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The Greeks in their writing referred to the Celts as the keltoi.
This was a word that the Celts used to refer to themselves, meaning "the hidden people". In the book The Druids it
says:
"Celt is seen by some linguists as being cognate with the Old Irish ceilid,
used in Modern Irish as ceilt - to hide or conceal. It is also argued that the world kilt...comes from this
same root word...However, it should be pointed out that others have contended that the word kilt is derived from
the Scandinavian languages, kilte meaning 'to tuck up'" (Ellis, 14).
Mythology was invented to explain difficult spiritual concepts to people in an understandable way.
The people of the Far North had a legend of the Hidden Folk, whose chief lady had two sides to her. Retold from
Norse Mythology, Legends of Gods and Heroes, it offers another viewpoint about the play Riders to The
Sea with the use of "reverse" as symbolism:
"Among the Norwegians,
too, there are numerous stories about the Hidden Folk or the underground people (mound folk, mountain folk) above all about
the Huldre herself, the Hill-Lady...The Hill-Lady is often very beautiful as seen from the front, an impression enhanced by
her blue smock and white linen hood. From behind she is hideous: her back is hollowed out like a trough, and she has a tail
that she is never able to conceal" (Munch, 44).
Huldremose Lady, A Bog Body
Some sources link the Huldre Lady to the Norse Volva
There is something concealed about this lady,
something very covert and ugly, but the ugliness is not apparent.
This lady had two sides about her and may have been of two minds
on a matter. There may have been more than one side to her story or she may have had a dual nature.
The image of duality is expressed by two separate ravens in this tidbit about Odin. Legends Of The North tells
that:
"From his seat, he could see all the world. Two ravens, THOUGHT and MEMORY, flew over the world every morning and
returned to whisper to him what they had seen "(Coolidge, vii).
The ravens carried information
to Odin, king of the gods, and may have been very similar in nature and function to each other and yet different in some
ways, just as the two halves of the brain work together in unity.
In Riders to The Sea, Maurya seems to have some trouble with her thought processes and memory, and the two
daughters are found whispering:
"NORA (in a
whisper): Did you hear that, Cathleen? Did you hear a noise in the northeast?
CATHLEEN (in
a whisper): There's someone after crying out by the seashore."
The reader can't be expected to imagine that Maurya or some other character in the play is literally Odin or that
the two sisters are his ravens, but what Synge seems to do is cue his audience to think at a different level, to remember
at another level of consciousness.
As things can be seen from another perspective, in reverse as in the case of the Huldre Lady (also
called the Hulder), the idea of "turning the tables" on a thing or "turning the tide" comes to mind. The turning means that
things change and go in a different, sometimes opposite, direction.
"CATHLEEN. There's a cake baking at the fire for a short space (throwing down the turf) and Bartley
will want it when the tide turns if he goes to Connemara."
"For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction" is a physical concept that expresses the same psychological
need of balance and reconciliation. Could the two hemispheres of the human brain be constantly "whispering" and communicating
information to each other in an attempt to balance the weight of knowledge between the two as in the case of Odin's ravens
and the two sisters whispering together?
The concept of reverse and duality is explained in yet another way in The Viking:
"Behind these varied customs lie two basic conceptions of the afterlife- that the dead will live in their graves as
in a home, or that they are sent forth on their journey to the Otherworld...The chief problem concerns the ships and horses;
were these merely included as the cherished possessions of the dead man, or were they thought of as his means of transport
to the Otherworld?...in some cases the boat is placed upside down over the body, or is moored to, or weighed down by, a boulder...the
idea of a Ship of the Dead is so ancient and widespread that it would be almost incredible if it played no part in the beliefs
of a seafaring people..."(Simpson, 179-180).
Jung understood the human psyche to be divided at times, especially regarding
the collective unconscious as it related to myth and fairy stories.
"Jung seemed to be of two minds about the spirits communicating with him. 'Spirits are complexes
of the collective unconscious which appear when the individual loses his adaptation to reality or which seek to replace the
inadequate attitude of a whole people by a new one...Jung also said that Westerners use thinking and sensation as their dominant
ways of experiencing the world. This separation of feeling and intuition cuts them off from whole realms of knowledge" (Wicker,
99).
