus; nor does the rest of the phrase particularly aid in interpretation of this lexeme. Tairmchruthad, though it does denote ‘transfiguration, transformation’, is most often used in the context of the Transfiguration of Christ, so its employment in the quotation above is somewhat puzzling. Boyle argues that the use of both Neoplatonic philosophy and the humanistic concern with the individual places this text firmly within a scholastic context; indeed, the fate of the body after the resurrection is one which became a central concern for Thomas Aquinas, among others.212 She claims that the entire passage is a testament to the sophisticated learned discourse surrounding transformation and shapeshifting in particular;213 Ben- jamin Hudson, on the other hand, sees metaformatio more as evidence of “con- fusion in the popular imagination between shape-shifting and resurrection.”214

212 Boyle, “Neoplatonic Thought”. 213 Boyle, “On the Wonders of Ireland”, p. 251. 214 Benjamin Hudson, “Time is Short: The Eschatology of the Early Gaelic Church” in Caroline Walker Bynum and Paul Freedman (eds.), Last Things: Death and the Apocalypse in the Medi- eval Church (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 101–123, at pp. 108–9.

81 Discussion

Differentiation of Concepts and Semantic Overlaps In the languages examined here, modern styles of definition with clear differentiations between discrete concepts are distinctly lacking. Old English and Old/Middle Irish both boast not only a variety of full and partial synonyms, but also a wide range of concepts that have very versatile and sometimes very different denotations. Furthermore, both languages developed a variety of strategies for translating Latin into the vernacular, and these strategies could vary quite a bit depending on traditions located at different production centres, as well as between different individual authors, to say nothing of differences in the source texts themselves. This can make the vocabulary in both languages extremely dependent on context. Sometimes this ambiguity is ex- ploited; in other cases, the context makes abundantly clear which of a variety of meanings is intended. The analysis conducted in this chapter has shown, however, that we may identify certain trends in the semantic networks within which shapeshifting words operate. In none of the languages included in this study do we see a discrete lexical unit that invariably denotes shapeshifting; rather, shapeshifting episodes rely on established semantic networks. Through an examination of the networks that shapeshifting words draw upon, and thus the range of overlap between shapeshifting and other concepts of motion, change, appearance, and substance, this chapter has shown that the concept of shapeshifting operated as a kind of Venn diagram that would activate particular associations or overlaps depending on the particular lexical unit used to express it. The sections that follow explore relationships between these overlaps, and potential differentiations, in more detail.

Turning, Conversion, and Metaphor In many cases, descriptions of transformation rely primarily on the metaphorical interpretation of conventional verbs denoting ‘to turn’. While not proto- typical, the metaphorical denotations of these words are certainly prominent. In the Latin sources from both Anglo-Saxon England and Early Medieval Ire- land, uertere and conuertere are easily the most common verbs used in the context of transformation, either physical or spiritual. Of these two, uertere has the greater range; conuertere is more narrowly associated with the conversion of a person’s religious beliefs; however, as demonstrated above, it can also (though uncommonly) be used in the transformation of objects or regarding a change of direction. Given this, it is not surprising to see that Old English religious texts also apply verbs denoting ‘turn’ to both conversions and the transformation of people and objects. However, Old English verbs of turning

82 may be applied to contexts of change and alteration to an extent that goes beyond that of their Latin counterparts or exemplars. Additionally, there does not appear to be a particular verb that preferentially translates conuertere. Awendan or (ge)cyrran could translate either just as well, and often depended on the preference of a particular author; hwearfian and its related verbs potentially could as well, but they could also add an element of cyclicality reminiscent of wrixlan. Of the Old English verbs that appear in contexts of transformation, it is only these verbs of turning (aside from the perennially flexible weorðan), that bear the semantic overlap with conversion. Indeed, while there is a fair degree of variability within the verbs of turning regarding conversion, these are almost exclusively the only verbs used to describe it—and the same verbs that are used to describe conversion can also be applied to apostasy. It should be noted that this is not the only way to describe someone’s conversion to Christianity, or their apostasy: Baptism often becomes a kind of synecdoche for the entire conversion process; sometimes a person simply converts by having gained belief in the Christian God, across all the language contexts surveyed. It appears that a ‘verb of motion’ puts a particular stress on the process of conversion. Despite the common appearance of uertere and conuertere in Anglo-Latin as well as Hiberno-Latin sources, and the dominance of verbs of turning in Old English, it is striking how non-dominant verbs of turning are within this particular domain Old and Middle Irish. This is not to say that soïd and its variations are uncommon; this is not the case, and they appear in a variety of contexts as well denoting various kinds of change, including transformation and conversion. However, alternatives to describing change are less uncommon outside of theological texts, and alternatives to describing conversion are more common within them, than in other parts of this study’s corpus. Indeed, during the early period verbs of turning used with reference to religious conversion predominate in glossaries, gaining traction in other sources more rap- idly with the renaissance in Irish writing in the mid-twelfth century. It may furthermore be observed that, during the period examined by this study, where verbs of turning apply to ‘change’ in the sense of ‘transformation’ as understood here, they apply almost exclusively to two classes of use: either they are used with reference to the transformation of non-living things (though this category may expand to include plants), or with reference to conversion in a theological sense.

Shape, Form, and Natura Few of the texts examined show an overt concern regarding superficial transformations versus transformations of substance.215 However, assumptions of form and appearance inform descriptions of transformation in a variety of

215 Noacco, La métamorphose, pp. 28–9; 35.

83 ways. For example, in the cases of St Macarius’ maiden-mare and St Patrick’s disappearance under the guise of a deer, the author of the text does not mark the change of appearance in terms of transformation, but rather a change or obfuscation of the observer’s perception. A different kind of example, with a similar implication, can be found in St Patrick’s transformation of snow into curd and butter that, when removed from his presence, reverts to its ‘snowy nature’. Thus, the snow retained its nature even when it appeared as something different. This also appears in the Hi- berno-Latin life of St Patrick, when he freezes the liquor to remove the drop of poison within: the thawing liquor also returns to its ‘natural state’. The examples above also demonstrate the reason for focusing the study on human transformation, rather than transformation as a general concept: An- gels, demons (including the devil), various monsters and other non-human beings, while doubtless ‘real’ concepts to people during this time, existed according to a different set of rules. They are all to a greater or lesser extent invisible, and this instability in visible form means that a variability in appearance is central not only to their own properties, but also to their interaction with humans and the physical world in general. As we will see in following chapters, this has the potential to impact interpretations of human transformations as well.

Conclusion This chapter has discussed human transformation on a primarily lexical level. It has established the semantic domains of the lexemes used most consistently in connection with metamorphosis, and discussed the possible impacts of these domains on particular deployments of these lexemes; that is, in contexts of religious conversion and physical transformation (metamorphosis). No- acco’s observation regarding the relative emphasis of verbs over nouns in metamorphosis narratives in high medieval French romance appears to have relevance for our material as well:

En effet, le vocabulaire de la transformation renvoie moins à des substantifs qu’à des formes verbales, ce qui prouve que l’accent était mis sur le procès plutôt que sur le concept : la transformation n’existe pas à l’état pur et nécessite, pour s’accomplir, un mouvement. Le verbe permet de visualiser ce mouvement et rend possible l’expression du changement.216

Indeed, the choice of verb expresses this change in different ways, and permits us to make inferences about the underlying assumptions of metamorphosis- style change, or the associations that a particular metamorphosis ought to

216 Noacco, La métamorphose, pp. 49–50. Emphasis mine.

84 evoke in its audience. Comparisons between metamorphosis and other instances of change that utilise the same or similar vocabulary also suggests the range of semantic associations that different kinds of shapeshifting had within each of these languages. This is much more easily done with the verbs listed here than the nouns, since the nouns used in relation to shapeshifting episodes in these sources often have a much broader range of application. The following chapter will build upon the points raised and discussed here to explore the rhetorical strategies used in transformation narratives. The lexical and semantic study undertaken here provides the basis for this by having established the semantic valence of the terms used in the episodes of shapeshifting. We can use this to establish whether metaphorical or other kinds of rhetorical strategies are being used in these episodes, and if so, what are the likely source domains over which the metamorphoses are being mapped.

Map 3: The political divisions of Ireland, ca. 800. Tara and Ossory (Osraige) are marked with arrows. Credit: F. J. Byrne, in T. W. Moody, F. X. Martin, and F. J. Byrne, eds., A New History of Ireland, vol. IX (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 18; reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press.

86 Chapter 3: Humans and Animals, Humans as Animals

Whereas the previous chapter explored the lexical foundation of shapeshifting in our corpus using transformations of body and soul as a focal point, this chapter will interrogate the level of meaning creation where metamorphoses are operationalized metaphorically, with human-animal shapeshifting acting as the lens of analysis. A variety of rhetorical techniques bring humans and animals into close contact with one another: animal symbolism plays a prominent role in explications of human morality, for example, and actions taken against an animal in one’s possession may have direct implications for one’s own social standing. Comparisons with animals highlight particular human characteristics, and the characteristics encoded in each particular animal could vary widely both between and within cultures. Animals, indeed, formed an integral, inescapable, and vital part of both the early medieval physical, and intellectual, realms. In this chapter, we explore a particular facet of this physical and intellectual relationship: that of transformations between humans and animals. While human-animal shapeshifting aligns to some degree with that of human-animal comparisons, it is largely distinct, in ways which are potentially significant for our study. Metaphor, simile, and metonymy are all prominent strategies for bringing humans and animals into rhetorical contact with each other; however, whereas all three play a role in comparing humans and animals in some way, metaphor dominates in cases of physical transformation from human to animal or vice versa. Before discussing metaphor and its role in metamorphosis narratives, let us briefly look at the presence of simile and metonymy in our corpus. The metonymical thought process relies on contiguity, or a describing and described element that derive from the same domain; the metonymy arises out of the combination of two elements already connected to each other in some way.217 Rohrbach illustrates this with examples from Saga literature, particularly farm and other domestic animals who act in the text almost as extensions of their owners’ qualities and characteristics, and actions taken against the animal reflect directly as an action against the human. Regarding our corpus,

217 Lena Rohrbach, Der Tierische Blick. Mensch-Tier-Relationen in der Sagaliteratur (Tübingen: A. Francke Verlag, 2009), p. 172.

87 such a metonymical contiguity may be seen perhaps most clearly among the Irish warrior group known as the Fíanna, where the men and their hounds are nearly interchangeable, such that the hounds often act as extensions of the warrior-hunter’s emotional state.218 Simile bears a closer relation to metaphor, but differs from it in certain important ways. Most prominently for our purposes, simile is most often signposted by the use of specific connecting words (in PdE ‘like’ or ‘as’, e.g. ‘cunning as a fox’); thus, while simile, like metaphor, involves a certain degree of mapping between different domains, it creates a direct, specific comparison rather than a wholesale (and potentially ambiguous) mapping of one domain onto another. Whereas metaphor creates expanded meaning by mapping whole domains (e.g. the omnipresent ARGU- MENT is WAR), simile restricts it to a precise point of comparison. Although brief in presentation, it is already clear that metonymy and simile comprise vital parts of the figurative language that surrounds humans and animals, but apply only imperfectly or not at all to the matter of transformation between humans and animals. Transformation, for example, does not allow for a partial mapping of characteristics on at least one scale: the act of metamorphosis completely changes the appearance of an individual, regardless of whether the transformation only affects appearance or not. One may create a simile between two different types of transformation: Ælfric does this, for example, in one of his Catholic Hom- ilies, where he compares what he perceives as the revitalization of silkworms with the Resurrection, using God’s capacity for the former as evidence for his eventual performance of the latter.219 Comparisons between different kinds of change may appear alongside metaphors in order to explicate them, or they may motivate particular kinds of miracles in hagiographic literature. They remain, however, generally uncommon in direct relation to metamorphoses (as opposed to other kinds of transformation and change not considered here such as the weather, aging, death, and the dead body) and hardly appear in our corpus. Also uncommon but present are cases where a simile itself causes a figurative transformation of its subject; these are considered below. A metonymical interpretation of metamorphosis would only really be feasible were the capacity for transformation an attribute of or attributed to an individual, such that it could substitute for the individual. This could potentially be the case for the devil, demons, angels, and other supernatural agents with ambiguous physical forms, for whom the capacity to change shape is innate and ‘natural’. The potential within our corpus is slim, and hardly ever realized. Metaphor, when one follows the terminology of Lakoff and Johnson, brings elements of two different domains into connection with each other, and

218 Bernhardt-House, Werewolves, Magical Hounds, p. 58. 219 Peter Clemoes, Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The First Series, (Oxford: University Press, 1997), Appendix B2, pp. 533–534, Homily I.16 (MS CCCC 188 and descendants).

88 through the choice of source and target domains produces meaning.220 In the previous chapter, we saw metaphor at work already on the lexical level; in the examples and discussion below, metaphor is the dominant rhetorical strategy at work in individual metamorphosis episodes. As Rohrbach points out, the particular meaning produced by particular metaphors often depends on the target domains as well as the way in which the episode is constructed. At this level, we have less to reckon with regarding ‘dead’ metaphors; however, there are still distinctions (some less clear than others) between creative metaphors on the one hand, and conceptual metaphors on the other. Indeed, in some areas where we observe transformation carrying a metaphorical weight, it is possible to suggest that the author was not themselves aware of or intentionally operationalizing this potential.

Animals in Early Medieval England and Ireland Although this study concerns itself with zoomorphic humans and anthropo- morphic animals, it is important to emphasize that animals as symbols, images, and ideas have their roots in the living creature and how it interacted with humans, and humans with it. Animals were ubiquitous in both the mental and physical worlds of the peoples in early medieval north-western Europe. Domestic animals provided humans with a kind of practical utility, whether this be as work or companion animals, as food, as commodities, or as trans- portation; wild animals of sea, land, and sky have also made their impact on these societies in a variety of ways, again as food or (sources of) commodities, but also as threats or pests to humans, particularly within farming societies, which all of those encompassed by this study were during this time, to varying degrees. The range of interactions that people will have had with the living creature heavily influence the valence of that creature’s symbolic meaning, and both these interactions and valences could change over time. Zooarchae- ological studies of animals in both England and Ireland have long focused on the economic function of animals, particularly cattle, caprines, and pigs. How- ever, in the last ten years or so (more frequently as we move into the ‘animal turn’ within historical and literary studies) researchers are taking an ever-in- creasing interest in the social and symbolic roles that these and other animals inhabited, with several studies integrating zooarchaeological with historical, literary, and iconographic evidence.221 Although the practice of ‘reading’ particular animals for their symbolic value would not have posed an audience any great difficulty, certain animals could provide a diverse range of significance;

220 Rohrbach, Der Tierische Blick, p. 172. 221 See for example: W. Prummel, “The Significance of Animals to the Early Medieval Frisians in the Northern Coastal Area of the Netherlands: Archaeological, Iconographic, Historical and Literary Evidence”, Environmental Archaeology 6:1 (2001), 73–86; Rohrbach, Der tierische Blick.

89 therefore it is important for the analysis that follows to give a brief sketch of the place of animals in these islands at this time. Because the framework of animal-human interactions forms the foundation for the role(s) of animals in rhetorical structures, it is important to take a moment to outline the character of such interactions and the background against which such structures would have been understood.

Domestic Animals Large mammals such as the aforementioned cattle, caprines, and pigs tend to dominate faunal assemblages across Britain and Ireland; however, there are clear differences between the two islands, and a greater degree of variation within Britain both regionally and temporally. From faunal data at West Stow and West Stow West, in use from the fifth to seventh centuries, Pam Crabtree suggests that early Anglo-Saxon animal husbandry practices were unfocused and unspecialised: although sheep predominate, the culling patterns are not what one would expect from a specialized flock; cattle were also common, and their mortality patterns also indicate animals being used for a variety of purposes. This contrasts sharply with the situation in western Britain, which, judging by a contemporary site in Wroxeter, saw greater continuity, including the dominance of cattle. Crabtree suggests that cattle may have been symbols of status and wealth here as in Ireland.222 By the ‘long eighth century’, it is clear that significant changes have taken place, though Crabtree argues that these changes have their origins already in the sixth and seventh centuries. By the eighth century at the East Anglian sites of Brandon (possibly a monastic see) and Wicken Bonhunt, one sees greater specialization in animal husbandry practices, with more sheep and less cattle, and an ageing profile that suggests a specialized wool producing flock. There is also an unusually high rate of pig in the assemblage at Wicken Bonhunt, which indicates a specialized economy at that site.223 Generally speaking, however, cattle remain a major component of most assemblages in England (though they are most abundant in mid-Saxon York) and appear to have been a multi-purpose resource; rural sites in both East Anglia and East Yorkshire tend towards sheep, and broadly similar systems appear to have operated in eastern and southern England. Overall Eng- land remained an arable-dominated economy.224 Ireland is characterized by a uniformity of economy already in the early Christian period (fifth to eighth centuries), with a value system based on cows and dairying, whereby cattle were the standard unit of both wealth and currency. However, from the eighth century the importance of cattle began to

222 P.J. Crabtree, “Animal husbandry and farming in East Anglia from the fifth to the tenth centuries CE”, Quarternary International 346 (2014), 102–108 at pp. 104–5. 223 Crabtree, “Animal husbandry and farming”, pp. 105–6. 224 T. O’Connor, “Animal Husbandry” in Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology, pp. 364–373.

90 decline, though dairying remained the dominant form of exploitation.225 Nev- ertheless, it is clear from literary evidence that cows and bulls remained prominent as symbols of wealth and status; indeed, the cattle raid forms the framing narrative and primary point of antagonism of one of the most prominent works of early Irish literature, the Táin Bó Cúailnge. Goats are typically found in low quantities in early Christian sites and are absent from some altogether. One contrast to this is Scandinavian settlements, such as Dublin, where goats are fairly prominent and may have played an important role in the Scandinavian diet, or were kept for dairying. McCormick and Murray point out that beef may not have been easily available if the cattle around Dublin was raised by non-Scandinavians who were possibly hostile farmers.226 Skeleton populations from five early medieval Irish sites reveal that the staple rural diet was bread and milk, with vegetables, salted meat (predominantly pork), and honey as supplementary items.227 The importance of honey is supported by the existence of a law code devoted specifically to bees and beekeeping.228 Outside the realm of livestock, and pastoral and agricultural interaction with animals, scholarship on human relationships with domestic animals focuses predominantly on companion animals such as dogs and cats.229 Writing in the preface to Bernhardt-House’s monograph, John Carey observes that

[one] of the most striking things about this remarkable study […] is the extent to which canids as such are outweighed by humans-become-canids, humans- as-canids, and human-canid hybrids. […] It is as if the dog and the wolf were mirrors in which the Celtic peoples contemplated themselves: sometimes with admiration or aspiration, sometimes with contempt, sometimes (one is tempted to surmise) with the kind of fascinated horror which we can experience in dreams.230

Based on faunal assemblages, legal documents, and narrative texts it is clear that dogs played an important role in various areas of medieval Irish life.231 As we shall see below, wolves also appear prominently in legal texts particularly.

225 F. McCormick and E. Murray, Excavations at Knowth Vol. 3: Knowth and the Zooarchae- ology of Early Christian Ireland (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2007), p. 109. 226 McCormick and Murray, Excavations at Knowth, pp. 220–30. 227 M. Novak, “Dental Health and Diet in Early Medieval Ireland”, Archives of Oral Biology 60 (2015), 1299–1309 at p. 1303. Some sources differed between ‘summer’ and ‘winter’ foods; all showed major differences according to social station, and variations in age and gender (particularly the latter) were also observed. 228 For example, Becbretha, quoted in the previous chapter. 229 See for example: A.L. Grieve, The Human-Dog Relationship in Early Medieval England and Ireland (c. AD 400–1250), (PhD Dissertation: University of Southampton, 2012); Kristopher Poole, “The Contextual Cat: Human-Animal Relations and Social Meaning in Anglo-Saxon England”, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 22 (2015), 857–882. 230 John Carey, “Foreword” to Bernhardt-House, Werewolves, Magical Hounds, p. vii. 231 Grieve, Human-Dog Relationship, passim.

91 Due to the clearly intimate relationships that existed between humans and dogs, it is hardly surprising that they are the animal with whom humans most easily and most immediately identify, and thus the animal that becomes the mirror for human behaviour or characteristics. Cats make up fairly small proportions of faunal assemblages in Anglo- Saxon sites; however, they are regularly recovered, with marginally better representation in urban than rural sites. Poole observes, moreover, that cats are better represented in the Middle and Late Saxon periods (mid-seventh century onwards). Because cats appear in smaller numbers than typical ‘food’ species, Poole infers that cat-human relations would more likely have been one-on- one.232 In both Anglo-Saxon England and early medieval Ireland, cats were sources of fur as well as companion animals and mousers.

Wild Animals The main sources of evidence for human interaction with wild animals in early medieval Britain and Ireland comes largely from anthropogenic assemblages, as well as from written and iconographic evidence. For Anglo-Saxon England, Naomi Sykes has observed that the early An- glo-Saxon period (ca. fifth to seventh centuries) is characterized by a remarkably poor representation of wild animals in domestic assemblages, but that large carnivores such as lynx and bear do appear in non-anthropogenic depos- its, suggesting that these animals co-existed with humans but were not ex- ploited.233 This corresponds roughly with the flourishing of what is known as Style I art, characterised by what some scholars call an “animal salad”.234 And yet, “[d]isordered images conceal a deeper order. This is a cosmological arena where beasts and animal-men tangle in iconic oppositions, and ambiguous shape-shifters morph from animal into human in one and the same image, read differently according to their orientation.”235 Looking at early Anglo-Saxon

232 Poole, “The Contextual Cat”, pp. 866–7. An interesting piece of trivia in this context: Alt- hough there is skeletal evidence for both domesticated and wildcats in Britain during the period including Anglo-Saxon England, the former did not derive from the latter: domesticated cats appear to have been brought in by humans, possibly as early as the Neolithic. Interbreeding between domesticated cats and wildcats does, however, seem to have taken place. Poole, “The Contextual Cat”, p. 865. 233 Naomi Sykes, “Woods and the Wild” in H. Hamerow, C. Crawford, and D. Hinton (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 327–345, at pp. 331f. Sykes does point out that fragments of fur found in anthropogenic depos- its suggests that animal pelts were used more frequently than the survival of organic material suggests, but this does not impact her overall observations. 234 R. Weetch and C. Williams, “Decoding Anglo-Saxon Art”, British Museum Blog, Online source available at: https://blog.britishmuseum.org/decoding-anglo-saxon-art/ (originally posted 28 May 2014). 235 Leslie Webster, “Style: Influences, Chronology, and Meaning” in H. Hamerow, C. Craw- ford, and D. Hinton (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology (Oxford: Ox- ford University Press, 2011), 460–501, at p. 468.

92 shields in particular, Tania Dickinson has observed that the predominant man- ifestations among the humans, animal-men, and animals are aquatic creatures, predatory birds, and “composite imaginary creatures.”236 This is worth bearing in mind as we continue through the chapter, as all three categories appear to have lost the cultural currency by the time most of our Old English texts were written (mostly in the late Saxon period, for dating see below). Ambiguous animal-men appear to have been particularly common in England; nevertheless, by the seventh century such images had fallen out of use, and man-beast images are almost completely absent in Style II.237 In the mid-Saxon period (ca. late-seventh to mid-ninth centuries), wild animals such as bears, wolves, and beavers were beginning to become scarce, and it appears that, “rather than being avoided and admired, wild creatures were coming to be viewed as resources that could be captured and eaten by those with the resources to do so.”238 This supports Poole’s observation that changes in burial practices during this period, as well as evidence from Christian writings and the condem- nation of certain practices, suggest that the teaching of Christian ideology involved the imposition of boundaries between the ideological categories of human and animal, which had previously been more fluid.239 The late Saxon period (ca. mid-ninth to mid-eleventh centuries) saw even more dynamic social and economic change, with increased wild fauna in urban assemblages and urban commercialisation more generally: hunting or fowling was increasingly done by professionals, and those living within urban contexts had a more re- mote relationship with wild animals than previously. Sykes indicates a particular focus on property, whereby the ability to consume animals derived from hunting, fishing, or fowling almost became a metaphor for ownership of land, water, and shore.240 Additionally, Anglo-Saxon literature writhes with the presence of wyrmas, a fairly catchall category whose members could shrink or expand depending on the space they were meant to fill. Wyrmas could be worms, or serpents, or dragons—but at nearly every stage, they presented some form of threat to humans, whether this threat be mortal (such as a poisonous snake or angry dragon) or postmortal (just as the worms that consume a body in the grave). Snakes, however, additionally provide a powerful narrative of rebirth and re- newal through the shedding of their skin. As mentioned below, this polyva- lence extends to their biblical interpretation as well. Regarding the wyrmcynn, Thompson concludes that,

236 Tania Dickinson, “Iconography, Social Context and Ideology: The Meaning of Animal-Ori- ented Shields in Early Anglo-Saxon England” in Wilhelm Heizmann and Morten Axboe (eds.), Die Goldbrakteaten der Völkerwanderungszeit – Auswertung und Neufunde (Berlin: De Gruy- ter, 2011), 635–686 at p. 638. 237 Webster, “Style”, p. 471. 238 Sykes, “Woods”, p. 333; p. 341. 239 Poole, “The Contextual Cat”, p. 864. 240 Sykes, “Woods”, p. 336; p. 341.

93 Wyrmas, big and small, good and bad, embody many ideas, but they meet around themes of transformation, providing interpretative frameworks for making sense of fundamental experiences of change, growth and decay […]. The wyrmcynn embody and enable many different kinds of transformation connected with literal and spiritual death, burial and rebirth.241

Faunal assemblages in Ireland are somewhat more idiosyncratic when it comes to wild animals. On the whole, wild fauna appear to have been of little importance at early Christian sites. One exception to this is the presence of red deer assemblages at the Moyne ecclesiastical enclosure and the Clonmacnoise, New Graveyard site: although not as high as Moyne, “the prevalence of red deer at Clonmacnoise is substantially higher than is typical for early medieval sites, which provides support for the suggestion that red deer had a particular association with ecclesiastical settlements.”242 This supports the conclusions reached by Soderberg of red deer in early medieval Ireland, wherein he suggests that interactions between red deer and human communities are integral to the social construction of early Christian Ireland. The reference to ‘wild cattle’ in the title of his paper alludes to the liminal position of red deer, as within the social domain, yet still outside it as wild animals. Soderberg points out that this echoes the liminality of monastic complexes themselves in relation to the landed community.243 While wolves are not particularly prominent in faunal assemblages, the legal sources are unanimous in considering the wolf the principle predator of livestock, particularly lambs and calves; however, the law texts do not appear to regard wolves as a danger to humans.244 Perhaps somewhat surprising for an island population is the relative unimportance of fish: preservation of fish bones is notoriously poor, but even the dental evidence studied by Novak suggests that, in these five skeletal populations at least, people subsisted on a terrestrial diet based mostly on carbohydrates.245 Though less represented in the faunal assemblages, birds fly in and out of Irish stories, both Christian and secular. Swans, for example, are generally portrayed as beautiful, and the humans who transform into them are themselves often beautiful and magically powerful (Cáer from Aislinge Oengusso, The Dream of Óengus), or beautiful and tragic (the Children of Lir). On the other hand, cranes are usually depicted as mean, unpleasant, and in some way connected with death. In contrast to swans, which are usually associated with

241 Victoria Thompson, Dying and Death in Later Anglo-Saxon England (Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2004), p. 169. 242 McCormick and Murray, Excavations at Knowth, p. 216. 243 John Soderberg, “Wild Cattle: Red Deer in the Religious Texts, Iconography, and Archae- ology of Early Medieval Ireland”, International Journal of Medieval Archaeology 8:3 (2004), 167–183 at p. 168. 244 Fergus Kelly, Early Irish Farming (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1998), pp. 186–7. 245 Novak, “Dental Health”, p. 1306.

94 comely young women, cranes are often associated with unpleasant women. Even more closely associated with death and destruction is the raven, which is invoked frequently as a bird of the battlefield, and of carrion.246 Closely associated with the raven are the Irish battle-goddesses, the Badbh and the Morrígan.247

Animals in the Bible The Bible is unique in that it provides a cross-cultural reference point for animal symbolism. Humans might imagine themselves through animals in a variety of culturally specific ways, but the animals which march through the Bi- ble from the creation of the world in Genesis to the lamb upon the throne at the end of Revelation will have represented a standard significance which most medieval audiences may have been expected to comprehend without great difficulty. The animal symbolism received from the Bible will furthermore have been mediated by the intellectual traditions that scholars from both islands participated in and contributed to; in this context, the most relevant reference point will likely have been the Etymologiae of Isidore, Archbishop of Seville.248 Isidore himself used Pliny’s Historia Naturalis extensively as a source for his Etymologiae; biblical and observational interpretations of animals often informed each other, or at least did not necessarily exist at cross- purposes.249 One must also mention St Augustine of Hippo; also here his prominence within the intellectual tradition of the Latin West is clear.250 Not only his interpretation of symbolism, but also his theory of signification plays a role in medieval exegesis. Concerning animals and natural elements in Scrip- ture, Augustine prioritized their didactic value, and saw them foremost as objects of interpretation.251 The symbolism of biblical animals was also mediated and interpreted through the exegesis and other works (including hagiography) of Patristic writers beyond Augustine and Isidore, such as Tertullian, Am- brose, Jerome, Gregory the Great, and Bede.252 Animals in the Bible appear in one of two forms: either ordinary, whereby animals are represented according to their typical ways of functioning in everyday life; and figurative, which uses animal portrayals to demonstrate and

246 M. Green, Animals in Celtic Life and Myth (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 176–7. 247 Green, Animals, p. 195. 248 Christopher A. Clason, “Animals, Birds, and Fish in the Middle Ages” in Albrecht Classen, ed., Handbook of Medieval Culture, vol. 1 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 18–54 at pp. 22–3. 249 Clason, “Animals”, p. 24. 250 Clason, “Animals”, pp. 46–7. 251 Beverly Kienzle, “The Bestiary of Heretics: Imagining Medieval Christian Heresy with In- sects and Animals” in Paul Waldau and Kimberly Christine Pattin, eds., A Communion of Sub- jects: Animals in Religion, Science, and Ethics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 103–116 at p. 105. 252 Kienzle, “The Bestiary of Heretics”, p. 107.

95 elucidate the spiritual situations of humans, including interpersonal relationships and relations between God and humans.253 Few biblical animals are free from ambiguity; the precise interpretation of a given animal frequently depends on the periscope in which it appears, as well as the exegesis surrounding the periscope in general and that animal’s appearance specifically. Frenschkowski highlights this ambivalence by means of the extremes potentially represented by the lion and the serpent: “[Wie] sonst nur der Löwe kann die Schlange sowohl Sinnbild des Teufels wie auch Jesu selbst sein, um von stellen wie Mt. 10,16 gar nicht erst zu sprechen.”254 Bede provides us with another example in his In Principium Genesis where, in the context of the giants (gigantes) mentioned in Genesis 6:4, he observes that gigantes may have a negative meaning as in this reference, but they may also have a positive meaning as well, because in Psalm 18:6 God exultavit ut gigans.255 As comparison, he also refers to the contrasting representations of the lion, observed by Frenschkowski. One fairly stable image that sees both adoption and adaptation particularly in the Irish religious narratives is that of the souls of the dead which ascend to heaven as birds. Matthew 3:16 and Luke 3:22 give us the image of the Holy Spirit appearing as a dove during the baptism of Christ, and the image of the souls of saints escaping to heaven either as birds or on the wings of birds is a common hagiographic motif. As we shall see below, this was also an important motif in our corpus, and occupies an ambiguous position both with regard to other bird traditions, and with regard to other shapeshifting phenomena.

