Sheela Na Gig - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Sheela na gigs are figurative carvings of naked women displaying an exaggerated vulva

Vulva

The vulva consists of the external genital organs of the female mammal. This article deals with the vulva of the human being, although the structures are similar for other mammals....

. They are found on churches, castles and other buildings, particularly in Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

and Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

, sometimes together with male figures. One of the best examples may be found in the Round Tower

Irish round tower

Irish round towers , Cloigthithe – literally "bell house") are early medieval stone towers of a type found mainly in Ireland, with three in Scotland and one on the Isle of Man...

at Rattoo, in County Kerry, Ireland. A replica is located in the County Museum in Tralee town. Another well-known example can be seen at Kilpeck

Kilpeck

Kilpeck is a small village in Herefordshire, England. It is about southwest of Hereford, just south of the A465 road to Abergavenny, and about from the border with Wales....

in Herefordshire

Herefordshire

Herefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire" NUTS 2 region. It also forms a unitary district known as the...

, England.

Ireland has the greatest number of known sheela na gig carvings, McMahon and Roberts cite 101 examples in Ireland and a further 45 examples in Britain. Such carvings are said to ward off death

Death

Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....

and evil

Evil

Evil is the violation of, or intent to violate, some moral code. Evil is usually seen as the dualistic opposite of good. Definitions of evil vary along with analysis of its root motive causes, however general actions commonly considered evil include: conscious and deliberate wrongdoing,...

. Other grotesques such as gargoyle

Gargoyle

In architecture, a gargoyle is a carved stone grotesque, usually made of granite, with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building thereby preventing rainwater from running down masonry walls and eroding the mortar between...

s and hunky punk

Hunky Punk

Hunky Punk is Somerset dialect for grotesque carvings on the side of buildings .By definition, a hunkypunk is an architectural feature that serves no purpose. Therefore, a true gargoyle is not a hunkypunk because it serves to drain water through its mouth...

s are frequently found on churches all over Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

and it is commonly said that they are there to keep evil spirits

Demon

call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...

away (see apotropaic magic

Apotropaic magic

Apotropaic magic is a type of magic intended to "turn away" harm or evil influences."Apotropaic" observances may also be practiced out of vague superstition or out of tradition, as in good luck charm , or gestures like fingers crossed or knocking on wood.Apotropaic is an adjective that means...

). They are often positioned over doors or windows, presumably to protect these openings.

Origin

There is disagreement about the source of the figures. One perspective, by James Jerman and Anthony Weir, is that the sheela na gigs were first carved in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

and Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

in the 11th century; the motif eventually reached Britain and then Ireland in the 12th century. Jerman and Weir's work was a continuation of the research started by Andersen, who wrote The Witch on the Wall, the first serious book on sheela na gigs in 1977. Eamonn Kelly, Keeper of Irish Antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland

National Museum of Ireland

The National Museum of Ireland is the national museum in Ireland. It has three branches in Dublin and one in County Mayo, with a strong emphasis on Irish art, culture and natural history.-Archaeology:...

in Dublin, draws attention to the distribution of sheela na gigs in Ireland to support Weir and Jerman's theory; almost all of the surviving in situ sheela na gigs are found in areas of Anglo-Norman conquest (12th century), while the areas which remained "native Irish" boast only a few sheela na gigs. Weir and Jerman also argue that their location on churches, and their ugliness by mediæval

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

standards, suggests that they were used to represent female lust

Lust

Lust is an emotional force that is directly associated with the thinking or fantasizing about one's desire, usually in a sexual way.-Etymology:The word lust is phonetically similar to the ancient Roman lustrum, which literally meant "purification"...

as hideous and sin

Sin

In religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...

fully corrupting.

Another theory, espoused by Joanne McMahon and Jack Roberts is that the carvings are remnants of a pre-Christian fertility or mother goddess

Mother goddess

Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...

religion. They point to what they claim are differences in materials and styles of some sheela na gigs from their surrounding structures, and that some are turned on their side, to support the idea that they were incorporated from previous structures into early Christian buildings. There are differences between typical continental exhibitionist figures and Irish sheela na gigs, including the scarcity of male figures in Ireland and the UK, while the continental carvings are more likely to involve male figures, and the more contortionist postures of continental figures.

