Thanks to the schism in the Catholic Church in 1054 and a century replete with war, pestilence, and dissent, Medieval Europe took on a persecutorial atmosphere.23 Those on the fringes were accused with social destruction, sexual deviancy, malicious intent, and unchecked appetite. Medieval Europe, while in its infancy, began the methodical extermination of undesirables:
Jews, heretics, and lepers were the first three major categories to fall victim to the persecuting society. … many of the images and accusations that mainstream Christians attached to one of these three groups were also ascribed to the others: that they were sexually hyperactive and dedicated to luring innocent people into their ranks through their sexual prowess; that they engaged in disgusting anti-human practices, sexual and otherwise; and that they were determined to infiltrate and bring down the larger society around them. … the idea became popular that one or more vast conspiracies were trying to destroy Christianity from within.24 To keep power centralized, dissidents and heretics needed to be identified and dealt with. By 1233, the Inquisition was created, heretics were actively sought and heartily executed: “Western Christianity had become a militant, aggressive faith.”25
Juxtaposed with this hostility, came the modern concept of demonic forces. As apocalyptic fervor gripped Europe, the Devil took shape as more than an idea; he became an influence—specifically regarding appetites for sex and power. St. Thomas of Aquinas warned that not only could the Devil manipulate even good Christians, demons could have intercourse with humans—of either sex:
…demons could appear in male form ( incubi) or female form (succubi) for the purposes of having intercourse with either sex. But Aquinas stopped well short of the later witch stereotype: he did not connect such activity with maleficia(evil deeds), or suggest that humans became witches through sexual contact with demons. Still, Aquinas did help to spread and make respectable the idea that demons were active, aggressive creatures who might interact with humans in secret.26
The Church became more rigid. Maleficia became more of a concern in everyday affairs. Satanic forces became more empowered to tempt and corrupt the faithful, women lost prominence in society, and witches took on a more womanly appearance.
Since the early Church, women were Daughters of Eve, and inheritors of Eve’s sin. Tertullian addresses all women in 197 CE:
And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? … You are the Devil’s gateway. You are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree….27 This concept didn’t initially limit women’s social sphere. However, gradually women were prohibited from joining guilds, from practicing midwifery—or indeed any form28 Women were shunted to the margins; those accused, interrogated, and executed for charges relating to witchcraft were poor women, “itinerant” women, or women who had somehow lost their homes, and position in society.29
The shift continued into the Reformation with Martin Luther. Tertullian had established the Daughter of Eve syndrome, which was furthered by the Malleus. Women’s nature as the doorway to evil was connected to Aristotle’s work, “Early modern doctors …maintained that women were…defective men, and that their smaller craniums indicated smaller mental capacity.”30 Aristotle believed “perfection and spirituality are purely expressed in the male body alone”31 and that “Women speak the language of idiots…like slaves… are incapable of governing themselves….”32 This all contributed to Luther’s notion of the “good wife.” For Luther, the “bad wife” isn’t necessarily bound by deviant, aggressive sexual appetites, but by a lack of intellectual capacity and the intent to protect her family. He believed that women were essentially weak and foolish,33 but that:
…women were not evil by nature, but rather by choice: if a woman refuses to marry, or if her married behavior is inappropriate because she loves her family so much that she resorts to magic to protect it, then she renounces the inner moral power that is [also] part of her nature. By refusing to be God’s housewife, she becomes a modern witch.34
By this definition all women, and all women depicted in Gaiman’s work, are witches.