Humans into Animals The most common kind of human-animal metamorphosis in this corpus is that of a transformation from a human to an animal state. Within this category we nevertheless see a degree of variation based on the manner of transformation, the animal into which a human transforms, the reason for the transformation, and so on. As the first examples show, the transformation may in some cases be a matter of perception rather than physical change. In other words, the individuals only appear to external observers as though they have changed. The first set of examples all involve the same basic story: Loegaire, a pagan king, summons St Patrick to Tara yet plans to have him killed along the way. Patrick

253 Marlena Kardasz, “‘Animal’ proverbs in the Bible: An axiological analysis”, Beyond Phi- lology 9 (2012), 41–55 at p. 42. 254 M. Frenschkowski, “Verführung als Erleuchtung. Ein Essay über antike, v.a. gnostische Schlangensymbolik und religiöse Inversionsphänomene” in W. de Blécourt and C.A. Tuczay (eds.), Tierverwandlungen (Tübingen: Francke Verlag, 2011), 13–34 at p. 15. The cited verse, Matthew 10:16, reads: Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. 255 Beda Venerabilis, Genesis, bk. II col. 84.

96 learns of this plan, and by blessing his companions (including a young man called Benén, whose name means ‘deer’) causes them to appear as deer to those who would harm them. Muirchú’s seventh-century Latin Life is the old- est witness to this particular story:

Muirchú’s Vita Patricii (6) Et uenit rex timore coactus et (6) And the king came, impelled by flexit genua coram sancto et finxit fear, and bent his knees before the adorare quem nolebat; et postquam holy man, and pretended to do him separauerunt ab inuicem paululum reverence though he did not mean it; gradiens uocauit rex sanctum Patri- and after they had parted and the cium simulato uerbo uolens interfi- king had gone a short distance away, cere eum quo modo. (7) Sciens he called holy Patrick with false autem Patricius cogitationes regis words, wishing to kill him by any pessimi benedictis in nomine Iesu means. (7) Patrick, however, knew Christi sociis suis octo uiris cum the wicked thoughts of the wicked puero uenit ad regem ac numerauit king. He blessed his companions, eos rex uenientes statimque eight men with a boy, in the name of nusquam conparauerunt ab oculis Jesus Christ, and started on his way regis, (8) sed uiderunt gentiles octo to the king, and the king counted tantum ceruos cum hynulo euntes them as they went along, and sud- quasi ad dissertum, et rex Loiguire denly they disappeared from the mestus, timidus et ignominiossus king's eyes; (8) instead, the pagans cum paucis euadentibus ad Temo- merely saw eight deer with a fawn riam uersus est deluculo.256 going, as it were, into the wilds. And king Loíguire, sad, frightened, and in great shame, went back to Tara at dawn with the few who had escaped.

Of the three iterations of this story which fall within the purview of this study, this is the only one in which the audience learns of Loegaire’s reaction to Pat- rick’s illusion and escape. This allows Joseph Nagy to connect the episode

with Celtic kingship mythology, in which a hero may win kingship through a successful deer hunt. This explains why Loegaire feels humiliated: the escape of the saint and his followers signifies not merely a failed plan but also exposes a failed king. How serious this is should be understood in the light of the fact that kingship was seen as sacred in medieval Irish ideology.257

256 “Vita Patricii”, §I.18 257 Joseph Nagy cited in Jacqueline Borsje, “Druids, Deer and ‘Words of Power’: Coming to Terms with Evil in Medieval Ireland” in K. Ritari and A. Bergholm (eds.), Approaches to religion and mythology in Celtic studies (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2008), 122–149 at p. 126.

97 Nevertheless, in the subsequent episodes the shame of the failed king pales in comparison with the miracle of Patrick’s escape. In other particulars, however, the story retains its structure in the Bethu Phátraic, a bilingual (Latin and Old Irish) vita from the late ninth century. We may note in passing the use of dí- cheltair, ‘concealment’ in the example below; other meanings of this word include ‘spell rendering invisible’, and may have been meant to evoke dí- chetal, which itself denotes ‘incantation or spell composed extemporaneously by the “fili's” and druids in ancient Ireland’, and according to the Sanas Cor- maic was ‘allowed by St. Patrick as being harmless and involving no pagan rites.’258

Bethu Phátraic …⁊ ros bendach Pátraic ré duidecht. …and Patrick blessed them be- Dodechaid dícheltair tairsiu, conár fore going. A cloak of darkness árdraig fer díb. Atchoncatar im̄ na went over them so that not a man gentlidi bátar isna intledaib ocht n- of them appeared. Howbeit, the aige altai do techt sechu fón sliab, ⁊ heathen who were biding in the iarndoe inna ndegaid ⁊ gaile fora snares saw eight deer going past them under the mountain, and be- gúalaind; Pátraic a ochtar, ⁊ Benén 259 hind them a fawn with a bundle ina ndegaid ⁊ ḟolaire fora muin. on its shoulder; (that was) Patrick with his eight, and Benén behind them with his tablets on his back.

The final example of this divine illusion appears in the preface to an eighth- century lorica, or protective charm-poem. The preface, however, was added later and is decidedly Middle Irish; it may have been added at the time of the composition of Dublin, Trinity College, MS 1441 (E 4. 2), known as the Liber Hymnorum, around the end of the eleventh or beginning of the twelfth century. In keeping with the protective character of the lorica, the literal and figurative ‘corslet’ appears most prominently, but the preface claims that Patrick sang this hymn (Fáeth fiada meaning ‘Deer’s cry’) to create the illusion that he and his companions were deer:

Preface to Fáeth fiada T. Patraicc dorone in nimmunsa. I Patrick made this hymn. It was naimseir Loegaire meic Néil made in the time of Loegaire son dorigned. Fád a dénma immorro dia of Niall. The cause of its composi- diden cona manchaib ar náibdib in tion, however, was to protect him báis robátar i netarnid arna clerchib. and his monks against deadly enemies that lay in wait for the clerics.

258 eDIL, s.v. díchetal. 259 Bethu Phátraic, pp. 30–1 ll. 516–20

98 Ocus is luirech hirse inso fri him- And this is a corslet of faith for the degail cuirp ⁊ anma ar demnaib ⁊ protection of body and soul dúinib ⁊ dualchib. Cech duine against devils and men and vices. nosgéba cech dia co ninnithemd léir i When anyone shall repeat it every nDia, ní thairisfet demna fria gnúis, day with diligent intentness on bid dítin dó ar cech neim ⁊ ḟormat, God, devils shall not dare to face bid co[e]mna dó fri dianbas, bid him, it shall be a protection against lúrech dia anmain iarna étsecht. every poison and envy, it shall be Patraicc rochan so intan dorata na a defense to him against sudden etarnaidi ara chin ó Loegaire, na death, it shall be a corslet to his digsed do silad chreitme co Temraig; soul after his death. Patrick sang conid annsin atchessa fiad lucht na this when the ambuscades were laid against his coming by Loe- netarnade comtis aige alta ⁊ iarróe gaire, that he might not to go Tara ina ndiaid .i. Benen; ⁊ fáeth fiada a to sow the faith. And then it ap- 260 hainm. peared before those lying in am- bush that they (Patrick and his monks) were wild deer with a fawn (Benén) following them. And its name is ‘Deer’s Cry.’

This persistent tale of Patrick using the image of deer to effect escape for himself and his companions is an intriguing given McCormick’s suggestion that red deer may have had a particular association with ecclesiastical settlements in early Christian Ireland. However, the picture of ecclesiastical symbolism suggested by the Vita Patricii, the Bethu Phatraic, and the preface to Fáeth fiada is complicated somewhat by the following episode from the Táin Bó Cúailnge, wherein a group of harper-druids also use the shapes of deer in order to escape. Christian elements are not prominent in the Táin Bó Cúailgne (to the extent that it does not even conform to Latinate models of historia at all), but the text will have been produced in a Christian context, and it is worth pointing out that the men who transform into deer are still high-status ritual specialists. Others, such as Jacqueline Borsje, have argued that the transformation into deer connects back to the sovereignty rituals of hunting deer which usually were members of the áes sídhe261 in animal form.262

260 Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, eds., “(Preface to) Patrick’s Hymn” in Thesaurus palaeohibernicus: a collection of Old-Irish glosses, scholia, prose, and verse, 3 vols, vol. 2: Non- Biblical glosses and scholia; Old-Irish prose; names of persons and places; inscriptions; verse; indexes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), p. 354. 261 Literally the ‘people of the mounds’, the áes sídhe are humanoid supernatural beings, often considered to be pre-Christian deities or deitized ancestors. 262 Borsje, “Druids, Deer and ‘Words of Power’”, p. 126.

Táin Bó Cúailgne Is and sin dosnáncatár cruitti Caí- Then the harpers of Caín Bile came nbili ó Ess Rúaid día n-airfitiud. In- to them from Ess Ruaid to entertain dar leó ba du thoscélad forru ó Ul- them with music. But they thought taib. Doberat toffund forru co l-lotár that the harpers had come from the rempo i n-delbaib oss íarom isna Ulstermen to spy on them. So they coirthib oc Líac Mór antúaid, ar hunted them until they went before roptar druíd co móreólas.263 them into the pillar-stones at Lía Mór in the north, transformed into deer, for (in reality) they were druids possessed of great occult knowledge...264

Ælfric’s tale of St Macarius in Lives of Saints provides an illusion of a different sort: although, once again, the transformation is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak, there is no reason given for it, and it is accomplished at the hands of nameless sorcerers—the implied villains of the short “Inter Alia”. By blessing the girl, Macarius makes it possible for the rest of the community to ‘see’ her properly:

Þa magas him [Macarius] cwædon to þeos myre þe ðu gesihst wæs ure dohtor awurðae mæden ac awyrigde dry-menn awendon hí to myran nu bidde we ðe leof þæt ðu be-bide for hí and hí eft awende to þam ðe heo ær wæs.265

The parents said to him, ‘This mare that you see was our daughter, a worshipful maiden, but accursed sorcerers changed her into a mare; now we entreat you, master, that you pray for her and change her back to what she once was.’

Recalling the transformation of the girl into a mare by sorcerers, druids opposing the men of Ossory transform an old serf into a cow in order to break a truce in The Expulsion of the Dessi:

263 Táin, p. 30. 264 Táin, p. 151. 265 Ælfric’s Lives, pp. 471-2.

100 ‘Dia mbeind hi cœmthecht na ‘If I were in the company of the nDesse, nodolbfaind boin deirg do Dessi, I should by magic shape a duiniu ⁊ nogonfaitis Osairgi, in boin man into a red cow, so that the men sin.’ of Ossory would kill that cow.’

[…] Tecait Osairgi iarum co Hinne- […] Thereupon the men of Ossory oin ⁊ fucairthir la Dil na rorubtha ⁊ come to Inneoin, and it was pro- na robeota nech dona Dessib ann. claimed by Dil that no one of the Dolbait dano druid na n-Deisse Dessi should be slain or wounded aithech hi richt bo dergce .i. Dochet there. But the druids of the Dessi a anmain, ar soire dia chlaind dogrés. formed an old serf, Docheth by Teit iarum ina ndail ⁊ cotmeil foraib name, into the shape of a red (horn- less) cow, promising freedom to his ⁊ giallaid gail ⁊ gonair forsind ath fri descendants for ever. Then the cow Indeoin aniar. Is de asberar Ath Bo went to encounter the men of Os- Deirge. Conid iarum adehonncatar sory and flings herself upon them, co mba colann duine iarna guin.266 and … and is killed at the ford west- ward of Inneoin, whence the Forde of the Red Cow is so called. And then they saw it was the body of a man that had been slain.

In all of the above examples we see an emphasis on perception and illusion. This moves the transformation narrative beyond the limits of the individual, involving the community and creating both common identities and boundaries between identities, according to who perceives what, and why. We may also observe that, with the exception of the Macarius episode, none of these illusion-transformation make use of verbs of turning, though delbaid and delb are used. This will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter, where the socio- cultural aspect of metamorphosis narratives comes in to play. For the moment we may observe that in the cases where a group of people take on a disguise of deer, they subvert, as mentioned above, the typical interaction of humans and deer: instead of being hunted, they escape. The same may be said for the unfortunate serf transformed into a cow: instead of being cultivated, he is killed. None of the transformed individuals acquire the attributes of the animals into which they are transformed, but in all cases the interpretation of the episode is affected by the symbolic and practical significance attached to the animals in question.

266 Kuno Meyer, ed. and trans., “The expulsion of the Dessi”, Y Cymmrodor 14 (1901), 101– 135 at pp. 120-1.

101 By contrast, in this account from the eleventh-century prose preface to the poem Amra Choluimb chille, where Columba turns a queen and her handmaiden into cranes as punishment for their opposition to him, we see a direct correlation between the attributes of the crane, as noted by Green, and the personal qualities of the women transformed. Note the use of soïd in the text to depict the transformation of both the queen and her handmaiden. This was neither an illusion nor a disguise:

‘Romor in chorrgainecht for a tai.’ [The queen said,] ‘Gross is the cor- ‘Is cet duitsiu,’ ar in clerech, ‘bith rgainecht (execration?) at which for corracht.’ Conid annsin ro soad- thou art!’ ‘Thou hast permission,’ si hi cuirr. Co ra gaib a hinailt iarsin says the cleric, ‘to be a-craning for athissigud in clerig, co ro soad (corracht).’ Whereupon she was sede dano hi cuirr n-aile.267 turned into a crane (corr). Thereaf- ter her handmaid fell to insulting the cleric, and she was then turned into another crane.

The OE De Consolatione Philosophiae has both a metrical and prose account of the transformation wrought by Circe on Ulysses’ men. Elizabeth Tyler has noted that the translator of De Consolatione Philosophiae is particularly interested in teaching the Anglo-Saxon audience how to think about Classical myths, whereby he assumes that Troy is already a familiar narrative framework, as well as a basic familiarity with the Roman story-world. This is particularly visible in the myth of Circe and Ulysses, where the discussion of the truth-value of fabula (translated into OE in the metrical version as leasum spellum, ‘false stories’) illustrates how one ought to read Classical myth: the language of lying predates the language of fiction, and in this case the myth is presented as something that is not true, yet still should not be dismissed.268 We may observe certain subtle differences between the metrical and prose versions of the Circe story. In the metrical version, Ulysses’ men are transformed to sumum diore swelcum he æror on his lif-dagum gelicost wæs; however, the prose version omits this detail. On the other hand, the prose version includes the detail that the transformed men eschewed human food in favour of animal food, which the metrical version omits. Both, however, make clear that normal human communication has become impossible, and both use a similar vocabulary: Circe has used her magic to ‘bind’ them in more ways than one.

267 Whitley Stokes, ed. and trans., “The Bodleian Amra Choluimb Chille”, Revue Celtique 20 (1899), 31–55, 132–183, 248–289, 400–437 at pp. 40–1. 268 Tyler, “Reading Roman Antiquity”.

102 The metrical version:

Ða ongunnon wercan wer-ðeoda spell, sædon þæt hio sceolde mid hire scinlace beornas forbredan and mid balo-cræftum wraðum weorpan on wildra lic cyninges þengas, cyspan siððan and mid racentan eac ræpan mænigne. Sume hi to wulfum wurdon, ne meahton þonne word forðbringan, ac hio þragmælum ðioton ongunnon. Sume wæron eaforas, a grymetedon ðonne hi sares hwæt siofan sciolodon. Þa ðe leon wæron ongunnon laðlice yrrenga ryn a ðonne hi sceoldon clipian for corðre. Cnihtas wurdon, ealde ge giunge, ealle forhwerfde to sumum diore swelcum he æror on his lif-dagum gelicost wæs, butan þam cyninge þe sio cwen lufode. Nolde þara oþra ænig onbitan Mennisces metes, ac hi ma lufedon diora drohtað, swa hit gedefe ne wæs Næfdon hi mare monnum gelices, eorð-buendum, ðonne in-geþonc; hæfde anra gehwylc his agen mod, þæt wæs þeah swiðe sorgum gebunden for ðæm earfoðum þe him on sæton. 269

Then people began to produce stories, said that she [Circe] supposedly transformed the men with her sorcery and changed the king’s followers with terrible evil arts into the form of wild things, and then fettered them and also tied many up with chains. Some became wolves, and could not utter words, but at intervals began to howl. Some were wild boars, and continually grunted when they were supposed to lament their sorrow. Those who were lions began continually to roar horribly in anger when they were supposed to call out to their companions. The

269 Malcoln Godden and Susan Irvine, eds. and trans., The Old English Boethius, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 504–7, metre 26.

103 men, old and young, were all turned into a particular wild animal to which each was previously most like in his lifetime, except for the king whom the queen loved. None of those others would eat human food, but they preferred the practice of wild animals, as was not fitting. They had nothing remaining similar to men, to earth dwellers, except for their minds; each one had his own mind which was however greatly bound with sorrows because of the trou- bles which oppressed it.

And the prose:

Ða ongunnon lease men wyrcan Then false men begin to tell stories, spell, ⁊ sædon þæt hio sceolde mid and say that she is to have trans- hire drycræft þa men forbredan, ⁊ formed those men with her sorcery, weorpan hi an wildedeora lic, ⁊ and turned them into wild animals [wild animals’ bodies], and then siððan slean on þa racentan ⁊ on co- struck them in chains and fetters. spas. Sume hi sædon þæt hio sceolde They say that she is to have change forsceoppan to leon, ⁊ þōn seo some to lions, and when they would sceolde sprecan, þōn ryde hio. Sume speak, then they roared. Some are to sceoldan bion eforas, ⁊ þōn hi sce- have been boars, and when the oldan hiora sar siofian, þōn grymet- would lament their suffering, then odan hi. Sume wurdon to wulfan; þa they grunted. Some became wolves ðuton, þōn hi sprecan sceoldon. who howled when they would Sume wurdon to þā deorcynne þe speak. Some became that kind of an- mon hat tigris. Swa wearð eall se ge- imal that one calls tiger. Thus all the ferscipe for hwerfed to mistlicum group was changed to different deorcynnum, ælc to sumū diore, forms of animals, each to some ani- buton þā cyninge anū. Ælcne mete hi mal, except for the king alone. They onscunedon þe men etað, ⁊ wil- abhorred each food that humans eat, nodon þara þe deor etaþ. Næfdon hi and only wanted that which animals nane anlicnesse manna ne on licho- eat. They didn’t have any similarity man ne on stemne ⁊ ælc wisste þeah to humans either in body or voice his gewit swa swa he ær wisste. Þæt and each knew through his mind gewit was swiðe sorgiende for þā er- that which he knew before. That mðum ðe hi drogan.270 mind was exceedingly sorrowful for the misery that he bore.

270 Boethius vol. 1, pp. 350–1, prose 38.

104 In the Reference Bible, we also find reference to Circe’s transformation of Ulysses men, alongside a rare reference to the Arcadians who swam across a pool to be turned into wolves. Augustine’s De Civitate Dei XVIII.17–18 is the clear source. The mention of Circe, quae socios Ulixis motauit in bestias (‘who changed Ulysses’ companions into beasts’), and Arcades […] conuertuntur in lupos (‘the Arcadians […] who were changed into wolves’) are juxtaposed with Noah’s son Cham, who took with him engraved magical instructions on to the ark and, after the flood, taught himself magice artes et male cantationes, unde homines uertuntur in lupos, et in iumenta et assinos, et in aues (‘magic arts and evil incantaions, from which humans were turned into wolves, and into mules and asses, and into birds’).271 Although the references are taken almost directly from Augustine, it is interesting to note that the only example given is that of human transformation into different animals. We may observe here a predominance of verbs of turning, which makes the potential of the Arcadians to be ‘reformed’ (reformantur) should they fulfill the condition of not eating human meat for nine years particularly poignant (though the author does conform quite closely to the vocabulary of the source text). Classical myth provides us with another transformation. Aldhelm’s Enig- mata also contains a reference to Scylla, who, like Ulysses’ men becomes transformed through Circe’s ire. However, Scylla does not change shape entirely, but becomes a monstrous hybrid: one of the few in our corpus. Although hybrids become a popular literary and iconographic device in the twelfth century,272 within our corpus they are not especially prominent.

XCV. Ecce molorosum nomen mihi fata dederunt (Argolicae gentis sic promit lingua loquelis) Ex quo me dirae fallebant carmina Circae Quae fontis liquidi maculabat flumina verbis! Femora cum cruribus suras cum poplite bino Abstulit immiscens crudelis verba virago, Pignora nunc pavidi referent ululantia nautae Tonsis dum trudunt classes et caerula findunt. Vastos verrentes fluctus grassante procella

271 Gerard MacGinty, ed., The Reference bible – Das Bibelwerk: Pauca problesmata de enigmatibus ex tomis canonicis. Praefatio et Libri de Pentateucho Moysi (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), pp. 104–5, §239. This section expands on Genesis 6:2–4, wherein the sons of Seth take daughters of Cain to wife. Thence come the monstrous races, as well as the diabolic arts. The magic arts inscribed in stone receive an earlier, briefer mention when the author explicates Genesis 1:27 (pp. 63–4, §154–5), where again Cam [sic] is the source of monsters and of the magic arts, which again specifically includes transforming humans into animals (here only wolves, asses, and birds). 272 See in particular the works of Caroline Walker Bynum for shapeshifting and hybridity in the twelfth century, esp. Metamorphosis and Identity.

105 Palmula qua remis succurit panda per undas, Ascultare procul quae latrant inguina circum, Sic me pellexit dudum Titania proles, Ut merito vivam salsis in fluctibus exul.273

95. Behold my canine name – bestowed by fate (as Greek vocabularies demonstrate) When spells of dreaded Circe stained clear flow Of fountains – she whose words deceived me! The evil witch’s bitter words relieved me Of shinbones, thighs with calves, along with knees, The wailing sailors claim now, as they row Their vessels with their oars and cleave blue seas. When thrashing through the tempests’ driving spray With broad-blade oars that slice right through the water, From near my loins they hear my distant bay, Thus showing I was tricked by Titan’s daughter As on salt waves I’m justly sent away.

Serial Shapeshifting Scél Tuán meic Chairill, Tochmarc Étaíne, Fled Bricrenn, Immram Brain and Immacallam Choluim Cille ⁊ ind óclaig all have one particular feature in common: They are all cases of what Bernhardt-House has called ‘serial shapeshifting’,274 where one particular character undergoes a series of transformations, typically over an extremely long period of time. Tuán, for example, seems to live an entire lifetime in each shape before he moves on to the next one; Étaíne spends nearly a thousand years outside of human form after having been the victim of Fuamnach’s jealousy-inspired magic; Mongan of the Immram Brain is also said to persist for many years. Both Tuán and Étaíne reach their final incarnation when they are finally conceived and reborn as humans. In the Im- macallam, Mongan relates his knowledge according to when he went in a particular form, and Collum Cille consults him for history of and information about Ireland, similar to the manner of information which Tuán appears to possess. The implication is that even though he appears as a youth, Mongan is deceptively ancient. Only Uath from Fled Bricrenn remains something of a mystery, but the fact that he has the mysterious sirite to describe implies that there may be a profound aspect to his character that has been lost. They echo the shapeshifting capacity of the Morrígan which we see in the Táin, and like

273 A. M. Juster, ed. and trans., Saint Aldhelm’s ‘Riddles’ (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015), pp. 58–9. 274 Bernhardt-House, Werewolves, Magical Hounds, e.g. p. 123.

106 the illusory episodes above, verbs of turning do not predominate as they do in the Latin and Old English episodes. In the cases (nearly every one except Uath) where the shapes an individual has assumed (or will assume) are listed, the animals are nearly all wild, and place the transformed individual outside of human community. Étaíne’s time as an insect is debatable: she spends much of her insect life battered about by magical winds, but during moments of calm does rejoin her people. Tuán does join the animal communities whose shape he shares, but this is not specified in the other cases. These animals are all animals of high status, including wolves, boar, salmon (a symbol of wisdom), deer or stag, and swans. Although acquiring the traits of these animals is not given as a motivating factor, the fact that the voluntary transformations can take place, and to such high-status animals, increases the status of the individual themselves.

Where Wolves? Although werewolves as we know them from later medieval and earlier classical literature are elusive in our period, we do see traces of regional develop- ments that would come to contribute to later literary tradition. And, as werewolf studies often, with varying degrees of critical engagement, attempt either to project the high medieval ‘Werewolf’s Tale’275 back into the early medieval period, or to draw a red thread of werewolf tradition from The Epic of Gilga- mesh through Antiquity through to the Renaissance, it is worth taking a moment to examine the evidence (or lack thereof) for werewolves in the early Christian period. ‘Werewolves’ as a discrete category of anthropometamor- phosis with its own mythology or pathology does not see as consistent interest and deployment within our corpus of transformation narratives as in later High Medieval source material. It is in the High Medieval werewolf narratives, as discussed in Chapter One, that much of the scholarship surrounding shapeshifting coalesces. In England, some of the most famous werewolf texts are also the earliest: Marie de France’s Anglo-Norman lai Bisclavret (late 12th century) was very popular in England, and Gerald of Wales composed his Topographia Hibernica (ca. 1188) shortly after the Norman invasion of Ire- land.276 Across the Celtic Sea, although Bernhardt-House’s study revealed a

275 See Leslie Sconduto, Metamorphoses of the Werewolf: A Literary Study from Antiquity Through the Renaissance (Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2008), pp. 3ff. 276 The Welsh collection of tales, Mabinogion, also contains many shapeshifting narratives of various kinds. Although the earliest manuscripts containing the collection date to the fourteenth century, current scholarly consensus dates the tales themselves to ca. 1060–1200, and they are surely based on older oral traditions. While fascinating in their own right as well as in relation to works such as the romances of Chrétien de Troyes and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, they are of less direct relevance here, and sadly remain beyond the scope of the present study.

107 multitude of metamorphoses between humans and canids, anything approaching a coherent ‘tradition’ of werewolves in Irish texts (both vernacular and Hiberno-Latin) doesn’t quite begin to take shape until the twelfth century or so, and nearly all the available evidence for such a tradition postdates the year 1000, as mentioned in Chapter One.277 Nevertheless, the roots of the tradition of werewolves in Ossory can be seen already in the period covered by this study, and frequently involve the verb fáelad and variations of the noun conricht discussed in the previous chapter. Perhaps one of the most cited examples of this verb appears in Cóir Anmann:

Cóir Anmann (Fitness of Names) Laighnech Faeladh .i. fer eissidhe no Laignech Fáelad, that is, he was the theghedh fri faeladh .i. i conr[e]ach- man that used to shift into fáelad, taibh .i. ar[e]achtaibh na mac tire i.e. wolf-shapes. He and his off- téghedh intan ba h-áil dó, & teighdís spring after him used to go, when- a sil ina dheóidh, & domharbhdáis na ever they pleased, into the shapes of h-indile fó bés na mac tíre, conadh wolves, and, after the custom of aire sin isberthí Laighnech Fáeladh wolves, kill the herds. Wherefore he fris-sium, ar is é cétna dochóidh i was called Laignech Fáelad, for he conrecht díbh.278 was the first of them to go into a wolf-shape.

However, as Carey notes, this particular entry

is to be found only in the expanded recension of Cóir Anmann edited by Stokes from TCD MS 1337 (H.3.18), not in the shorter recension represented by the [older] Book of Ballymote, the Book of Lecan, and two manuscripts in Edin- burgh. Secondly, the entry is evidently based directly on the passage […] from the copy of De Ingantaib Érenn in TCD 1336. […] Whatever the interest of the Cóir Anmann entry may be, it cannot be cited as an independent witness.279

There are two versions of the story in De Ingantaib Érenn (On the Wonders of Ireland), one from MS 1336 in Dublin’s Trinity College and the other from the Book of Ballymote. Although the former includes detail not present in the shorter passage in the Book of Ballymote (often assumed to indicate a younger date for the version in TCD MS 1336), both texts are firmly Middle Irish, and it is not possible to establish one as antedating the other. Although De Ingantaib Érenn is slightly late to be included in the shapeshifting corpus for this study, it is worth quoting here for illustrative purposes:

277 Carey, “Werewolves”, p. 71. 278 “Cóir anmann (Fitness of names)”, pp. 376–7. 279 Carey, “Werewolves”, p. 55.

108 De Ingantaib Érenn280

Dublin, Trinity College, MS 1336 Atait aroile daine a nErínd .i. síl There are certain people in Ireland, Laighne Faelaid a nOsraighe, tiagaid i.e., the descendants of Laigne[ch] a richtaib mac tire in tan as aíl leó, ⁊ Faelad in Ossory, who go into the marbaid na hindile fo bes na mac tire, shapes of wolves when it pleases ⁊ fagbaid a churpu fein. In tan tiagaid them, and they kill livestock in the asna conrachtaibh, aichnigid dia manner of wolves. And they leave muinteraib can a corpu do chum- their own bodies. When they go into hscugud. Ar dia cumscaidhter, ni fet- the shape of wolves, they tell their fad teacht taris asna corpaib; ⁊ dia households not to move their bod- crechtnaighter amuich beid na ies, for if they are moved they will crechta sin na corpaib andsna tighaib not be able to come back into their bodies. And if they are wounded ⁊ bigh in feoil derg caithaid amuich [while] outside, those wounds will ana fiaclaibh. be in their bodies at home; and the raw meat which they devoured outside will be in their teeth.

Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, MS 23 P 12 (Book of Ballymote) Sil in fælchon i nOsraigibh ata. Aisdi The descendants of the wolf are in ingnad acu. Delbait iat i conaib altaid Ossory. They have a wonderful ⁊ tiagait iat i conrechtaib ⁊ dia property. They transform them- marbtar iat ⁊ feoil ina m-belaib is selves into wolves, and go forth in amlaid biid na cuirp asa tiagat; ⁊ the form of wolves, and if they hap- aithnít dia muinteraib nar fogluaister pen to be killed with flesh in their a cuirp. air dia n-gluaister ní thicfad- mouths, it is in the same condition sum chucu semper. that the bodies out of which they have come will be found; and they command their families not to remove the bodies, because if they are moved, they could never come into them again.

280 Both quotations from: James Henthorn Todd, Leabhar Breathnach annso sis: the Irish version of the Historia Britonum of Nennius, (Dublin: Irish Archaeological Society, 1848), pp. 204–5.

109 This tradition of the rulers of the region of Ossory becoming werewolves is also present in Gerald of Wales’ infamous episode in his Topographia Hiber- nica281, as well as the Old Norse Konungs Skuggsjá (King’s Mirror).282 The Irish-produced witnesses to the tradition, De Ingantaib Érenn and a poem er- roneously attributed to Bishop Patrick of Dublin, De Mirabilibus Hibernie (On the Wonders of Ireland)283 nevertheless resemble each other most closely, and both present us with a specific detail not present in the other two: that the person projects an aspect of themselves in wolf form, while their body lies motionless (and indeed must remain so while they are outwith it).284 This specific type of self-projection or doubling is uncommon in medieval Irish literature in comparison with other forms of shapeshifting, and, as far as I am aware, absent in the early medieval material from both England and Ireland.285 Nevertheless, the association with the ruling family of Ossory with odd occurrences concerning wolves (and, indeed, with names including the element fael,

281 With, however, significant adaptations: In Gerald’s version, the werewolf status is not inherited but the result of a bishop’s curse; moreover, he adds the detail of pulling back the werewolf’s fur/skin to reveal a human form beneath, and that of the priest administering the Eucha- rist to the male werewolf’s dying mate. This scene, the administering of the Eucharist, can be seen as the cover image to this book. For a more thorough comparison, see Carey, “Were- wolves”; for analysis of Gerald’s werewolf narrative itself see especially Bynum, “Gerald and the Werewolf”. 282 Again, while the narrative is clearly related to the same tradition that Gerald draws upon, it contains some differences both to the Irish texts that witness the putative ‘Werewolves of Os- sory’ tradition, and to Gerald of Wales’ interpretation. It bears a passing resemblance to St Patrick’s encounter with King Corictic, but I am not aware of any likelihood that Muirchú’s Vita would have been known (either as a discrete work, excerpted, or as references) to the author of the Konungs Skuggsjá. 283 For the attribution and dating of De Mirabilibis Hibernie, see Boyle, “On the Wonders of Ireland”, pp. 234ff. 284 For a description of the phenomenon of ‘doubling’ see Claude Lecouteux, Fées, Sorcières et Loups-garous (Paris: Éditions Imago, 1992), esp. ch. 6. Carey draws a parallel between the self-projection as wolves with a mantic technique known as imbas forosnai described in Sanas Cormaic (Cormac’s Glossary), where the filid, or poet, chews a piece of raw meat (pig, dog, or cat) then sleeps in order to receive inspiration; during this time, their body may not be moved. Although I see Carey’s point, to me the parallels are closer with the practice of incubation for knowledge (as opposed to healing), selectively present in both Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon sources. Carey, “Werewolves”, p. 56; Knight, “Incubation in Bede”, in preparation. 285 Exactly how great an element such doubling or soul journeys formed in textually-invisible English, Pictish, British, or Irish folklore is difficult to say; as Clive Tolley has pointed out, these practices form an integral part of the shamanistic practices of the Sámi, as well as of Siberian societies; and even the Finno-Ugric groups who migrated south to present-day Hun- gary appear to have preserved certain shamanic cultural elements. Episodes in Icelandic literature, such as Böðvar Bjarki’s bear projection in Hrólfs saga kraka, indicates that the practice was known to or even familiar to Icelandic writers at the latest in the High Middle Ages, even if it is unlikely that the pre-Christian Scandinavian society practiced shamanism itself. Clive Tolley, Shamanism in Norse Myth and Magic (Helsinki: Academica Scientiarum Fennica, 2009).

