No Go the Bogeyman by Marina Warner

Author:Marina Warner [Warner, Marina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Folklore & Mythology, Fairy Tales; Folk Tales; Legends & Mythology, Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9781409020745
Google: -ocSkgAACAAJ
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2011-01-30T23:00:00+00:00

Part Three

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Making Mock

There are three things that are real: God, human folly and laughter. Since the first two pass our comprehension, we must do what we can with the third.

Valmiki, The Ramayana, c. 200 b.c.

Reflection

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Louis Desprez: The Chimera

On the pediments of classical temples, Medusa grins, splitting her gorgon mask into a wide and ferocious leer, baring her tusks, lolling her tongue. Athena wore the Gorgoneion—Medusa’s head—on her breastplate, a trophy of the protection from harm that she offered, as well as a talisman that shielded her. The Etruscans set up fierce lions with protruding tongues and rows of bared teeth at the entrance of tombs to guard the corpses from desecrators and to prevent their spirits wandering and disturbing the living, too. Kali, goddess of destruction and the hearth, also puts out her bloodstained tongue as she dances in her necklace of skulls. Medusa and Kali may have exerted reciprocal influence over each other as monstrous figures of household protection.345 The sexual exhibitionist who appears on Christian churches, frequently in Celtic areas (Ireland, Cornwall, the Outer Hebrides) but also in England, may have a related role to play. The sheela-na-gig, with her vulva defiantly exposed—the nether mouth—dances and displays herself, often grimacing open-mouthed, showing her teeth and tongue; she is usually placed high up on a tower or on gates, wells and bridges. The Egyptian dwarf god Bes, worshipped in Hellenistic Egypt as the god of bedrooms, held special propitiatory powers against the capriciousness of the fertility goddess Hatwa and the envy of other women; he similarly makes a face, poking out his tongue like a naughty child as he spits against the evil eye and stands in a straddling pose, his genitals exposed, his penis dangling as if in imitation of his tongue. ‘Such beasts,’ comments Jean-Pierre Vernant, ‘often perform the role of guardians, even scarecrows, barring the way to forbidden places.’346

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