Witches and Appetite Gaiman’s concept of witch hinges on appetite and how it affects normally functioning society, or male society. Despite being a writer who offers a unique and forward-thinking view on and about women, Gaiman intermittently displays a misogynistic tone. In “Feeders and Eaters” we have a cackling old woman who literally feeds on the flesh of men, and the occasional cat. There is no overt use of magic, but Miss Corvier—essentially Miss Crow—is a cannibalistic witch, who eats her familiar and the men she latches onto. By devouring life around her—“Meat”35—she absorbs that life into her. But, she doesn’t kill her victims outright. After Eddie stumbles upon and dispatches the unlucky feline, Miss Corvier laments:
He was all I had to keep me going, and you killed him. After all I’ve done…making it so the meat stays fresh, so the life stays on. After all I’ve done. I’m an old woman… I need my meat…. I never wanted to be a burden… that was my meat…who’s going to feed me now?36
The story ends with the image of Miss Corvier renewed, made young—“sort of pretty, in a hungry kind of way.”37 Even as this lamia is invigorated, her male victim like the cat, is nothing but a living carcass. While the term meat is a crude allusion to male genitalia, it’s also a reference to the cannibalistic witches of the Malleus, stealing men’s penises and eating children.38 The old woman made young is a link to stereotypes about women—and about witches—set forth by medieval texts and Malleus.
In “Keepsakes and Treasures,” we have another disturbing witchlike image of Shahinai, along with an exploration of appetite—male and female—which give stark commentary on gender disparity within society. Opening with a contrasting notion of appetite, the story is in the anonymous voice of an assassin and high-end errand boy for “one of the ten richest men in the world,”39 Mr. Alice. The speaker’s mother is described as having “clinical nymphomania”40 and yet it’s clear, this accused promiscuity isn’t by choice. She isn’t a witch, but a woman trapped in a hell not of her own devising. She had been “locked up for her own protection”41—and for the protection of the male society surrounding her. Victim of abuse, rape, and potentially incest, she was institutionalized, tortured, and ultimately committed suicide. Her incarceration reminds us that women outside the bounds of normal society—unmarried, sexually active women—were indicted as witches. The narrator’s mother is accused of wanton appetite, but aside from her smiling image leaning “flirtily”42 against a sports car in an old photo, there is no evidence that the allegation is founded. This nameless woman, despite her imprisonment, claimed the last ounce of control available to her—suicide—rather than continue to be used serving the appetite of men, which victimize and corrupt her son.
As a child, he murdered the “deputy head of the orphanage”43 where he resided, who had been using the orphans as “his personal harem of scabby kneed love slaves.”44 Enlisted in the services of the powerful Mr. Alice, the narrator displayed his own brand of appetite by hunting down his mother’s rapists—his potential progenitors. Mr. Alice in turn is appetite incarnate. Mr. Alice’s sexuality is linked to consumption, indulgence, and could even be seen as a commentary of Aristotle’s views about the spiritual perfection seen in the male form, and in male love.45 Yet, the entire story revolves around sexual appetite—marginalized, feminized, and socially destructive. Even Gaiman’s description of Earls Court reflects this:
Sometimes Earls Court reminds me of one of those old women you meet from time to time who’s painfully proper and prissy and prim until she’s got a few drinks into her, when she starts dancing on the tables and telling everybody within earshot about her days as a pretty young thing, sucking cock for money in Australia or Kenya or somewhere.46
Mr. Alice’s appetite for sex, not love, leads him to the house of the Shahinai women in Earls Court. The women take on a grotesque decidedly misogynistic form, with the exception that they are an inversion of Mr. Alice. His appetites are described in a positi
ve way by his lackey. Mr. Alice is called a “proper man,”47 one the narrator identifies with, particularly since his own appetites tend toward prepubescent girls.48 The Shahinai women, in contrast, are a “repulsive aspect.”49 Gaiman describes them as “shadowy crones,”50 old witches, animalistic, and decidedly not English. They sell the “Treasure of the Shahinai”51 for the good of their tribe. They are representations of gender transgression perhaps in a way more severe— more damning—than Mr. Alice’s proclivity for young, beautiful men because the “Treasure of the Shahinai” are men:
