Femslash February in myths, tales and religion - Part 2
And seven more for Valentine's day!
The Good Ruling (8/28)
There was once a wise Ireland king, and a woman came to him. She was pregnant, and ask him to fond who should provide for the child as a father, since she hadn’t had sex with any man in years.
The king then asked: and with a woman? She confessed without reluctance that yes, she did. The king suggested that the woman she had sex with at the right date still had some semen in her womb, so she should ask her who was his previous male lover, and he was the father.
The judgement was so wise and well-thought - some Sherlock Holmes deducing, really - that a man fell some the sky. He said he had made a stupid deal with demons, and the demons were playing with him in the sky above the castle as if he was a ball, but the wisdom of this ruling had such an aura that they had to let it go.
Erzulie Dantor (9/28)
Erzulie Dantor, in vodou religion, is a darker version of the lwa of love. She has scars, she can’t talk but can fight, and she protects children and woman without men - and yes, it explicitly includes lesbians. She was also one of the lwas who helped for the Haitian revolution.
In vodou, worshippers can ritually marry their lwas. To quote “Mama Lola: a Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn” by Karen McCarthy Brown:
Danto is, however, a frequent participant in marriages with vivan-yo (the living). In these rituals, individuals pledge loyalty, service, and even sexual fidelity for one night each week (sleeping with no human on that night and waiting to receive the spirits in their dreams) in return for the spirit’s increased care and protection. And again, when gossip is the mode, people in Alourdes’s community admit that some of these marriages are with women.
Ruth and Naomi (10/28)
In the Bible, Naomi’s family was in exile from Israel, because of a famine. Her two sons married Moabite women. But her husband and her sons died, and she said to her daughters-in-laws that they could go back to their parents and marry other men. By Israelite custom, they could re-marry in Naomi’s family, and their firstborn would be considered as the child of Naomi’s son. But Naomi had no other children, and she freed them of every duty they could feel.
One of them left, but Ruth wouldn’t leave Naomi, not out of duty, but out of affection. She said: “Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me.”
Then she followed Naomi back in Israel, supported her when she was sad, worked with her. At the end, she married Boaz, who was from Naomi’s husband family, and close enough so her first child would be Naomi’s grandchild, and her devotion was well-recognized by everyone. This child would also be the King David’s grandfather.
Ruth’s speech to Naomi has been used for Christian same-sex weddings (ans sometimes heterosexual ones to, because it’s a very beautiful description of love).
Stikla and Rusla (11/28)
Rusla is a Viking pirate mentioned in some historical annals so old, incomplete, and sometimes contradictory that it entered legend. She was the daughter or a king, but after he died, Rusla’s brother was dispossessed of his throne by a Danish king. She decided to become a pirate and attack every Danish ship. She was strong and ruthless. At the end, she was killed only because her brother betrayed her.
Stikla was her second in command and was never apart from her. She became a pirate to avoid marriage.
There’s much debate about shieldmaidens. At the time, some men historians said that they acted as men and rejected love because not yielding to love would make them stronger. But there still could have been a confusion between celibate warriors and butch lesbians. ^^
Tokoyo the samurai princess (12/28)
In this fairy tale, Tokoyo’s father (who raised her as a samurai after her mother died) is exiled by the emperor. She tries to follow him by boat, even if there is a reputation of terrible dragons. When she gets to the island at last, she doesn’t find her father immediately, but a young girl in a bride’s costume who will be sacrificed to a dragon.
Tokoyo doesn’t hesitate, takes the girl’s place, and kills the dragon with her sword. She discovers, in his underwater cave, a statue of the emperor he used to curse him, and that’s why he banished her father! So they can go back.
To be honest, the story doesn’t officially end with Tokoyo and the girl together. It doesn’t end with word about them not getting together, or getting with men, either. But saving someone from a dragon is such a romantic trope that it always felt like a femslash fairy tale to me.
