A Sheela na Gigis a medieval stone carving of a naked woman with her legs spread wide.
Sheela na Gigs are considered to be mother goddesses, a patron for fertility in British-Celtic folklore. However, some other references might downgrade them to the level of demons.
These have been found mainly in the British Isles. Oddly enough, many of these old representations of goddess are found on churches, and some castles.
It is said that the Sheela na Gig is there to keep evil spirits away, but there may be a deeper and more positive significance.
She is the Earth mother who gives and receives life back to herself, a figure of change and transition.
"...A delicious irony in this history of the sheelas is that, even if they were introduced into the Celtic lands as a Christian attack on women, “it seems wise to suggest that the device of the sheela… was absorbed there into a native belief in powerful female protectors.
These carvings upon the later medieval buildings of Ireland may, then, have been a last manifestation of the old tutelary goddesses.”
__ Kathryn Price NicDhàna
The name, Sheela na Gig, was first published in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 1840-44, as a local name for a carving once present on a church gable wall in Rochestown, County Tipperary, Ireland; the name also was recorded in 1840 by John O'Donovan, an official of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, referring to a figure on Kiltinan Castle, County Tipperary.
Scholars disagree about the origin and meaning of the name in Ireland, as it is not directly translatable into Irish. Alternative spellings of "Sheela" may sometimes be encountered; they include Sheila, Síle and Síla.
There are many theories surrounding the meaning behind the sheela na gig, and the most popular is that she is a survivor of an ancient pagan goddess.
Usually, the sheela has been identified with the Celtic goddess Callieach who is known to be a "hag" like figure of Irish folklore.
The lore of the sheela says, that she appeared as a lustful hag, and most men refused her advances, except one.
After this man slept with her, she turned into a beautiful maiden, and granted the man with royalty and blessed his reign...
"Womb as tomb"
An interesting theory was envisaged by Sligo Artist Michael Quirke.
He believes that the sheela image is the third in the Celtic goddess trinity of maiden-mother-crone.
In her aspect as the crone, she invites the hero back into her womb to death.
Through this stark figure, we are reminded that we are all born of Mother Earth, and we will all return to the earth in death (through the same "door"--the womb of the earth).
In this aspect, sheela-na-gig could be very like the Indian deity Kali, goddess of death.
Depictions of Kali are often even more fearsome than sheela-na-gigs. In addition to having withered breasts, fierce visages and visibly empty wombs, Kali figures often wear garlands of human skulls!
Sheela na Gig's appearance can differ, she can represent fertility and look youthful or withered like an old infertile hag.
She represents the extremes of birth and death.
She is the mother who nurtures and devours all nature at the same time...
Resources:
Post Image: http://bit.ly/15CLF03
An Elfish version of Síla na Géige :
Mhd.Shadi Khudr's insight:
"I am not sure where I first heard the term ‘Sheela-na-gig’, but I do remember trying to find out what it meant.
Most explanations I came across were colourful but derogatory towards women.
My favourite was ‘a crazy hoor that might leap out at you showing her gee’, that last word being the slang in Ireland for the female genitals and not a million miles away from ‘gig’..."
__ Fiona Marron
http://bit.ly/GVH4xj
"In Ireland there is the Hill of Tara. When you arrive at this Hill, you have to pass through a small cemetery and old church before reaching the actual mounds of Tara...
... After we checked out the mounds, we walked back through the cemetery where I noticed a single standing stone.
As I looked at it, I realized that there was a slightly faded carving at the bottom right corner.
As I looked closer, it revealed itself to me, I had found my first sheela na gig! Very exciting indeed!..."
http://bit.ly/165O9qk