110 wolf) does appear elsewhere, though it must be said that the shapeshifting element is not present in these sources. This aspect of the Laignech Faelad part of the ‘Werewolves of Ossory’ tradition will be discussed in more detail below. Suffice at the moment to say that the evidence for a distinct werewolf tradition located in Ossory appears to have coalesced in the eleventh century, building upon the wordplay of Laignech Faelad’s name and more disparate canid-human strands existing in other, earlier contexts. One of these contexts is the Old Irish tale from the Ulster Cycle, Togail Bruidne Da Derga (Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel), where the lexeme faelad appears in connection with another term, díberg, which denotes marauding or pillaging. The translation of faelad as ‘were-wolfing’ by Stokes likely draws upon its presence in Cóir Anmann, where going fri faeladh does mean ‘to go into wolf-shape’, but it is likely that by the time of the later recension of Cóir Anmann (which is the only one where this term appears), a certain semantic shift had already taken place: Carey suggests that faelad in this context might be better understood as ‘being like a wolf’, connecting to the concept of díberg by drawing on the association of wolves with a danger to herds, and thus to one’s livelihood.

Togail Bruidne Da Derga (Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel) Onni iarum ros-gab miad ⁊ imtholtu Since, then, pride and willfulness iat, gabsat dibe[i]rg co maccaib possessed them, they took to ma- flaithi fer n-Erenn impu. Tri choecait rauding, surrounded by the sons of fear doib. intan badar oc faelad i the lords of the men of Erin. Thrice crich Connacht occa munud…286 fifty men had they as pupils when they (the pupils) were were-wolfing in the province of Connaught…

Another pair of texts of limited application to this study, but similarly impossible to pass over in the context of werewolves, are Wulfstan’s homily XLI, “Words from the Prophet Ezekiel on lazy, timid, or negligent priests”, and the Laws of Cnut.287 The reason for this is that in this homily, and in this paragraph of Cnut’s law, we find the first attested uses of the word werewulf. It is used, however, in an entirely allegorical sense: rather than depicting a human-wolf metamorphosis or hybrid, it draws upon the well-established motif of the Christian community as a herd and the priest as the herd’s shepherd, as well as of the devil and those motivated by evil as a wolf, well known from the

286 Whitley Stokes, ed. and trans., “The destruction of Dá Derga’s hostel”, Revue Celtique 22 (1901), 9–61, 165–215, 282–329, 390–437, 260 (erratum), at pp. 29–30, §20. 287 The precise location is I Cnut 26,3; the designation I Cnut refers to Cnut’s Winchester Code (1020 or 1021). A facsimile of Felix Liebermann’s edition, found in Felix Lieberman, ed., Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 3 vols. (Halle, 1903–1916), 278–370, is available via Early English Laws. Online source available at: http://www.earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk/

111 image of the Good Shepherd used in John 10:1–21. The shepherd-priests must protect their flock, so that these wolf-men, humans motivated by evil and the devil, do not attack members of the flock.

Souls of the Dead as Birds Both Anglo-Saxon England and early medieval Ireland present us with examples of the souls of the dead appearing to people in the form of birds. Is this a form of shapeshifting? Upon consideration, the answer to this question becomes surprisingly complex. Verbs of transformation as discussed in the previous chapter do not appear in this context. What transforms is also specifically the human soul, not the human body or the holistic human. Nevertheless, nouns consistent with other transformations are used regarding the ‘form’ that the soul takes; that is, that of a bird. This is a fairly common motif in hagiography, where onlookers observe the soul of a saint or martyr proceed from the holy person’s body typically in the form of a dove. However, Old Irish sources, particularly within the immrama (journey-tale) genre, work with this theme slightly differently, and without a great deal of mutual consistency.

One example from The Voyage of the Húi Corra:

Atbath in crosan acu iarsin, ⁊ batar Thereafter the jester died on board cutoirsech dobronach de sin. Amal and they were sad and sorry thereat. robatar ann co bfacadar in t-en beg As they were there they saw the lit- ar bord in churaid, conud ann asbert tle bird on the gunwale of the boat, an t-en: ‘Ar Dhia ribh, a daine, and then the bird said: ‘For God’s innisidh dam adhbhur bur toirsi.’ sake, O men, tell me the cause of your sadness.’

‘Crosan bec bui againn ag oirfited ‘We had a little jester delighting us, duin, ⁊ atbath o chianuib isin curuch, and he died a short time ago in the ⁊ is e [sin] adhbur ar toirsi.’ boat, and that is the cause of our sadness’

‘Is misi bur crosan,’ ar in t-en, ‘ocus ‘I am your jester,’ says the bird, ‘and na biti-si bronach ni is mo, oir be not mournful any more, for I ragatsa for nemh anosa.’288 shall now go to heaven.’

288 Whitley Stokes, ed. and trans., “The voyage of the Huí Corra”, Revue Celtique 14 (1893), 22–69 at pp. 42–3, ch. 46.

112 Within The Voyage of the Húi Corra, souls who become birds may experience a variety of fates; the motif appears on several occasions, and in each case the only common factor is the fact that the soul of a dead human has assumed the shape of a bird. Following the jester who ascends to Heaven, the travelers come to a disciple of Andrew the apostle, kept company on his island by birds; he tells the travelers, an enlaith atchithisi anmanna daine naemtha iat (‘the birds you see are the souls of holy human beings’).289 Later, the travelers are visited by another bird messenger:

Crodha a dhath in eoin hi sin .i. tri Vivid was the colour of that bird, to ruithni ailli edrochta cu soillsi grene wit, in its breast were three beauti- ina broinn. ful bright rays, with a sun’s radi- ance.

‘A tir n-Erenn damsa,’ ar in t-en, ‘⁊ ‘Of the land of Erin am I,’ quoth the ainim bannscaile me, ⁊ mances duitsi bird, ‘and I am the soul of a woman, mhé,’ ar si frisin sruith. and I am a monkess unto thee,’ she saith to the elder.

[…] ‘Ticidh tra docum inuidh aili,’ ar […] ‘Come ye to another place,’ in t-en, ‘do eistecht na henlai(the) ut. saith the bird, ‘to hearken to yon Is iat na henlaithi atchithisi, na birds. The birds that ye see are the hanmunna tecuit fo dhommhnach a souls that come on Sunday out of hifern.’290 hell.’

While colour itself does not appear to indicate virtue – the birds who are souls come out of Hell are themselves of many colours – ‘brightness’ does: the bird who speaks in the quotation above would have been more brightly coloured, she tells the Húi Corra, had she been a more dutiful wife in life.291 The anonymous Vita of Gregory the Great produced at Whitby takes the motif of the saint’s soul departing the body in the form of a bird and magnifies it: not a dove, but a swanlike bird bears Gregory’s soul to Heaven. Whether the increase in size and beauty is meant to be a marker of the Vita-writer’s

289 “Huí Corra”, pp. 44–5, ch. 52. 290 “Huí Corra”, pp. 48–9, ch. 46. 291 For a consideration of early Irish colour theory, see A. K. Siewers, “The bluest-greyest- greenest eye: Colours of martyrdom and colours of the winds as iconographic landscape”, Cam- brian Medieval Celtic Studies 50 (2005), 31–66.

113 great esteem for Gregory the Great, or, as Colgrave suggests, the swan refers back to the Old Norse fylgja,292 is unclear.

O piissime pater, Domine Deus om- O most merciful Father, Lord God nipotens, licet predictam beati Gre- Almighty, though as we have seen gorii minime mereremur presentiam, we were not worthy to have St. per eum tamen tibi semper sit gra- Gregory with us in person, yet we tiarum action doctoris nostri Paulini, continually give Thee thanks for our quem in fine suo fidelem tibi os- teacher Paulinus, who, through tendisti. Nam fertur a videntibus Gregory’s agency, became our quod huius viri anima in cuiusdam teacher. And at his last moment magne, qualis est cignus, alba specie Thou didst show him to be faithful avis, satisque pulchra, quando mori- to Thee, because it is related by tur migrasset ad cȩlum.293 some who saw it that, when he died, his soul journeyed to heaven in the form of an exceedingly beautiful great white bird, like a swan.

As noted in the introduction to this chapter, the Christian motif of the souls of the dead as birds encounters transformation and even bird projections, which similarly blur the line between free movement of the soul, metempsychosis, and shapeshifting. The beautiful and magically powerful Cáer, from the story Aislinge Oengusso, transforms regularly into a swan, and Óengus transforms himself into a swan to be with her. Both Óengus and Cáer, however, are dem- igods with Otherworldly heritage. Augustinus Hibernicus appears to refer in this offhand comment to a storytelling tradition, or indeed potentially belief, similar to that of the serial shapeshifting above:

…ridiculosis magorum fabulationi- We would seem, indeed to give our bus dicentium in avium substantia assent to the laughable tales told by majores suos sæcula pervolasse, as- the druids, who say that their for- sensum præstare videbimur…294 bears flew through the ages in the form of birds…295

292 For an overview of fylgjur see Tolley, Shamanism, pp. 226ff. and pp. 242ff. For a reassess- ment of specifically the female fylgjur-figure, see Zuzana Stankovitsova, ‘Following up on Fe- male Fylgjur: A Re-Examination of the Concept of Female fylgjur in Old Icelandic Literature’ in Ármann Jakobsson and Miriam Mayburd (eds.), Paranormal Encounters in Iceland 1150- 1400 (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2019), forthcoming. 293 The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great, pp. 100–1. 294 Sancti Aurelii Augustini, p. 2164. 295 John Carey, King of Mysteries (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998), p. 58.

114 Animals into Humans The transformation of animals into humans is exceedingly rare across the corpus. The vast majority of the time, if an animal transforms into a human it is because that animal had itself previously been human. There are, however, some exceptions to this.

Secular Transformation One might be tempted to categorize transformations that occur outside of religious narratives as ‘magical’ rather than the less arresting ‘secular’; however, the presence of magic is an imperfect criterion for identifying non-religious narrative: various kinds of magic and sorcery (and actions that look like magic or sorcery) appear in hagiographies and similar narratives. At the same time, heroic and mythological narratives often presume a world where supernatural phenomena occur as a matter of course, and thus do not mark phenomena that present-day readers might interpret as ‘magical’ as such. For example, the bird-man who visits Mess Buachalla in Togail Bruidne Da Derga has no implication of magical status or ability even as he doffs his bird-skin:

Intan didu bui ann dadaig conacca in Now while she was there the next n-en forsin forless addochum, ⁊ fa- morning she saw a Bird on the sky- caib a enchendaich for lar in tigi, ⁊ light coming to her, and he leaves luid chuict[h]e, ⁊ ardagaib…296 his birdskin on the floor of the house, and went to her and captured her…

Similarly, when their son inadvertently hunts his father’s people:

Fosraemet ind eoin forsin tuind. The birds betake themselves on the Luid-seom chucu co tabart a laim wave. He went to them and over- tairrsiu. Fofacbad na heoin a n- came them. The birds quit their enchendcha, ⁊ imda-suat fair co birdskins, and turn upon him with ngaib ocus claidbib. Aincithi fer dib spears and swords. One [man] of he […]297 them protects him […]

Here nothing sets the bird-men apart from normal birds except for the fact that they are ‘of unusual size and colour and beauty’, and Némglan, who above steps forward to protect Conaire, is described in the text as a fer, the standard word for ‘man’.

296 “Dá Derga’s hostel”, p. 20, §7. 297 “Dá Derga’s hostel”, pp. 23–5, §13.

115 Transformations in Religious Narratives One’s religious or spiritual transformation may be expressed metaphorically through one’s transformation from a negatively-valued animal, to a human. Ælfric provides us with one example in the ‘Cathedra Sancti Petri’ entry from his Lives of Saints:

We wyllað eow secgan sceortlice þas getacnunge þ[æt] fyþer-scyte fæt mid þam fulum nytenum hæfde getacnunge ealles hæðenes folces þe on fyðer-scytum middan-earde fullice leofdon ac crist hí geclænsode . þurh his tocyme on worulde and forþi cwæþ se stemn clypigende to petre þæt he hine gereordode mid þam reþenum nytenum forþan þe hi wæron geclænsode þurh cristes þrowunge and he sceolde hi awendan of þam wyrm-hiwe þurh soðe lare to gesceadwisnysse and to manna gelycnysse of þam laðum hiwe.298

We will now tell you shortly the interpretation. The four-cornered vessel with the foul beasts had for signification all heathen nations, who, in the four quarters of the earth, lived foully, but Christ cleansed them by His coming into the world; and therefore said the voice, crying to Peter, that he should feed himself with the fierce beasts, because they were cleansed through Christ’s passion, and He was to turn them from the likeness of the serpent by true doctrine unto reason, and to the likeness of men from that loathsome form.

298 Ælfric’s Lives, pp. 224–7, ll. 96–104.

116 Animals into Animals A final category of transformation is that in which a non-human animal transforms into a non-human animal, but where the text makes clear that the animal at both stages represents a human person. This is different from cases of rhetorical metamorphosis, explored in more detail below, because while the author of the text is clearly mapping certain specific animal characteristics on the human subject, they also include an explicit metamorphosis between two states of being. For an example we may once again turn to Ælfric, this time the birth of the virgin St. Eugenia from Lives of Saints:

Heo þeah on lare þæs rihtan geleafan and ón godeundlicum gewyrtum mid gódum wyllan and wearð awend of wulfe to sceape.299

She increased in the doctrine of the true faith, and in divine writ, with a good will, and was changed […] from a wolf to a sheep.

Also uncommon, but nevertheless present, are monstrous animals who are said to be able to shape-shift into other animals without any explicit reference to humans:

Et dicunt bestias esse nocturnas, et And they say that there are night- non tam bestias quam dira prodigia, beasts, and not so much beasts as quia nequaquam in luce, sed in um- grim prodigies, since they are never bris cernuntur nocturnis. Quas fer- seen in the light, but in the noctur- unt in omnium bestiarum formas se nal shadows. They say that these uertere posse dum insequentium are able to change themselves into timore perturbantur.300 the shapes of all beasts when they are disturbed by the fear of pursu- ers.

Finally there are animals that transform, or change appearance, in a way not consistent with normal change (or at least not regarded as normal by the text), such as the sheep in The Voyage of Máel Dúin:

Matain moch in treas lái iar sain Early in the morning of the third day adchiad indsi n-aile ⁊ sonnach thereafter they saw another island umaighi tara medhon ro rand an indsi and a brazen fence over its middle ar dó ⁊ adchiad treta mora do cairib which divided the island in two and

299 Ælfric’s Lives, pp. 30–1, ll. 98–100. 300 Liber Monstrorum, pp. 298–9, II.20.

117 indti .i. tred gel frisind sondach andiu they saw big flocks of sheep therein ⁊ tred dub fris anall ⁊ fer mor ic deli- : a white flock on this side of the ugud na caerach. amal focerdedh in fence and a black flock on the other cairig find darsin sondach cosna side, and a big man separating the caercho duba ba dub fo cétoir. amal flocks. Whenever he threw a white doroisedh na cairigh duba darsin sheep over the fence to the black sonnach ille cusna finda batis finda sheep it became black at once. fo cetoir. Btar imeaclaighsiom oga Whenever the black sheep were put féghad sin.301 over the fence to the far side to the white ones they became white at once. They were adread at seeing that.

Shapeshifting in verbis On occasion we may find transformations between human and animal states that are metaphorical in character, despite the fact that the text itself does not contain a transformation episode. This may be accomplished through a metaphor that, by means of its comparative force, effects a transformation of its subject. These more figurative transformations correspond to the category that Noacco identifies as metamorphosis in verbis, and which she contrasts to actual metamorphoses; i.e., metamorphoses in factis.302 The subsequent section, ‘behavioural metamorphosis’, discusses implied transformations, or cases in which the appearance of transformation is secondary to a behavioural one. As we shall see, these are largely variations on the theme of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness and exile in the Book of Daniel, and nearly all of them come from Anglo-Saxon sources.303 A less extreme version of this subtype is the person who assumes the role of an animal as an act of restitution; such an occurrence appears almost exclusively in Irish sources.

Implied Metamorphosis Certain rhetorical strategies of comparing humans and animals cause a kind of ‘implied metamorphosis’ whereby through an assimilation of human with animal characteristics the human subject loses human status within the narrative. It should be noted that in the following examples, this loss of human

301 Máel Dúin, pp. 124–5, §12. 302 Noacco, “De la metamorphose”, pp. 33–9. 303 We see an echo of this in the Middle Irish tale Buile Suibhne (The Madness of Sweeney); however, although Suibhne’s name appears as early as the ninth century, Buile Suibhne is not likely to have taken its current form until the twelfth century, and thus falls outwith the scope of this study.

118 status is paramount: the comparison highlights a certain shared characteristic between a given human and animal species, but explicitly at the expense of the human being’s own humanity. Although not a central text for our purposes, it is worth taking another look at Cóir Anmann; specifically at §183, where Fullón is described as “the first druid who ever put a spell on hair (dluí) to set a man wandering. Thence it has been called dluí fulla ‘hair of vagrancy’ since by the Irish.” In the eighth-century legal compilation of distraint, known as Di Chetharslicht Athgabála, a category of person designated fulla in the main text bears the gloss, “i.e. a vagrant. […], i.e. an unattached person who travels from place to place.” McCone observes that

Dásachtach basically refers to a man or beast possessed by animal frenzy and the díberg-band of the three Rúad-choin ‘Red Hounds’ is accompanied by a dám dásachtach ‘rabid retinue’ in Togail Bruidne Da Derga, §43, but a gloss on the legally incompetent dásachtaig in Córus Béscnai defines them as those ‘upon whom the dlaí fulla is put’.304

McCone interprets this as a condition not unlike the Old Norse concept of outlawry, where the outlaw is known as a vargr, one of the words for ‘wolf’. Because he sees díberg as a practice of raiding that creates wolves out of its packs of young men who lack property, and by extension as a liminal phase of initiation into the landed economy of the túath, or settled society, he argues that the ‘hair of vagrancy’ put on people creates werewolves out of them. This is a little bit of a stretching of the evidence for my liking, and although the raiders are often narratively compared to wolves, I do not agree that this comparison extended to a loss of human status, even if they had been relegated to outsider status. I differ therefore from McCone in interpreting díberg as implying werewolfery or any particular loss of human status. The clearest example of a comparison of human to animal nature that ultimately appears to eclipse and erase the human status is to be found in the Old English version of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae, the relevant passage of which bears quotation in its entirety:

Gif þu on hwilcum men ongitst þæt If you see in some person that he is he bið gitsere and reafere, ne scealt greedy and a robber, you must not þu hine na hatan mon ac wulf; and call him a human but a wolf; and the þone reðan þe bið þweorteme ðu fierce person who is quarrelsome scealt hatan hund nalles man; and you must call a dog not a human; þone lease lytegan þu scealt hatan and the false deceiver you must call fox næs man; and þone ungemetlice a fox not a human; and the exces- modgan and yrsiendan þe to micelne sively proud and angry person who

304 McCone, “Juvenile Delinquency”, p. 16.

119 andan hæfð þu scealt hatan leo næs has too much malice, you must call man; and þone sænan þ e bið swa a lion not a human; and the sluggish slaw þu scealt hatan assa ma þonne person who is so slow you must call man; and þone ungemetlice eargan donkey rather than human; and the þe him ondræt ma þonne he þyrfe ðu excessively fearful person who is meaht hatan hara ma þonne mon; and frightened than he needs to be, you þæm ungestæððegan and þæm galan can call hare rather than human; and þu meaht secgan ðæt he bið winde of the unstable and frivolous person gelicra oððe unstillum fugelum you can say that he is more like the þonne gemetfæstum monnum; and wind or restless birds than sober hu- þæm þe ðu ongitst þætte ligð on his mans; and one of whom you see to lichoman lustum, þæt he bið anlicost be lying in bodily pleasures, that he fættum swinum þe symle willað is most like fat pigs who always licgan on fulum solum, and hy næfre want to lie in foul mud, and they nellað aswylian on hluttrum will never wash themselves in pure wætrum; ac þeah hi seldum hwonne waters; but even if they are occa- beswemde weorðen, þonne sleað hi sionally washed, then they throw eft on ða solu and bewealwiað hi themselves again into the mud and þæran.305 wallow in it.

This passage contains no explicit reference to metamorphosis; indeed, here we see the work of simile, with the mapping of one domain onto another (i.e. the animal onto the human) occurring at a precise point and because of a specific similarity. Nevertheless, through his vices the human subject emerges transformed. The presentation of this comparison does not merely liken the vice- ridden human to the animal that represents that vice; it strips the malefactor of human status entirely.

Behavioural Transformations Transformations by means of behaviour rather than appearance, which are themselves not connected to any manner of rhetorical comparison between humans and animals, occur in very few contexts. The figure of Nebuchadnez- zar, and the motif of the man who assumes the role of a guard or hunting dog as compensation for having killed a dog of that kind, are the most significant examples of such a transformation.

Nebuchadnezzar One of the earliest descriptions of Nebuchadnezzar’s transformation from an English or Irish source appears in Aldhelm’s Carmen de virginitate:

305 The Old English Boethius, pp. 306–7, prose 26.

120 Arbore sed procera signatum iure tyrannum Mox intellegit praesago pectore vatis, Cuius caelestis contrivit sceptra potestas, Tempora torquerent donec septena superbum, Ut merito fugiens dumosis saltibus erret Et, dum dispexit torrentis flagra Tonantis, Squalidus hirsutus peteret myrteta luporum Quadripedum socius factus sine mente tyrannus.306

…but [Daniel], in his prophetic heart, knew straightaway that by the high tree a tyrant was rightly signified, whose rule the power of heaven would destroy, while seven times would pass over and torment the proud king [Dan.IV.22], so that deservedly he would flee to roam in the bushy woodlands and, as long as he perceived the scourge of the raging Thunderer, squalid and shaggy he would seek the myrtle-groves inhabited by wolves – the tyrant, demented, having become a companion of four-footed beasts.307

It is important to note here the common trope within hagiography of wild animals submitting to saints, and also of saints who live out in the wilderness: these holy people retain their humanness even as they interact with animals in an unusual way, or live outside of the human community in places normally inhabited only by animals. Nebuchadnezzar, in contrast, is frequently described as a ‘companion’ of wild animals, and appears to become their equal up to and including the alteration of his appearance.

This echoes the description given by the translator of Boethius’s De Consola- tione Philosophiae regarding human people who have ‘departed from’ good and become evil:

§5 Eall þæt þætte annesse hæfð, þæt §5 […] Everything that has one- we secgað þætte sie þa hwile þe hit ness, we say that it exists as long as ætsomne bið, and þa samwrædnesse it is together, and that togetherness we hatað good, swa swa an mon bið we call good, just as an individual is

306 R. Ehwald, ed. “Aldhelmus De Virginitate II. Carmen” (MGH Auct. Ant. vol. 15, 1919), p. 367 ll. 343–350. 307 Michael Lapidge and James L. Rosier (trans.), Aldhelm: The Poetic Works (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1985), p. 110.

121 man þa hwile ðe sio saul and se a human being as long as the soul lichama ætsomne bioð; þonne hi and body are together; when they ðonne gesindrede bioð, þonne ne bið are separated, then he is not what he he ðæt þæt he ær wæs. Þæt ilce þu was before. You can think the same meaht geþencan be þæm lichoman about the body and its limbs. If any and be his limum Gif þara lima of the limbs is missing, then it is not hwylc of bið, þonne ne bið hit no full a complete person as it was before. man swa hit ær wæs. §6 Gif eac hwylc good man from §6 If also any good person departs gode gewit, þonne ne bið hit he þon from good, then he is not any more ma fullice good gif he eallunga from completely good for wholly depart- gewit. Þonan hit gebereð þæt ða ing from it. Thence it happens that yflan forlætað þæt þæt hi ær dydon the evil relinquish what they did be- and ne beoð þæt þæt hi ær wærom. fore and are not what they were be- Ac þonne hi þæt good forlætað and fore. But when they relinquish the weorðað yfle, þonne ne beoð hi nau- good and become evil, then they are htas butan anlicnes. Þæt mon mæg nothing but an image. One can see gesion þæt hi gio men wæron, ac hi that they were human before, but habbað þæs mennisces þonne þone they have lost the best part of hu- bestan dæl forloren and þone manity and kept the worst. They forcuþestan gehealden. And hi for- forsake the natural good, that is, hu- lætað þæt gecyndelice good, þæt sint man virtues, and have however the mennisclice þeawas, and habbað likeness of humanity while they þeah mannes anlicnesse ða hwile þu live. hi libbað.308

Ríastrad Although it does not involve an animal, let us look briefly at Cú Chulainn’s ríastrad, or warp spasm. This transformation causes him to become physically distorted, and to lose control of his capacity to distinguish friend from foe in a violent martial frenzy. Nevertheless, he does not appear mentally out of control. Although he might be said to lose his reason, he maintains the faculty of speech and of recognizably human movement and action (e.g. participating in battle).309 Thus, although by Augustine’s standard (i.e. the loss of rationality) he would appear to lose his human status, because he retains certain key aspects of humanity, the text continues to recognize him as human, even if his appearance has a monstrous quality. However, it should be noted that after the ríastrad has ceased, Cú Chulainn must parade himself before the community, and particularly before the women of the community, to show them that he has regained his socially acceptable appearance.

308 The Old English Boethius, pp. 304–7, prose 26. 309 Sarah Künzler, Flesh and Word: Reading Bodies in Old Norse-Icelandic and Early Irish Literature (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2016), preprint ch. 3 p. 42.

122 Restitution and Name Changes Although Cú Chulainn is the most prominent figure (his name, indeed, means ‘hound of Culann’), he does not occupy this category alone. Cú Cerca (again, ‘hound of Cerc’) acquired his name and status in a similar manner. In both cases, each man killed a guard dog belonging to a prominent member of society, and as restitution for the crime of having killed the dog, each man volun- teered to become the wronged person’s guard dog. Not only did they acquire the occupation, but each acquired the name by which they are known from this encounter. Thus this forms a kind of tangential transformation, where no physical metamorphosis takes place, yet a person can assume the duties and even label of an animal, in this case a highly valued guard dog. As Pedersen notes, “A simple thing such as changing a name can have great effects on a character’s life; ‘to change one’s name is to change one’s role and even one’s very being’. Thus, when a hero in the Early Irish narrative is re-named, he, as a person, changes, along with his role.”310 Nevertheless, there is a danger that the hero might change too much, becoming a danger to those whom he is meant to protect, as indeed Cú Chulainn becomes during his ríastrad. Both dog and warrior incorporate this potential danger; indeed, according to the laws, dogs appear to have posed a greater threat to human safety than did wolves. Kim McCone has observed the “extraordinary frequency” of personal as well as topographic names involving fáel, ‘wolf’ and cú, ‘hound, dog’ in Irish sources;311 the presence of animal elements in personal names is readily apparent in Anglo-Saxon sources as well, though whether this consistently relates, as McCone argues, to initiation rites, is less certain. Names with wolf and bear elements appear frequently in Old Norse sources, and these have by a similar token often been taken to indicate the presence or invocation of berserkir; Roderick Dale, however, has argued convincingly that the proliferation of these names far outstrips what we could expect for the presence of berserkir, and even in the sources these names appear in connection with people who have little to no connection to the elite warriors.312

310 C. Pedersen, Metamorphoses: A Comparative Study of Representations of Shape-Shifting in Old Norse and Medieval Irish Narrative Literature (Maynooth: Master’s Thesis, 2015), p. 21. 311 McCone, “Juvenile Delinquency”, p. 16. 312 Dale, Berserkir.

123 Discussion

Loss and Gain of Human Status Comparing transformations of humans to animals, and animals to humans, one may observe a distinction between the two in terms of the implicit value judgement of the text regarding the metamorphosis. That is to say, in broad terms the acquisition of a human form is valued positively, while its loss is valued negatively. This is, of course, not exclusively the case; we see in particular the two examples of transformations into deer that the loss of human form is neither permanent nor damaging; however, it should be pointed out that these are also two examples of an uncommon phenomenon: that of a human who con- trols their own transformation. In an examination of ‘Celtic’ literature, Miranda Green makes the following observation:

If we look first at shape-shifting as punishment or revenge, we can see a recur- rent pattern whereby heroes or gods deal with unacceptable behaviour by de- priving the malefactor of human status and causing him or her to adapt an animal shape.313

Green’s focus rests generally on non-Christian sources (or sources which putatively appear to be pre- or non-Christian in character); however, we may observe a similar trend throughout our corpus, where the revocation of human status is used as a punishment. This may be justified by the text in question (e.g. Colum Chille’s transformation of the queen and her handmaiden into cranes) or not (e.g. Circe’s transformation of Ulysses’ men), but the pattern of deprivation of human status as punishment appears in both Anglo-Saxon and Irish sources, and is not restricted to a single genre in either case. Significantly, in many of the cases it is emphasized that the transformed person maintains a certain degree of human consciousness. Even Nebuchadnezzar, who loses his rationality along with his status, retains enough of his human self to eventually submit to God. Along with this human consciousness, however, goes another trend: an emphasis on the transformed individual’s lack of ability to participate in particular human activities: Corictic and Nebuchadnezzar flee the company of other humans, as do the queen and her handmaiden as soon as they are turned into cranes; Ulysses’ men can neither speak nor eat proper human food; even Scylla, once transformed, leaves the company of humans and becomes a sea- monster. Indeed, in the cases where transformation from human form has a negative effect on the individual transformed, the change in appearance is only part of the process, and not even the most important part. Like in the similes

313 Green, Animals in Celtic Life and Myth, p. 192.

124 of the OE De Consolatione Philosophiae presented above, these transformations give us a metaphorical representation of what happens should a person fail to perform their human behaviours adequately: should they willingly turn away from proper behaviour, they will eventually lose the capacity for it. Echoes of this may be seen in Tuczay’s observation of shapeshifting in the Icelandic Sagas:

Die kolloquierte Redensart, ‘die Sau raus lassen,’ bzw. die Rede vom ‘inneren Schweinehund,’ den es zu bekämpfen gilt, zielt nicht auf die sich in Tiergestalt manifestierende Seele, sondern auf einen emotionalen Zustand, der die mensch- liche Gestalt entweder völlig theriomorphisiert, wie bei der Verwandlung in einen Werwolf, oder aber emotional-psychisch ‘verwildern’ lässt.314

Exceptions to this trend may be seen in the cases of transformation via restitution: here Cú Chulainn and Cú Cerca gain status through the adoption of their guard-dog names and functions, although they have done so in consequence of having committed a crime. However, in both cases they volunteer to take on this additional vocation in order to make good their actions. Also, the symbolism of particular animals can have an impact on the valence of meaning contained within certain episodes.