Etymology

The name was first published in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 1840-44, as a local name for a carving once present on a church gable wall in Rochestown, County Tipperary, Ireland; the name was also recorded in 1840 by John O'Donovan, an official of the Ordnance Survey

Ordnance Survey

Ordnance Survey , an executive agency and non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom, is the national mapping agency for Great Britain, producing maps of Great Britain , and one of the world's largest producers of maps.The name reflects its creation together with...

of Ireland, referring to a figure on a church in Kiltinane, County Tipperary. There is disagreement about the origin and meaning of the name, as the name is not directly translatable into Irish

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

. Alternative spellings of "Sheela" may sometimes be encountered; they include Sheila, Síle and Síla. The name "Seán-na-Gig" was coined by Jack Roberts for the ithyphallic

Phallus

A phallus is an erect penis, a penis-shaped object such as a dildo, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. Any object that symbolically resembles a penis may also be referred to as a phallus; however, such objects are more often referred to as being phallic...

male counterpart of the Sheela which is fairly rare in Ireland but is much more common on the continent.

Jørgen Andersen writes that the name is an Irish

Irish language

phrase, originally either Sighle na gCíoch, meaning "the old hag of the breasts", or Síle ina Giob, meaning "Sheila (from the Irish Síle the Irish form of the Anglo-Norman name Cecile or Cecilia) on her hunkers". Dinneen

Patrick S. Dinneen

Patrick Stephen Dinneen was an Irish lexicographer and historian.Dinneen was born near Rathmore, County Kerry. He was educated at Shrone and Meentogues National Schools and at St. Brendan's College in Killarney...

also gives Síle na gCíoċ, stating it is "a stone fetish representing a woman, supposed to give fertility, gnly[sic - abbreviation of generally] thought to have been introduced by the Normans". Other researchers have questioned these interpretations; few sheela na gigs are shown with breasts, and there are doubts about the linguistic connection between ina Giob and na Gig. The phrase "sheela na gig" was also said to be a term for a hag

Hag

A hag is a wizened old woman, or a kind of fairy or goddess having the appearance of such a woman, often found in folklore and children's tales such as Hansel and Gretel. Hags are often seen as malevolent, but may also be one of the chosen forms of shapeshifting deities, such as the Morrígan or...

or old woman.

Barbara Freitag

Barbara Freitag

Barbara Freitag is an author and academic at [Universidade de Brasília/Brazil]-Published works:Books by Barbara Freitag include:*Die brasilianische Bildungspolitik: Resultante oder Agens gesellschaftl...

devotes a chapter to the etymology

Etymology

Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...

of the name in her book Sheela-Na-Gigs: Unravelling an Enigma, and comes up with some earlier references than 1840, including a ship called Sheela Na Gig in the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

and a dance called the Sheela na gig from the 18th century. An Irish slip jig, first published as The Irish Pot Stick (c.1758), appears as Shilling a Gig in Brysson's A Curious Collection of Favourite Tunes (1791) and Sheela na Gigg in Hime's 48 Original Irish Dances (c.1795). These are the oldest recorded references to the name, but do not apply to the figures. The name is explained in the Royal Navy's records as an "Irish female sprite". Freitag also discovered that "gig" was a Northern English slang word for a woman's genitals. A similar word in modern Irish slang "Gigh" also exists, further confusing the possible origin of the name.

Weir and Jerman use the name sheela, but only as it had entered popular usage; they also call figures of both sexes "exhibitionist". They cite Andersen's second chapter as a good discussion of the name. Andersen states in that chapter that there is no evidence that "sheela na gig" was ever a popular name for the figures and that it came out of a period (i.e. the mid-19th century) "where popular understanding of the characteristics of a sheela were vague and people were wary of its apparent rudeness". An earlier reference to the dubious nature of the name is made by HC Lawlor in Man Vol.31, Jan 1931 (Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland) where he says "The term "sheela-na-gig" has no etymological meaning and is an absurd name". Andersen, Weir and Jerman and Freitag all dismiss the name as being modern and somewhat arbitrary.

The oldest recorded name for one of the figures is "The Idol" which relates to the Binstead figure on the Isle of Wight. This name was mentioned in 1781 in The History of the Isle of Wight by R. Worsley and mentioned again in 1795 by J. Albin in A New, Correct and Much-improved History of the Isle of Wight (Andersen page 11). The name "The Idol" was also applied to a now lost figure in Lusk, Ireland and was recorded as being in use around 1783.

Theories

Much of the disagreement about the figures is based on determining exactly what they are meant to represent, but no theory explains all the figures and each has problems.

