Sheela-na-gigs

Kiltinan Sheela-na-gig

Sheela-na-gigs are stone carvings of naked women exposing their genitals having a hidden symbolic meaning. These statues vary in shapes and size from 9 to 90 cm. Most are carved rounded natural stone or boulders. They are found mostly in medieval religious buildings – most on parish churches and some in monasteries. Also a large number have been found on castles and a few at holy wells, on bridges or built into town walls, gate pillars or walls of dwelling places.

The largest number (110) Sheela-na-gig figures were found scattered all over Ireland. Sixty Irish examples are still in situ, but not in their primary settings. There are another 25 in museums, five in private collections, and twenty survived only as records (photographs or drawings). Of these numbers, thirty nine were associated with castles. There are also 40 known English figures; most found in religious settings. Only a few Sheelas were found in Scotland and Wales.

The common details of the Sheela-na-gigs are the disproportionally large head and genital areas in relation to the rest of the figure. There are variations in details. In some statues the head is bald, while other versions have long braided hair. The faces usually have large eyes, a wedge nose and grimacing mouth making the expression grim or ghastly.

One of the main postures is standing, but some are squatting or in a sitting pose with the legs widely splayed to expose the genital area or enlarged vulva, to which the hands are pointing. The exaggerated posture is an anatomical anomaly, not possible in a realistic portraying of the human female body. Obviously there is a mystical and mysterious meaning perhaps related to fertility and birth associated with these Sheela-na-gags.

One expert, Edith M. Guest, dates the Sheela-na-gigs found in Irish churches and castles, from the eleventh to the seventeenth centuries. She bases these findings in details of churches and castles where the decorative features, architectural style and design appear to harmonize with the Sheela-na-gigs and so appear to be contemporary in time.

Academics like, Robert Macalister (The Archaelogy of Ireland, first published in 1928 then again in 1996) thought these Sheela figures might be adaptations of a Celtic female divinity. He also did not so think with any great certainty. But Vivian Mercier 30 years later thought he saw reflection of Sheela in early Irish literature. He in turned based his ideas that the Sheelas were representations of the goddess of creation and destruction, “known by many different names in Celtic mythology” from the work of Marie-Louise Sjoestedt (http://www.librarything.com/author/sjoestedtmarielouise).

Sjoestedt, a noted French scholar and linguist introduces ideas of the Celtic mother goddesses, the fertility goddess and goddesses of war and feasts, but with no clear dividing line between any of their different aspects. Sometimes the goddesses appear in a single form or in a triad of mother goddesses concerned with the prosperity of the land, childbirth and war. Thus the Celtic goddess has a duality when the powers of destruction and fertility merge in her character. She might appear as a young beautiful maiden or an old revolting ugly hag.

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Source: Sheela-na-gigs: Unraveling an Enigma, by Barbara Freitag

http://books.google.com/books?id=Y03UDxXyOb8C&dq=Barbara+Freitag&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0