The nature of the human-animal transformations discussed in this chapter highlights an important point of contrast between the Anglo-Saxon and early medieval Irish transformation narratives. Irish sources reflect an interplay between centre and periphery, and the role of the unstable outsider may be dangerous, but it is understood as a part of the social environment in which the settled society operates: The fíanna may be dangerous, but they are also heroes, so too Cú Chulainn. The early English sources, however, demonstrate a much more policed border between centre and periphery. The chaos of the natural world, unseen dangers represented partially by demons and elves: these all bear a certain degree of threat and fear. Many Old English metaphors concern the anthropomorphizing of weapons and other quintessentially human-produced objects; having been created by humans within the human world, these objects could ‘speak’ in a way that made them less fear-inspiring. As Cavell observes:

It is perhaps unsurprising that the cultural world of construction should map on to the natural world of the body in this metaphorical manner, because for the Anglo-Saxons the worlds of culture and nature were frequently opposed. The written record depicts culture, represented by manmade buildings and artefacts, as under constant attack by nature, the

314 C.A. Tuczay, “Die wilde Lust am Wolfsleben” in W. de Blécourt and C.A. Tuczay (eds.), Tierverwandlungen (Tübingen: Francke Verlag, 2011), 35–60 at p. 35.

125 chaotic world existing outside of civilization – a world that could not be kept under human control. Thus, the Old English literary tendency to depict the body in the terms of a cultural product makes a great deal of sense; the body cannot be entirely denied because it is inseparable from human life, yet to align it with the natural world would produce a conflict with the anti- natural world attitude depicted in Anglo-Saxon writings. And so, the body is instead translated into the language of culture.315

We see as well in the examples above that the element of human control and explication is much more prominent than in the Irish material. This may also be due to a greater impetus to establish stable and normative narratives in hagiographic and other didactic texts than in the Irish literary texts. Recalling Ste- venson’s observation from Chapter One that the sense of a people frequently depends on a sense of place, we might suggest that the greater effort to control and create a narrative derives not only from the need to establish stable and normative Christian narratives, but to carve out a place for stable and normative communities as well.

Wild vs. Domestic Animals in Transformation The vast majority of animals involved in transformations in our sources are non-domestic animals. Given the martial emphasis in the literature of both Anglo-Saxon England and early medieval Ireland, as well as the emphasis within Scandinavian shapeshifting studies on berserkir and ulfheðnar, it is intriguing and somewhat surprising to observe no clear tendency towards large predators, such as bears and wolves, or other wild animals typically associated with battle, such as boars. The closest we come to a ‘werewolf’ kind of phenomenon is the fáelad, and the potential tendency of young men to ‘go a- wolfing’ before they join the settled community. John Carey and Kim McCone have suggested that this reflects a kind of community of young men who lived outside society, whereby the packs of ‘wolves’ which ravaged the local herds were in fact landless young men not yet able to take their place within the confines of the túath.

Conclusions This chapter has presented examples of a variety of transformations between human and animal states. Human-animal metamorphoses are unique in that they are typically the only category of transformation for which we have not

315 Megan Cavell, “Constructing the Monstrous Body in Beowulf”, Anglo-Saxon England 43 (2014), 155–181 at p. 157.

126 only textual evidence, but also putative archaeological and iconographic evidence as well. Style I Anglo-Saxon art, discussed above, is particularly interesting in this regard: by ‘turning’ certain images, one may reveal in turns animal and human forms. Thus, it recalls the ‘verbs of turning’ presented in the previous chapter. One of the most consistent metaphors that may be seen at the level of the individual (both the individual episode and the individual who transforms) is the importance of performance. That is to say that while it is important to look human, the critical aspects of being human are not restricted to appearing human: one must also possess the capacity to perform humanness properly. Important here is also the capacity to interact with other people; part of performing humanness is living in the company of other humans, and only saints or other holy people may live alone without cultural censure. This is not the case in every example presented here; however, it is a consistent theme throughout the corpus. We may also observe that many of the Irish stories included in the corpus do not base their language of metamorphosis around verbs of turning to the same extent that Old English and both Anglo- and Hiberno-Latin do. In the texts from both islands, however, we observe that transformation on the level of the individual broadly groups into illusions, and physical transformations. Both of these transformations involve a complete visual change, but they often do not involve the transformed individual acquiring the symbolic characteristics of the animal in question, in the same way that a berserkr might symbolically try to evoke the strength of the bear in battle. Thus, the figurative use of metamorphosis only partially overlaps with uses of metaphor and simile to compare humans and animals. The next chapter will observe metamorphosis narratives within their broader textual context, and at this level will also examine the social function and impact of an individual’s transformation. This has been alluded to with the fáelad and the dí- berg here, and in the subsequent chapter will be explored more thoroughly.

127 Chapter 4: Marginality of Metamorphosis

The previous empirical chapters have examined metamorphosis at the levels of lexical and semantic analysis, and the metaphorical value of individual metamorphosis narratives. They have done so from the perspective of physical versus inner transformation and human-animal transformations, respectively. This final empirical chapter will build upon both of these by exploring the cultural and social consequences of physical transformation. In studying the social impact of metamorphosis, for an individual as well as for the community to which that individual belongs, one challenge that manifests itself is identifying the paradigm most appropriate for interpreting the data. In particular, it must be capable of interrogating the relationship between an individual who had undergone metamorphosis and their immediate social group or community. In the preceding chapters we have seen that instances of transformation, as well as connotations of transformation words, were not uniformly negative or fear-inducing; nevertheless, punitive or fearful aspects do form inextricable and not insignificant parts of shapeshifting’s semiotic network, and in nearly every case involve the transformation from or to a body that deviates radically from the human norm. “Some bodies are excluded by dominant social ideologies—which means that these bodies display the workings of ideology and expose it to critique and the demand for political change.”316 A correcting paradigm in contrast with the linguistically and rhetorically driven chapters that preceded this one is needed, since they presuppose to a fairly significant degree a linguistic structuralist understanding of representation and, as Tobin Siebers has observed, “because linguistic structuralism tends to view language as the agent and never the object of representation, the body, whether able or disabled, figures as a language effect rather than as a causal agent, excluding embodiment from the representational process almost entirely.”317 This chapter aims to account for social and cultural representations of shapeshifting beyond the strictly linguistic and to probe the potential of metamorphosis to impact relations of verifiable reciprocity in the world outside of the texts themselves. Before presenting the data below, let us first examine the interpretative paradigms that might be brought to bear on shapeshifting episodes, and establish a preliminary evaluation of their appro-

316 Tobin Siebers, Disability Theory (University of Michigan Press), p. 33. 317 Siebers, Disability Theory, p. 2.

128 priateness vis-à-vis the material at hand. As mentioned in Chapter One, postcolonial theory was considered as an interpretative paradigm for this analysis; however, on further investigation it became evident that this particular paradigm does not align with the source material well enough to provide a useful analytical tool. One problem we encounter is the individual and at times idiosyncratic nature of the sources: they do not give the impression of systematic subjugation of a particular minority group. Similarly, the contrast between centre and periphery is only occasionally evident, and the relationships between marginalized transformed persons and the community from which they are ejected is frequently not depicted in such a way that supports a postcolonial reading, much less interpretation. The paradigms that have contributed more significantly to the interpretation of our corpus of shapeshifting narratives in the analysis which follows, and consequently are discussed here, are disability and body theory; monster theory; and social identity theory.

Disability and Body Theory Simi Linton, one of the foremost experts on the intersection of disability and the arts, writes that disability theory “aims to expose the ways that disability has been made exceptional and to work to naturalize disabled people”.318 An- other important scholar in the field, Tobin Siebers adds that “[d]isabled bodies provide a particularly strong example of embodiment as mimesis because they resist standard ideas about the body and push back when confronted by language that would try to misrepresent their realism.”319 The correspondence of metamorphosis with disability theory is clear: in both cases one speaks of a drastic physical change which may potentially affect the individual’s capacity to participate in society, as well as society’s capacity to accommodate the individual.320 While congenital impairments would likely not have had this manner of impact, impairments caused by, for example, accident, conflict, or punitive mutilation could potentially be seen as a kind of physical transformation, and one of the changes whose social and personal consequences metamorphosis might have been able to interrogate through metaphor. As we shall see below, there are indeed some correspondences between impairment caused by injury or disease and metamorphosis; however, generally speaking, it appears that both Anglo-Saxon and early medieval Irish sources treat these as two distinct types of transformation. For example, the treatment of transformed individuals often does not accord with what we can ascertain about the

318 Simi Linton, “What is Disability Studies?”, Publications of the Modern Language Associa- tion of America 120:2 (2005), 518–22 at p. 518. 319 Siebers, Disability Theory, p. 2. 320 In this chapter I use the language of the socio-cultural model of disability, where ‘impairment’ refers to the physical sense of a restriction of normal function, and ‘disability’ refers to the cultural inability to accommodate or cope with certain kinds of impairments.

129 lived experience of impaired people, at least as far as we can ascertain it from the documentary sources we have. That being said, however, representations of illness themselves frequently carried a metaphorical quality, and as with metamorphosis these metaphors often centre on God’s power over the human body. Regarding Anglo-Saxon material, Beth Tovey observes that

God’s relationship with his human children is explored through the power he wields over their bodies, for good or ill, and there is surprisingly little discussion of illness outside such a discourse with the exception of the medical texts. The Anglo-Saxons may well have understood that there were various ways of considering illness in everyday terms, but its main use in the literary context is that of ‘metaphoric signifier of social and individual collapse.’321

Such a discourse is not dissimilar to that identified by Ciara Crawford in medieval Irish sources; she also observes a more ‘naturalistic’ approach to disease and illness in annals and medico-legal texts in addition to the stronger religious component present in the hagiographical sources.322 Jaqueline van Gent has observed that the “body and its somatic states, such as illness, are interpreted in contemporary anthropological literature as signifying very specific cultural, social, or political meanings.”323 Although van Gent’s study focuses on eighteenth-century Sweden, the observations that she makes regarding contemporary anthropological research are applicable to our corpus as well. In this case, we interrogate the body that has undergone rapid, transformative change, and within this framework specifically ask whether shapeshifting may be said to cause impairment; in other words, is a transformed body a disabled body? We may also ask how the wider community copes with bodies no longer recognized as human, or at least as radically non-normative. We ask, in short, if shapeshifted individuals participate in the same or similar “en- forced systems of exclusion and oppression” as disabled individuals, and whether their social meanings and stigmas overlap with those of disability identity evident in Anglo-Saxon England and early medieval Ireland.324 Siebers has observed that disability identity can, rightly or wrongly, be seen as intimately connected with the transience of the human body, and even concepts of change more broadly: “For better or worse, disability often comes to stand for the precariousness of the human condition, for the fact that individual

321 Beth Tovey, “Kingly Impairments in Anglo-Saxon Literature: God’s Curse and God’s Bless- ing” in Joshua R. Eyler, ed., Disability in the Middle Ages (London: Taylor and Francis, 2010), 135–48 at p. 139, citing David T. Mitchell, “Narrative Prosthesis and the Materiality of Meta- phor” in Sharon L. Snyder, Brenda Jo Brueggeman and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson (eds), Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities (New York, 2002), 15–30 at p. 16. 322 Ciara Crawford, Disease and Illness in Medieval Ireland (PhD Dissertation: National Uni- versity of Ireland Maynooth, 2011). 323 Jaqueline van Gent, Magic, Body and the Self in Eighteenth-Century Sweden (Leiden: Brill, 2009), p. 9. 324 Siebers, Disability Theory, p. 4.

130 human beings are susceptible to change, decline over time, and die.”325 We have seen in Chapter Two that the cyclical changes of the human life cycle typically occupy a different area of the semantic field of change than do met- amorphic transformations (i.e. narratives of cyclical changes and shapeshifting draw on different vocabularies); however, the changes that create disability often occur outside of a predictable, cyclical cycle, and it is this disruptive quality that potentially links such changes with that of metamorphosis. It underlines a picture of identity that is less stable across more categories than we might presume, beyond the spectrum of ability and disability, and presents us with an “opportunity to rethink how human identity works.”326

Monster Theory Any discussion of human metamorphosis naturally invites associations with ‘monsters’ such as werewolves or partially-human hybrids. Monster theory also provides a complement to and extension of disability theory, by taking stigmata and social implications of difference beyond the human – often in a way that reinforces it. Dana Oswald has observed that:

[Monsters] assure viewers that their humanity is more complete than that possessed by the monster, but they also notify viewers that variations are possible, and that humanity is available on a kind of sliding scale. Thus, they demand that viewers appraise the status of their own humanity, and the integrity of their bodies and identities. Monsters remind humans of what it means to be human – they may threaten the human body, but they also confirm notions of its relative cohesion.327

While on the one hand we may see quite clearly how this can apply to shapeshifters – after all, they force their audience to confront a body that has lost its integrity entirely – once the change has taken place, the transformed individual is not visually monstrous: they look, for all intents and purposes, like a genuine specimen of whatever they have been transformed into. Jennifer Neville argues for distinct differences between animal threats and humanoid monsters because of the latter’s similarity to and subversion of humanity,328 but this creates a problem of where to place the human who has become animal. Are they monstrous at all?

325 Siebers, Disability Theory, p. 5. 326 Siebers, Disability Theory, p. 5. 327 Dana Oswald, Monsters, Gender and Sexuality in Medieval English Literature (Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2010), p. 3. 328 Jennifer Neville, “Monsters and Criminals: Defining Humanity in Old English Poetry” in K. E. Olsen and L. A. J. R. Houwen (eds.), Monsters and the Monstrous in Medieval Northwest Europe (Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2001), 103–22.

131 It is therefore worthwhile to spare a few words on what we mean by ‘monsters’ and ‘the monstrous’. Monsters frequently evade precise explication or guidelines to their recognition; we know monsters when we see them, or when a text points out to us a particularly peculiar being. This is partially, one might say, the nature of the beast: As mentioned above, this very lack of clear cate- gorical boundaries is part of what makes a monster monstrous. I find Cohen’s phrase “unassimilated hybrids”329 particularly evocative, as it encapsulates two key aspects that generally apply to monstrous beings: firstly, the juxtaposition of two or more parts in one being; and secondly, the fact that these different parts never quite create a whole: they remain somewhat at odds and incongruent. Unassimilated hybridity may result from combinations of species (e.g., Scylla or the cynocephali), or from enhanced or diminished physical attributes (e.g. pygmies or giants).330 Oswald additionally points out that a creature acquires a monstrous quality when it exists as an outlier within its kin- group, and can therefore be human or animal.331 As we have seen in Chapters Two and Three, although shapeshifting nearly always results in a visually homogenous (i.e. non-hybrid) appearance, the fact that that appearance is the result of a complete physical change often remains detectable in some way. Thus, they retain the ‘monstrous’ capacity to resist inclusion in systematic categories like ‘animal’ and ‘human’. We may take note of John Block Friedman’s observation, cited in Olsen and Olsen, that a sense of difference was created not only in the perception of physical differences, but in the identification of ethical and cultural ones as well; Olsen and Olsen go on to observe that while St Augustine and Isidore of Seville both emphasize the “physically exotic”, the Wonders of the East and Liber monstrorum both contain comparatively more cultural elements.332 Thus, although the shapeshifted human does not present us with a physical hybrid, we have often observed, for example, an incongruous element between behaviour and appearance. In the foregoing chapter we saw the impact that such a change has on the individual, but, as Cavell, following Neville, observes, “this ability to smash distinctions makes the monster a force that subverts humanity, affecting not merely the individual, but society at large. In doing so, the monster is aligned with the natural world and placed in opposition to humanity and the constructed world of civilization.”333 Indeed, as we shall see below, shapeshifting

329 Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Monster Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), p. 3. 330 Robert Olsen and Karin Olsen, “On the Embodiment of Monstrosity in Northwest Medieval Europe” in K. E. Olsen and L. A. J. R. Houwen (eds.), Monsters and the Monstrous in Medieval Northwest Europe (Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2001), 1–22 at p. 7. 331 Oswald, Monsters, p. 2. 332 Olsen and Olsen, “Embodiment”, pp. 7–8. 333 Cavell, “Constructing the monstrous body”, p. 157.

132 highlights certain distinctions through its transgression of them, including between the natural world and human civilization. However, it also makes clear the presence of distinctions between different, and differently prioritized, human civilizations.

Social Identity Theory To explore the differences between systematic understandings of human civilization that shapeshifting emphasizes, we may look to particular concepts developed within social identity theory. The analytical concepts of ‘in-group’ and ‘out-group’ originated in social identity theory, and are most commonly applied in the field of intergroup relations. An ‘in-group’ is a group or social category with which one identifies strongly, while an ‘out-group’ is one with which one does not identify. A person can potentially call upon multiple cultural identities, and the components of a particular identity can vary between groups.334 In this way, we may qualify identity not as immutable or pristine, but rather “the structure by which that person identifies and becomes identified with a set of social narratives, ideas, myths, values, and types of knowledge of varying reliability, usefulness, and verifiability.” 335 Shapeshift- ing narratives can emphasize both the active and passive potential in this identification process, when we choose to analyse questions such as who creates the transformation (or who has the power to do so), and who transforms (and whether the change is willing or unwilling). Identification, and thus one’s alignment with a particular in-group or out-group “represents the means by which the person, qua individual, comes to join a particular social body. It also represents the capacity to belong to a collective on the basis not merely of biological tendencies but symbolic ones”.336 Finally, the status of a certain group as in-group or out-group reveals the sense of belonging created by a given text (or, indeed, a given manuscript collection): the choice of presentation of one group as in-group and another as out-group may demonstrate the cultural identities of the author and their perceived audience. We can identify five broad groups across our source material: First, there is the human in-group, which in most cases is the Christian community. Then, one may observe the human out-group (where the out-group status is determined usually on either religious or ethnic grounds or both), the non-human divine out-group (e.g. God, angels), the non-human demonic out-group (e.g. the Devil, demons), and the non-human neutral out-group (such as the Tuatha

334 Howard Giles and Jane Giles, “Ingroups and Outgroups” in Anastacia Kurylo (ed.), In- ter/Cultural Communication (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2012), 141–162 at pp. 142–4. 335 Siebers, Disability Theory, p. 15. 336 Siebers, Disability Theory, p. 15.

133 Dé Danann337 and various invisible presences). These categories can be very broad, especially in the Irish sagas, where ‘humanness’ may be considered a matter of degree. In other words, the dichotomy human/non-human does not appear to have existed in an oppositional form: more important than exhibiting human behaviour was exhibiting correct human behaviour, which permitted one to remain in or join the human in-group. The out-group contained both human and non-human subgroups, and included non-human beings bearing human characteristics or appearance. These categories were flexible, and gained members as much through criteria of belonging, as through acting as a net for those who could not attain belonging in the human in-group. Belonging to the human in-group, however, requires the fulfilment of specific criteria. These can be criteria of behaviour, of appearance, depending on the particular context. In the texts a contrast between the Christian in-group and the heathen out- group becomes clear, where a conversion to Christianity means not only a change in belief, but a movement from out-group to in-group. The distinction between whether or not a person belongs to the community of Christians frequently bears more importance, or receives greater emphasis, than distinctions between ethnic, political, or family groupings. Other categories of the out- group formed of non-human beings include God, angels, the Devil, and demons, though they can also include less spiritually-aligned beings such as genii loci or invisible, omnipresent potential threats, like elves.338 These can help or be a threat to members of the in-group. The saint becomes a mediator between in-group and out-group. Druids and sorcerers may attempt to mediate as well, though because their mediation is imperfect (i.e. exists between them and demons rather than them and God), they do not have as complete control over the transformations they can perform. In the source material we can see quite clearly, across genre and language barriers, that transformations effected on behalf of the in-group, or that bring someone into the in-group, are positively valued in the texts, whereas transformations affecting members of the out-group are not.

The sections which follow below analyse metamorphosis narratives according to those aspects of society in which they are most prevalent. As has been discussed previously, metamorphosis narratives are frequently bound up with concepts of change, in particular with changes that imply a ‘turning’ from one position (or form) to another. The first of these to be examined will be changes in social status which are represented through the image of shapeshifting. Re-

337 The Tuatha Dé Danann were a supernatural people in Ireland, who may have represented interpretations of pre-Christian Irish deities; according to some sources, they either are or become the áes sídhe. 338 For elves see Hall, Elves.

134 lated to this phenomenon but distinct in their own ways are the following sections: Performance of human status, and the educations of religious behaviour. All three of these aspects use the physical, visually unambiguous act of shapeshifting in order to represent an abstract, or non-visible, form of change; moreover, all three aspects inform the role of shapeshifting in establishing and delineating belonging and community. Another aspect taken up below is the role that perception, specifically the importance of correct perception in contrast to illusion, plays within a social setting. Metamorphosis is occasionally presented as a problem of correct perception, a tradition which echoes St Au- gustine’s own analysis of shapeshifting. Finally, as a contrast, this chapter will examine what I choose to call ‘normalized’ boundary transgressions; that is, metamorphoses which either do not appear to represent or elucidate any particular form of change, or are otherwise presented by the text as unproblem- atic.

Change of Social Status First, we will turn to cases where metamorphosis represents changes in a person’s status, place in the social hierarchy, or the role that they fulfil. This section is closely related to the two following sections, and some of the examples presented here will be examined in further detail below. In instances where metamorphosis accompanies a change in social status, the transformed person may remain a member of the same community, but either permanently or temporarily acquires a different status. Changes in status can also, however, cause a person to transgress the boundary between in-group and out-group; in each case, however, the physical transformation reifies the less visually obvious change. Corictic’s transformation into a fox in Muirchú’s Life of Patrick provides us with an initial example of a change in status reified by physical metamorphosis. Corictic occupies a privileged, if precarious, position in the human out-group: he is a king, the leader of a people, but resists inclusion in the community of Christians despite Patrick’s efforts to convert him. As we recall from previous chapters, when he insults Patrick, Patrick appeals to God to banish Corictic from both this life and the next, whereupon:

Tunc ille, cum esset in medio foro, Then he, when he was in the middle ilico uulpeculae miserabiliter arepta of a public place, having been pitia- forma, profectus in suorum presen- bly seized by the form of a little fox, tia, ex illo die illaque hora uelut left their presence, and from that fluxus aquae transiens nusquam con- day and that hour was never seen paruit. 339

339 “Vita Patricii”, §I.29.

135 again, like the transient wave of the water.

This quotation reminds us immediately of the Song of Songs 2:15,340 and the audience of the Vita Patricii may have also recalled the typing of the fox as heretic in such authors as Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Gregory the Great, and Bede.341 In early Irish society, moreover, satire could actively harm someone in power, especially a king: aside from undermining his authority and reputation, physical perfection figured prominently as a kingly quality, and satire could cause blemishes that would signal to the king’s people that he had become unfit to lead. The fact that not only the poet, but also Corictic’s followers, denounce him is extremely damaging to his reputation and even to his ability to rule. In fact, it effectively makes it impossible for him to maintain his rulership, causing him to suffer banishment. Furthermore, because ‘blemishes’ of appearance could potentially make a king unfit to maintain his kingship, the transformation of Corictic to a different (non-human) physical form blemishes him not only beyond the capacity to lead, but beyond recognition entirely. This extreme change in physical form possibly fulfils Patrick’s ap- peal to God as well, since by transforming Corictic into an animal he not only guarantees that he will not be able to participate in this world, but as an animal he theoretically has no soul, and thus suffers banishment from the next as well. We do not learn the nature of Corictic’s behaviour upon leaving the court, but as he is never seen or heard from again, one may conclude that he now resides outside of human society. Because the Vita clearly positions the community of Christians as its in-group, Corictic as a king already lived outside of this community; his transformation not only moved him further away from the in- group by stripping him of his human status, but also demonstrated the punishment meted out to those who resisted efforts to bring them into the fold of the in-group. Amra Choluimb Chille (Elegy on St Columba) also presents us with humans transformed into animals because they did not show proper reverence or respect to a saint. In the poem’s prose prologue, a queen expresses her dis- pleasure that her stepson had received a blessing from Columba, and arouses his anger in turn. When she insults him, he transforms both the queen and her handmaiden into cranes. The passage is worth looking at again:

340 Song of Songs 2:15: Capite nobis vulpes vulpes parvulas quae demoliuntur vineas nam vinea nostra floruit. ‘Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.’ 341 Kienzle, “The Bestiary of Heretics”, p. 107.

136 si hi cuirr. Co ra gaib a hinailt iarsin says the cleric, ‘to be a-craning for athissigud in clerig, co ro soad (corracht).’ Whereupon she was sede dano hi cuirr n-aile.342 turned into a crane (corr). Thereaf- ter her handmaid fell to insulting the cleric, and she was then turned into another crane.

Like Corictic, the queen and her handmaiden disappear from human society; in contrast to the little fox, however, the cranes are seen in Druim Cetta, a reminder of what happens to those who behave rudely towards a man of God. In both of these examples, their punishment at the hands of the saint results from behaviour that is incompatible with that expected of the in-group, and in each case they are punished by the member of the in-group who is responsible for beating the bounds of proper behaviour, i.e. the saint. In each case, the transformed persons may be said to occupy a liminal status: they possess a high social status (king and queen, and the queen’s handmaiden), and the potential for them to convert and/or behave in a manner befitting the Christian community exists. However, not only do these humans not belong to this Christian community, they actively resist inclusion, and this plays a part in the mutual hostility between them and the saint. By resisting inclusion, they lose their legitimacy to power, and through their transformations become negative examples to their followers. The transformation furthermore completely elim- inates the possibility of reconciliation with the Christian in-group. We may contrast these two examples with Ælfric’s retelling of the Chair of St Peter; in particular the vision wherein serpents, through the blessing of and belief in Christ, are turned from ‘that loathsome form’ to that of humans. The biblical imagery throughout the text is clear, and because Ælfric wrote to educate those outside of the monastery, he also made sure to explicate St Peter’s vision so that its metaphorical weight would not be lost on a less well-educated audience. In this case the change in status does not reify the behaviour of the transformed individual; rather, it makes visible the blessing of Christ and gives a physical dimension to the salvation of humankind.

If we look to the more figurative examples of ‘wolfing’ or díberg mentioned in the previous chapter, we find changes of status and rhetorical connection (though not, in the sense of the concept used in this study, strictly speaking metaphor) to periods of non-humanness intimately bound together. Early Irish society was very hierarchical, with certain grades of free or noble status, mostly based around land, legal connections, and social connections. Specifi- cally, young men could often not enter the túath, or the landed society, until

342 “The Bodleian Amra Choluimb Chille”, pp. 40–1. At another point later on in the text, St Columba again transforms the queen into a crane on the basis of a play on words.

137 they had reached a certain age, and until this point often joined marauding bands of raiders who would undertake díberg.343 This has led McCone to observe that here we:

glimpse the social reality underlying the two types of Fenian warrior identified by Nagy, namely the young man for whom this was merely a passing phase and someone who spent all or most of his life as a féindid. It was simply a question of when or if one acquired the wherewithal to join the túath in one of the free or noble grades. This consideration underlies the dichotomy between the bue, a member of the túath with legal rights, and the ambue, a ‘person from outside the túath, one without possessions, without legal connections’, since etymolog- ically bue is simply ‘having cattle’ and ambue ‘not having cattle’.344

This underscores not only the economic importance of cattle in early medieval Ireland, but also the degree to which a person’s life is structured by transformations of status. However, as we have seen in Chapter Two, frequently these life-stage changes are classed as cyclical change and occupy a semantic field that only partially overlaps with metamorphosis. Although men of the fíanna may act like wolves when they raid and harass the túath, they remain knowa- ble: though dangerous, they are not monstrous.

Performance of Human Status Related to changes in social status is the requirement to perform one’s human status. They key difference between this category of socio-cultural transformations and the previous one is that while the previous examples revealed very little to the audience about the state of the transformed individuals, this very subject is not only mentioned in the examples that follow, but emphasized. This is clearly demonstrated by the OE De Consolatione Philoso- phiae’s adaptation of Boethius’ recounting of the events on Circe’s island with Ulysses and his men. When Ulysses and Circe fall in love, his men become concerned that he will not leave and make plans to leave without him. Circe then transforms them into a variety of animals, and they can no longer communicate like humans, and prefer to eat animal rather than human food. The relevant passage is given here again for reference:

343 ‘Fenian warrior’ ultimately refers back the roving mythological hero Finn mac Cumail and his followers, the Fianna. These stories are contained in the Fenian or Ossianic Cycle. A féindid is thus a roving warrior in the style of the Fianna. See: eDIL s.v. fénnid; for a comprehensive study of the Fenian Cycle, see Joseph Nagy, The wisdom of the outlaw: the boyhood deeds of Finn in Gaelic narrative tradition (Berkley: University of California Press, 1985). 344 McCone, “Juvenile Delinquency”, p. 11.

138 Sume hi sædon þæt hio sceolde for- They say that she is to have changed sceoppan to leon, 7 þōn seo sceolde some to lions, and when they would sprecan, þōn ryde hio. Sume sce- speak, then they roared. Some are to oldan bion eforas, 7 þōn hi sceoldan have been boars, and when the hiora sar siofian, þōn grymetodan hi. would lament their suffering, then Sume wurdon to wulfan; þa ðuton, they grunted. Some became wolves þōn hi sprecan sceoldon. Sume who howled when they would wurdon to þā deorcynne þe mon hat speak. Some became that kind of an- tigris. […] Ælcne mete hi onscune- imal that one calls tiger. […] They don þe men etað, 7 wilnodon þara þe abhorred each food that humans eat, deor etaþ. Næfdon hi nane anlic- and only wanted that which animals nesse manna ne on lichoman ne on eat. They didn’t have any similarity stemne 7 ælc wisste þeah his gewit to humans either in body or voice swa swa he ær wisste. Þæt gewit was and each knew through his mind that swiðe sorgiende for þā ermðum ðe hi which he knew before. That mind drogan.345 was exceedingly sorrowful for the misery that he bore.

In each case, the change in physical form is accompanied by an explicit mention that they cannot communicate in human form anymore: instead of lament- ing they growl, when they would speak they roar, etc. Both the metric and the prose versions also mention that they all preferred to eat the food of animals rather than human food. By contrast, however, they fully maintain their human cognitive faculties, so that they are aware of their miserable situation. There is no community for them to be excluded from on this island, but they nevertheless feel that they have been cut off from human society: their leader neglected his duty to them, and they neglected their duty as his retainers. In this sense they have been cut off from community, because they can neither communicate with each other, nor can they any longer behave in a manner befitting a king’s retainer. The emphasis on speech and food raises questions regarding the role of performance in maintaining human status: by implication the change in form might have been tolerable, had they been able to perform their humanness in other ways. This is reminiscent of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness, where the hall- marks of his madness were isolating himself from human society, growing his nails and hair until he looks like an animal, and eating exclusively animal food. In his case, God had punished him by robbing him of his rationality, and the inability to eat, dress, or groom himself properly were the outward expressions of this lack of rational mental capacity. Regarding the presence of animal metaphors in the Icelandic sagas, Lena Rohrbach, following Lotte Hedeager, has observed that:

345 Boethius vol. 1, pp. 350–1, prose 38.

139 Lotte Hedeager unterstreicht eben diese doppelte Funktionalität der Tiermeta- phern: Ihrer Auffassung nach können mit Tiermetaphern einerseits Tabuthemen zum Ausdruck gebracht werden – in diesem Falle steht die Unterschiedlichkeit von Mensch und Tier im Vordergrund – , andererseits werden Tiere als Rollen- modell zur Verdeutlichung menschlicher Eigenschaften herangezogen – in letz- terem Fall sind es die feststellbaren Ähnlichkeiten zwischen Mensch und Tier bzw. menschlicher Gesellschaft und Tierwelt, welche das Heranziehen von Tiermetaphern begründen.346

In the case of transformations where the text’s author provides their audience with a view into the mind of the transformed individuals, it is very clearly the differences between human and animal that stand in focus: wherever Circe turns men into animals, whether in the OE De Consolatione Philosophiae or in the Reference Bible, and wherever Nebuchadnezzar appears, the animal state is always contrasted with the former human state. Nevertheless, we do see Hedeager’s similarities as well: in the metrical OE De Consolatione Philosophiae, Circe changes the men into those animals which they had borne the most similarity to as humans—and indeed, in both the metrical and prose versions, the story of Circe and Ulysses follows a passage describing the animal labels to give to people who bear the traits symbolically linked with, for example, wolves, foxes, boars, and pigs. We may also mention in this context Genesis 1:26:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Although in later metamorphosis narratives the loss of human status goes hand in hand with the loss of ‘likeness’ with the ‘image’ of God, according to Bede, the imago Dei refers not to visual image but to the human intellect. Further- more, in failing to acknowledge this, the human already invites comparison with animals: imperfect employment of one’s intellectual faculty leads to questionable humanness, even if the human corporeal shape remains.347 This leads us to another theme of transformation narratives, the education of religious belief and behaviour.

