Karin Olsen

Female Voices from the Otherworld: The Role of Women in the Early Irish Echtrai

The Irish saw their land and sovereignty as feminine, the marriage of the king to the sovereignty/territorial goddess, also called banais righe was a prerequisite for the latters successful rule. However, the fairies in most echtrai have undergone a more or less drastic transformation. This chapter illustrates their original role as sovereignty goddess is still intact in Echtrae Chonnlai and Immram Brain but already somewhat compromised in Echtrae Nerai . In spite of their supernatural powers, the women in the three tales are made subordinate to human and supernatural males who determine their fate. The most straightforward manifestations of the sovereignty goddess occur in two of the earliest witnesses to the tradition. Keywords: Echtrae Chonnlai ; Echtrae Nerai ; goddess; Immram Brain ; Irish Echtrai ; supernatural power; women

Beggars' Saint but no beggar: Martin of tours-in Aelfric's lives of Saints

Although Ælfrics longer Life of St Martin is clearly indebted to Sulpicius Severuss writings, Martins humility, one of the chief virtues for which the saint is remembered, is downplayed in Lives. Ælfrics Martin also leads a life of self-deprivation, yet without humiliating himself in the same way as his Latin counterpart does. Ælfric silently passes over Martins shabby appearance and servile behaviour towards men of inferior rank, thus omitting those details that would compromise Martins status as Bishop of Tours. For Ælfric, the saints authority as a high ecclesiastical official needed to be left untainted in order to make his role conform with the prestigious position bishops enjoyed in the political and spiritual life of late Anglo-Saxon England.