It’s the men… Apparently there aren’t many of them. One or two in a generation. The Treasure of the Shahinai. The women are the guardians of the men. They nurture them and keep them safe. Alexander the Great is said to have bought a lover from the Shahinai…Catherine the Great was rumored to have had one, but I think it’s just a rumor…. A race of people whose only asset is the beauty of their men. So every century they sell one of their men for enough money to keep the tribe going for another hundred years.52
These “banshees”53 living at the heart of their run-down labyrinth are Gimbutas’ earth goddesses, the Regeneratrix-death goddesses, as well as the vulture like images from Neolithic sites like Çatal Hüyük.54 They haunt the narrator’s dreams, and their ultimate goal isn’t sexual appetite, but, like Luther’s “bad wife,” these Shahinai women want the success of their family—their tribe:
Sometimes, at night, I’d have dreams about the Shahinai women— these ghastly, batlike, hag things fluttering and roosting through this huge rotting old house, which was, at the same time, both human history and St. Andrews Asylum. Some of them were carrying men between them, as they flapped and flew. The men shone like the sun, and their faces were too beautiful to look upon.55
The story ends with the death of Mr. Alice’s treasure and the disappearance of the Shahinai women. The final image is of the appetite-driven woman. In seeking the Shahinai women, the narrator finds himself back in Earls Court, but in the company of junkies and smack-whores. Etched into his memory is the picture of a girl, “stoned and oblivious”56—but not even of her, of her breast, “a full, black-nippled breast, which curved disturbingly….”57 It is eye-like, glaring, accusatory, and represents the objectification and fertility of this young woman—and all women, even the narrator’s own mother.
Another complex image of the witch rests in American Gods. Shadow’s wife, Laura, considered Luther’s “bad wife” because of her extramarital affair, is also witch-like from the simple fact that she returns from the dead. She protects Shadow at several points in his journey, even killing his kidnappers,58 but she doesn’t resort to charms or spells. Despite the fact that she’s undead, she isn’t properly a witch or a goddess, but she is a woman in-between. She, herself, is the victim of a spell, of a kind, Shadow being the cause of her liminal state—her undeath—because of the coin he placed in her grave.59
While alive, Laura’s appetite lies in her affair with Robbie. She died because of her drunken desire to fellate her lover while he drove, as a means of farewell to their affair while preparing her husband’s welcome home party.60 During her death, Laura still exhibits appetite, but it’s not entirely unreasonable or unnatural. She wants to be alive again, and expects Shadow to oblige.61 In a very real sense, Laura is similar to the spirits called forth by necromancers. However, Shadow didn’t create her in order to receive some wish or ability. It was pure accident and after protecting him, she asks him for the favor.
While they don’t grant favors, aren’t human witches, but are magical females nonetheless, Gaiman’s Zoryi are the Triple Goddess and the Fates. Zorya Vechernyaya, oldest of the sisters, is the Dawn. The practical, controlling, mistress of the house, the Crone, she asks for money to pay for groceries, and her hospitality doesn’t come freely.62 Her middle sister, Zorya Utrennyaya, the Dusk, is the Mother who brings food and provides compassion.63 Zorya Polunochnaya, the Midnight Sister, is the Maiden who provides Shadow with mystical knowledge and a talisman in the form of the moon, shaped like a Liberty-head silver dollar.64 The Zoryas are a representation of Gimbutas’ “formidable Goddess on earth.”65 While not witches, they serve, protect, and are gatekeepers for Shadow’s journey.
Gaiman represents other magical female figures in American Gods, Kalī, seen as Mama-ji,66 and fertility Goddess Easter.67 There are other, oft-forgotten witches in the text, most complex being Bilquis: “The Queen of Sheba, half-demon… on her father’s side, witch woman, wise woman, and queen….”68 It’s tempting to dismiss Bilquis as a literal ‘maneater’ but she isn’t demonized. She isn’t grouped in with the stereotypical “witches shriek[ing] overhead in the night” that Wednesday’s own magic can confound,69 nor is she like the old woman in “Feeders and Eaters.” Bilquis is infinitely tangible from her dislike of the rain, to her obligation to use personal ads, to her impulse to shave her legs. 70 Bilquis represents a motif that Gaiman uses repeatedly throughout his work—twice in this text alone—the vagina dentata, the ultimate female appetite.