346 Rohrbach, Der tierische Blick, p. 207. 347 Bede bases his argument on that of Augustine, De genesi ad litteram 6.12; he also quotes Ovid’s Metamorphoses with reference to human stature (I.84–6). Beda Venerabilis, Genesis, bk. I, cols. 29–30; Bede, On Genesis, p. 91.

140 Educating Religious Behaviour A central theme in much of the shapeshifting corpus examined here is the education of religious behaviour. Indeed, this theme has featured in most of the examples presented in the previous two sections. Because a significant proportion of the texts included in the shapeshifting corpus are hagiographical, homiletic, or philosophical, the centering of the Christian community comes as little surprise. What is interesting to note, however, is that many of these Christian texts are themselves didactic in nature, or were produced as part of a didactic programme: Ælfric wrote his Catholic Homilies as well as his Lives of Saints for the proper education of the people, and the OE De Consolatione Philosophiae was adapted as part of Alfred the Great’s programme of education. The early hagiographies of Brigid and Patrick were likely used to establish the claims of Kildare and Armagh, respectively, as religious centres. The precise intended audience, or didactic content, of the other texts in the corpus is less clear (though the Reference Bible likely lived up to its name in some way); however, it is notable that although complex works of natural philosophy from early medieval England and Ireland do survive, these do not furnish us with shapeshifting narratives. One example of a transformation with a clear emphasis on the communication of proper religious behaviour and Christian reverence is that of the girl into a mare in Ælfric’s version of the tale of St Macarius. It almost appears that the transformation has more import for the community than it does for the girl: her parents tell Macarius that she was changed into a mare through no fault of her own, and at no point does Macarius cast judgement upon her for her transformation. He only states that he does not see her the way her parents do:

Ic geseo þis mæden on mennicum I see this maiden in human gecynde and heo nis na awend swa form, and she is not trans- swa ge wenað þæt heo sy and heo nan formed, as ye imagine her to þincg on hire næfð horses gecyndes be, and she hath nothing ac on eowrum gesihþum his is swa about her of the nature of a gehiwod þurh ðæs deofles dydrunge horse, but she is so made to and his drymenn leaslice.348 appear in your sight by a delusion of the devil, and by his sorcerers falsely.

Indeed, Ælfric implicitly censures the parents, and by extension all those within the community who saw her as a mare, because Macarius implies that it was the lack of proper spiritual vision that caused people to fall victim to the sorcerers’ delusion. Thus, the girl herself hardly changes in social status

348 Ælfric’s Lives, pp. 471–4, ll. 486–490.

141 and does not lose her place in the social hierarchy due to her transformation; once Macarius anoints her and blesses her, she goes about her business as a ‘worshipful maiden’ once again. The community in which she lives, however, has had their own shortcomings revealed to them, and by her example has been brought closer to a Christian ideal: they themselves undergo transformation almost more profound than the visual transformation of the girl. It is not quite a full transformation from out-group to in-group, but more a strengthening of the in-group bond, and the reinforcement of the saint’s holy status. In Bethu Phátraic, St Patrick rewards the conversion of a certain Éogan to Christianity by transforming his appearance to any that Éogan wishes:

Hi Fid Mór is and conranaic Éogan fri In Fid Mór (the ‘Great Wood’), Pátraic, dú itá in lecc. Credidit Eogan then, Eogan met with Patrick, in the Deo et Pátricio. ‘Mád it tír nu creitte.’ place where the flagstone is, Eogan ol Pátraic, ‘doticfaitis géill Goídel du believed in God and Patrick. “If tír; acht an rut bia tar éissi du airm 7 thou hadst believed [while] in thy du ṡaigdige nít ticfet géill.’ ‘Ní segda country,” saith Patrick, “hostages dam,’ ol Eogan, ‘dubenat mu bráithir of the Gael would have come to thy imm ainech mu étchi.’ ‘Cid sí delb country; but [now] hostages will dogui-siu?’ ol Pátraic. ‘Delb inna not come save those that thou shalt óclaigi fil fot téig-siu’ .i. Rióc Inse Bó have by virtue of thy weapons and Finde. Dosnailgi Pátraic fó óenbrott, thy onslaughts.” “Not stately am I,” dí laim cechtar n-ai im olaile. Dormi- saith Eogan: “my brothers give a unt sic, et postea euigilant unius for- great wergild for my ugliness.” mae, distante tantum tonsúra. ‘Ní “What shape dost thou choose?” cuimmse limm dano,’ ol se, ‘mu saith Patrick. “The shape of the mét.’ ‘Com-maitte,’ ol Pátraic. Rigid youth who is carrying thy box,” Éogan a láim súas lía gaisced. ‘Is namely Rióc of Inis-bó-finde (‘the cuimmse limm in so,’ ol sé. Asaid Isle of the White Cow’). Patrick protinus illa longitudine.349 covered them in one mantle, the two arms of each of them around the other. They sleep thus and after- wards awake with the same shape, only the tonsures being different. “My size, too, is not to my liking,” [he saith]. “What size,” saith Pat- rick. Eogan reaches up his hand with his weapon. “I should like this,” saith he. He straightaway grows that length.

349 Bethu Phátraic, pp. 92–3 ll. 1761–1772.

142 We may recall the importance of physical appearance for kingship; however, from the discussion of Cú Chulainn’s ríastrad in Chapter Three we may also remember the implicit connection between Cú Chulainn’s appearance, and his status within the community. Thus the author of the Bethu Phátraic incentiv- izes the conversion to Christianity, and communicates its positive benefits, by first emphasizing Éogan’s ugliness, then demonstrating Patrick’s mystical power to change both Éogan’s appearance and his height.

Physical and Abstract Transformation As we saw in Chapter Two, physical and abstract forms of transformation are intricately bound up with each other. Tovey speaks of “Ælfric’s readers who, like Alfred, are part of a Christian hermeneutic which understands the physical in terms of the spiritual”,350 and this understanding may be said to extend across the source material, and affects the consequences of transformation for both the individual and their social group. Firstly, it underscores the centrality of Christian community for the majority of these texts, even those like the tales from Irish literature which appear to have less direct concern for the Church. Secondly, if we remember the observation above that Greek and Ro- man constructions of monstrosity included aberrations of morals and custom, we may propose that a Classical inheritance of understanding the physical as a bearer or mediator for these conditions of belonging operated alongside the Christian hermeneutic observed by Tovey. Finally, in many of the examples that we have seen, both in this chapter and in previous chapters, we can see that the physical metamorphosis is preceded by a non-physical change, whether it be betrayal, religious conversion, or another kind of ‘turning’ towards or away. Bynum had identified two particular aspects of the Christian mythology where the tension between ‘the physical’ and ‘the spiritual’ were particularly apparent; namely, the mystery of the Eucharist, and the Transfig- uration of Christ. The latter does not appear in our corpus at all; the matter of the Eucharist, on the other hand, flirts with an overlapping semantic field. The use of ‘turning verbs’ in Eucharistic formulae becomes increasingly wide- spread, as mentioned previously, slightly later than the remit of this study. However, there are isolated cases where the vocabulary choices do coincide quite early, such as the miracle included in the Anglo-Latin Vita of Gregory the Great where the Eucharistic loaf is transformed to a child’s finger, blood and all, to demonstrate the power and the mystery of God to a doubting member of the congregation. Indeed, miracles form an important aspect of many of the transformation narratives, particularly those effected by saints within hagiographies; here

350 Tovey, “Kingly Impairments”, p. 147.

143 again the abstract or invisible power of God is manifested physically or visi- bly. Given that St Augustine was such a towering figure in the intellectual traditions inherited by both the learned milieus of early England and Ireland, we should perhaps not be surprised to see shapeshifting appear as a particular site where God’s power would manifest, or where direct allusion to God’s power as opposed to that of magicians (e.g. Circe, Simon) or demons (e.g. those that tempt the saints in various Anglo-Latin and Old English hagiographies) appear: We may recall the quotation from De Civitate Dei given in Chapter One, where St Augustine argues that shapeshifting is an illusion of demons, and only God can effect real change. While Aristotole-inspired discussions surrounding the nature of form and substance become a focal point of learned discourse from the twelfth century onwards, and are a hallmark of debates within scholasticism regarding the resurrection, in the early sources a much clearer tension exists between true miracles, and false illusions.

It’s an Illusion! Perception and Society Previously we have seen that tensions between transformation of appearance and transformation of substance or identity do not cause our sources as much concern as in later texts, such as those described by Bynum, Huot, and No- acco. Often the animals into which humans transformed will have borne their own symbolism that then coloured the interpretation of the metamorphosis itself, such as the martyr who, by her conversion, was transformed from a wolf to a lamb; or the example from the Chair of St Peter described above: in these cases, the biblical imagery is quite clear, and the common hagiographic motif of souls flying away to Heaven as birds likely influenced the same motif in the immrama. Often when narrative tension is created around the metamorphosis itself, the tension comes from the need – not unlike dream narratives – to state, or to ascertain, the source of the transformation. In the case of the girl-mare above, her parents assert that the change was wrought by sorcerers, but it is Macarius who provides what in the context of dream narratives Isabel Moreira might call the ‘clerical control’: by virtue of his holy authority, he identifies the transformation as an illusion, and is uniquely able to provide the remedy.351 Demons who transform will be discussed below, but humans who effect transformations which are not divine, such as Simon in the court of Nero (found in one of the Blickling Homilies) and various druids in Irish hagiography and literature, cause their texts more concern: in each case either a saint soundly discredits the sorcerer or druid, and reveals that the “transformation” was only an illusory one, or, as we have seen in the case of the Expulsion of the Dessi,

351 Isabel Moreira, “Dreams and Divination in Early Medieval Canonical and Narrative Sources: The Question of Clerical Control”, The Catholic Historical Review 89:4 (2003), 621–642.

144 the druids of the Dessi transform a serf into a cow in order to trick the men of Ossory into killing him and thus breaking their truce; however, when the cow has been killed, the illusion disappears, and they see him as a man once again. Bethu Phátraic contains one miracle that looks like one of the illusory changes described above, but because the illusion is evoked by a saint’s blessing, and thus has a divine source, the temporary change is a miraculous man- ifestation of God’s protection. As we remember from the previous chapter, in this episode the heathen king attempts to lure Patrick into a trap by promising to convert if Patrick follows him to Tara. Patrick, however, perceives that the king wishes to have him killed, so when he and his followers went to Tara:

ros bendach Pátraic ré duidecht. Do- Patrick blessed them before going. dechaid dícheltair tairsiu, conár A cloak of darkness went over them árdraig fer díb. Atchoncatar im̄ na so that not a man of them appeared. gentlidi bátar isna intledaib ocht n- Howbeit, the heathen who were bid- aige altai do techt sechu fón sliab, ⁊ ing in the snares saw eight deer go- iarndoe inna ndegaid ⁊ gaile fora ing past them under the mountain, gúalaind; Pátraic a ochtar, ⁊ Benén and behind them a fawn with a bun- ina ndegaid 7 ḟolaire fora muin.352 dle on its shoulder; (that was) Pat- rick with his eight, and Benén behind them with his tablets on his back.

At another point in the same hagiographic text, Patrick transforms snow into curds and butter as a tribute to the king, but when the tribute reaches the king it reverts to its ‘true nature’ of snow. Such miraculous temporary transformations are, to my knowledge, much less common than what Bernhardt- House calls the ‘serial shapeshifting’ found in the Irish stories such as the Tochmarc Étaíne, the Aislinge Oengusso, the Togail Bruidne Da Derga and the Táin Bó Cúailnge. What we do see, however, are variations on shapeshifting as a disguise, and one’s outer appearance almost as clothing that one may change given enough power (regardless of the source). It is worthwhile in this context to mention not only St Augustine’s analysis of shapeshifting from De Civitate Dei (to briefly resummarize, that demons may cause illusions but only God can create true change), but also his description of the three visions. According to St Augustine, these three visions are the vision that one sees through the eyes, i.e. what we would think of as normal ocular vision; spiritual vision (visio spiritualis), whereby we “think of corporeal things that are absent”,353 what we might today call ‘the mind’s eye’; and finally intellectual vision (visio intellectualis), “embraces those objects which

352 Bethu Phátraic, pp. 30–1 ll. 516–520. 353 John Hammond Taylor, trans., St Augustine: The Literal Meaning of Genesis, vol. 2 (New York, NY: Newman Press, 1982), p. 185.

145 have no images resembling them”,354 thus vision in the sense that we would say ‘I see’ when we understand something.355 In scholarship, we frequently encounter the theory of the three visions in connection with analysis of medieval dreams and visions;356 however, these transformations where the physical change is more of a disguise or a trick of perception – perhaps even a halluci- nation – demonstrate that this theory can have useful applications here as well, especially since St Augustine himself directly associates false visions with illusions; i.e. with faulty perceptions. The ability to discern truth in what one perceives through the first two stages of vision depends on the strength of one’s visio intellectualis; in a Christian context, the strength of one’s visio intellectualis is directly connected with the strength and correctness of one’s faith. We may thus observe in the sorcerers’ transformations in St Macarius (Ælfric, Lives of Saints) and The Passion of St Peter and Paul (Blickling Hom- ilies) with St Patrick’s in Bethu Phátraic instances of people whose intellectual vision is not equal to the task of correctly understanding the sensory input that they receive from their ocular vision. The saints, with their perfected intellectual vision, are able to not only correctly understand their sensory perception, but to manipulate the sensory perception of others. This serves the dual purpose of inspiring the audience to improve their own visio intellectualis, but also to establish clerical authority.

Normalized Boundary Transgressions Finally, we must mention a subset of shapeshifting narratives which, contrary to those analysed above, do not cause any kind of change at the cultural level. This lack of change in spite of transformation may appear for multiple reasons: The person who effected the change may, for example, have been a member of the in-group wielding legitimate power (in nearly all cases this translates to divine blessing or approval); or the individual who transforms may be a member of the non-human out-group, in which case transformation lay within their purview. Because many of these normalized transgressions do not involve a form which is explicitly human on either side of the metamorphosis, they are not dealt with in great detail here. This is particularly common in the case of

354 Hammond Taylor, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, p. 186. 355 These references are taken from De Genesi ad litteram, where Augustine discusses the theory of three visions in its fullest form, but Augustine mentions the theory to varying extents in multiple works; see Jesse Keskiaho, Dreams and Visions in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 138ff. 356 See for example Keskiaho, Dreams and Visions; Isabel Moreira, Dreams, Visions, and Spir- itual Authority in Merovingian Gaul (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000); Gwendolyne Knight, Dreams and Attitudes towards Dreaming in Anglo-Latin and Old English (Master’s Thesis: Stockholm University, 2013).

146 partially or fully euhemerized deities in Irish literature, where the most prominent representative would perhaps be the serially shapeshifting Morrígan in the Táin Bó Cúailnge. She is, however, explicitly connected with the áes sídhe, the mythical humanoid beings who even in the monastic environment where the texts were produced only ever become partially euhemerized. The bird-men who appear in the Togail Bruidne Da Derga are somewhat more difficult to place. They are never identified as either human or as genii loci or áes sídhe; however, given that Cáer, the daughter of the king of the áes sídh and Óengus’s love in the Aislinge Oengusso, transforms each year into a bird, and her power is reckoned greater than her father’s for this reason, then it stands to reason that the bird-men likely also possess a greater power than one might expect from the standard magically-inclined human. Such ‘magically- inclined humans’ do exist: as mentioned previously, a group of druids made themselves appear as deer in order to escape with their lives, not unlike St Patrick and his followers, in one of the side-stories contained within the Táin Bó Cúailnge. The most common occurrences of normalized boundary transgressions in early English sources appear in hagiography, such as the tale of St Martin in Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, where devils (deofla) attempt to tempt the saint by taking on many different appearances (scin-hiwum), including those of the heathen gods.357

Discussion With the exception of Aldhelm’s riddle of Scylla in his Enigmata, the human transformations that we observe in both Anglo-Saxon and early medieval Irish texts do not create monstrous hybrids, or visual portmanteaus of human and non-human parts. Given the various facets in the interpretations of ‘the monstrous’ presented above, whether or not a physically transformed human who retains their physical faculties would be seen as monstrous is debatable, and depends on the context of the work within which the transformation is found. Let us note Oswald’s observation regarding the Old English Letter of Alexan- der to Aristotle: that the “human body, in this Anglo-Saxon text cannot and will not become monstrous. Transformation to and from the monstrous is not possible in Old English.”358 The examination of shapeshifting narratives in this study has shown that this is true inasmuch as we do not find physical hybrids created through metamorphosis of the human body, but we find many ‘unassimilated hybrids’ where the parts that refuse assimilation are cognitive and physical, or illusion and natural or divine order. While we might hesitate to

357 This passage from Lives of Saints is particularly well-known because in describing the heathen gods whose forms the demons take, Ælfric pairs named Roman gods (Jove, Mercury, Ve- nus) with Germanic ones (Thor, Odin, Fricg), 358 Oswald, Monsters, p. 198.

147 call the result of shapeshifting monstrous, the act of shapeshifting itself may be described in this way, and is one way in which the act of shapeshifting may be contrasted with cyclical or orderly change: the latter is predictable, non- disruptive, and does not require assimilation. Nevertheless, while the act of metamorphosis may be monstrous in its transgression of natural and divine order, and does create parts that resist assimilation either with each other (i.e. the disruptions between mind and body or illusion and truth as mentioned above) or with the individual’s community (i.e. the ability to shapeshift sets them apart from their community, or their transformation renders them unable to participate in the wider community), shapeshifting does not generally speaking produce monsters. In instances where the transformation is reversed or reverts, such as the Déssi’s cow, Cú Chulainn’s ríastrad, St Patrick’s deer, and St Macarius’s mare, the transformed individuals are re-assimilated and re-integrated with their communities. In most instances where the change is permanent, the transformation reifies another change that had already taken place, so while the transformation is in some ways monstrous, in other ways it physically assimilates an abstract change that had already taken place. Turning towards disability theory, we may note that the vocabulary of shapeshifting does not tend to overlap with that of injury or disease, nor do there tend to be judicial processes in metamorphosis narratives similar to punitive mutilation. Even in cases where transformation is punitive (e.g. Corictic in Vita Patricii), there is an important difference: transformed individuals are expelled or excluded from their human communities, whereas those who receive punitive mutilation are meant to return to their communities and act as an example to those around them. Beth Tovey points out that the tendency to sickness and impairment as grounds for exclusion or as significant markers of difference may be somewhat misplaced. As Tovey observes:

The visibility of sickness and impairment as a quotidian feature of medieval life, perhaps especially in the religious centers to which people flocked for cures, challenges the assumption that impaired bodies would automatically be conceived as separate and deviant. Physical injury was not uncommon; as Metz- ler shows in her study of skeletal evidence, broken bones are astonishingly prevalent in Anglo-Saxon males. Given the medical treatment available in the period, these may often have left visible physical signs such as a limp or a de- formity of the limb.359

A person who had been transformed into an animal but retained their human faculties would certainly present a visible sign of difference; however, this is a social facet of shapeshifting rarely touched upon by the texts. Instances of shapeshifting being treated as pathology are rare. None of the medical texts

359 Tovey, “Kingly Impairments”, p. 136.

148 dated to this period mention shapeshifting in a pathological context;360 nor does shapeshifting appear in the same context or as represented in the same way as impairments either cared for by the community or as presented to saints for healing. Nebuchadnezzar, for example, explicitly lives apart from the human community; indeed, this is one hallmark of his loss of human status. Co- rictic and the queen who insults St Columba undergo the same fate following their transformations, though the queen and her handmaidens do remain visible as cranes, giving us the closest analogue in the corpus to true punitive mutilation. The girl-mare brought before Macarius to be cured could be considered as suffering from a highly specific pathology; hagiography in both England and Ireland is replete with people being brought to saints to be healed of ailments ranging to the general and fairly common to the unusual and/or highly specific. But even here the vocabulary aligns more with other shapeshifting episodes than with discourses of illness, disease, or injury. Within the context of shapeshifting narrative, the community does not ostra- cize those who have transformed; when the individuals are ostracized, this is typically an exclusion that they initiate. In cases where a person is transformed into something non-human the transformation does cause impairment, because it prevents a person’s appropriate participation in society. This lack of capacity is frequently highlighted by the narrative. But does this mean that the transformed body can be seen as a disabled body? Not often, in this model of disability. The focus of each episode typically rests on the individual, and how they cope or do not cope with this change. Where the narrative’s scope includes the wider community, ac- commodation appears to depend on more than just appearance (though appearance is important). Communication and proper eating habits also appear to play a role in society’s willingness and capacity to handle ambiguous humanness. We turn next to belonging and community affiliation, here examined within the framework of social identity theory. We find that many cases of transformation involve transitions between in-group and out-group, or transitions between out-groups that bring an individual closer to or farther away from the in-group. In most cases, the in-group is determined primarily on a religious (Christian/non-Christian) distinction, and secondarily on ethnic or political ones. We may have, for example, members of the same ethnic grouping who are nevertheless divided because some of them identify as Christians, and others not. This occurs frequently in both hagiography and the martyrologies, not only in association with metamorphosis narratives. Not all out-groups are created equal: human out-groups are distinct from non-human ones, and divine

360 The putative ‘change’ from the Medicina de Quadrupedibus presented in Chapter Two of this study may be counted as a reference to late antique werewolf lore; however, as this does not appear elsewhere in early English or Irish documentation I am not convinced that its relevance or even its recognition in a shapeshifting context was particularly current.

149 members of the out-group are distinct from diabolic ones. There is a limited third category of ‘neutral’ non-human out-groups, which includes mostly non- human not explicitly classified as angelic or divine. This includes most animals, many of the creatures named in the Liber Monstrorum, as well as the genii loci and members of the áes sídhe in the Irish tales. In religious narratives, a member of the non-human out-group has the possibility of transitioning to the in-group; members of the neutral out-group have more difficulty making this transition, so transitioning from human out-group to neutral out- group moves the individual (conceptually) farther away from the in-group. Members of the divine or demonic out-group can take upon themselves the appearance of humans, but they never lose their demonic or divine nature; because they do not have a fixed appearance to human eyes, shapeshifting or the acquisition of different physical forms belongs to the nature of this category (thus, as explained in Chapter One, they have been largely excluded from this study, and excluded completely from the shapeshifting corpus). Transformations tend to reflect, or solidify, the transition from in-group to out-group, or even out-group to in-group: Where we can associate an explicit acknowledgement of difference with transformed individuals, transformation often appears to be the result of ‘othering’ by communities, rather than a cause of it. Where the perspective of the transformed individual(s) is represented in the text, transformed individuals most often do consider themselves separated or isolated from their communities. Members of the human in-group who effect transformations typically can only do so with out-group interference or assistance: saints effect transformations either through the power of their faith, or by means of the direct intervention of God. Members of the human out- group evince more varied sources of their transformative capacity: Some, like Simon or some of the druids (though it should be emphasized not all of them), have recourse to demonic magic. Others, however, seem to be able to work magic on their own, either as an innate ability or as an acquired skill. Given the varied metamorphosis experiences that meet the criteria of this study, it is worth summarizing the different ways that a human could transform or find themselves transformed within the corpus: They may be transformed permanently through supernatural means (divine/demonic/magical being); they may have the innate ability to transform (among humans very rare); or they may be temporarily transformed through a human’s exercise of magic or divine/demonic intervention. In the contrast between the ‘falsely illusory’ transformations of sorcerers and the ‘miraculously illusory’ we see the importance of visio intellectualis, whereby the illusions, regardless of their source, have the capacity to fool those who do not have the strength of intellectual vision to correctly perceive the sensory input they receive from their ocular vision. We also see in these cases a clear demonstration of the apparent subversion of the order of the created world, which serves to reinforce the superiority of the overarching divine order: in each case the person with supe-

150 rior visio intellectualis reveals the falsehood of the vision (this being the nar- rator Wisdom in the case of the OE De Consolatione Philosophiae). Thus, events that interrupt the ordinary course of nature, they testify to the presence of God. This connects back to the exploration of hagiography and didactic religious literature in Chapter One, and the influence of Gregory the Great, for whom miracles could act as signs pointing to a spiritual reality. St Augustine also argued specifically that miracles may appear contrary to the natural order as far as it is known, but because they are God’s will they are not contrary to divine nature.361

Conclusions This chapter has examined shapeshifting narratives from a socio-cultural perspective, building upon the conclusions reached in the previous two empirical chapters. The guiding theoretical frameworks have been monster theory, disability theory, and social identity theory. These three theories complement each other and provide us with a useful vocabulary for interpreting the socio- cultural impact of metamorphoses both within their texts, and within the wider textual communities in which they were produced and consumed. From the foregoing analysis, we may conclude that transformation narratives of a permanent nature most often reify spiritual or moral changes; temporary changes are often illusory in nature (most often in a Christian context, where the matter of illusion is a particularly pressing concern) and often interact with concepts of perception and cognition; i.e. how people perceive the world around them, and how certain people may ‘know’ the created order in different ways (particularly as it relates to the divine order). Events that appear to be a violation of the order of nature as it appears to humans may reveal the presence or the will of God, and thus ‘prove’ the existence of a divine order that supersedes the created one. Thus transformations with apparently opposite sources of power still, in the end, serve the same divine purpose. The matter of texts with less direct connection to the concerns of the Church is more difficult to discern in this regard; here the role of magic may yet escape an explicitly demonic significance, but in these cases the transformation is often not permanent: it is one of appearance which may be altered at the will of the agent of transformation. While the act of transformation may be seen as monstrous, it does not produce monsters; while from a human-centric perspective it creates impairment, it is not disabling according to the social model of disability.

361 Augustinus, Contra Faustum, J. Zycha, ed. (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1891), 251.4–797.7 at pp. 731–2, ch. XXVI.3

151 Chapter 5: Breaking Order to Reveal Order

Narratives of various forms of transformation pervade both Anglo-Saxon and early Irish writing. Following Bourgault du Coudray’s observations regarding werewolves, we may say that shapeshifting narratives

in every period [have] been informed by prevailing cultural values and dominant ways of knowing or speaking about the world. In this sense, [they] can be read as indices of the way in which ‘reality’ has been assessed, described and constructed at different moments in history.362

The three empirical chapters of this study have used different tools in order to investigate the cultural significances of these episodes. These chapters have interrogated what shapeshifting episodes meant for their authors and audiences, and what role, or what function, such episodes played within the textual communities in which they appeared. As we have seen, while some of these communities may have included broad swathes of Irish or English society, others inhabited a very particular context, which has informed their interpretation at all levels of meaning and function. The first of the tools used in this study was a lexical study of the vocabulary units used to explore the connotations of particular words and phrases used in the context of shapeshifting. This is important because it allows us to reconstruct the networks of meaning that inform the selection of a particular lexeme in a particular context, and thereby to draw conclusions about how these contexts were conceptualised. We can also infer, based on these conclusions, the particular associations that certain lexeme choices may have evoked, or may have been intended to evoke, in a given text’s (or genre’s) audience. The second was a closer examination of the role of particular rhetorical strategies such as simile and metaphor in the construction of shapeshifting narratives. By doing so, we can isolate the phenomenon of shapeshifting from other phenomena, particularly methods of comparison. In other words, we can identify the semantic difference between drawing similarities between or comparisons between humans and animals on the one hand, and on the other hand describing a human transforming into an animal, or vice versa. The final tool used in this study was an application of disability and social identity theories, as well as monster theory, in order to explore the cultural and

362 Bourgault du Coudray, Curse of the Werewolf, p. 2.

152 social consequences of transformations. This situates the transformation narratives in both their textual and social contexts. The chapter applies the conclusions from the foregoing chapters to the analysis of these contexts, which allows us to chart the cultural impact and utility of the metamorphosis imagery. This section gives the overall study its anthropological force and with the support of the previous sections of the study allows us to provide answers to the question, “Why write about metamorphosis?” Each of the three stages of this project has produced conclusions valuable for the study as a whole. The present section will summarize these conclusions; those that follow will discuss these findings in a broader context and the conclusions that can be drawn from them for this study as a whole. One initial observation is that many of the examples of shapeshifting have Classi- cal roots, particularly within Anglo-Latin and Old English contexts, regardless of genre and not reliant upon literary adaptations. Occasionally this is clearly because the text itself has a Classical or Late Antique source: Boethius assumed an audience familiar with Classical myth and story, and thus made many references to these in the De Consolatione Philosophiae; the Old Eng- lish adaptation not only retained these references but in some cases, like that of Circe and Ulysses, substantially added to them and adapted them for an audience that knew the stories from their own education, but would need more guidance than Boethius had given in his rather complex Latin. Indeed, Circe is a common source of transformation; she appears additionally in Aldhelm’s Enigmata as the transformer of Scylla, and in the Reference Bible again associated with her transformation of Ulysses’ men. Although the works of Ovid were clearly known, I have not been able to ascertain a direct influence of his Metamorphoses in the shapeshifting narratives of the present corpus, nor do we find any translations of this work in the period studied here. Patristic influences are clear, as are the biblical: many transformations made of inanimate objects by humans are direct references to the miracles of Christ, particularly the changing of water into wine. The Reference Bible draws direct comparisons between the transformational capacities of Cham and his descendants, and those of Circe. Shapeshifting usually appears in extraordinary circumstances: Across both early medieval England and Ireland they are for the most part absent from normative material such as law codes, chronicles, medical manuals, and charters. The vast majority of shapeshifting episodes come from narratives, either miracles from hagiographies or immrama, stories from Classical myths, or wonders from far away. Indeed, those beings which are able to transform without any assistance whatsoever are almost exclusively those which exist outside of the human in-group of each particular text; in many cases it is quite clear that these beings can only in the most limited degree be considered ‘human’, if they can be at all. Metamorphosis thus appears to confront both Eng- lish and Irish audiences with a specific textual image of unreality which would

153 force them “to realize [the] negation or non-representation of any reality encountered to date.” 363 Regarding medieval French narratives, Hess goes on to observe, “Ultimately, this realization would lead to an awareness of the tran- scendence of God.”364 In many cases of hagiography, both English and Irish, the immrama and works of philosophy such as the Old English De Consola- tione Philosophiae, it is clear that such a realization also plays a role in the presentation of shapeshifting. In her book, La métamorphose dans la littérature française des XIIe et XIIIe siècles, Cristina Noacco notes that transformations in French literature of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries revolve around verbs and nouns that have verbal forms: pure transformation does not exist; it demands a movement from one thing to another.365 Similarly, Bynum characterizes metamorphosis as expressing “a labile world of flux and transformation, encountered through story”, as opposed to hybridity, which expresses “a world of natures, essences, or substances [that] resists change.”366 The lexical study undertaken in Chapter Two has demonstrated that this also holds true for the earlier period in focus here: metamorphosis narratives coalesce around particular verbs, and narratives of change frequently employ the nouns derived from these verbs. The focus and metaphorical force of metamorphosis narratives reside in the process of change. Other nouns that appear in contexts of transformation tend to be fairly generic terms for form, shape, or appearance; however, these are also of use, as they can inform us on the relative importance of changes of substance as opposed to changes in appearance. From this aspect of the investigation, we can see that tensions between substantive and apparent change sim- mered beneath the surface; or, rather, it may be more accurate to say that cultural perceptions of the limits of change in either case are more or less explicitly reinforced. That identity persists through different forms is in most cases assumed; the true nature of a thing or person rarely changes, and when it does it is in nearly all cases by means of the Christian God’s intervention. The greater preoccupation here is not the persistence or interruption of identity, but rather the veracity or reliability of the image: where transformation is not an act of the Christian God, it must be an illusion caused by demons or sorcerers, and how one approaches this problem could be used as a litmus test of one’s personal and religious merit. Appearances can be deceiving, but they may also be used to deceive. The most common class of verbs utilized in transformation narratives is that which Ogura calls ‘verbs of turning’; while these verbs are not particularly

363 Erika Hess, Cross-dressers, Werewolves, Serpent-women and Wild Men: Physical and Nar- rative Indeterminacy in French Narrative, Medieval and Modern (PhD Dissertation: University of Oregon, 2000), p. 8. 364 Hess, Crossdressers, p. 8. 365 Noacco, La métamorphose, pp. 49–50. 366 Bynum, Metamorphosis and Identity, pp. 29–30.

