Quiddich/Gender Bias

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C4338
From: catlady_de_los_angeles
Subject: Re: Quiddich/Gender Bias
Reply To: [Yahoo! #4337] Re: Quiddich/Gender Bias
Date: 7/15/00 2:56 pm  (ET)

this
is
a
pretty
pathetic
excuse
for
a
spoil
since
it
is
entirely
about
the
so-called
'real'
world!
s
p
o
i
l
e
r
s
p
a
c
e
> Did anyone else notice the similarities between the veela (which I was
bit shocked was in the book) and the mythical sirens? Sirens songs have
been known to drive men MAD and so did the veela!!

The veela (which I am used to seeing spelled VILA) are a real piece of
Slavic folklore -- they are sometimes translated 'wood nymphs' - they
live in the woods and especially at night try to seduce men to join in
their dance or have sex. Possibly the mildest of possible bad results
of yielding to their seductions is that the beautiful girl VANISHES in
the middle of a passionate kiss.

However, at certain times of year such as Harvest, people make
offerings to the 'nymphs' to bring fertility to their crops and prevent
blights. Elizabeth Barber, in WOMEN'S WORK: THE FIRST TWENTY THOUSAND
YEARS (a history of fiber arts), explains how the bride's dance at a
Bulgarian wedding is an imitation of the vila dance in order to bring
fertility to her marriage.

They are similar to 'water nymphs' (called nereids in Greece, rusalki
in IIRC Bulgaria) who live under water and try to seduce men (or in
some stories, young children) by their beautiful singing, and when they
catch the man they kiss him passionately (or when they catch the child,
they kiss it affectionately) and use the kiss to pull the victim under
water to drown.

One of the similarities is that both kinds of nymphs can turn into swans
and fly away, but they do so by wearing swan skins, so if you find one
in human form and steal her swan skin, she can't escape you. Thus, many
stories of the young man marrying the swan girl, until she gets a hold
of her swan skin and abandons him and their children. This gave rise to
plots of ballets like SWAN LAKE, and is very similar to Irish stories
about silkies, except for the silkie woman it's her seal skin.

Supposedly the structure of the myth is that both kinds of nymphs are
young women who died before marriage and/or childbearing and therefore
still have unused powers of fertility that they can bestow on mortals. I
have trouble understanding how, if they're dead, they can be alive and
have children just because some stole their swanskin.