Iphis and Ianthe (13/28)
Iphis’s father was so poor that he said to his wife: if we have a daughter, we’ll have to kill her, we can’t afford her. So when she had a daughter, she lied to her husband and told him it was a boy. Iphis was raised as a boy, and no one knew
Iphis was betrothed to a girl her age, named Ianthe. They were very much in love, but while Ianthe was all happiness, Iphis was terrified as the revelation of the imposture, and the unnaturalness she saw in her own feelings.
Just before the wedding, Iphis and her mother prayed to the goddess Isis, who changed Iphis’ body into a man’s, and everyone was happy.
I already said in another post, it’s complicated to assign a gender identity to Iphis. Could be a trans boy, a non-binary youth, or a lesbian girl. But the descriction of her feelings in Ovid still sounds like pure lesbian angst with an happy ending. :-)
Hi'iaka and Hopoe (14/28)
In hawaiian myth, Hi’iaka was the sister of Pele, the great goddess of volcanoes. She met a human girl named Hopoe who was pretty and danced well. She gave her a garden of red and white flowers, and Hopoe taught her to dance the hula. They became aikane (intimate friends) and for a while, they were really happy.
But Pele sent Hi’iaka to a quest: to get the man she loved, Lohiau, whom until now she had just met in dreams. She gave her 40 days, otherwise she would assume Hi’iaka and Lohiau had eloped together.
But the travel was long, with a lot of monsters to fight, not to mention get back Lohiau whose soul had been abducted… It took more than 40 days. Pele got furious, burned Hi’iaka garden of red and white flowers in lava. Hopoe, covered in lava, was transformed into an everdancing statue.
There are a lot of different endings to this tale. Sometimes, Lohiau marries Pele, other times, he marries Hi’iaka because Pele is too angry, vengeful, and tried to kill him. Sometimes both. Often, Lohiau is killed and brought back. There are a few versions where Hopoe is brought back too, but it’s a minority. They’re still the best to me.
Cette entrée a été crosspostée au https://flo-nelja.dreamwidth.org/614845.html. Commentez où vous voulez.
The Good Ruling (8/28)
There was once a wise Ireland king, and a woman came to him. She was pregnant, and ask him to fond who should provide for the child as a father, since she hadn’t had sex with any man in years.
The king then asked: and with a woman? She confessed without reluctance that yes, she did. The king suggested that the woman she had sex with at the right date still had some semen in her womb, so she should ask her who was his previous male lover, and he was the father.
The judgement was so wise and well-thought - some Sherlock Holmes deducing, really - that a man fell some the sky. He said he had made a stupid deal with demons, and the demons were playing with him in the sky above the castle as if he was a ball, but the wisdom of this ruling had such an aura that they had to let it go.
Erzulie Dantor (9/28)
Erzulie Dantor, in vodou religion, is a darker version of the lwa of love. She has scars, she can’t talk but can fight, and she protects children and woman without men - and yes, it explicitly includes lesbians. She was also one of the lwas who helped for the Haitian revolution.
In vodou, worshippers can ritually marry their lwas. To quote “Mama Lola: a Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn” by Karen McCarthy Brown:
Danto is, however, a frequent participant in marriages with vivan-yo (the living). In these rituals, individuals pledge loyalty, service, and even sexual fidelity for one night each week (sleeping with no human on that night and waiting to receive the spirits in their dreams) in return for the spirit’s increased care and protection. And again, when gossip is the mode, people in Alourdes’s community admit that some of these marriages are with women.
Ruth and Naomi (10/28)
In the Bible, Naomi’s family was in exile from Israel, because of a famine. Her two sons married Moabite women. But her husband and her sons died, and she said to her daughters-in-laws that they could go back to their parents and marry other men. By Israelite custom, they could re-marry in Naomi’s family, and their firstborn would be considered as the child of Naomi’s son. But Naomi had no other children, and she freed them of every duty they could feel.
One of them left, but Ruth wouldn’t leave Naomi, not out of duty, but out of affection. She said: “Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me.”