154 common in Eucharistic contexts, they overlap significantly with the terminology used regarding conversion and apostasy. In this context, it is interesting to note that Old/Middle Irish, the language group with the highest density of texts whose characters and narratives do not directly relate to Christianity or the Church, is also the only language group where these ‘verbs of turning’, though present, do not predominate in discourses of transformation. Shapeshifting does not appear to have been considered in the same category of physical changes such as aging, or those that cause visible impairments. In the case of the latter, these are characterized less in terms of ‘change’ than in terms of the specific cause or healing of the impairment. Regarding the girl whose parents present to St Macarius in the form of a mare, awendan and forbregdan are in fact the descriptions of her particular impairment. However, her case is one of the few exceptions where transformation is treated like an illness or impairment capable of cure. Such changes, while certainly in most cases life-altering, seem at once to have been less complete, and more mun- dane in comparison with metamorphosis. In the case of the former, we do see some overlap between vocabulary associated with more cyclical change, and change as a more fundamental concept, such as represented by the Old English wyrmas, as described in Chapter Three: these are changes which are an inextricable and inevitable part of life— up to and including the rebirth that is promised by the resurrection. These are contexts from which the ‘verbs of turning’ remain largely absent, and indeed those verbs that do appear in both these contexts and those of shapeshifting, primarily wrixlan and mutare, apply only rarely to metamorphoses. These verbs connote not only change, but exchange and cyclical changes, such as the changing of the seasons or of day into night. Thus, we observe that metamorphosis occupies a space within the domain of ‘change’, but does not overlap with it completely. In other words, transformation is a kind of change, but not all changes are transformations.

Another key point to consider is that humans transform almost exclusively into animals. The exceptions to this are typically humans who transform into or take on the appearance of other humans (such as Éogan) or into a monstrous version of a human (such as in the ríastrad). Humans could, under miraculous circumstances, transform one kind of inanimate object into another: occasionally this had direct biblical reference, particularly to the transformation of water into wine. Within this context, one would expect that the transformation of the Eucharist would merit particular attention; indeed, as mentioned elsewhere in this study, Bynum has connected debates regarding the literal and substantive change (or lack thereof) of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ in the twelfth century to a renewed interest and engagement with transformation in works of literature. Like Huot, Bynum identifies a tension between changes of substance and changes of ap-

155 pearance, and connects this tension to a metaphorical exploration into the nature of identity in cases where the inner and outer person are out of sync in some way. However, discussions of the nature of the Eucharist using the language and rhetorical structures of metamorphosis are remarkably uncommon; Wulfstan’s homilies, for example, do not contain any sermon on the Eucharist at all.367 Ælfric does treat the matter of the Eucharist, using the verb awendan; however, in contrast to the predominant teaching he describes the Eucharist as symbolically representing the Body and Blood of Christ. Despite being a prominent figure in the late tenth-century Benedictine Reform, in this matter, Ælfric’s theory of the Eucharist did not attain prominence, as the eventual acceptance of the doctrine of transubstantiation (i.e., the mysterious change of the reality of the bread and the wine, as in the miracle related in the earliest Vita of Gregory the Great elsewhere in this study). Nevertheless, the use of Old English verbs relating to shapeshifting in Eucharistic contexts remains uncommon. Latin liturgical and literary texts overwhelmingly use transfigurare or transformare in their Eucharistic formulae; these verbs, however, are hardly ever used outside this context in relation to metamorphoses. The only context where we find more significant overlap between metamorphosis and the Eucharist appears in Old/Middle Irish. McNamara suggests that the use of the otherwise rare uertere in Gregory the Great’s Homiliae in euangelium I.14.1 had immense impact on Irish writers, specifically leading to the use of the Irish translation for uertere, soïd, in the Poems of Blathmac and the use of the composites conuertere and comṡódh in the Leabhar breac.368 He points out, though, that this is a later development: the earlier Hiberno-Latin sources most frequently use transfigurare/-atio as Eucharistic terminology, while sources from the ninth century and later either omit the phrase altogether or opt for conuersio (Leabhar breac, eleventh century) or oblatio (Gospels of Máel Brigte, 1138). The shift from transfigurare to (con)uertere, and its at- tendant Irish translations of soïd and comṡódh, appears to have taken place between the ninth and eleventh centuries in both Latin and Irish.369 However, the use of these words within the context of transformation, as we have seen, permeates Irish and Latin writing starting at a much earlier point, particularly in hagiography and related narratives. It is interesting to note that Ælfric, writing around the time that this change is presumed to have taken place in the Irish Eucharistic formula, also uses a ‘turning’ verb; it is possible that the Irish change may owe some influence to the Benedictine Reform taking place in England around that time.

367 Joyce Tally Lionarons, The Homiletic Writings of Archbishop Wulfstan (Boydell & Brewer, 2010), p. 123. 368 McNamara, “The Inverted Eucharistic Formula”, p. 584. 369 McNamara, “The Inverted Eucharistic Formula”, p. 590.

156 Shapeshifting Narratives as Conversion Narratives Throughout this study, the association between physical change and inner, less visible, change has remained prominent. In many cases this inner change is quite explicitly conversion, and the transformation of body confirms or reifies the change in spirit. A change in name, such as the cases of Cú Chulainn and Cú Cerca discussed in Chapter Three, also follows this pattern. In other cases, shapeshifting occurs as punishment or revenge; again, however, this often corresponds to a particular action which made the transformed person less acceptable to the human in-group. ‘Verbs of turning’ are most strongly associated with shapeshifting narratives that involve conversion or some manner of inner or ‘spiritual’ transformation. In cases where mutare appears alongside or in preference to uertere or conuertere in Latin sources (esp. the Reference Bible and Bede’s In Principium Genesis, both cited in Chapter Two), the authors appear to have retained the verb choice of their source texts; generally, however, we may observe that verbs of turning are preferred in transformation descriptions: where mutare appears outside of a quotation or paraphrase, it often refers to changes between different statuses of the same object, as, for example, in the case of winds changing. Bynum has argued that metamorphoses of the twelfth century demonstrate a certain resistance to, or even fear of, change; in particular, the loss of identity that could accompany the change in shape, bound closely with the concept of metempsychosis, caused particular concern. However, as mentioned above, this is not a preoccupation that we find in either the English or the Irish material. The lexemes used to describe the phenomenon of shapeshifting – most particularly in Latin and Old English, to a lesser extent in Old/Middle Irish – recall those used within the context of ‘turning’ towards God in the act of conversion. Thus, while metamorphosis itself may not always be positively valued in a given narrative, it recalls the potential for positive change at the same time as it presses upon the audience the consequences for negative change. Additionally, in considering the importance of movement and process to the metamorphosis phenomenon, it is worth remembering that conversion itself was seen as a process rather than a static event: Conversion was, in early medieval Christianity, the heart turning towards God, a process that in theory lasted a lifetime. Proper behaviour required constant performance: for every gecyrran there could be an oncyrran, if a person wasn’t careful. The line between human in-group and human out-group could be as hazy as the line between human and not, and proper performance kept one on the correct side. It has been suggested that the serial shapeshifting episodes contribute to a body of evidence that demonstrates a pre-Christian belief in reincarnation.370

370 Bernhardt-House, Werewolves, Magical Hounds, p. 120ff; John Carey, “Reincarnation and Shapeshifting” in John T. Koch, ed., Celtic Culture vol. 3 (Oxford: ABC CLIO, 2006), 1484– 86 at p. 1486; see also citations therein.

157 Certainly it demonstrates a kind of conviction in the integrity of an individual’s identity as they change form; however, given the fact that none of our serial shapeshifters die and take fleshly form anew, I am not entirely convinced by this argument. Nevertheless, given these stories, which include not only secular literature but also stories involving saints, as well as Augustinus Hibernicus’ comment regarding the fabulationes of the druids, I think these serial transformations do serve a narrative purpose. Most likely to me would be not only the extension of life, but also the acquisition of knowledge. How, then, does this relate to conversion narratives? I suggest that in the conversa- tions between saints and serial shapeshifters, we see not only the euhemeriza- tion of deities at work (i.e., the serial shapeshifter is born human and converts), but also the transmission of knowledge, and the responsibility for maintaining Ireland’s history, from figures such as Tuán and Mongan to the saints. Being reborn as a human and converting to Christianity breaks the earthly cycle: when they now die, their souls will be at the mercy of the Christian God. Nev- ertheless, the wisdom that they have imparted lives on through the saint-as- teacher; this saint, at least in the case of Mongan, additionally refuses to relate everything of the conversation with his disciples.

Human Transformations and the Performance of Human Status Regarding the Middle English romance, Benzon has observed that, “To be sure, men hunt other men, but to do so the hunters must make the men hunted somehow non-human. Criminals and enemies are beasts, outsiders to the world of ‘real’ human beings”.371 Thus, in effect, we see an extreme social consequence of expulsion from the community: a lack of society equals a lack of humanity. Although we do not see such a judgment made from the perspective of the community itself, when the text gives us the perspective of the transformed beings, they demonstrate an awareness of their own social isolation. It is important to point out, though, that only in the case of the serf transformed into a cow in the Tairired na nDéssi was the transformed individual intended to be killed or hunted; dehumanization is not the cause, rather the effect, in the majority of our texts. That animals occupied a different conceptual category from humans is clear. It may be observed that the border between the two was more rigid in the Christian cosmology; yet even here certain permeabilities existed, even if they did so on a primarily rhetorical level, through comparisons, metonymy, and metaphor, as discussed in Chapter Three. As much as Christian thought

371 William Benzon, “‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ and the Semiotics of Ontology”, Se- miotica 21:3/4 (1977), 267–293 at p. 277.

158 considered humans a category apart from animals, symbolism of and comparison with animals retained both didactic and narrative importance. As Oswald rightly points out, “[i]f the line between animal and human was problematic for medieval thinkers, despite the oft-cited Augustinian injunction concerning rationality, then the divisions among animals, monsters, and humans were considerably more troubling.”372 This is particularly relevant for transformation narratives, most of which involve the transformation of a human into an animal. Indeed, part of the idea (particularly when the transformation is punitive) appears to have been that the human would retain their rationality even in their non-human form, and thus lament their lowered state. This serves to reinforce God’s might, since magic cannot touch that part of a human which is most similar to God (in this case, the amalgam of mind and soul); yet it also must pose a difficulty in attempting to categorize the human-as-animal. Frequently transformations give us a metaphorical representation of what happens should a person fail to perform their human behaviours adequately: should they willingly turn away from proper behaviour, they will eventually lose the capacity for it. The particular behaviour can vary from text to text; Ulysses’ men did not uphold their promise to their lord and suffered transformation as a result, Corictic scorns the Christian God and St Patrick, the queen and her handmaiden insult St Columba and Nebuchadnezzar neglects both his duties as king and his promises to God, to take some prominent examples. However, it is also in the condition of the transformed that we see performance of human status playing a role. Proper eating and speech appear to condition one’s participation within the human in-group significantly. In cases where transformation results from punishment (often ecclesiastical punishment in particular), it is specifically mentioned that the transformed person(s) have removed themselves from human society and no longer interact with humans. Indeed, in the case of Nebuchadnezzar he first separates himself from society, then prefers not to eat human food and allows his hair and nails to grow: by these signs the audience understands that he is not, for all intents and purposes, human. When he repents and pledges himself to proper behaviour, he also returns to proper appearance and habits. Salisbury has argued that “[b]elief in metamorphosis, and particularly in werewolves, reveals a fear of the beast inside overwhelming the human qualities of rationality and spirituality, leaving only the animal appetites of lust, hunger, and rage.”373 In other words, the ‘animal’ side of a person overwhelms their ‘human’ side and renders them powerless to resist behaviours normally considered unacceptable. Salisbury references particularly Old Norse (primarily violence) and Old/Middle Irish (primarily lust) sources in this rather unnuanced argument. This study has shown, on the contrary, that differing discourses of metamorphosis circulated in early medieval England and Ireland,

372 Oswald, Monsters, p. 4. 373 Salisbury, The Beast Within, p. 163.

159 and that very few (if any) of these could be said to correspond to a belief in literal human shapeshifting. Furthermore, these sources rarely engage an anxiety regarding the loss of human status or characteristics; more often they concern themselves with the consequences of such a loss and the education and reinforcement of correct behaviour. The human body and its visual perfor- mances thus stand for the less visual behaviours discussed in the previous section. Indeed, in many cases the human qualities are retained even as the animal properties become more prominent. We may thus echo Lena Liepe in her observation that “[k]roppen är, med Sarah Beckwiths ord, en arena för förhand- ling av social identitet. Kroppen är den plats där individen och samhället, den personliga subjektiviteten och de sociala processerna, materialiseras och kon- fronteras.”374 In other words, the body reifies the spiritual, and in religious culture, miracles facilitated the understanding of the spiritual with the aid of and by means of the physical.

Transformation and Concepts of Change As Caroline Walker Bynum has observed, by exploring metamorphosis we may explore the concepts of change that were prevalent within a given culture at a given time. Certain texts in both the English and Irish material suggest a connection between physical change and perception; the transformation of the girl into a mare in the story of St Macarius from Ælfric’s Lives of Saints and Patrick’s cloaking of himself and his followers as deer in particular give this impression. A similar aspect of this appears in Cú Chulainn’s ríastrad; or, more specifically, the action he takes after the battle: having returned to his normal appearance, Cú Chulainn rides out in his chariot so that his people see him once again as a beautiful young man, and neither fear him nor associate him with his monstrous warp-spasm. As mentioned above, the tension between substantive change and change of appearance is not one that makes an ostensible presence in either the Eng- lish or the Irish corpus. This is not to say that it receives no attention at all; oblique references to a contrast between substance and appearance may be discerned in many of the narratives that call forth the importance of perception, and particularly in the hagiographies we find transformations of inanimate objects that reference their ‘true nature’—either that it was changed through God’s intervention or that the object reverted back to it after having undergone transformation. St Patrick, for example, in Muirchú’s Vita transformed a cup of liquor into ice and, when he blessed it, the ice returned to ‘its

374 “The body is, in Sarah Beckwith’s words, an arena for negotiating social identity. The body is the place where the individual and society, personal subjectivity and social processes, are materialized and confronted with one another.” Lena Liepe, Den Medeltida Kroppen: Kroppens och Könets Ikonografi i Nordisk Medeltid (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2003), p. 17.

160 natural state’.375 In the Bethu Phátraic, St Patrick changed snow into curd and butter to give as a tax to the king; once the curd and butter were presented to the king, they also reverted to their true nature, that of snow.376 Nevertheless, when tension arises between the individual’s shape before and after the transformation, the more prevalent tension appears to be true, as opposed to false, appearances. One focal point that Bynum identifies in the central and later medieval concern over transformation was, as mentioned above, transubstantiation and the Eucharist. While Wulfstan does not address the issue in his homilies, it does appear periodically in the works of Ælfric, who in contrast to later doctrine is quite emphatic that the bread and wine transform ‘spiritually’ rather than ‘bodily’.377 Helen Foxhall-Forbes points out that the nature of the surviving evidence “makes it almost impossible to determine how widely accepted was the belief that when bread and wine was consecrated it turned literally and physically into the Body and Blood of Christ”,378 but given an episode in the Anglo- Latin Vita of Gregory the Great where the transformation of the Eucharistic bread into a bodily finger is treated as a miracle (i.e. as the bodily transformation of that which typically occurs spiritually),379 it seems possible that this was a concept that had longer currency in the early English Church.

375“Vita Patricii”, §I.20: Vidensque sanctus Patricius hoc probationis genus uidentibus cunctis benedixit poculum suum et uersus est liquor in modum gelu et conuerso uasse cicidit gutta illa tantum quam inmisserat magus, et iterum benedixit poculum, conuersus est liquor in naturam suam et mirati sunt omnes. (When holy Patrick saw the kind of test to which he was being subjected, he blessed his goblet in the sight of all and the liquor froze like ice; then he turned his goblet upside down, and only the drop which the druid had added fell out. And he blessed the goblet again: the liquor resumed its natural state, and they all were greatly astonished.) 376 Bethu Phátraic, p. 9, II.184–7: Is and sin dorigni Patraic in gruth ⁊ in n-im dont snechta, co rucad don ríg. Uair ro taiselbath iarom don rig ro sóad inna aicned snechta dorithissi. Ro maith iarom in rí a chís do Pátraic do grés. (Then of the snow Patrick made the curd and the butter, and this was taken to the King. So when it had been shown to the King it was turned again into its nature of snow. Then the King remitted the tribute to Patrick continually.) 377 “Sermo de Sacrificio in die Pascae” in Malcolm Godden, ed., Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, Series II, Text, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959). 378 Helen Foxhall-Forbes, Heaven and Earth in Anglo-Saxon England: Theology and Society in an Age of Faith (London: Routledge, 2016 [repr. orig. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013]), p. 20. 379 Bertram Colgrave, ed. and trans., The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great: Text, Translation and Notes, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985): Nam antiquorum fertur esse nar- ratio quia quȩdam Romȩ aliquando matrona sibi oblationes faciens, eas adtulisset, quas iam vir sanctus accipiens in sacrosancti corporis Christi sanctificavit agoniam. […] “Ego ipsos panes meis feci manibus, et tu de illis dixisti quia corpus Domini essent.” […] Qua peracta oratione, sanctus vir invenit super altare quod posuit ut digituli auricularis particulam sanguilenti. Ad quod mirabile spectaculum vocavit incredulam, quo iam viso satis obstupuit. […] Eosque iterum qui erant in ecclesia hortatus est ad orationem, ut ille qui eis misericordiam suam quam postulabant ostendere dignatus est, iterum dignaretur sacrum corpus suum in suam mutare naturam, de quo eum presumebant, tantum pro infidelitate incredule mulieris precari. (There is an ancient story that once a certain matron in Rome was making her oblations and had brought them to him; the saint received them and consecrated them into the most holy Body of Christ

161 An additional point identified by Bynum is the influence of debates regarding the Resurrection in the popularity of werewolf and other shapeshifting stories. Carey observes that “It is tempting to take up Caroline Walker Bynum’s argument that the vogue for werewolf stories in Europe c. 1200 was closely linked with contemporary debates concerning the nature of the resurrection, most notably with polemics against a Cathar doctrine of metempsychosis.”380 These debates grew out of the intellectual climate of the early Middle Ages; however, the concerns of the texts of our corpus are different, and the concepts of change embodied by metamorphosis narratives reflect the preoccupations of their times: establishing and reinforcing norms of proper Christian behaviour as well as the importance of converting to the Christian faith take prece- dence over the materiality of the Eucharist or the Resurrection.

Cultural Significances: Why Write about Shapeshifting? This section concerns itself with the central question of this study: What is the cultural significance of shapeshifting; or, why write about shapeshifting? It appears that the unreality of human shapeshifting provided an ideal tool that early medieval writers could use to focus attention on particular aspects of change that were, to them, very real, but not nearly as easy to visualize. Pre- vious research has suggested that medieval shapeshifting narratives used the physical, visible change of metamorphosis in order to probe anxieties surrounding changes to the body and how this related to the persistence of a continuous consciousness or identity. Within scholastic discourse, this appeared in commentaries on whether the body which resurrected was the same body which had died (for example, even if it looked the same, was it truly the same? What made the body that resurrected the same body that had died? Could Peter rise in Paul’s body?). Because such theories, based as they are in Aristotle’s writing, were largely unavailable to early medieval authors, it has been observed that such inquiries were not possible. It has also been suggested that shapeshifting reflects non-Christian or folk beliefs regarding fluidity of identity, or conversely that it reveals a fear of losing control over one’s human rationality and giving in to baser animal natures. This study argues that the discourses which used shapeshifting as a source domain were quite different, with some aspects shared between early medieval the Victim. […] “I made those loaves with my own hands and you said they were the Body of the Lord.” […] When he had finished speaking, the said found that what he had placed on the altar was like the fragment of a little finger and covered with blood. He called the unbelieving woman to behold the marvellous sight and when she saw it she was utterly dumbfounded. […] He again urged those who were in the church to pray that He who deigned to show them the mercy they had asked for, would also deign to change the sacred Body back into its natural form; this they ventured to pray for and also for the lack of faith of the incredulous matron.) 380 Carey, “Werewolves”, pp. 44–5.

162 England and Ireland, and others more locally situated. Many of the shared elements draw upon the shared cultural heritage of Christianity and Antiquity, as well as the theme of conversion, which remained current in both contexts throughout the period studied. Here, the lapse from human to animal form proceeds less from anxiety over loss of control, as argued by Salisbury, and more from an effort to drive home the consequences of not behaving in the proper manner. Furthermore, as we saw in the section above on the correspondences between shapeshifting narratives and conversion narratives, we find that shapeshifting can provide a vivid, and visual, representation of change that occurs when one moves from the human in-group to the human out-group, or vice versa.

Methodological Evaluation This study has made use of three different but interrelated studies, which build upon each other and increase in scale as they progress. It has, in effect, examined in sequence each of the three metafunctions of meaning which Halliday has identified: textual metafunction, individual metafunction, and interpersonal metafunction.381 These three metafunctions combine, as the three sections in this study combine, to reveal the communicative function (in the terminology of this study, the social function) certain language realizations may have. From the lexicographical analysis and the analysis of the inner person, to the rhetorical strategies and analysis of the individual, to the socio-cultural examination of shapeshifting narratives, this study has provided a uniquely comprehensive examination of shapeshifting from an anthropological-historical perspective. One of the results of this study is therefore the establishment of such a methodology as an effective and above all usable tool for examina- tions of particular cultural phenomena, not only shapeshifting. More specifically, it explores the application of lexical research methods to verbs as well as nouns, where typically the former are much less researched. This study demonstrates that such an interlocking approach is not only viable, but a valuable method.

Concluding Remarks I have mentioned previously the need to establish a sense of the semantic systems in which the cultural phenomenon of shapeshifting operates; this is because particular phenomena are born of particular cultural moments, and what looks like a werewolf from late antique or high medieval texts may, in the end,

381 See: Michael Halliday, Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar, 4th ed. (Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge, 2014), pp. 30–1.

163 do something quite different in a different cultural context. The ‘clusters’ which have been examined here do, as we have seen, often overlap; but they also diverge at significant points. Cohen’s observation regarding vampires applies to broad histories of shapeshifting as well:

Discourse extracting a transcultural, transtemporal phenomenon […] is of rather limited utility; even if vampiric figures are found almost worldwide, from ancient Egypt to modern Hollywood, each reappearance and its analysis is still bound in a double act of construction and reconstruction.382

Even between Anglo-Saxon England and early medieval Ireland, we see that this double act of construction and reconstruction is carried out differently: shapeshifting narratives from Anglo-Saxon England come to us overwhelmingly from religious-didactic contexts, and draw more explicitly from Classi- cal sources for their transformations. The Irish narratives, on the other hand, are scattered between religious and heroic sources, and these latter narratives often use shapeshifting to signal a connection to the otherworldly, though this otherworldly element is often euhemerized and ambiguous. While verbs of turning predominate in Latin and Old English, Irish texts have a higher rate of verbs denoting change or disguise, which coincides with the often temporary or at-will changes of form that occur within these texts. Sometimes this is connected with acts of magic, but magic is not a prerequisite. Irish texts, in short, have a higher density of unstable bodies, a state of affairs which often challenges the fixed categorization of said bodies. This demonstrates the de- pendence of Irish narrative texts on a more fluid understanding of conceptual boundaries, and of a semiotic system within which the concept of shapeshifting has a broader potential for application; as Künzler argues, this very poly- semy is a feature of Irish storytelling itself.383 In this context it is interesting to contrast the episodes of shapeshifting in Old English, which rely on reason- ably delineated conceptual boundaries, with the Riddles of the Exeter Book, which themselves rely upon subverting these boundaries and upon more fluid conceptual understandings. Critically, we may remember, only one riddle contained a ‘shapeshifting word’ or indeed a clear example of shapeshifting as defined by this study.

This study has examined the place of metamorphosis in the semiotic systems of early medieval England and Ireland, respectively. That metamorphoses occur only in exceptional circumstances, and that transformations require the intervention of divine, demonic, or otherwise superhuman capacity both suggest that metamorphosis exists outside of normal human capacity, and as such, runs counter to the ordered world as far as it is known to people. However,

382 Cohen, Monster Theory, pp. 5–6. 383 Künzler, “A Spectacle of Death”, p. 35.

164 this study has shown that throughout the various discourses in which shapeshifting appears, the act of metamorphosis highlights this break in order only to bring it to a resolution which underscores and reinforces a superior order, most often the divine. As Victor Turner observes:

Through successive life crises and rites of status elevation, individuals ascend structurally. But rituals of status reversal make visible in their symbolic and behavioural patterns social categories and forms of grouping that are considered to be axiomatic and unchanging both in essence and in relationship to one another. Cognitively, nothing underlines regularity so well as absurdity or paradox. Emotionally, nothing satisfies as much as extravagant or temporarily permitted illicit behaviour.384

In the most basic sense, the rules only become important when someone breaks them, and one’s humanity is clearest when it is juxtaposed with what it is not. Shapeshifting does not serve as an initiation ritual in the sense that the wolfskin episode of Völsunga saga is said to do, but it does reify changes in status or consequences of changes or violations of morality. From Augus- tine onwards, the idea of a human as animal rationale mortale (‘a mortal animal possessing reason’) was one of the apparently secure distinctions;385 however, the close relationships of humans and animals in practical life, even within monastic settings, will have posed a problem for such a stark distinction in an early medieval setting. The progression of attributes from plants, which had no animation, no reason, and no soul, to animals, which had animation but no reason or soul, to humans, which had both animal and reason and the extra divine element of a soul, was well known to medieval audiences. Trans- forming a human into an animal not only denied the human a form that was created in God’s image; it also created (or indeed confronted) the problem of what would happen to that human’s soul and reason. In the Old English De Consolatione Philosophiae, for example, we saw that Ulysses’ men retained their human reason, and could therefore lament their ‘suffering’ as non-humans; in the dialogue preceding Circe’s story, Wisdom addresses the loss of human status through the abnegation of one’s better part: that is to say, through non-Christian behaviour, a human gives up their right to a soul, thereby effectively losing it and becoming ‘animal’, even if they retain the appearance of a human. The comparison of human and animal characteristics is common in biblical as well as other contexts, and this can even create ambiguity with shapeshifting episodes, as explored in Chapter Three. The main difference here, however, is that comparison posed no threat to the Christian cosmology, whereas shapeshifting appeared – at least on the surface – to disrupt it. As we

384 Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Hawthorne NY: Aldine de Gruyter, 1999 [repr. orig. 1969]), p. 176. 385 Augustinus, De Civitate Dei, B. Dombart and A. Kalb, eds., (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955), p. 508. Cited from Rudolf Simek, Monster, p. 18.

165 have seen in Chapter Four, however, the identification of the disruption and its correction ultimately demonstrates the human fallibility in recognizing the divine order, and reveals the presence of God.

166 Appendix 1: List of Transformations

The list in Appendix 1 provides an overview of those sources quoted within this study; the table below provides a more detailed list of the specific transformation narratives, as well as relevant information regarding the nature of the transformations. These are the specific instances that concern humans, either, as in Table 1, humans who themselves are transformed (which formed the main focus of this study), or, as in Table 2, transformation that are caused by humans. Transformation that occur without human involvement or intervention (e.g. wondrous animals who can change their own shape; God and angels; demons) are not listed here.

Table 1: Transformations of Humans

Source Title Date Transformat- Transform- Transform- (Author) ion From ation To ation By Vita sancti ca. 7th c. Humans (St Deer St Patrick Patricii Patrick and (Muirchú) followers) Vita sancti ca. 7th c. Man (King Fox St Patrick Patricii Corictic) (Muirchú) Enigmata 8th c. Woman Hybrid Circe (Aldhelm) (Scylla) monster Aislinge ca. 8th c. Humans (man Swans (own power?) Oengusso and woman) Fled Ca. 8th c. Human (Uath Various (innate) Bricrenn mac Imomain) forms Tairired na Mid-8th Human (serf) Red horn- Druid nDéssi c. less cow Liber Mon- Late Humans (men) Stone Gorgons strorum 7th/early 8th c.

167 Reference 8th c. Humans Var. ani- Cain/Cham Bible mals (magic arts) Reference 8th c. Ulysses’ Com- ‘Beasts’ Circe Bible panions Reference 8th c. Arcades Wolves Curse Bible Tochmarc 8th/9th c. Human Various Human magic Étaíne (Étaíne) (Fuamnach); semi-innate Im- 8th/9th c. Human Deer, (innate) macallam (Mongan) salmon, Choluim seal, wolf Cille ⁊ ind óclaig Scéla Tuáin 9th c. Human Varius (innate, via meic forms dream?) Chairill OE De Con- c. 880 Humans Wolves, Circe solatione and 950 (Ulysses’ boars, lions Philoso- men) phiae Bethu ca. 10th c. Humans (St Deer St Patrick Phátraic Patrick and followers) Bethu ca. 10th c. Human Different St Patrick Phátraic human Immram Ca. 10th Sea-god Human (innate) Brain c. copy of 7th c. original Immram Ca. 10th Human Various (?innate) Brain c. copy (Mongan) forms incl. of 7th c. dragon, original wolf, deer Lives of 996–7 Serpents Humans Christ Saints: Ca- thedra Sancti Petri (Ælfric) Lives of 996–7 Girl Mare Sorcerers Saints: In- ter Alia (Ælfric)

168 Blickling Late 10th Man (Simon) Young man, Simon (sorce- Homilies c. old man, rer) other forms Togail 10th/11th Bird Man (removal of Bruidne Da c. birdskin) Derga Táin Bó Early Cú Chulainn Warp spasm (innate) Cúailnge 11th c. Táin Bó Early Humans (har- Deer (own magic) Cúailnge 11th c. pers/druids) Commen- Early 11th Queen, hand- Cranes St Columba tary on c. maiden Amra Cho- luim Chille

Table 2: Transformations by Humans

Source Date Transformat- Transformat- Trans- Title (Aut- ion From ion To formation hor) By Vita san- c. 675 Water Beer St Brigid ctae Bri- gidae (Co- gitosus) Vita Prima 7th/8th–9th Water Beer St Brigid sanctae c. Brigidae Vita Prima 7th/8th–9th Water Beer St Brigid sanctae c. Brigidae Vita Prima 7th/8th–9th Lard Snakes ? sanctae c. Brigidae Vita Prima 7th/8th–9th Snakes Communion ?St Brigid sanctae c. Bread Brigidae Liber Late [Various] Gold King Midas Monstro- 7th/early rum 8th c.

