The Goddess Denied

by Deborah Davitt

  Adam glanced around the room. He couldn’t say what he was thinking, not till they were away from Erida, but . . . “It might be possible to destroy a city and have it be an accident,” he said, quietly. “Earthquakes and volcanoes, with enough power unleashed . . . could be a matter of chance.”

  Sigrun grimaced. She obviously heard the point he was trying to make. “Agreed. But these are . . . spirits. True godslayers. If they did something, I think it is safe to say that beings of such power? Meant to do it.”

  Trennus had been silent all this time. “Let’s go back to the concept of a centaur,” he said, suddenly. “Half one thing, half another. God-born. Spirit-touched. Erida, you sounded as if you meant something more here.”

  Erida nodded. “It was a simple enough thought,” she said, shrugging. “From what Kanmi’s said of your spirit’s rapport with the pazuzu before you bound it, we know for a fact that at least one of these ancient godslayers was enough like a Veil spirit, that it could be bound into a human body. That it used that body as a host, and slew the pazuzu. They might have the same rules as the god-born, then. Or the god-touched. Centaurs. Part one thing, part another.”

  Trennus nodded, looking down. “But they aren’t of the Veil,” he said, firmly. “The spirits I’ve managed to speak with consider them Nameless. They say that they come from another realm. They call it the Aether. A place of law, and order, and fate, I’ve been told.”

  Adam glanced at Sigrun. “You like laws,” he said, mildly. “So does Tyr, last I checked. Laws don’t seem to be something antithetical to the Veil. So I’m not seeing what the difference is, so far.” In fact, it somewhat sounds like paradise. Everything in its right place. Everything having meaning.

  Trennus held up a finger, still looking at the ground. “Just a moment, Adam,” he said. “The spirits don’t have a lot of information on this place, but imagine . . . timelessness. Not the timelessness of the Veil, where effect can happen before cause, and everything happens at once, unless someone brings . . . temporality with them, and has the will to create time, causality, around them.” He glanced up. “If the Veil is a place where everything happens all at once, because everything can happen, other than death, and nothing matters, because everything is possible . . . I think it’s possible that the Aether is the reverse. A place where nothing happens. Nothing changes. Nothing grows—admittedly, most Veil spirits would tell you that they like coming to our world because they get to learn and grow here . . . .” Trennus sighed, and rubbed at his face. He’d taken to shaving his beard in the past few years. “But this is a place where nothing changes because everything that will happen has already happened and will stay happened. Where change is impossible, and inconceivable, and unwanted. Do you see the distinction?”

  “It sounds like death,” Kanmi muttered, in a tone of complete repugnance.

  “If the Veil is chaos, and the Aether is order,” Adam said, struggling with it, “. . . wait, that doesn’t make sense. Entropy is the tendency of systems to fail. For order to break down into chaos. Chaos is the bad guy of the universe.”

  Kanmi weighed the air with his palms, and shrugged. “All life came out of primordial chaos. Whether you think it originated from atoms colliding until they fell together, generating enough gravity to form the first stars, or whether you think a cow licked the first human out of the primeval ice—” A quick glance at Sigrun.

  “—it’s a metaphor, Esh, for the sake of all the gods—”

  “—the point is, most systems of thought consider the chaos of the primordial to be the source of generativity. Till it was tamed and brought to order, and since then, the two forces have been in balance.” Kanmi shrugged. “I find it more appealing to consider than good and evil, because punctuated equilibrium seems to be the natural state of the planet, and, perhaps, of the universe. A self-correcting system. It’s elegant. And there’s a certain school of mathematics that suggests that much of what we consider to be chaos is actually order . . . it’s just that we can’t see the patterns repeating without calculi.”

  Minori gave him a look. “You’re not about to say you don’t believe in good and evil, are you?”

  “Oh, gods no. I see evil every damned day. I’m just saying, you don’t need a theological explanation for it. People are vile because we’re all wired for survival. Our own, and that of our genes. We can be altruistic to the people who share our genes, or who can promote our own survival, because we’re a social species. But past that, and most people are too stupid, short-sighted to be truly ‘good.’”