Survival of a pagan goddess

The idea that sheela na gigs represent a pagan goddess is a most popular theory with the public; it is, however, not generally accepted by academics. The goddess in question is usually identified as Celtic, the hag-like Cailleach

Cailleach

In Irish and Scottish mythology, the , also known as the Cailleach Bheur, is a divine hag, a creatrix, and possibly an ancestral deity or deified ancestor...

figure of Irish and Scottish mythology. This theory was originally put forward by Margaret Murray

Margaret Murray

Margaret Alice Murray was a prominent British Egyptologist and anthropologist. Primarily known for her work in Egyptology, which was "the core of her academic career," she is also known for her propagation of the Witch-cult hypothesis, the theory that the witch trials in the Early Modern period of...

, and also by Anne Ross, who, in her essay entitled "The Divine Hag of the Pagan Celts", wrote "I would like to suggest that in their earliest iconographic form they do in fact portray the territorial or war-goddess in her hag-like aspect..."

Most recently the goddess theory has been put forward in the book The Sacred Whore: Sheela Goddess of the Celts by Maureen Concannon who associates the figures with the "mother goddess

Mother goddess

".

The Encyclopedia of Religion (ed. Mircea Eliade, published 1993 by Macmillan for the University of Chicago) draws parallels between the sheela na gig and the ancient Irish myth of the goddess who granted kingship. She would appear as a lustful hag, and most men would refuse her advances, except for one man who accepted. When he slept with her, she was transformed into a beautiful maiden who would confer royalty onto him and bless his reign. There are additional variants of this common Northern European motif

Motif (narrative)

In narrative, a motif is any recurring element that has symbolic significance in a story. Through its repetition, a motif can help produce other narrative aspects such as theme or mood....

(see "Loathly lady

Loathly lady

The loathly lady is a common literary device used in medieval literature, most famously in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Tale. The motif was prominent in Celtic mythology and to a lesser extent Germanic mythology, where the lady often represented the sovereignty of the...

").

Andersen devotes a chapter to this theory, entitled "Pagan or Medieval", and while he suggests possible pagan influences on Irish sheela na gigs, he firmly places them in a medieval context. Of Dr. Ross's assertion above, he says about possible pagan origins "What can be said against it, is that it is less easily proved and can be less easily illustrated than the possible continental, French origin for the motif discussed in earlier chapters...." (The Witch on the Wall page 95).

Weir and Jerman explore the possible influence of the Baubo

Baubo

Baubo is an old woman in Greek mythology who jested with Demeter when she was mourning the loss of her daughter Persephone.In his Greek Myths, Robert Graves writes that Demeter was the guest of King Celeus in Eleusis...

figurine on the motif but admit that the link is tenuous, writing "It makes for very interesting speculation, but the amount of evidence is not large".

Freitag explores possible Celtic pagan origins but again finds little to suggest a link "...in particular the notion of the divine hag being a portrayal of the Ur-Sheela has to be firmly dismissed as wayward conjecture." (Sheela na gigs: Unravelling an Enigma page 41). Despite the rejection of a pagan origin by academics, this theory is still widely held and sometimes even vociferously defended by its supporters.

Fertility figure

This theory is usually used in conjunction with the above "goddess" explanation for the figures. Barbara Freitag puts forward the theory that figures were used in a fertility context and associates them with "birthing stones". There is folkloric evidence of at least some of the sheela na gigs being used in this manner, with the figures being loaned out to women in labour. Other figures have wedding traditions associated with them. According to Margaret Murray, the figure in Oxford at the church of St Michael at the North Gate has the tradition of being shown to brides on their wedding day. This theory however does not cover all the figures: some are thin with their ribs showing and thin breasts evident; however, others are plump and are shown in a sexual context with a partner (Whittlesford

Whittlesford

Whittlesford is a village in Cambridgeshire, England, and also the name of an old hundred. The village is situated on the Granta branch of the River Cam, seven miles south of Cambridge...

). A recent discovery of an exhibitionist pair at Devizes

Devizes

Devizes is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The town is about southeast of Chippenham and about east of Trowbridge.Devizes serves as a centre for banks, solicitors and shops, with a large open market place where a market is held once a week...

by Dr. Theresa Oakley and Dr. Alex Woodcock also lends weight to this theory. The faces of some figures are striated, indicating scarring or tattoos. So, while this seems the most obvious interpretation, a closer look at the figures reveals features which sit uneasily with a fertility function.