169 Vita Gre- Ca. 704– Piece of Eu- Christ’s finger Gregory the gorii 14 charistic bread Great Immram 8th c./11th Black White Island Curaig c. redac- sheep/white sheep/black dweller Mail Dúin tion sheep sheep Tochmarc 8th/9th c. Human Puddle Fuamnach Étaíne (Étaíne) Bethu 9th c. Water Milk St Brigid Brigte Bethu 9th c. Meat Bread St Brigid Brigte OE Marty- 2nd half Sticks Refined gold John the rology D of 9th c. (obryzum) Evangelist Bethu ca. 10th c. Water Honey St Patrick Phátraic Bethu ca. 10th c. Snow Curds and St Patrick Phátraic butter Commen- Early 11th Humans Cranes St Columba tary on c. Amra Cho- luim Chille

170 Summary

This dissertation is an anthropological study of the motif of shapeshifting in early medieval (ca. 650 – ca. 1000) England and Ireland. At nearly every point in time when they have appeared, shapeshifting beings have been shown to reveal or to play out certain cultural preoccupations and anxieties; frequently, these anxieties coalesce around concepts of change, and around the often-im- precise border between the human and the animal. This project has connected the phenomenon of shapeshifting with changes that took place during the period ca. 650 – ca. 1000, thereby demonstrating the social function of this motif; the comparative element of examining both England and Ireland has both expanded the range of functions perceived, as well as provided an opportunity to add greater nuance to the interpretations of both cultural areas. Indeed, change dominated both the cultural and geographical landscape in England and Ireland during the period ca. 650 – ca. 1000. The problems that beset studies of the earlier Migration Period, such as debates of settlement versus take- over as well as the origins of particular territorial units, and even to a certain extent the degree and reach of Christian conversion, are by the mid-seventh century either less relevant or more clearly understood. That being said, however, this does not mean that early Christian England and Ireland present the historian with fewer problems; only different ones. By 650, Ireland was at least nominally Christian; nevertheless, the conversion of non-Christians remained a persistent topic in the early hagiographies of Brigid and Patrick. This and other evidence suggest that the process of conversion was still ongoing into the seventh and eighth centuries. Archaeological and documentary sources show that changes in both subsistence and political domains were ongoing during this period, both in terms of different families gaining prominence, and in the consolidation of power and encounters with Scandinavian invaders and settlers. In England, Irish missionaries had already had a presence before the mission sent by Gregory the Great arrived in 597; the period ca. 600 – ca. 850 is often known as the ‘Conversion Period’ in Anglo-Saxon England. The process of conversion was rarely linear: a top-down process, it frequently depended on political expediency, and thus was intricately linked to the power dynamics and differing systems of authority and cohesion between the kingdoms. Alfred the Great instigated his programme for education in the late ninth century, noting the general decline in learning since the hey- day of Aldhelm of Malmesbury (d. 709) and the Venerable Bede (d. 735), and

171 the Benedictine Reform took hold in the late tenth century; for the purposes of this study, the latter’s relevance is less in its reform of the monastic houses, and more the inspiration and drive that it provided Ælfric of Eynsham (d. ca. 1010) to communicate correct religious behaviour to those outside the monastic walls. Again here one must mention the severe change and disruption wrought by Scandinavian settlers and invaders from the eighth century onwards. Such a brief overview cannot begin to capture the complexity of the changes that took place during these 350 years across all domains of life; however, it does at least demonstrate that questions of change, belonging, and identity remained relevant throughout this period; therefore, the study demonstrated that narratives of shapeshifting, predicated on such preoccupations, would not only remain relevant, but could provide people with a physical, visual means to illustrate or explain these anxieties to their audiences. The project also interrogated the valence of meaning that shapeshifting narratives could have (i.e., what these narratives said to the people who read or heard them). It showed that early medieval shapeshifting narratives fit within particular semantic networks that differed in sometimes subtle but significant ways from the better-studied narratives of late antique/Patristic and high medieval texts. Thus, this study provides new interpretations of these shapeshifting narratives, whereby it demonstrates that the concept of shapeshifting can be a useful and important tool for making sense of certain aspects of early medieval England and Ireland. Furthermore, far from being relegated to their own period, these narratives informed the changes that took place in the long twelfth century, and by understanding the earlier period more thoroughly we can only improve our approaches to shapeshifting in later cultural moments. In order to do this, the project cast its net as wide as possible in terms of source material. One important consequence of taking an anthropological approach to a historical study is the perspective that all textual sources, regardless of genre, can and must be considered as an example of a cultural utterance (i.e., concrete expressions of culture in particular contexts). Additionally, in the early medieval period the concept of ‘fictionality’ is not active (although tensions between ‘true’ and ‘false’ tales do exist), which also provides an incen- tive to avoid strict divisions between ‘historical’ and ‘literary’ textual material. Regarding their status as cultural utterances, many of the texts from Eng- land and Ireland composed during this period can be difficult to tie to particular contexts: preserved in later manuscripts, dated on primarily linguistic grounds anonymous, or difficult to place geographically, they derive their context from the texts with which they are grouped in the codices that they survive in (which give an indication of how they were perceived at that time at least) and by internal evidence that indicates information such as intended audience and cultural or political references. The criteria for a particular narrative being included in the shapeshifting corpus was that it contained a human (specifically human, not merely humanoid) that underwent a complete physical transformation, so that the individual was unrecognizable in their transformed state

172 (e.g. not a hybrid). During the establishment of the specific corpus of shapeshifting narratives which the study would analyse, certain trends became evident: Firstly, that documentary evidence such as laws, chronicles, and charters did not contain shapeshifting narratives. Secondly, the particular genres where shapeshifting narratives appear most often appear to be hagiography and related religious narratives, works of wonder and philosophy, and epic narratives (this category restricted to Irish sources) and poetry (including riddles). The didactic function of many shapeshifting narratives is apparent already at this stage. The empirical chapters have been constructed as a series of interlocking parts that build upon one another as they progress. Chapter Two, the first empirical chapter, examines the lexical basis for shapeshifting, in order to establish not only the vocabulary that was employed in creating these textual images, but also to uncover the connotations of these particular words. This establishes a network of meaning for each of these words, and tells us what particular connotations a particular shapeshifting episode may mean to draw upon, depending on the vocabulary choices made. The words considered here are verbs – that is, words that refer to the process of shapeshifting – and nouns – that is, words that refer to the individual on either end of the process. Each section analyses words in Old English and Old/Middle Irish, with Hiberno- Latin and Anglo-Latin considered together under a single heading. The theoretical framework of the chapter focused on the inner life of the individual: since so many of the words for shapeshifting overlapped with words used to describe conversion, particular attention was paid to comparisons between ‘inner’ or ‘spiritual’ transformation, and ‘outer’, ‘visible’, or ‘physical’ shapeshifting. The chapter shows that all three language groupings utilized a variety of vocabulary to refer to shapeshifting, demonstrating that this was neither a fixed or a fossilized semantic network. Nevertheless, we do find a much greater consistency among verbs than nouns: it is uncommon to find a shapeshifting narrative that does not employ one of the verbs listed in this chapter; finding a similar consistency among the nouns is difficult. This indicates that most shapeshifting narratives place an emphasis on the process of transformation. It also suggests that it is the process itself which the audience will recognize, by means of this evocative vocabulary. Overall, verbs of turning dominate within shapeshifting narratives; this is particularly the case in Old English and in Latin—both Anglo-Latin and Hiberno-Latin. While verbs of turning are prevalent in Old/Middle Irish, they do not eclipse the other verbs they way that they do in the other languages. In Old/Middle Irish we additionally see a greater role played by verbs of disguise; here as well constructions involving blessing and making (in hagiographical contexts) are more prominent. Regarding the nouns, Old English primarily makes use of the generic hiw (form, appearance); in Latin there is some tension surrounding nature, form, and substance, but contrary to the later scholastic arguments, this is relegated mostly to subtexts and not made a central feature of commentary or

173 exegesis. Old/Middle Irish is unique in having not one but two nouns that refer to wolf-shapes; despite this, however, early evidence for a ‘werewolf tradition’ is lacking. The connection between conversion and shapeshifting observed at the beginning holds throughout the analysis; not only ‘turning’ as in conversion is an important connotation here, but also ‘turning’ towards or away from a person (or God) in the sense of showing loyalty to them is an important concept, and one which fits easily within the historical context of power consolidation (or at least the attempts and doing so), particularly among the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and especially from Mercia southwards. Chapter Three, the second empirical chapter, builds upon the lexical study of Chapter Two both theoretically and methodologically. Where Chapter Two focused on the individual and their own inner thoughts and loyalties, Chapter Three focuses on the individual’s outward appearance and the more visible aspects of their behaviour. Because human-animal transformations are by far the most common within the shapeshifting corpus studied here, the examination of an individual’s outward appearance is here conducted specifically with reference to the relationship between humans and animals, and the capacity of the characteristics of the latter to be transferred to the former. In the previous chapter, we looked at metaphor at the level of individual words (for example, literal turning about in space versus metaphorical turning as in cases of conversion and shapeshifting); in this chapter, we look at strategies for human- animal comparison and contrast that with human-animal transformations. This chapter observes that human-animal transformations frequently have a metaphorical quality, whereas in human-animal comparisons simile is the rhetorical strategy more often employed. In the case of the latter, the purpose of the comparison is to highlight particular characteristics that the individual has in common with that particular animal; for this reason, it is important to understand the cultural symbol structure attached to particular animals—not only how animals were interacted with in particular regional contexts (though there were significant regional differences in animal husbandry, and even between different types of settlements differences are clearly visible in the archaeological record), but also the more abstract characteristics that certain animals had developed either through folk traditions or through the Biblical symbolic structure. In the case of shapeshifting, on the other hand, we see a situation much more closely aligned with metaphor: because the human has completely taken on the appearance of the animal, there is no partial overlap in characteristics: the human is now an animal. Even in cases where human reason (and, one presumes, a human soul, although this is rarely mentioned specifically in this context) is clearly retained, for all intents and purposes the animal-human is indistinguishable from the animal-animal. Thus, in many cases the specific animal that the human transforms into is almost interchangeable: the point is not the animal into which they changed, but the fact that they changed at all. The exception to this is cases in which the entire metamorphosis is metaphorical in character (e.g. animal-to-animal transformations, such as a wolf to a

174 lamb, where both the Biblical metaphor and human representation by animals are clear), as well as cases in which the transformation takes the form of a disguise. Perhaps paradoxically, the disguise or temporary assumption of form is often more symbolically laden than other shapeshifting episodes: the implication of St Patrick and his companions being disguised as deer delivers a subtle insult to the heathen king at the same time as it effects their escape. The souls of humans also appear occasionally as birds, echoing both an Irish es- chatological tradition as well as a hagiographical one (where the souls of the dead rise to Heaven as birds, usually doves); however, whether this is true transformation or not is debatable. The final empirical chapter, Chapter Four, expands the scale still further. Where the previous chapter mixes an analysis of the meaning of shapeshifting with the beginnings of social implications, in this chapter the social consequences of shapeshifting within the narratives, and the social functions of shapeshifting narratives themselves, stand in focus. In order to examine this question most thoroughly, this chapter approaches the corpus using three theoretical paradigms that are often – more or less critically – applied to shapeshifting and shapeshifters by scholars. The first of these is disability theory. Here the study follows the social model of disability, whereby disability comes into being when society is incapable of accommodating a person’s impairments or differences. It finds that although from a human perspective, shapeshifting is certainly an impairment (when the text grants us access to the individual after they have changed, they are often aware of the change and sorry for it), but the condition of having shapeshifting only rarely creates disability. Part of the reason for this is that shapeshifting appears to reify a change that has already taken place: there are few instances where one attempts to have a shapeshifted individual changed back, and those who are serial shapeshifters usually wind up in human form again on their own (either through their own ability or through magical means according to the story). The second paradigm is that of monster studies. Werewolves in particular are often held up as a monster that confronts human society with the threat of losing control of its reason and giving in to its bestial side. Monsters themselves disrupt society; indeed, they are only truly recognizable as monsters by the disruptive, disquieting effect they have on society. However, in the case of our shapeshifting narratives, we find very few instances where society is referenced at all: most shapeshifting narratives focus almost to exclusion on the transformed individual(s). Where the transformation is situated within a social setting, we do see disruption, but this disruption is either resolved (thus reinforcing the divine support of a saint, for example) or the transformation is again the final result of a prior disruption. Shapeshifters are more often to be pitied, it seems, than feared. Finally, the corpus is examined from the perspective of social identity theory, whereby the shapeshifting narratives are interpreted based on the way in which they either disrupt or reinforce group iden-

175 tities. Here we see quite clearly that shapeshifting, where it is valued as positive by the text, results in a movement from the out-group to the in-group; where it reifies negative traits or behaviour, the boundary crossing goes the other way. As these are all Christian texts, it goes without saying (certainly for the texts themselves) that the settled Christian community is the primary in-group here; ethnic or political affiliations do play a role, particularly in epic narratives where the Church is less prominent. Regarding the out-group, there is considerable variability. The human out-group is typically composed of heathens, but it may expand to encompass everyone outside of the text’s particular in-group. Among the non-human out-group, one finds divine non-humans (e.g. angels and messengers of God) and demonic non-humans (e.g. demons), but also a more neutral group of supernatural non-humans which might be threatening, but more often than not they’re simply there (e.g. the mythological potentially former gods of Irish heroic tales). Thus, shapeshifters are usually neither disabled nor monstrous; however, they are a tool for education behaviour and for both demonstrating and reifying group adherence. In conclusion, shapeshifting takes different forms and appears in different contexts between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and those of early medieval Ireland; however, common to both of these is the requirement of performance. It is critical to perform the correct behaviours of the human in- group, regardless of whether this is saintly behaviour, or socially appropriate interactions. Often, shapeshifting is used as a way to reify or make visible changes that had already happened: these changes, however, would usually be less visible to the community at large, or they would be difficult to communicate clearly without a particularly illustrative aid. Although shapeshifters would appear to disrupt a natural order, through this disruption they ultimately reveal the divine power of God, and thus reaffirm the divine order.

176 Sammanfattning

Denna avhandling är i huvudsak en antropologisk studie av hamnskift- nings- eller shapeshifting-motivet i den äldre medeltidens England och Irland (ca. 650 – ca. 1000). Oavsett när shapeshifting-varelser dyker upp i litteraturen tycks de ha vissa kulturella funktioner och bära vittne om ”friktioner” eller ”störningar” i relation till de kulturella och sociala systemen och innebära brott mot den etablerade ordningen. Ofta är en sådan ”friktion” kopplad till just förändringen, inte sällan till den oförutsägbara och undflyende gränsen mellan människa och djur. Denna avhandling sammankopplar shapeshifting-fenomenet med olika typer av förändringar som skett under perioden, och demonstrerar därmed vilka sociala funktioner detta motiv kan ha haft. Att undersöka och jämföra England och Irland i detta avseende har både utvidgat utbudet av undersökbara funktioner och dessutom givit möjlighet att lyfta fram fler nyanser i tolkningarna av båda kulturområdena. Förändringar dominerade nämligen det kulturella så- väl som det geografiska landskapet i England och Irland under den aktuella perioden. Teman som varit viktiga i studier om den tidiga så kallade folkvandrings- tiden, till exempel frågor om invandring eller erövring, vissa territoriella en- heters ursprung, och även delvis frågan om kristendomens utbredning, är an- gående tiden för denna studies början, det vill säga mitten av 600-talet, antingen mindre relevanta eller redan bättre utforskade. Detta betyder dock inte att studier av den tidiga kristendomen i England och Irland innehåller färre problem för historiker; problemen är bara olika. År 650 var Irland åtminstone nominellt kristet, ändå var omvändningen av icke-kristna ett kvarstående ämne i såväl S:ta Brigids och S:t Patricks tidiga hagiografier. Detta och andra förhållanden tyder på att konverteringsprocessen fortfarande pågick under 600- och 700-talen. Arkeologiska och skriftliga källor visar att såväl agrariska som politiska tillstånd ständigt förändrades under denna period, både när det gäller vilka olika familjer som fick framträdande roller och när det gäller konsolidering av makt och möten med skandinaviska invandrare och bosättare. Irländska missionärer befann sig redan i England när missionen från Grego- rius den store inleddes år 597; perioden ca. 600 – ca. 850 kallas ofta "konver- teringsperioden" i anglosaxiska studier. Konverteringsprocessen var sällan linjär: det var istället en top-downprocess som ofta berodde på och inklude- rade politiska faktorer och därmed var kopplad till maktförhållanden och till

177 olika system för auktoritet och sammanhållning mellan kungariken. Alfred den store inledde sitt program för utbildning i slutet av 800-talet då han hade lagt märke till en allmän nedgång i lärdom sedan Aldhelm av Malmesbury (d. 709) och den helige Beda (d. 735), och benediktinreformen fick fäste i det sena 900-talet. I denna studie är benediktinreformens relevans måhända störst i så måtto att den inspirerade Ælfric av Eynsham (d. ca 1010) till att vilja kommunicera ett korrekt religiöst beteende till lekfolket utanför klosterväg- garna. Vi måste också nämna de extrema förändringar och den oro som de skandinaviska bosättarna och angriparna orsakade från 700-talet och framåt. En kort översikt som denna kan naturligtvis inte redogöra för komplexiteten i de förändringar som ägde rum under dessa 350 år, och som rörde alla livets områden. Den visar dock åtminstone att frågor om förändring, tillhörighet och identitet i högsta grad var relevanta under hela perioden. Berättelser om shapeshifting som resulterade av sådana bekymmer och sådan social oro förblev relevanta under hela perioden eftersom de gav människorna ett visuellt och närmast fysiskt sätt att illustrera eller förklara denna ångest för sina medmän- niskor. I projektet har jag också undersökt värdet (valensen) av de betydelser som shapeshifting-motivet har, det vill säga vad dessa berättelser kommuni- cerade till de människor som läste eller hörde dem. Det visar sig att tidigme- deltida shapeshifting-berättelser kan analyseras i termer av vissa semantiska nätverk på ett sätt som ibland avviker från den bättre studerade senantika, pa- tristiska och högmedeltida litteraturen. Således presenterar denna studie nya tolkningar av dessa shapeshifting-berättelser genom att den visar att själva begreppet ’shapeshifting’ kan vara ett användbart och viktigt verktyg för att för- tydliga vissa aspekter av den äldre medeltidens England och Irland. Vidare påverkade dessa berättelser i sin tur de förändringar som ägde rum under det ”långa” 1100-talet, och genom en bättre förståelse av den här tidiga perioden kan vi förbättra våra metoder för att förstå också senare kulturella perioder. För att göra detta har det varit nödvändigt att anlägga ett så brett perspektiv som möjligt när det gäller urvalet av potentiellt källmaterial. En viktig följd av att använda ett antropologiskt perspektiv i en historisk studie är att alla textkällor, oavsett genre, kan och måste betraktas som exempel på ett kulturellt yttrande (det vill säga konkreta uttryck för kultur i speciella sammanhang). Dessutom är begreppet "fiktionalitet" knappast aktuellt under den äldre medeltiden som denna studie fokuserar på (även om en spänning mellan "sanna" och "falska" berättelser existerar), vilket också ger incitament till att undvika en strikt uppdelning i "historiska" och "litterära" texter. Många av de texter från England och Irland som sammanställs under den här perioden kan vara svåra att knyta till särskilda sammanhang: de bevaras i senare handskrifter, de dateras primärt på språkliga grunder och är ofta ano- nyma eller svåra att placera geografiskt. Med ledning av de texter som de upp- träder tillsammans med i handskrifterna kan vi emellertid få en indikation på

178 hur de uppfattades åtminstone vid den tiden, liksom om deras avsedda publik och kulturella eller eventuellt politiska referenser. Kriteriet för vilka berättelser som ingår i denna shapeshifting-korpus har varit att de skulle behandla en människa (inte bara en humanoid figur) som genomgår en fullständig fysisk förvandling, på så sätt att individen blir oigen- kännlig i sitt transformerade tillstånd (till exempel inte blev en hybrid). Under materialinsamlingen blev vissa trender tydliga. För det första innehöll inte genrer som lagar, krönikor och stadgar överhuvudtaget några shapeshifting- episoder. För det andra visade det sig att de genrer där motivet är vanligast är hagiografi (och därmed besläktad religiös litteratur), underverk och filosofiska verk, samt episka berättelser (denna kategori är begränsad till irländska källor) och poesi. Den didaktiska funktionen hos många shapeshifting-berättelser var tydlig redan i detta skede. De empiriska kapitlen har konstruerats som tre sammankopplade delstu- dier som stegvis bygger på varandra. Kapitel två, det första empiriska kapitlet, undersöker den lexikaliska grunden för shapeshifting. Syftet är att identifiera vilka ord som används för att beskriva fenomenet och att redogöra för konno- tationerna för dessa specifika ord. Detta skapar ett nätverk av betydelser för vart och ett av orden varigenom vi kan precisera vilka specifika konnotationer eller associationer en särskild shapeshifting-episod i sin helhet kan ha haft eller givit. Ord som behandlas är verb, det vill säga ord som hänvisar till själva shapeshiftingsprocessen, och substantiv, ord som hänvisar till individen i pro- cessens början eller slut. Varje avsnitt analyserar ord i fornengelska och forniriska källor, medan latin i både iriska och anglosaxiska källor behandlas tillsammans under en rubrik. Kapitlets teoretiska ramverk utgår från individens inre liv. Eftersom så många ord för shapeshifting överlappar med ord som används för att beskriva religiös omvändelse ägnas särskild uppmärksamhet åt jämförelser mellan å ena sidan inre eller andlig och å den andra yttre, synlig eller fysisk förvandling. Kapitlet visar att alla tre språkgrupperna använde ett varierat ordförråd för att referera till shapeshifting, vilket innebär att detta var ett dynamiskt och föränderligt semantiskt nätverk. Ändå finner vi en mycket större enhetlighet för verb än för substantiv: det är ovanligt att hitta någon enda berättelse som inte använder något av de viktigaste förvandlingsverben. Att hitta en liknande enhetlighet bland substantiven är svårt. Detta indikerar att de flesta shapeshifting-berättelser lägger tonvikten på just processen. Det tyder också på att det är själva denna process som publiken kommer att känna igen. Sammanfattningsvis dominerar ’vända-verben’ (verbs of turning) i shapeshifting-berättelserna; detta är särskilt fallet på fornengelska och latin (i både irländska och engelska källor). Sådana ”verbs of turning” är vanliga i forniriska, men här är de inte lika dominerande som i de andra språken. I forniriska spelar dessutom förklädningsverben (verbs of disguise) en större roll; här är också konstruktioner som refererar till välsignelse och (i hagiografiska

179 sammanhang) mer framträdande. När det gäller substantiven använder forn- engelskan främst den generiska hiw (’form, utseende’); på latin finns en spän- ning i betydelser som kan relateras till aspekter som natur, form och substans, men i motsats till förhållandena i den efterföljande skolastiken spelade sådant en underordnad roll här. Forniriska är unikt på så sätt att det här fanns inte ett utan två substantiv som hänvisar till varg-former. Trots detta saknas tidiga bevis för en "varulvstradition" under just denna period. Det tidigare påtalade sambandet mellan omvändelse och shapeshifting håller genom hela analysen; inte bara ”vändning” som i omvändelse är här en viktig konnotation, men också att någon ”vänder (sig)” mot eller bort från en person (eller Gud) i den meningen att han eller hon visar lojalitet mot dem är ett viktigt begrepp, och ett som passar bra inom det historiska sammanhanget där ju konsolidering av makt (eller åtminstone försök till detta), speciellt bland de anglosaxiska kung- arikena och särskilt från Mercia söderut, är ett viktigt inslag. Kapitel tre, det andra empiriska kapitlet, bygger vidare på den lexikaliska studien i kapitel två, både teoretiskt och metodiskt. Där kapitel två fokuserar på individen och hennes egna inre tankar och lojaliteter fokuserar kapitel tre i stället på individens yttre utseende och de mer synliga aspekterna av hennes beteende. Eftersom transformation mellan människa och djur är det van- ligaste shapeshifting-motivet i materialet har undersökningen av en individs yttre utseende här särskilt relaterats till denna typ av förvandling och till möj- ligheten att egenskaper hos djur kan överföras till människor. I det föregående kapitlet undersöktes metaforer på ordnivå (till exempel bokstavlig ”vändning” i rummet kontra metaforisk ”vändning”); i det här kapitlet utreder vi vilka retoriska strategier som användes för jämförelser mellan människor och djur och kontrasterar detta mot transformationer mellan män- niska och djur. I kapitlet påpekas att sådana transformationer ofta har en metaforisk karaktär, medan jämförelser mellan människor och djur i stället foku- serade på likhet. I det senare fallet var syftet med jämförelsen att lyfta fram särskilda egenskaper som individen hade gemensamt med det specifika djuret. Därför är det viktigt att förstå den kulturella symbolstrukturen som är knuten till särskilda djur, inte bara i termer av hur människor och djur faktiskt intera- gerade i olika regioner utan också mer abstrakta egenskaper som vissa djur hade utvecklat, antingen i den folkliga föreställningsvärlden eller genom den bibliska symbolstrukturen. När det gäller förvandlingar ser vi däremot en situation som är mycket mer inriktad på metaforen: eftersom människan har antagit djurets utseende helt, finns det ingen partiell överlappning av egenskaper: människan är nu ett djur. Även i de fall där det mänskliga förnuftet (och, får man anta, en mänsklig själ, även om detta sällan nämns specifikt), har bevarats intakt är det inte möjligt att skilja ”djur-människan” från ”människodjuret”. I många fall blir det nästan oväsentligt till vilket specifikt djur människan förvandlades till: poängen är inte djuret i sig utan själva det faktum att människan förvandlas överhuvudta- get. Undantaget till detta är de fall där hela metamorfosen är av metaforisk

180 karaktär (till exempel djur-till-djurtransformationer, såsom en varg till ett lamm, där både den bibliska metaforen och människans representation av dju- ren är tydliga), liksom de fall där förvandlingen sker genom en förklädnad. Något paradoxalt tycks förklädandet eller ett tillfälligt antagande av en viss form ofta vara mer symboliskt laddad än andra shapeshifting-episoder. S:t Pa- tricks och hans följeslagares förvandling till rådjur innebär en subtil förolämp- ning mot den hedniske kungen samtidigt som det påverkade deras möjlighet till flykt. Människosjälar uppträder också ibland som fåglar med spår av både eskatologiska föreställningar och hagiografiska traditioner (där de dödas själar stiger till himlen som fåglar, vanligtvis duvor). Det sista empiriska kapitlet, kapitel fyra, utvidgar perspektivet ytterli- gare. Här står de sociala konsekvenserna och funktionerna i fokus. Detta görs med utgångspunkt i tre teoretiska infallsvinklar, vilka ofta mer eller mindre kritiskt använts av forskare som analyserat shapeshifting-motivet. Den första av dessa är disability theory. Disability förstås ungefärligen som sådana funkt- ionshinder eller handikapp som samhället inte kan tillgodose eller härbärgera. Även om shapeshifting innebär en försämring eller skada tycks det inte vara själva förvandlingen i sig som skapar disability. En del av orsaken till detta är att shapeshifting tycks bekräfta en förändring som redan ägt rum: det finns få fall där man försöker få en individ som genomgått shapeshifting att byta till- baka, och vid upprepad förvandling (serial shapeshifting) återfår vanligtvis individen sin mänskliga form igen av egen kraft (antingen genom egen för- måga eller genom magi). Den andra infallsvinkeln är monsterstudier (monster theory). Särskilt va- rulvar har ofta lyfts fram som monster som utmanar det mänskliga normsyste- met. Hotet består i att människan riskerar att förlora kontrollen över sig själv och börja hänge sig åt sin bestialiska sida. Monster stör själva samhället; de är faktiskt bara igenkännliga som monster genom den störande, oroande effekten de har på samhället. Men i mitt undersökningsmaterial finner vi väldigt få fall där man överhuvud taget refererar till samhället: De flesta shapeshifting-be- rättelserna fokuserar i stället nästan uteslutande på de förvandlade individerna. Om förvandlingen sker i en viss social miljö ser vi störningar eller orosmo- ment, men sådana kan antingen lösa sig (till exempel genom gudomligt ingri- pande) eller så är förvandlingen själv ett resultat av en tidigare störning eller friktion. Det förefaller som om ”shapeshifters” snarare är sådana man tycker synd om än fruktar. Slutligen undersöks materialet med utgångspunkt i så kallad social identi- tetsteori (social identity theory) där shapeshifting-berättelserna tolkas utifrån hur de antingen motverkar eller förstärker olika typer av gruppidentiteter. I de fall där shapeshifting värderas positivt i texten resulterar den vanligen i en förflyttning från utgrupp (out-group) till ingrupp (in-group). Där motivet vär- deras negativt går övergången i motsatt riktning. Eftersom de flesta av dessa texter är tillkomna i en kristen kontext, är det naturligt (för texterna själva) att den kristna gemenskapen utgör den primära ingruppen. Vi får dock inte

181 glömma att också etniska eller politiska tillhörigheter spelar en viss roll, sär- skilt i episka berättelser där det kristna perspektivet är mindre tydligt. När det gäller utgruppen finns det en stor variation. En mänsklig utgrupp består typiskt av hedningar, men den kan utvidgas till att omfatta alla utanför textens egen ingrupp. Bland de icke-mänskliga grupperna finner man gudomliga icke-män- niskor (t.ex. änglar och Guds budbärare) och demoniska icke-människor (t.ex. just demoner), men vi finner också en mer neutral grupp av övernaturliga icke- människor som i vissa fall kan vara hotande men oftare bara är tillstädes som aktörer i berättelsen (till exempel vissa mytologiska väsen i irländska heroiska berättelser). De som genomgår förvandling (shapeshifting) är därför vanligtvis varken handikappade eller monstruösa, men de används som redskap för undervisning om vissa eftersträvansvärda beteenden och för att konkretisera vikten av gruppidentiteter. Sammanfattningsvis finns det vissa skillnader mellan de former och sammanhang i vilka shapeshifting uppträder i det anglosaxiska England och i den äldre medeltidens Irland. Gemensamt för de båda regionerna är dock vikten av rätt beteende eller performativitet (performance). Det är helt enkelt nöd- vändigt att anpassa sina handlingar till vad som anses korrekt i olika mänsk- liga, sociala sammanhang. Ofta används shapeshifting-motivet som ett sätt att synliggöra förändringar som redan har skett, men sådana förändringar skulle vara mindre synliga för samhället i stort, eller så skulle de vara svårare att kommunicera tydligt, utan det särskilt illustrerande hjälpmedel som shapeshifting-motivet utgör och tillhandahåller. Även om shapeshifters verkar störa och utmana den naturliga ordningen vittnar de i slutändan ändå om Guds gudomliga kraft och bekräftar sålunda den gudomliga ordningen i den tidiga medeltidens England och Irland.

182 Bibliography

Manuscripts Cited Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS XCLIV.I Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 188

Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, MS 23 P 12 (Book of Ballymote)

Dublin, Trinity College, MS 1336 Dublin, Trinity College, MS 1337 (H.3.18) Dublin, Trinity College, MS 1441 (E 4. 2)

London, British Library, MS Cotton Cleopatra A, III London, British Library, MS Cotton Julius A, II London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A, III London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A, VIII London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian D, VI London, British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius A XV London, British Library, MS Harley 3376 London, British Library, MS Royal 13 B VIII

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 343 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 71

Printed Sources Ælfric's Catholic Homilies: The First Series: Text, Peter Clemoes, ed. (Oxford: Ox- ford University Press, 1997).

Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, Series II, Text, Malcolm Godden, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979).

Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, W. W. Skeat, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1890).

Aldhelm: The Poetic Works, Michael Lapidge and James L. Rosier, trans. (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer 1985).