  “Next week in our continuing lecture series, ‘Kanmi Eshmunazar on the Nature of Cynicism: Why good things happen to bad people, and why you can’t stop it,’” Adam put in, to general laughter. He shook his head as the laughter died off. “All right. Say we’re caught between these two realms. Both of them changeless, and for lack of a better term, eternal. Where does that leave us? And why were the . . . Aetherials . . . interested in us? And why did they stop interfering?” He looked around. “Is it what I said earlier? Is it that we’re supposed to fix the problems introduced by those of the Veil . . . and our own problems . . . ourselves?”

  “We’re Midgard,” Sigrun said, simply. “The middle realm. As we always have been.” Her face turned grim. “I object to the idea that these godslayers, these beings of the Aether, see fit to judge us, and interfere with us—”

  “—the way your gods and spirits have?” Adam felt impelled to point out. He regretted it, immediately, as Sigrun’s face went blank, but went on, carefully, “Not all the old gods were particularly good or kindly. Even some of the gods still worshipped today weren’t . . . particularly ethical, by today’s standards, back then.”

  “Things change,” Trennus said, quietly. “The Veil is the essence of change. I think . . . I think that those of the Aether can’t change. Maybe that’s really it. Maybe we changed . . . and the Veil spirits changed . . . and they couldn’t.” He shrugged. “We’ll never really know, I suppose. But it’s an interesting theory, anyway.”

  Chapter 2: Bitter Truths

  Freya, according to legend, is one of the Vanir, a clan of gods, who were conquered by the Aesir, led by Odin. She married Odin, presumably to signify the new union between their separate factions, as many human queens have, over the millennia, married the lords who conquered their people. Now, the Vanir practiced seiðr, or sorcery, and Freya is the goddess of seiðr, as well as fertility and beauty. She taught her gift freely to Odin, and Odin used seiðr as well as the wisdom for which he had given up an eye, in all his dealings with gods and mortals.

  However, depending on era and location, seiðr was viewed with varying degrees of respect. It was largely practiced by priestesses of Freya for centuries—which is to say, that when a woman was found to have a talent for sorcery, she immediately became a priestess of Freya. Valkyrie of Freya also have immense talent for seiðr; it is their innate gift.

  Thus, seiðr was considered, by many to be a woman’s art. Most practitioners of the art carried a distaff, the long ‘wand’ on which the unspun wool is held while being turned to thread. This aligns them, symbolically, with the Norns and even the Hellene Fates, as creatures capable of affecting wyrd through their powers. A number of senior anthropologists at various universities want to see the distaff as something used in ‘sexual magic’ as well; they seem strongly convinced that early practitioners used these as sexual toys, which allowed women to penetrate one another. Those sociologists who hold this belief, go on, at length, about it being a phallic symbol held in a female hand, and how this allows the seiðkonur, or priestess, to be a ‘subversive’ figure, neither male nor female, but hermaphroditic in symbolism. Nevermind that it is fundamentally a symbol of female work. (The distaff is also, very likely, the origin of the childish notion that wizards carry magic wands.)

  I cannot speak for what went on centuries ago, but no seiðkonur or seiðmann that I have ever met would ever use the badge of their office as a sex toy. Gothic sorcerers
remain more closely affiliated with our priests and god-born than in other lands, and the only sexual magic that they practice is the renewal of the land at the solstices and equinoxes, in a fashion akin to the druids of the Gauls. This ritual requires the union of opposites. Whom they sleep with on their own time is very much the business of the individual seiðkonur or seiðmann in this day and age. As to whether the distaff, or wand, is a phallic symbol, I have to repeat something here that my sister, a Pythia at Delphi, keeps telling me: Sometimes a ceegar is just a ceegar. Now, neither she nor I know what a ceegar is, but the point seems clear. Sometimes the symbol we see isn’t necessarily or even primarily sexual.