Then she followed Naomi back in Israel, supported her when she was sad, worked with her. At the end, she married Boaz, who was from Naomi’s husband family, and close enough so her first child would be Naomi’s grandchild, and her devotion was well-recognized by everyone. This child would also be the King David’s grandfather.
Ruth’s speech to Naomi has been used for Christian same-sex weddings (ans sometimes heterosexual ones to, because it’s a very beautiful description of love).
Stikla and Rusla (11/28)
Rusla is a Viking pirate mentioned in some historical annals so old, incomplete, and sometimes contradictory that it entered legend. She was the daughter or a king, but after he died, Rusla’s brother was dispossessed of his throne by a Danish king. She decided to become a pirate and attack every Danish ship. She was strong and ruthless. At the end, she was killed only because her brother betrayed her.
Stikla was her second in command and was never apart from her. She became a pirate to avoid marriage.
There’s much debate about shieldmaidens. At the time, some men historians said that they acted as men and rejected love because not yielding to love would make them stronger. But there still could have been a confusion between celibate warriors and butch lesbians. ^^
Tokoyo the samurai princess (12/28)
In this fairy tale, Tokoyo’s father (who raised her as a samurai after her mother died) is exiled by the emperor. She tries to follow him by boat, even if there is a reputation of terrible dragons. When she gets to the island at last, she doesn’t find her father immediately, but a young girl in a bride’s costume who will be sacrificed to a dragon.
Tokoyo doesn’t hesitate, takes the girl’s place, and kills the dragon with her sword. She discovers, in his underwater cave, a statue of the emperor he used to curse him, and that’s why he banished her father! So they can go back.
To be honest, the story doesn’t officially end with Tokoyo and the girl together. It doesn’t end with word about them not getting together, or getting with men, either. But saving someone from a dragon is such a romantic trope that it always felt like a femslash fairy tale to me.
Iphis and Ianthe (13/28)
Iphis’s father was so poor that he said to his wife: if we have a daughter, we’ll have to kill her, we can’t afford her. So when she had a daughter, she lied to her husband and told him it was a boy. Iphis was raised as a boy, and no one knew
Iphis was betrothed to a girl her age, named Ianthe. They were very much in love, but while Ianthe was all happiness, Iphis was terrified as the revelation of the imposture, and the unnaturalness she saw in her own feelings.
Just before the wedding, Iphis and her mother prayed to the goddess Isis, who changed Iphis’ body into a man’s, and everyone was happy.
I already said in another post, it’s complicated to assign a gender identity to Iphis. Could be a trans boy, a non-binary youth, or a lesbian girl. But the descriction of her feelings in Ovid still sounds like pure lesbian angst with an happy ending. :-)
Hi'iaka and Hopoe (14/28)
In hawaiian myth, Hi’iaka was the sister of Pele, the great goddess of volcanoes. She met a human girl named Hopoe who was pretty and danced well. She gave her a garden of red and white flowers, and Hopoe taught her to dance the hula. They became aikane (intimate friends) and for a while, they were really happy.
But Pele sent Hi’iaka to a quest: to get the man she loved, Lohiau, whom until now she had just met in dreams. She gave her 40 days, otherwise she would assume Hi’iaka and Lohiau had eloped together.
But the travel was long, with a lot of monsters to fight, not to mention get back Lohiau whose soul had been abducted… It took more than 40 days. Pele got furious, burned Hi’iaka garden of red and white flowers in lava. Hopoe, covered in lava, was transformed into an everdancing statue.
There are a lot of different endings to this tale. Sometimes, Lohiau marries Pele, other times, he marries Hi’iaka because Pele is too angry, vengeful, and tried to kill him. Sometimes both. Often, Lohiau is killed and brought back. There are a few versions where Hopoe is brought back too, but it’s a minority. They’re still the best to me.
Cette entrée a été crosspostée au https://flo-nelja.dreamwidth.org/614845.html. Commentez où vous voulez.