Jung felt that myths and children's fairy stories were examples of man's collective conscious
trying to express itself apart from logic and knowledge. Stories such as the legend the Hulda Lady were an expression
of people's unconscious, especially in a collective or whole culture sense, trying to explain what was sensed but not explained
in everyday terms.
How much of fact or truth is in the story of the Hulda Lady and how much is an expression
of the unexpressed subconscious is debatable.
Examing other cultural myths, one finds both historical fact and the collective unconscious
at work. Archeologists have discovered and established much evidence about how ancient cultures really functioned. They are
able, through excavation of written records and art, to interpret how ancient civilizations felt about important
but intangible matters such as life after death and how spirits as gods interacted with the living.
One of the disturbing features of the Hulda Lady was that
she was beautiful when viewed from the front but hideous when seen from behind. Her human nature and her animal nature caused
questions to arise about the nature, not only of the Hulda Lady, but also about the conflicting nature of humans.
This idea
of duality in one individual was also found in the myths of Amerindians about Quetzalcoatl.
The
Mythic Image may hold information which shows this idea in another culture:
A reproduction
of a statue figure of Quetzalcoatl, Lord of Death, is shown from the front wearing ceremonial attire. The reverse
of the statue shows quite a darker side. There are two sides to this image (Campbell, 173-174, figure 153-154).
On the
reverse of the figure, Quetzalcoatl's head is a death's head and the body shows images of death and ritual sacrifice, the
opposite of the front.
Page 172 begins a story about Quetzalcoatl, a god known as the Feathered Serpent, and
a young god called Tezcatlipoca, who came bearing a mirror wrapped in a rabbit skin. He announced to Quetzalcoatl that he
was going to show him his own flesh. Quetzalcoatl asked what this riddle might mean. At this, Tezcatlipoca put the mirror
to Quetzalcoatl’s face and said, "See yourself as you are seen!"
The mirror
showed the other side of the story.
Quetzalcoatl,
not unlike Job of the Bible , saw that his face was wrinkled and full of sores.
Quetzalcoatl
acknowledged that his appearance was frightening.
Like the
Hulda Lady, Quetzalcoatl’s appearance was exactly opposite when seen from another view.
This
might be interpreted to mean that his public face and private face were quite opposite, although it might be meant to be quite
literal. It might also mean that the young god Tezcatlipoca was mocking Quetzalcoatl’s age and/or ritual practices,
typifying the next generation ready to take his place as ruler.
Two Sides Of Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatle, the Precious Twin
Just as there are sometimes two disparate sides to every story, there are many
balancing and equalizing features in Riders to The Sea.
Maurya has two daughters. The play does not say they are twins, but in the play their function
is to converse with each other. Maurya is the third element. The two girls, whispering to each other, try to keep secret
the fact that they have a bundle that might be the clothing of their brother, presumed dead.
The Norse god Odin had two ravens who flew to him with news of battle, one at each ear.
There are two opposing religions in the play. At the beginning of the play, the young priest
represents Christianity. Later on in the play, mother Maurya talks about Samhain, a pagan festival representing the old religions.
Identical twins epitomize the idea of two opposite yet balancing forces. They are sometimes
thought of as mirror images of each other.
Hero twins are found throughout ancient cultures.
The Alcis were twin male gods.
The Divine Twins
"...Ashvins, the twin horsemen"
Pigtails or Twin Tails
Many of the myths of the Irish and Norse look to pose a balance between two sides of a
conflict. The play Riders to The Sea uses many elements in this way. For instance, there is a contrast between
the angry sea and dry land, the drama of the living and the dead, in the tension between the old religion and the "new" religion.
In the play, Maurya feels that the new priest will not let her last son make a dangerous journey and deprive her of the last
male in the household. This hope is dashed, and the old religion seems to dominate.
Yet
another story from mythology tells us that there are two sides to every story, that people may have more than one face, that
they may be "two-faced".
"The divinities of night and day were also of Giant race...The All-Father
took Night and her son Day, gave them two horses and two wains, and stationed them aloft in the heavens, where they were to
ride around the earth in alternating courses of twelve hours each... Far down beneath the root of Yggdrasil lies the fearful
domain of Hel, daughter of Loki and Angerboda. One half of her body has a livid tinge and the other half of human flesh" (Munch,
39-40).
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