  Now, the talent for magic is not sexually linked. Both men and women could be seiðmann or seiðkonur. But because this profession was so strongly associated with women, a goddess, and a women’s symbol—the distaff, used in spinning, rather than a dagger, or a spear, used in fighting or the hunt (which have strong phallic overtones and are thrust, aggressively . . . which suggests that the distaff’s symbolism was not primarily phallic or sexual at all, and that women who practiced magic were not ‘subversive,’ as our eminent anthropologists would have it), men who practiced seiðr could be considered ergi, or unmanly.

  A man was supposed to be, as in Rome, upfront in battle, taking on his foes head-on, through direct combat, to be honest in his words, and honorable. Even without the suggestion of effeminacy, a man who practiced seiðr, because he did not meet his foes head on, could be considered cowardly, deceptive, and evil . . . possibly even a poisoner, because of a seiðmann’s knowledge of herbs and plants. This made them a more truly subversive figure than a woman carrying a woman’s tool and worshipping a goddess.

  Students of multiple religious traditions will recall that Saul, in the Judean Torah, cast out all witches and sorcerers from his kingdom, but had to turn to a witch of Endor to communicate with the spirit of one of his predecessors—suggesting that in the ancient past, even Judeans had sorcerers, and competent ones. There is, further, a quotation in the book of Exodus that has been mistranslated into other languages as “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” The word ‘witch,’ as it appears in the original, actually means evil-doer, or poisoner . . . and yet, given the associations with herbal knowledge and sorcery, the linkage becomes fairly obvious.

  Almost every ancient culture feared their sorcerers once they became detached from the worship of the local gods. They became independent, and highly powerful beings, who could kill with a word. They therefore had to be controlled in some way, and how better, than to show social disapproval to those who transgressed? The Judeans cast out all of their sorcerers, because these individuals took the power of god, or the gods, into their own hands.

  Many seiðmann, being ‘transgressive,’ or at least, being separated from the worship of Freya in the early days, were ruled niðing—a penalty that could be imposed on traitors, bottom-partner male homosexuals, arsonists, cowards in battle, and murderers. They were outlaws, cast out of their tribes, and considered dead by all who knew them. Their wives were considered widows. Their children were considered fatherless. Every possession they had was burned, and if they were caught nearby by one who knew them, they were to be killed, their bodies impaled, immolated, and the ashes scattered in running water to clear away the nithing condition. This is entirely analogous to the Latin term anathema.

  To this day, nithing poles are used to cast curses. These are wooden staves, often with a skull mounted on top, and the eye-sockets pointed at the transgressor who is being shamed.

  With all of this in mind, there is a thirteenth-century manuscript in which the poet states that Loki, god of magic, trickery, and fire, accuses Odin of impropriety in the use of seiðr. Odin, the All-Father, is being accused of, effectively, effeminacy, of being cunning, and cowardly, and being equated with a poisoner, rather than an upright champion in battle, by Loki . . . who is a lord of dark magic. Loki, the Trickster is as deeply subversive figure as any in any pantheon. But I doubt this ever truly happened. This poem far more reflects the human fears and insecurities of the time, than those of the gods.

  To this day, male and female sorcerers have to contend with a wide variety of prejudices, in seemingly every culture on the planet. I have a Carthaginian friend who is a sorcerer of incredible power, whose family has told him, repeatedly, that he’s not doing a man’s job. His wife, a sorceress of subtle intellect and great power from Nippon? Was told her entire life that her powers were too masculine.

  It is clear to me, that to this very day, throughout the world, we attempt to control our seiðkonur or seiðmann by the raw fear of being turned into social outcasts. While I fully understand that it is difficult to police the actions of a powerful minority, I have to question the underpinnings of our social control of sorcerers. While shame and guilt are powerful weapons, they also twist upon those who employ them.

