Why is Mrs. Sowerby a priestess of Cybele? All I can think of regarding Cybele is the bit about castrating her priests, and that doesn't seem to have anything to do with Susan Sowerby at all.
I'd forgotten about the castration thing! (Funny how we never get to see Mr Sowerby...) I was only thinking that Susan Sowerby - particularly when taken in conjunction with her son Dickon, who with his pipe is admittedly more like Pan than Attis, seems to embody some kind of natural principle of growth, and in a generative as well as a social sense to be a Great Mother. Her appearance in the garden towards the end of the book (in a chapter telling entitled "It's Mother!" sets the seal on the garden as a place fully restored to life....
“Who is coming in here?" he said quickly. "Who is it?" The door in the ivied wall had been pushed gently open and a woman had entered. She had come in with the last line of their song and she had stood still listening and looking at them. With the ivy behind her, the sunlight drifting through the trees and dappling her long blue cloak, and her nice fresh face smiling across the greenery she was rather like a softly colored illustration in one of Colin's books. She had wonderful affectionate eyes which seemed to take everything in -- all of them, even Ben Weatherstaff and the "creatures" and every flower that was in bloom. Unexpectedly as she had appeared, not one of them felt that she was an intruder at all. Dickon's eyes lighted like lamps. "It's mother -- that's who it is!" he cried and went across the grass at a run.
I don't think Burnett is doing more than flirt with the possibility of Susan S as an earth-goddess (or representative of same), but I do think she is flirting.
Is there a goddess in Wise Child? I seem to remember a lot of tarot reading and herb steeping, and an intolerant male religion being opposed to nature-friendly female wisdom, and it wouldn't surprise me to hear that there was a goddess involved too, but I just don't recall. But it's a while since I read it. It's a much bigger while since since I read the Prydain books - thanks, I'll check them out.
And of course you may friend me - as I am about to do to you!
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Date: 2007-06-29 08:22 am (UTC)I'd forgotten about the castration thing! (Funny how we never get to see Mr Sowerby...) I was only thinking that Susan Sowerby - particularly when taken in conjunction with her son Dickon, who with his pipe is admittedly more like Pan than Attis, seems to embody some kind of natural principle of growth, and in a generative as well as a social sense to be a Great Mother. Her appearance in the garden towards the end of the book (in a chapter telling entitled "It's Mother!" sets the seal on the garden as a place fully restored to life....
“Who is coming in here?" he said quickly. "Who is it?"
The door in the ivied wall had been pushed gently open and a woman had entered. She had come in with the last line of their song and she had stood still listening and looking at them. With the ivy behind her, the sunlight drifting through the trees and dappling her long blue cloak, and her nice fresh face smiling across the greenery she was rather like a softly colored illustration in one of Colin's books. She had wonderful affectionate eyes which seemed to take everything in -- all of them, even Ben Weatherstaff and the "creatures" and every flower that was in bloom. Unexpectedly as she had appeared, not one of them felt that she was an intruder at all. Dickon's eyes lighted like lamps.
"It's mother -- that's who it is!" he cried and went across the grass at a run.
I don't think Burnett is doing more than flirt with the possibility of Susan S as an earth-goddess (or representative of same), but I do think she is flirting.
Is there a goddess in Wise Child? I seem to remember a lot of tarot reading and herb steeping, and an intolerant male religion being opposed to nature-friendly female wisdom, and it wouldn't surprise me to hear that there was a goddess involved too, but I just don't recall. But it's a while since I read it. It's a much bigger while since since I read the Prydain books - thanks, I'll check them out.
And of course you may friend me - as I am about to do to you!