Divine By Mistake: Chapter 2

[zelda_queen]

ZeldaQueen: After our opening chapter of fucking nothing at all, we open with Shannon berating herself for being creeped out. So yeah, this chapter is just directly continuing from the first. I see PC Cast plays as fast and loose with chapter breaks as James Patterson does.

Comments

[eilonwya10]

For that vase to exist at all, stylistically it has to be from the 1875-1925 period -- an era also noted for romantic revivals of "ancient" traditions, which often involved inventing the tradition entirely.

Even in the 1875-1925 period, I can find the right glaze, and I can find the pose in paintings, but finding the pose on a pot isn't going well. Back-to-viewer generally isn't a pottery convention.

(I'm a long-time lurker around Das Sporking but rarely comment... however, having Shannon's fantasy triggered by an artifact that isn't even a reproduction, but is actually a revival piece, is so apt that I had to say something.)

[zelda_queen]

In that case, PC really done messed up. Because let me quote for you the background information given by the auctioneer on the pot:

"Now the last of our beautiful pottery pieces is Lot #25- Reproduction-Celtic vase, original stood over graves in an ancient Scottish cemetery-Scene in color represents supplications being made to High Priestess of the Horse Goddess Epona. It is interesting to note that Epona was the only Celtic deity adopted by the invading Romans, and she became their personal Goddess, protectress of their legendary legions."

So yeah, she seems to have intended for this pot to be based on one actually FROM ancient Celtic times.

Incidentally, I don't know if you can answer this or not, but how often were priestesses featured on their own in ancient artwork? I've tried to look up information on it, but mostly I just keep getting neopagan/Wiccan information on High Priestesses for their groups. It seems to me like artwork would tend to focus more on the priests in worship of the deities, not just them.

[eilonwya10]

Oh, she messed up big time! I had a very good time doing some digging (some of which probably replicates what you'd already done), and the entire cemetery is impossible

[zelda_queen]

Thanks for the information and the link! I'll certainly be making use of that, when I get to that part.

"At this remove, the way we usually know it's a deity or saint being depicted is that they're shown with their attributes, so I'd expect to see Epona with her horses, in a very conventional pose."

That's just it. Everything I've Googled about Epona shows her with horses. I don't think we know HOW her worship was conducted, let alone anything about priests or priestesses who worshiped her. In the magical world, I don't think there's any artwork in honor of Epona herself at all. Most of it's for the high priestess, who's treated like a sort of queen/avatar of Epona. Which...okay, alternate dimension and all, but this artwork is supposed to be from OUR world!

[eilonwya10]

She screwed up big-time. After some digging that kept telling me there aren't many Iron Age burial sites in Scotland, I found a doctoral dissertation on the subject. It's called "Christianity and Burial in Late Iron Age Scotland" (I tried posting the link, and of course that triggers spam filters) -- and the author says outright that while there must have been some sort of grave marker, it was ephemeral, there's no firm evidence of what it was, and all contenders for "it" are slabs with markings on them (not vases