  —Sigrun Caetia. “Sociological Implications of Seiðr and Nið, or Magic and Shame.” In Thaumaturgy: The Journal of Sorcery, vol. 4, issue 98, 1969 AC.

  ______________________

  Aprilis 1-11, 1970 AC

  “So what is this thing that you, Kanmi, and Minori are so excited about?” Sigrun asked Adam, in exasperation. They had all crowded into Bodi’s small room in Kanmi and Minori’s Rome apartment, and Bodi, who was a technomancy student at the University of Rome, pushed his wooden chair out of the way, so that she could see. Sigrun eyed the contents of the desk, warily. A round sphere, which looked like every other ley-powered far-viewer in existence, sat placidly on its pedestal on the desk, but under the pedestal was a rectangular box that hummed with moving parts and crackled with ley power. There was a keyboard much like a typewriter’s in front of it, and Bodi turned now in his chair to grin up at her.

  “It’s a device for computation, Aunt Sigrun. More specifically, it’s a ley-powered calculus.”

  “I thought computational calculi took up whole rooms.”

  “They did. Fifteen years ago.” Kanmi peered at the orb. “We’re past punch cards, Sigrun. Remember that solar-powered calculator I showed you last year that’s permanently replaced my slide-rule? The one that does logarithmic functions for me? This calculus can do more than that.”

  “Such as?” Sigrun asked, still dubious.

  Bodi grinned at her, a quick flash of white teeth, his dark eyes merry. “Well, with the right program, you could do your taxes on it.”

  “The right what?” Sigrun shook her head. “Also, what’s so hard about ten percent to Rome, seven percent to Judea?”

  “Program, Aunt Sig. It’s . . . a set of instructions that tells the calculus what to do.”

  Minori looked at Sigrun. “Think of it as an incantation. It sets up parameters and the mathematics of the construct and the machine provides the result requested. Mathematically.”

  Sigrun rubbed at her face. “You can do magic with these?”

  Kanmi’s grin split his face. “Yes. Well, it can’t perform the spell. But if I set up a spell matrix in the right program, it gives me all the variables I need.”

  Adam chuckled. “They’re going to be hauling these up to the L’banah base to help regulate the oxygen and power systems, I hear. Better than just the series of switches they’ve been using.”

  Sigrun looked at the machine, a little helplessly. It looked wholly alien, and a little . . . intimidating, though she would never have admitted it. “It seems a little heavy to carry with you in the field, Kanmi,” she finally assessed.

  “Oh, this one is, certainly. But if we’ve managed to shrink a calculus from something the size of this room into this small device inside of two decades, imagine how small they’ll be in twenty, thirty years? Small enough to fit in your hand.” Kanmi was at a full roll now, gesturing with his hands. “And even this one? I can print out a full incantation ahead of time on a scribing device, Sigrun. And it’ll be accurate. Oh, I double-check the math, but this is a time-saver, Sigrun.”

  Somewhere in the
last ten years, Kanmi had started calling them all by their first names, at least on social occasions. Sigrun put her hands behind her back and found a wall to lean against, delicately trying not to dislodge the full-color poster of Bodi’s favorite gladiator that hung there, locked in combat with his most vicious rival, and watched as the others each took a turn at the device. She watched, in mild amusement, as Adam, smiling just as widely as the rest, got some incantation or another . . . program . . . Sigrun reminded herself of the word . . . up and running, and a tinny sort of music played as Adam struck a key on the keyboard.

  After about an hour, in which Kanmi and Minori had both transcribed spells, and Bodi had shown off how the machine could also draw pictures, if he tapped in directions so the small triangle floating in the sphere moved around, pulling a line behind itself in the three-dimensional space of the ley-globe, Bodi looked up and caught sight of her, still standing silently against the wall. “Oh, I’m sorry, Aunt Sigrun. I’ve been hogging this. Come here. Sit down.”

  Sigrun’s eyes widened fractionally, and she shook her head. “No, no. That’s quite all right.” She cast around for a good excuse. “I enjoy watching your enthusiasm.”