What the heck, this diary wasn't going to write itself.
In vain I have struggled to find a smooth segueway to connect the machinations of Maureen Dowd to Morgan Le Fey. Oh, the connection is there alright, no mistake about it.
But I just can't find the silvery prose that will slide the two together fluidly. How does one approach the concept of the shapeshifter in a culture that eschews Jungian archetypes for Harry Potter?
Then again, why am I using the word eschews and did I really mean what I said about Jungian archetypes, Harry Potter and culture?
OK, enough of the navel gazing, let's get down to it.
To recap Arthurian legend, Morgan Le Fey was Arthur's older sister
To say there was sibling rivalry is understating the obvious. Morgan's mother, Igraine, was married to some obscure Welsh lord whose name is not lost to history but is not really important either. Then Uther Pendragon gets the hots for Igraine and disguises himself, with Merlin's help, as Mr. Igraine and he and Igraine do the horizontal boogie and voile!, nine months later, a legend is born. (Rent Excaliber. The sex in chainmail is, um, stimulating)
Poor little Morgan is left to her own devices as Mom oogles over the tiny king to be. In various tales, she is sent to live with some pagan wizard women and becomes a great healer. But then, she comes back to Arthur's court and for some reason, she just wants to tear the bastard apart. She's got a special place of torment for Arthur's wife, Guinivere, who seems to lead a charmed life of power and sexual freedom.
And here is where the healer shapeshifts into a vile spirit. She torments her brother and his wife while at court. Did she do it for spite? Did she resent the upbringing in the catholic girl's school, er, training in the druidic arts, sequestered from men? Was it the advent of Christianity with its severe restrictions on the female sex that drove her wild Celtic spirit to anguished acts of vengeance towards her brother who represented masculinity and freedom? Does she take her bitterest revenge out on the wife who wields the power she was denied as the older female sibling?
Who knows? We may only speculate on a myth. As few as 40 years ago, we may habve found parallels in the brilliant minds of lovely young maidens, dressed in white for the Queen of the May processions, wearing gloves to mass and little lace caps on their heads. Forced to learn typing and centerpieces while they daydreamed of boardrooms and laboratories, their prodigious talents were channeled and squeezed until the very life is nearly wrung out. Except for the few who could express what is left to them, their keen powers of observation, in spells of words of delight to the reader and pain to the subject.
To become a viper and weave an incantation of glamour and dream while wounding the victim is a skill of the supreme sorceress. She woos the court with her magic words. She conjures images of Barberini fauns from poseurs. She is lethal to the woman who would subvert her. She makes the rulers bow to her.
Her spirit lay dormant while evil stalked the kingdom. But now that the wife is exercising her might, the court of intrigue summons forth her mocking voice and gives her back her place of honor on the Sabbath. The woman, the shapeshifting sorceress is once again transforming, but now into the hag. Her opportunities are fleeting, her power is waning. In fury and desperation, she wounds her own sex and the court urges her on as they watch her fade away like a banshee's last cry. It is the risk that a shapeshifter takes that if she occupies the familiar for too long, she cannot turn back.
Or so the author, goldberry, sees it. But in the end, esoteric extended metaphor used to describe some contemporary phenomenon is best left to the masters, or mistresses. After all, it's not like I get paid for this.