Warning against lust

The theory that sheela na gigs warn against lust was put forward by Weir and Jerman. It explains the figures as a religious warning against sins of the flesh. Exhibitionist figures of all types—male, female, and bestial—are frequently found in the company of images of beasts devouring people and other "hellish" images. These images, they argue, were used as a means of religious instruction to a largely illiterate populace. As part of this interpretation, they explore a continental origin for the figures. Andersen first suggested this origin, and Weir and Jerman continued and expanded this line of inquiry. They argue that the motif migrated from the continent via the pilgrim routes to and from Santiago de Compostella. (Freitag argues against this.) Pilgrim sculptors took notes of what they had seen on the route and ended up carving their own interpretations of the motifs they had seen. Eventually, the exhibitionist motif migrated to Ireland and Britain. This theory seems to fit well with a lot of the religious figures but sits less easily on some of the secular ones. Images which appear on castles would not seem to be serving a religious purpose. The figure at Haddon Hall

Haddon Hall

Haddon Hall is an English country house on the River Wye at Bakewell, Derbyshire, one of the seats of the Duke of Rutland, occupied by Lord Edward Manners and his family. In form a medieval manor house, it has been described as "the most complete and most interesting house of [its]...

resides on a stables (although this may have been moved from elsewhere). So while this theory does seem to have some credibility, it again does not cover all the figures.

Protection against evil

This theory is discussed by Andersen and Weir and Jerman. It seems unlikely that figures on castles would be serving a religious purpose. The suggested theory is that they serve an apotropaic function and are designed to ward off evil. This is further borne out by the name "The Evil Eye Stones" given to some of the figures in Ireland. There is also some folkloric evidence of anasyrma

Anasyrma

Anásyrma , also called anasyrmós, is the gesture of lifting up the skirt or kilt. It is used in connection with certain religious rituals, eroticism, and lewd jokes, see e.g. Baubo. The term is used in describing corresponding works of art...

being used by women lifting up their dresses to curse evil spirits. Andersen reproduces a plate from La Fontaine

Jean de La Fontaine

Jean de La Fontaine was the most famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, and in French regional...

's Nouveaux Contes (1674) where a demon is repulsed by the sight of a woman lifting her skirt. Weir and Jerman also relate a story from The Irish Times

The Irish Times

The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Kevin O'Sullivan who succeeded Geraldine Kennedy in 2011; the deputy editor is Paul O'Neill. The Irish Times is considered to be Ireland's newspaper of record, and is published every day except Sundays...

(23 September 1977) where a potentially violent incident involving several men was averted by a woman exposing her genitals to the attackers. However, they also cast some doubt on the veracity of this tale. Weir and Jerman go on to suggest that the apotropaic function seems to have been gradually ascribed to the figures over time. While this theory seems to fit most of the secular and some of the religious figures, again, it does not seem to apply to all of them.

Distribution

As noted above, Ireland has the greatest number of known sheela na gigs (so much so that they are often mistakenly thought of as a uniquely Irish phenomenon). However, it became increasingly obvious that the sheela na gig motif, far from being insular, could in fact be found all over Europe. Accurate numbers of figures are hard to come by as the interpretation of what is and is not a sheela na gig will vary from writer to writer, for example Freitag omits the Rochester figure from her list while Weir and Jerman include it. Concannon includes some worn figures that so far only she has identified as sheela na gigs. Previously unknown figures are still being identified.

So far the following countries are known to have (or have had) churches with female exhibitionist figures on them:

Ireland
France
Spain
Galicia
Britain
England
Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
Slovak Republic

A significant number of the figures are found in Romanesque contexts especially in France, northern Spain, Britain and Norway. In Ireland figures are commonly found in areas of Norman influence.

Parallels

The Encyclopedia of Religion, in its article on yoni

Yoni

Yoni is the Sanskrit word for the vagina. Its counterpart is the lingam as interpreted by some, the phallus.It is also the divine passage, womb or sacred temple...

, notes the similarity between the positioning of many sheela na gigs above doorways or windows and the wooden female figures carved over the doorways of chiefs' houses (bai) in the Palau

Palau

Palau , officially the Republic of Palau , is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Philippines and south of Tokyo. In 1978, after three decades as being part of the United Nations trusteeship, Palau chose independence instead of becoming part of the Federated States of Micronesia, a...

an archipelago. Called dilukai
Dilukai
Dilukai , are wooden figures of young women carved over the doorways of chiefs' houses in the Palauan archipelago. They are typically shown with legs splayed, revealing a large, black, triangular pubic area with the hands resting on the thighs. These female figures protect the villagers' health...

(or dilugai), they are typically shown with legs splayed, revealing a large, black, triangular pubic area; the hands rest upon the thighs. The writers of the encyclopedia article say:

In popular culture

Although the sheela na gig is a romanesque motif it has found some popularity in modern culture.