Briefly it is seen in the story of the African slave girl, Wututu, who later teaches magic to the infamous Marie Laveau. When threatened with rape on the Dutch slave-ship, Wututu tells her aggressor: If you put it in me down there I will bite it off with my teeth down there. I am a witch-girl and I have very sharp teeth down there.71 Wututu—also called Mama Zouzou—knew “more secrets” than any of the “voodoo queens” and witch women of the New World. Mama Zouzou is not unlike Laura because waking in the night, feeling “the cold steel between her ribs” as her twin brother was killed, “that was when Mama Zouzou’s life had ended. Now she was someone who did not live…”72 Unlike Bilquis, Mama Zouzou wasn’t a free woman. She ended her life in a liminal state not controlled by her own appetites, but the intention of others. She is forced into a life of slavery, forced to bear children, but perhaps her only measure of independence was in magic, in providing “charms and little fetishes” to the folk who came to her, and in being “feared and respected.”73
When we first see Bilquis, it’s a scene often referenced in Gaiman’s work, as it ends with the prostitute Bilquis vaginally consuming her client as he “worships” her.74 Moments before her four thousand years on earth come to a gruesome end under the tires of Technical Boy’s stretch limousine, Bilquis observes “that she has a habit as bad as that of the smack whores and the crack whores, and this distresses her….”75 As a means of staving off the fierce desire to consume, she whispers her own mantra, lines from “The Song of Solomon.” Bilquis is another liminal figure in Gaiman’s work because she isn’t human, but like Laura, she was once human. Being the historical Queen of Sheba, she was “the first ‘non-Western woman’ who negotiated secular and religious affairs with the West, rehabilitating the role of women.”76
In a Jungian sense the Queen of Sheba was the transcendent queen of the sunrise (the Queen of Alchemy, a prototype of the antithesis and synthesis of opposites –feminine on the outside and masculine on the inside). She is also the key (clavicula) of power which in general symbolizes the combinations of opposites; she is the ‘Father-Mother,’ the ‘white-black,’ the quintessence of all things.77
By this association, Bilquis transgresses gender, being allied with Lilith “the quintessential dangerous female….”78 “[H]alf-demon” and “witch woman,” Bilquis is related to the first witches who mated with the Grigori:79
…the angels, the children of the heaven….took unto themselves wives, and …. they began to go in unto them and … taught them charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants. And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants… Who consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind…. and [drank]…blood.80
These children of Angels and witch-women are connected to Cain’s kin, the cannibalistic “eotenas” from Beowulf,81 and the first vampires.82 Some believe that Lilith was the possible progenitor
of Cain’s line, being the first of these witch-women.83 But, the vagina dentata is a theme harkening back to the medieval concept of women as vampire—examined in both medieval gynaecological treaties84 and in the Malleus.
According to Bildhauer, “early…vampires…are all explicitly or implicitly gendered female; more precisely, they can be seen as embodiments of female sexual appetites.”85 Aristotle and early medieval scientific manuscripts granted women the ability to “suck out men’s ‘lifeblood’ (semen) during intercourse….”86 The proclivity for cannibalistic absorption—via the vagina—of either her male partner during intercourse or of her unborn child during pregnancy,87 made women naturally unnatural. Women were the antithesis to normative male society. They were monstrous wives and bad mothers. Bildhauer asserts that the “feminine is thus constructed as the ‘other,’ which is then established as the object of fear” and that:
…the notions of [female] bloodsuckers… combined with similar ideas of bloodthirsty, child-eating and man-eating women helped to lay the foundations for the persecution of millions of women as witches…. Even modern vampires, if female, often still show striking parallels to these medieval bloodsuckers…in their sexual thirst, their draining of energy, their choice of children as victims and their connections to menstruation, disease, and witchcraft.88
The Mythological Dimensions of Neil Gaiman Page 20