“Aldhelmus De Virginitate II. Carmen”, R. Ehwald, ed. (MGH Auct. Ant. vol. 15, 1919) p. 367 ll. 343–350.

183 Alfred the Great, Asser's Life of King Alfred and other contemporary sources, Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, eds. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983).

Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies, 2nd ed., Thomas Wright, Richard Paul Wülcker, eds. and coll. (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1968).

“Augustine: Demons and Magic in the City of God”, Marcus Dods, trans., in M. Rampton, ed., European Magic and Witchcraft: A Reader (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018), 67-80.

Augustinus, Contra Faustum, J. Zycha, ed. (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1891), 251.4–797.7.

Augustinus, De Civitate Dei, B. Dombart and A. Kalb, eds. (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955).

Augustinus, St Augustine: The Literal Meaning of Genesis, vol. 2, John Hammond Taylor, trans. (New York, NY: Newman Press, 1982).

Beda Venerabilis, Hexameron Sive Libri Quatuor In Principium Genesis, J.P. Migne, ed., PL 91 (Paris: Ed. Garnier frères et J.P. Migne, 1850).

Bede, On Genesis, Calvin B. Kendall, trans. (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008).

Bethu Brigte, Donncha Ó hAodha, ed. (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1978).

Bethu Phátraic: The tripartite life of Patrick [I. Text and sources], Kathleen Mulchrone, ed. and trans. (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, 1939).

Bechbretha: an Old Irish law-tract on bee-keeping, Thomas Charles-Edwards and Fergus Kelly, eds. and trans. (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1983).

“The Bodleian Amra Choluimb Chille”, Whitley Stokes, ed. and trans., Revue Celtique 20 (1899), 31–55, 132–183, 248–289, 400–437.

“Cóir anmann (Fitness of names)”, Whitley Stokes, ed. and trans., in Ernst Windisch and Whitley Stokes (eds.), Irische Texte mit Wörterbuch, 4 vols (Leipzig: Verlag von S. Hirzel, 1897), 285–444, 557.

“The colloquy of Colum Cille and the youth at Carn Eolairg”, Meyer, Kuno (ed. and trans.), and Alfred Nutt (addendum), Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 2 (1899), 312–320.

“The destruction of Dá Derga’s hostel”, Whitley Stokes, ed. and trans., Revue Celtique 22 (1901), 9–61, 165–215, 282–329, 390–437, 260 (erratum).

184 The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great: Text, Translation and Notes, Bertram Col- grave, ed. and trans. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

“The expulsion of the Dessi”, Kuno Meyer, ed. and trans., Y Cymmrodor 14 (1901), 101–135.

Felix’s Life of Saint Guthlac: Text, Translation and Notes, Bertram Colgrave, ed. and trans. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

“Fled Bricrenn”, Ernst Windisch, ed., Irische Texte mit Wörterbuch, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1880), 235–311 and 330–336.

Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, F. Libermann, ed. and trans. (Halle a. S.: Max Nie- meyer, 1903).

Leabhar Breathnach annso sis: the Irish version of the Historia Britonum of Nennius, James Henthorn Todd, ed. (Dublin: Irish Archaeological Society, 1848).

Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England (3 vols.), Thomas Oswald Cockayne ed. and trans. (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864).

The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle, Andy Orchard, ed. and trans., in A. Orchard, Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf Manuscript (To- ronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995).

Liber Monstrorum, Andy Orchard, ed. and trans., in A. Orchard, Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf Manuscript (Toronto: University of To- ronto Press, 1995).

The Old English Boethius (2 vols.), Malcolm Godden and Susan Irvine, eds. and trans. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

The Old English Boethius, Susan Irvine and Malcolm Godden, eds. and trans. (Cam- bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012).

Old English Glosses, chiefly unpublished, Arthur S. Napier, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900).

The Old English Herbarium and Medicina de Quadrupedibus, H. J. de Vriend ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985).

The Old English Heptateuch and Ælfric’s Libellus de Veteri Testamento et Novi, Vol- ume One: Introduction and Text, Richard Marsden, ed., (Oxford: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2009).

Old English Homilies from MS. Bodley 343, Susan Irvine, ed., (Oxford: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 2001).

185 The Old English Martyrology: Edition, Translation and Commentary, Christine Rauer, ed. and trans. (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2013).

The Old English Orosius, Janet Bately, ed. and trans. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book, Craig Williamson, ed. (Chapel Hill: Uni- versity of North Carolina Press, 2017 [repr. orig. 1977]).

The Old English Version of the Gospels, R. M. Liuzza, ed., (Oxford: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2005).

The Old English Version of St Augustine’s Soliloques, Henry Lee Hargrove, ed. and trans., (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1902).

The Patrician texts in the Book of Armagh, Ludwig Bieler, ed. and trans., (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1979).

The pontifical of Egbert, Archbishop of York, A.D. 732–766, William Greenwell, ed. and trans. (Durham, London, and Edinburgh: The Surtees Society, 1853).

“(Preface to) Patrick’s Hymn” in Stokes, Whitley, and John Strachan (eds.), Thesau- rus palaeohibernicus: a collection of Old-Irish glosses, scholia, prose, and verse, 3 vols, vol. 2: Non-Biblical glosses and scholia; Old-Irish prose; names of persons and places; inscriptions; verse; indexes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903).

The Reference bible – Das Bibelwerk: Pauca problesmata de enigmatibus ex tomis canonicis. Praefatio et Libri de Pentateucho Moysi, Gerard MacGinty, ed. (Turn- hout: Brepols, 2000).

Saint Aldhelm’s ‘Riddles’, A. M. Juster, ed. and trans. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015).

Sancti Aurelii Augustini, Hipponensis episcopi, opera omnia: post Lovaniensium theologorum recensionem, 12 vols, vol. 3:2: Opera exegetica, Patrologia Latina 35, Jacques-Paul Migne, gen. ed. (Paris: Ed. Garnier frères et J.P. Migne, 1841), 2149–2200.

“Scéla na Esergi inso [The Tidings of the Resurrection here]”, Whitley Stokes, ed. and trans., Revue Celtique 25 (1904), 232–259, 458 (corr. and add.).

“Scél Tuáin meic Chairill”, John Carey, ed. and trans., Ériu 35 (1984), 93–111.

Táin bó Cúailnge: Recension I, Cecile O'Rahilly, ed. and trans. (Dublin: DIAS, 1976).

Táin bó Cúalnge: from the Book of Leinster, Cecile O'Rahilly, ed. and trans. (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1967).

186 Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus: a collection of Old-Irish glosses, Scholia prose and verse, 2 vols., Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, eds., (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1901).

“Tochmarc Étaíne”, Osborn Bergin and R. I. Best, eds. and trans., Ériu 12 (1934– 1938), 137–196.

The tripartite Life of Patrick: with other documents relating to that saint, 2 vols, Stokes, Whitley, ed. and trans. (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1887).

Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert: A life by an anonymous monk of Lindisfarne and Bede’s prose life, Bertram Colgrave, ed. and trans. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940).

Untersuchungen zu den ältesten Vitae sanctae Brigidae, Karina Hochegger, ed. and trans. (Mag. Phil.: University of Vienna, 2009).

“Vita Patricii”, Ludwig Bieler, ed. and trans., The Patrician texts in the Book of Ar- magh, (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1979), 62–123.

“The voyage of the Huí Corra”, Whitley Stokes, ed. and trans., Revue Celtique 14 (1893), 22–69.

The Voyage of Máel Dúin, H.P.A. Oskamp, ed. and trans. (Groningen: Wolters- Noordhoff Publishing, 1970).

187 Image Sources Byrne, F. J., “Map: Political Divisions, c. 800” in T. W. Moody, F. X. Martin, and F. J. Byrne, eds., A New History of Ireland, vol. IX (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 18.

Corrain, Donnchadh, “Ireland, Scotland and Wales, c. 700 to the early eleventh century” in Rosamund McKitterick, ed., The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. II: c.700–c.900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 43–63 at p. 44.

Keynes, Simon, “England 700–900” in Rosamund McKitterick, ed., The New Cam- bridge Medieval History, vol. II: c.700–c.900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 18–42 at p. 22.

Electronic Publications Anglo-Saxon Charters Project, ed., Anglo-Saxon Charters. Online source available at: http://www.aschart.kcl.ac.uk/

Bible Foundation and On-Line Book Initiative, ed., Latin Biblia (Vulgata @ Perseus). Online source available at: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Per- seus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0060&redirect=true

Early English Laws Project, ed., Early English Laws. Online source available at: http://www.earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk/

Fontes Anglo-Saxonici Project, ed., Fontes Anglo-Saxonici: World Wide Web Regis- ter. Online source available at: http://fontes.english.ox.ac.uk/

Mapping Death, ed., Mapping Death. Online source available at: http://www.mappingdeathdb.ie/idlocs

Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture Project, ed., Sources of Anglo-Saxon Liter- ary Culture. Online source available at: http://www.saslc.org/

188 Literature Arvidsson, Maria, En handskrifts tillkomst- och bruks historia (Uppsala: Svenska fornskriftsällskapet, 2017).

Benzon, William, “‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ and the Semiotics of Ontol- ogy”, Semiotica 21:3/4 (1977), 267–293.

Bernhardt-House, Philip, Werewolves, magical hounds, and dog-headed men in Celtic literature: a typological study of shape-shifting (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010). de Blécourt, Willem, “Animal Shapeshifting: Between Literature and Everyday Life” in Willem de Blécourt and C.A. Tuczay (eds.), Tierverwandlungen (Tübingen: Francke Verlag, 2011), 7–12.

— “The Differentiated Werewolf: An Introduction to Cluster Methodology” in W. de Blécourt (ed.), Werewolf Histories (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015), 1–24.

Bloch, Maurice, “Durkheimian anthropology and religion: Going in and out of each other’s bodies,” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 5:3 (2015), 285–299.

Borsje, Jacqueline, “Druids, Deer and ‘Words of Power’: Coming to Terms with Evil in Medieval Ireland” in K. Ritari and A. Bergholm (eds.), Approaches to religion and mythology in Celtic studies (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2008), 122– 149.

Bourgault du Coudray, Chantal, The Curse of the Werewolf: Fantasy, Horror and the Beast Within (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006).

Boyle, Elizabeth, “On the Wonders of Ireland: Translation and Adaptation” in E. Boyle and D. Hayden (eds.), Authorities and Adaptations: The Reworking and Transmission of Textual Sources in Medieval Ireland (Dublin: DIAS), 233–261.

— “Neoplatonic Thought in Medieval Ireland: The Evidence of Scéla na Esérgi”, Medium Aevum 78:2 (2009), 216–231.

Browning, Robert, “Review of The Latin Josephus”, The Classical Review 10: 1 (1960), 44–46.

Burgwinkle, Bill, “Medieval Somatics” in D. Hillman and U. Maude (eds.), The Cam- bridge Companion to the Body in Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 10–23.

Burke, Peter, The Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy: Essays on Percep- tion and Communication (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

189 Bynum, Caroline, “Why All the Fuss About the Body? A Medievalist's Perspective.” Critical Inquiry 22:1 (1995), 1–33.

— The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995).

— “Metamorphosis, or Gerald and the Werewolf”, Speculum 73 (1998), 987– 1013.

— Metamorphosis and Identity (New York: Zone Books, 2001).

Camille, Michael, “The Image and the Self: Unwriting Late Medieval Bodies” in S. Kay and M. Rubin (eds.), Framing Medieval Bodies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), 62–99.

Cameron, M. L., Anglo-Saxon Medicine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

Campbell, James, Essays in Anglo-Saxon History (London: The Hambledon Press, 1986).

Carey, John, King of Mysteries (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998).

— “Werewolves in Medieval Ireland”, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 44 (2002), 37–72.

— “Reincarnation and Shapeshifting” in John T. Koch, ed., Celtic Culture vol. 3 (Oxford: ABC CLIO, 2006), 1484–6.

— “Foreword” to Philip Bernhardt-House, Werewolves, Magical Hounds, and Dog-Headed Men in Celtic Literature (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010).

Cavell, Megan, “Constructing the Monstrous Body in Beowulf”, Anglo-Saxon Eng- land 43 (2014), 155–181.

— Weaving Words and Binding Bodies (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016).

Charles-Edward, T. and F. Kelly, Becbretha: An Old Irish Law-Tract on Bee-Keeping (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1983).

Clason, Christopher A., “Animals, Birds, and Fish in the Middle Ages” in Albrecht Classen, ed., Handbook of Medieval Culture, vol. 1 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 18–54.

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome, Monster Theory: Reading Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996).

190 — Medieval Identity Machines (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003).

Crabtree, P.J., “Animal husbandry and farming in East Anglia from the fifth to the tenth centuries CE”, Quarternary International 346 (2014), 102–108.

Crawford, Ciara, Disease and Illness in Medieval Ireland (PhD Dissertation, National University of Ireland Maynooth, 2011).

Cross, J.E., “Towards the Identification of Old English Literary Ideas – Old Workings and New Seams” in P. E. Szarmach (ed.), Sources of Anglo-Saxon Culture (Kal- amazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1986), 77–101.

Cutrer, Robert, “The Cartography of Dragons: Oddr’s Demarcation of Space in Yngvars saga víðförla” in J. Glauser, K. Müller-Wille, A.K. Richter and L. Rösli (eds.), The Sixteenth International Saga Conference: Preprint of Abstracts (Zü- rich: Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Skandinavische Studien, 2015), 83.

Dale, Roderick, Berserkir: a re-examination of the phenomenon in literature and life (PhD Dissertation: University of Nottingham, 2014).

Davies, Brian, Thomas Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles: A Guide and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Dawson, Elizabeth, “Brigit and Patrick in Vita Prima Sanctae Brigitae: Veneration and Jurisdiction”, Peritia 28 (2017), 35-50.

Dunton-Downer, Leslie, “The Wolf Man” in J. J. Cohen and B. Wheeler (eds.), Be- coming Male in the Middle Ages. (New York: Garland Press, 1997), 203-218.

Dickinson, Tania, “Iconography, Social Context, and Ideology: The Meaning of Ani- mal-Oriented Shields in Early Anglo-Saxon England” in W. Heizmann and M. Axboe (eds.), Die Goldbrakteaten der Völkerwanderungszeit – Auswertung und Neufunde (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 635–686.

Filmore, C.J., Form and Meaning in Language (Stanford: CSLI Publications, 2003).

Foster, Sally M., Picts, Gaels, and Scots (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2014).

Foxhall-Forbes, Helen, Heaven and Earth in Anglo-Saxon England: Theology and Society in an Age of Faith (London: Routledge, 2016 [repr. orig. Farnham: Ash- gate, 2013]).

Frenschkowski, M. “Verführung als Erleuchtung. Ein Essay über antike, v.a. gnostische Schlangensymbolik und religiöse Inversionsphänomene” in W. de Blécourt and C.A. Tuczay (eds.), Tierverwandlungen (Tübingen: Francke Verlag, 2011), 13–34.

191 Friedrich, Udo, Menschentier und Tiermensch (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2009).

Frontisi-Ducroux, Françoise, “L’invention de la métamorphose”, Rue Descartes 64 (2009), 8–22.

Geake, Helen, The use of grave-goods in conversion-period England, c. 600 – c. 850 (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1997.

Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Culture (New York: Baisc Books, 1973).

— Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretative Anthropology, 3rd ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2000 [repr. orig. 1993]).

Giles, Howard, and Jane Giles, “Ingroups and Outgroups” in A. Kurylo (ed.), In- ter/Cultural Communication (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2012), 141–162.

Gneuss, Helmut “Bücher und Leser in England im zehnten Jahrhundert” in Hildegard L.C. Tristram (ed.), Medialität und mittelalterliche insulare Literatur (Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1992), 104–130.

Goetz, Hans-Werner, Moderne Mediävistik: Stand und Perspektiven der Mittelalter- forschung (Darmstadt: Primus Verlag, 1999).

Gordon, Richard, “Good to think: Wolves and Wolf-Men in the Greco-Roman World”, in W. de Blécourt (ed.), Werewolf Histories (Basingstoke: Palgrave Mac- Millan, 2015), 25–60.

Green, D. H., The Beginnings of Medieval Romance (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 2002).

Green, M., Animals in Celtic Life and Myth (London: Routledge, 1992).

Grieve, A.L., The Human-Dog Relationship in Early Medieval England and Ireland (c. AD 400-1250) (PhD Dissertation: University of Southampton, 2012).

Grundy, Lynne, Books and Grace: Ælfric’s Theology (Exeter: Short Run Press, 1991).

Hall, Alaric, Elves in Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2009 [repr. orig. 2007]).

Hall, Stuart, “Representation, Meaning, and Language” in S. Hall, J. Evans, and S. Nixon (eds.), Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publishing, 2013), 15–30.

Halliday, Michael, Lexicology and corpus linguistics: An Introduction (London: Con- tinuum, 1994).

192 — Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar, 4th ed. (Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge, 2014),

Harf-Lancner, Laurence, “La métamorphose illusoire: des théories chrétiennes de la métamorphose aux images médiévales du loup-garou”, Annales. Histoire, Sci- ences Sociales 40:1 (1985), 208–228.

— “La métamorphose au Moyen Âge: De l'illusion diabolique à la realite terrifiante” in Cristina Noacco and Véronique Adam, ed. La Métamorphose et ses métamorphoses dans les litteratures européennes (Champollion: Presses du Centre universitaire Champollion, 2009), 65–77.

Heß, Cordelia, Social Imagery in Middle Low German: Didactical Literature and Metaphorical Representation (1470–1517) (Leiden: Brill, 2013).

Hess Erika, Cross-dressers, Werewolves, Serpent-women and Wild Men: Physical and Narrative Indeterminacy in French Narrative, Medieval and Modern (PhD Dissertation: University of Oregon, 2000).

Hillman, David and Ulrika Maude, “Introduction” in D. Hillman and U. Maude (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Body in Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 1–9.

Huot, Sylvia, Madness in Medieval French Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

— “Self and Society” in L. Kaloff (ed.), A Cultural History of the Body in the Medieval Age (Oxford: Berg, 2010), 203–218.

Hudson, Benjamin, “Time is Short: The Eschatology of the Early Gaelic Church” in Caroline Walker Bynum and Paul Freedman (eds.), Last Things: Death and the Apocalypse in the Medieval Church (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 101–123.

Inglis, Fred, Clifford Geertz: Culture, Custom and Ethics (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008).

Kardasz, Marlena, “‘Animal’ proverbs in the Bible: An axiological analysis”, Beyond Philology 9 (2012), 41–55.

Kelly, Fergus, Early Irish Farming (Dublin: Dublin Institue for Advanced Studies, 1998).

Keskiaho, Jesse, Dreams and Visions in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, 2015).

Keynes, Simon, “England 700–900” in Rosamund McKitterick, ed., The New Cam- bridge Medieval History, vol. II: c.700–c.900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 18–42.

193

Khalaf, Omar, “The Old English Alexander's Letter to Aristotle: Monsters and Hy- brids in the Service of Exemplarity”, English Studies 94:6 (2013), 659–667.

Kienzle, Beverly, “The Bestiary of Heretics: Imagining Medieval Christian Heresy with Insects and Animals” in Paul Waldau and Kimberly Christine Pattin, eds., A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion, Science, and Ethics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 103–116.

Knight, Gwendolyne, Dreams and Attitudes towards Dreaming in Anglo-Latin and Old English (Master’s Thesis: Stockholm University, 2013).

— “Categorizing the Werewolf; or, The Peopleness of Shapeshifters” in G. Knight and R. Merkelbach (eds.), Old Norse Alterities (Turnhout: Brepols, in preparation).

— “Incubation in Bede”, in preparation.

Kuldkepp, Mart, “Genre, Spatiality and Textualization of Supernatural Encounters in Sagas of Icelanders” in J. Glauser, K. Müller-Wille, A.K. Richter and L. Rösli (eds.), The Sixteenth International Saga Conference: Preprint of Abstracts (Zü- rich: Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Skandinavische Studien, 2015), 176.

Künzler, Sarah, “A Spectacle of Death? Reading Dead Bodies in the Táin Bó Cúailnge II”, Studia Celtica Fennica 12 (2015), 35–48.

— Flesh and Word: Reading Bodies in Old Norse-Icelandic and Early Irish Liter- ature (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2016).

Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).

Lapidge, Michael, The Anglo-Saxon Library (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

Lawrence-Mathers, Anne, “The Problem of Magic in Early Anglo-Saxon England”, Reading Medieval Studies 33 (2007), 87–104.

Lea, Henry C. Materials Toward a History of Witchcraft (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1939).

Lecouteux, Claude, Fées, Sorcières et Loups-garous (Paris: Éditions Imago, 1992).

Lees, Clare A., Tradition and Belief (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999).

Le Goff, Jacques, Une histoire du corps au Moyen Âge (Paris: Éditions Liana Levi, 2003).

194 Liepe, Lena, Den Medeltida Kroppen: Kroppens och Könets Ikonografi i Nordisk Me- deltid (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2003).

Linton, Simi, “What is Disability Studies?”, Proceedings of the Modern Language Association 120:2 (2005), 518–22.

Lionarons, Joyce Tally, The Homiletic Writings of Archbishop Wulfstan (Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2010).

Löfgren, Orvar, “On the Anatomy of Culture”, Ethnologia Europea 12 (1981), 24– 46.

Mayburd, Miriam, “Paranormal contagion of natural environment and the collapsing self in Íslendingasögur” in J. Glauser, K. Müller-Wille, A.K. Richter and L. Rösli (eds.), The Sixteenth International Saga Conference: Preprint of Abstracts (Zü- rich: Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Skandinavische Studien, 2015), 202.

McCone, Kim, “Werewolves, Cyclops, Díberga and Fianna: Juvenile Delinquency in Early Ireland”, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 12 (1986), 1–22.

McCormick, F. and E. Murray, Excavations at Knowth Vol. 3: Knowth and the Zoo- archaeology of Early Christian Ireland (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2007).

McManus, Damian, “Good-looking and Irresistible: The Hero from Early Irish Saga to Classical Poetry”, Ériu 59 (2009), 57–109.

McNamara, Martin, “The Inverted Eucharistic Formula Conversio Corporis Christi in Panem et Sanguinis in Vinum: The Exegetical and Liturgical Background in Irish Usage”, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: Archaeology, Culture, History, Literature 87C (1987), 573–593.

Merkelbach, Rebecca, “Eigi í mannlegu eðli: Shape, Monstrosity and Berserkism in the Íslendingasögur” in Santiago Barreiro and Luciana Cordo (eds.), Shapeshift- ers in Medieval North Atlantic Literatures (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018), pp. 83–105.

Micheelsen, Arun, “‘I Don’t Do Systems’: An Interview with Clifford Geertz”, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 14 (2002), 2–20.

Miles, Brent, Heroic Saga and Classical Epic in Medieval Ireland (Woodbridge: DS Brewer, 2011).

Mitchell, David T., “Narrative Prosthesis and the Materiality of Metaphor” in S. L. Snyder, B. J. Brueggeman and R.E. Garland-Thomson (eds), Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities (New York: MLA, 2002), 15–30.

Moreira, Isabel, Dreams, Visions, and Spiritual Authority in Merovingian Gaul (Ith- aca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000).

195 — “Dreams and Divination in Early Medieval Canonical and Narrative Sources: The Question of Clerical Control”, The Catholic Historical Review 89:4 (2003), 621–642.

Nagy, Joseph, The wisdom of the outlaw: the boyhood deeds of Finn in Gaelic narrative tradition (Berkley: University of California Press, 1985).

Neville, Jennifer, “Monsters and Criminals: Defining Humanity in Old English Po- etry” in K. E. Olsen and L. A. J. R. Houwen (eds.), Monsters and the Monstrous in Medieval Northwest Europe (Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2001), 103–22.

Noacco, Cristina, La métamorphose: dans la littérature française XIIe et XIIIe siècles (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2008).

— “De la métamorphose in factis à la métamorphose in verbis aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles” in C. Noacco and V. Adam (eds.), La Métamorphose et ses métamor- phoses dans les litteratures européennes (Champollion: Presses du Centre universitaire Champollion, 2009), 35–47.

— “Le funzioni della metamorfosi nella letteratura narrativa francese (XII–XIII sec.)” in F. Zambon (ed.), La metamorfosi (Milan: Medusa, 2009), 95–145.

Noble, Gordon, et al., “Between prehistory and history: the archaeological detection of social change among the Picts”, Antiquity 87 (2013), 1136-1150.

Novak, M., “Dental Health and Diet in Early Medieval Ireland”, Archives of Oral Biology 60 (2015), 1299–1309.

Novotná, Marie, “Hamr of the Old Norse body” in J. Glauser, K. Müller-Wille, A.K. Richter and L. Rösli (eds.), The Sixteenth International Saga Conference: Pre- print of Abstracts (Zürich: Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Skandinavische Studien, 2015), 223.

Ó Cathasaigh, Tomás, “Pagan Survivals: The Evidence of Early Irish Narrative”, repr. in Coire Sois, The Cauldron of Knowledge: A Companion to Early Irish Saga (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014), 46-56.

O’Connor, Ralph, “Irish Narrative Literature and the Classical Tradition, 900–1300” in Ralph O’Connor, ed., Classical Literature and Learning in Medieval Irish Nar- rative (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2014), 1–24.

O’Connor, T., “Animal Husbandry” in H. Hamerow, C. Crawford, and D. Hinton (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology (Oxford: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 2011), 364–373.

Ó Cróinín, Dáibhi, ed., A New History of Ireland, vol. I: Prehistoric and Early Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

— Early Medieval Ireland 400–1200 (London: Routledge, 2016).

196

Ogura, Michiko, “The Interchangeability of Old English Verbal Prefixes”, Anglo- Saxon England 24 (1995), 67–93.

— Verbs of Motion in Medieval English (Oxford: D.S. Brewer, 2002).

Olsen, Robert, and Karin Olsen, “On the Embodiment of Monstrosity in Northwest Medieval Europe” in K. E. Olsen and L. A. J. R. Houwen (eds.), Monsters and the Monstrous in Medieval Northwest Europe (Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2001), 1–22.

Ó Néill, Pádraig P., “Celtic Britain and Ireland in the Early Middle Ages” in E. Leed- ham-Green and T. Webber (eds.), The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2006), 69–90.

Orchard, Andy, Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf Manu- script (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995).

Oswald, Dana, Monsters, Gender and Sexuality in Medieval English Literature (Suf- folk: Boydell & Brewer, 2010).

Pedersen, C., Metamorphoses: A Comparative Study of Representations of Shape- Shifting in Old Norse and Medieval Irish Narrative Literature (Master’s Thesis: NUI Maynooth, 2015).

Pluskowski, Aleksander, “Before the Werewolf Trials” in W. De Blécourt (ed.), Werewolf Histories (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015).

Pollington, Stephen, Leechcraft—Early English Charms, Plantlore, and Healing (He- reward: Anglo-Saxon Books, 2000).

Poole, Kristopher, “The Contextual Cat: Human-Animal Relations and Social Mean- ing in Anglo-Saxon England”, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 22 (2015), 857–882.

Prummel, W., “The Significance of Animals to the Early Medieval Frisians in the Northern Coastal Area of the Netherlands: Archaeological, Iconographic, Histor- ical and Literary Evidence”, Environmental Archaeology 6:1 (2001), 73–86.

Reinhard, John and Vernam Hull, “Bran and Sceolang”, Speculum 11:1 (1936), 42– 58.

Rohrbach, Lena, Der Tierische Blick (Tübingen: A. Francke Verlag, 2009).

Russell, Paul, “Irish Language” in John C. Koch, ed., Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia, vol. 1 (Oxford: ABC CLIO, 2006), 985–993

Rüth, Axel, “Representing Wonder in Medieval Miracle Narratives”, Modern Lan- guage Notes 124:4 (2011), 89–114.

197

Salisbury, Joyce, The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages (London: Routledge, 1994; 2nd. ed. 2011).

Sconduto, Leslie A., Metamorphoses of the Werewolf: A Literary Study from Antiquity Through the Renaissance (Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2008).

Shildrick, Margrit, Embodying the Monster: Encounters with the Vulnerable Self (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publishing, 2001).

Sharpe, Richard, Medieval Irish Saints’ Lives: An Introduction to Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991).

Siebers, Tobin, Disability Theory (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008).

Siewers, A. K., “The bluest-greyest-greenest eye: Colours of martyrdom and colours of the winds as iconographic landscape”, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 50 (2005), 31–66.

Simek, Rudolf, Monster im Mittelalter: Die phantastische Welt der Wundervölker und Fabelwesen (Wien/Köln/Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 2015).

Soderberg, John, “Wild Cattle: Red Deer in the Religious Texts, Iconography, and Archaeology of Early Medieval Ireland”, International Journal of Medieval Ar- chaeology 8:3 (2004), 167–183.

Spiegel, Gabrielle M., “Introduction to ‘The Concept(s) of Culture’ (William Sewell)” in G.M. Spiegel (ed.), Practicing History: New Directions in History Writing after the Linguistic Turn (London: Routledge, 2005), 76–7.

Stankovitsova, Zuzana, ‘Following up on Female Fylgjur: A Re-Examination of the Concept of Female fylgjur in Old Icelandic Literature’ in Ármann Jakobsson and Miriam Mayburd (eds.), Paranormal Encounters in Iceland 1150-1400 (Kalama- zoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2019), forthcoming.

Stevenson, Jane, “Literacy and Orality in Early Medieval Ireland” in D. Eder (ed.), Cultural Identity and Cultural Integration: Ireland and Europe in the Early Mid- dle Ages (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1995), 11–22.

Sykes, Naomi, “Woods and the Wild” in H. Hamerow, C. Crawford, and D. Hinton (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology (Oxford: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 2011), 327–345.

Thompson, Victoria, Dying and Death in Later Anglo-Saxon England (Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2004).

Tilley, Christopher, Metaphor and Material Culture (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999).

198

Timofeeva, Olga, “Anglo-Latin Bilingualism before 1066: Prospects and Limitations” in Alaric Hall, Olga Timofeeva, Ágnes Kiricsi and Bethany Fox (eds.), Interfaces between Language and Culture in Medieval England: A Festschrift for Matti Kilpiö (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 1–36.

Tolley, Clive, Shamanism in Norse Myth and Magic (Helsinki: Academica Scien- tiarum Fennica, 2009).

Tovey, Beth, “Kingly Impairments in Anglo-Saxon Literature: God’s Curse and God’s Blessing” in J. R. Eyler, ed., Disability in the Middle Ages (London: Taylor and Francis, 2010), 135–148.

Turner, Victor, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Hawthorne NY: Aldine de Gruyter, 1999 [repr. orig. 1969]).

Tuczay, C.A., “Die wilde Lust am Wolfsleben” in W. de Blécourt and C.A. Tuczay (eds.), Tierverwandlungen (Tübingen: Francke Verlag, 2011), 35–60.

Tyler, Elizabeth, “Reading Roman Antiquity in Old English” (Vienna: The Medieval Translator Conference Presentation, 18 March 2017). van Gent, Jaqueline, Magic, Body and the Self in Eighteenth-Century Sweden (Leiden: Brill, 2009).

Veenstra, Jan R., “The Ever-Changing Nature of the Beast” in J. N. Bremmer and J. R. Veenstra (eds.), The Metamorphosis of Magic from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period (Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2002), 133–187.

Webster, Leslie, “Style: Influences, Chronology, and Meaning” in H. Hamerow, C. Crawford, and D. Hinton (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archae- ology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 460–501.

Weetch, R. and C. Williams, “Decoding Anglo-Saxon Art”, British Museum Blog, Online source, available at https://blog.britishmuseum.org/decoding-anglo- saxon-art/ (originally posted 28 May 2014).

Whatley, E. Gordon, “An Introduction to the Study of Old English Prose Hagiog- raphy: Sources and Resources” in Paul E. Szarmach (ed.), Holy Men and Holy Women (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996), 3–32.

Wilson, David Noel, Honour and Early Irish Society: A Study of the Táin Bó Cúailnge (Master’s Thesis: University of Melbourne, 2004).

199