The Ballykissangel
Ballykissangel
Ballykissangel is a BBC television drama set in Ireland, produced in-house by BBC Northern Ireland. The original story revolved around a young English Roman Catholic priest as he became part of a rural community. It ran for six series, which were first broadcast on BBC One in the UK from 1996 to 2001...

episode "Rock Bottom" was based around the discovery of a sheela na gig and peoples' reactions to it.
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer. He lives in Dublin. Heaney has received the Nobel Prize in Literature , the Golden Wreath of Poetry , T. S. Eliot Prize and two Whitbread prizes...

has written a poem entitled "Sheela na Gig."
UK alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

artist PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey
Polly Jean Harvey is an English musician, singer-songwriter, composer and occasional artist. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments including piano, organ, bass, saxophone, and most recently, the autoharp.Harvey began her career in...

's 1992 album, Dry
Dry (album)
Dry is the debut album by PJ Harvey. It was recorded at the Icehouse, Yeovil, UK, and released in the UK on Too Pure , and subsequently on Indigo Records in the US...

, has a song titled Sheela Na Gig
Sheela-Na-Gig (song)
"Sheela-Na-Gig" is a song by English alternative rock singer-songwriter PJ Harvey, written solely by Harvey. The song was released as the second single from her debut studio album, Dry, in February 1992. The single was the second, and final, single from Dry and only single from the album to enter...

, which features the line: "He said, 'Sheela Na Gig... You exhibitionist.'"
New York artist Nancy Spero
Nancy Spero
Nancy Spero was an American visual artist.-Life and work:Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Spero lived for much of her life in New York City. She was married to, and collaborated with artist Leon Golub....

uses the sheela na gig as a motif in her work.
The town of Sheila na Gigh is featured in Robert Rankin
Robert Rankin
Robert Fleming Rankin is a prolific British humorous novelist. Born in Parsons Green, London, he started writing in the late 1970s, and first entered the bestsellers lists with Snuff Fiction in 1999, by which time his previous eighteen books had sold around one million copies...

's book The Book of Ultimate Truths
The Book of Ultimate Truths
The Book of Ultimate Truths is a novel by British author Robert Rankin. The plot revolves around the adventures of Cornelius Murphy and his companion Tuppe...

.
The sheela na gig of St Brides Church, Bridelow in the English Peak District
Peak District
The Peak District is an upland area in central and northern England, lying mainly in northern Derbyshire, but also covering parts of Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, and South and West Yorkshire....

, features prominently as a plot device in Phil Rickman
Phil Rickman
Phil Rickman is a British author best known for writing supernatural and mystery novels, often based on conflicting forces of paganism and other religions....

's novel The Man in the Moss.
Canadian poet Molly Peacock
Molly Peacock
Molly Peacock is an American-Canadian poet, essayist and creative nonfiction writer. She is an alumna of Binghamton University.-Career:...

refers to the sheela na gig in her poem "Gargoyle" (The Second Blush, W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2008).
The all-female governing body of England in the science-fiction work "Fremder" by UK author Russell Hoban
Russell Hoban
Russell Conwell Hoban is an American writer, now living in England, of fantasy, science fiction, mainstream fiction, magic realism, poetry, and children's books-Biography:...

are known as the "Sheela-na-Gig".

External links

SheelaNaGig.org A guide to sheela na gig carvings and sheela na gigs in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Ireland's Sheela Na Gigs A comprehensive guide to Irish sheela na gigs
Hortusdeliciarum A guide to exhibitionist figures in France
Goddess or Queen? The enigmatic carving at Braunston-in-Rutland
Braunston-in-Rutland
Braunston-in-Rutland is a village and civil parish in the county of Rutland in the East Midlands of England. Leicestershire lies on the parish's western boundaryBraunston is located roughly three miles south-west of the county town of Oakham....
Beyond the Pale by Anthony Weir An extensive guide to male and female exhibitionist carvings in Western Europe by the co-author of "Images of Lust".
Excerpt from The Story of V: A Natural History of Female Sexuality by Catherine Blackledge Includes several references to apotropaic exposure of female genitalia
The Anatomy of a Church - Part 2 by Ernest L. Martin, Ph.D., 1998 Female symbolism in church architecture, with several references to sheela na gigs
Vaginas in Mythology, Art and History

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Origin

Etymology

Theories

Survival of a pagan goddess

Fertility figure

Warning against lust

Protection against evil

Distribution

Parallels

In popular culture

Further reading

Articles

External links