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Friday, May 9, 2025 - 05:26
Coming to you live from Kalamazoo where I'm attending the annual medieval history congress. I decided not to live-blog the sessions this year. (It's become more complicated as the policy has shifted to recommending getting active permission to love-blog papers.) But I may do a sum-up post from the train as I'm returning home.
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Full citation:
Brown, Judith, C. 1986. Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-504225-5
This is a detailed study of the life of 17th century Italian nun Benedetta Carlini, and of the investigation into her mystical visions and experiences which also ended up uncovering her sexual encounters with another nun. Since I initially reviewed this work in preparation for a podcast episode on Benedetta, I’m going to give a brief overview of the structure of the book and then include a lightly edited version of the podcast script to provide the substance.
Introduction
Although the title of the book features the sensational phrase “lesbian nun,” the book works up to that revelation slowly, building a far more complex picture of Benedetta’s life and experiences that that single phrase implies. The introduction explains how Brown came across the records that lay document the subject, and provides a broad understanding of the historic context of f/f sex in the European middle ages and Renaissance.
Chapter 1: The Family
This chapter follows Benedetta’s early life and family context, especially as it relates to why and how she was dedicated to a convent at age 9.
Chapter 2: The Convent
This chapter goes into detail about the context of convents in Pescia and the founding of the institution that Benedetta was placed in (which was not yet formally approved as a convent at that time).
Chapter 3: The Nun
This chapter traces Benedetta’s mystical/religious experiences (as later documented during testimony)
Chapter 4: The First Investigation
This chapter documents the context and content of the initial (local) investigation into Benedetta’s claims to mystical experiences, resulting in an acceptance of the truth of her claims.
Chapter 5: The Second Investigation
This chapter follows the testimony and results of a second investigation two years later, initiated at a higher level, which came to the conclusion that Benedetta’s experiences were diabolical in origin, rather than divine, including the testimony of Benedetta’s companion regarding their sexual encounters.
Epilogue
Fragmentary evidence regarding Benedetta’s eventual fate is provided.
Appendix
Extensive excerpts from the investigation records are provided (in English translation), including full details of the testimony regarding sexual relations.
Contents Summary (from the podcast script)
This definitive biographical work on Benedetta Carlini by Judith C. Brown cheerfully labels her “a lesbian nun.” Even setting aside the usual discussion of the applicability of the word “lesbian” to specific historic individuals, Benedetta’s story is complex to categorize. But it is absolutely clear that it is the story of a woman who engaged in sexual activity with other women within the context of a convent.
Benedetta Carlini was brought to the convent at Pescia (Italy) in 1599 at the age of nine, having been dedicated to the convent at birth. She was highly literate, intelligent, and articulate, which may help explain her unusually rapid rise in the convent hierarchy. By 1619, when she was only 30 years old, she had been named abbess of the convent. The other thing that helped was that she had also begun reporting mystical visions and experiences. The church authorities took mysticism rather seriously and began an investigation to determine whether Benedetta’s reports were genuine and of divine origin, rather than something more problematic. In the end, they got a bit more than they bargained for.
Being earmarked for the convent at birth was not that unusual, nor was the relatively young age at which Benedetta entered the institution. Based on her later reports, her childhood had been relatively happy and privileged. An only child, her largely-religious education was provided by her father. Stories with mystical resonance accumulated around her early. A mysterious black dog menaced her, then disappeared, assumed to be the devil in disguise. A nightingale sang and fell silent at her command, staying by her for two years and believed to be a guardian angel.
But at the convent, she wasn’t considered to be anything special. Entrance into one of the several convents at Pescia involved negotiations of status and affiliation. A dowry was required, just as it was for marriage, and some convents had strict rules about the eligibility of their candidates, whether in terms of family connections or town of origin or what skills the girls brought to the convent. Such social politics bred corruption, which in turn generated reformers, and it was the latter impulse that inspired the community that Benedetta joined. It was not, initially, a proper convent, but conducted itself as such under female leadership and was in the process of applying to become a regular order. That application was approved in 1619 and Benedetta was elected their first abbess.
Her election was most likely related to the reports of her mystical visions, which were a significant financial asset for the institution. Young Benedetta was outwardly conventional, but it later came out that she had repeated experiences that she interpreted as divine communications. The statue of the Virgin nodded at her during prayers and leaned over to kiss her. It wasn’t until years later—right around when the community was expanding in preparation for their status change—that Benedetta began reporting her visions to her superiors. She imagined herself transported to a garden where an angel told her to purify herself. She found herself surrounded by wild beasts who were driven away by Jesus. In a way, these visions were compatible with instructions to visualize key religious scenes and symbols during meditation. And the details of her visions were aligned with conventional imagery she would have seen in books and paintings. She reported worrying that her visions might be sent by the devil, but concluded that they were guiding her to be a better, more spiritual person. She began having visions in public, where she would be seen to go into a trance and speak unintelligibly. Her confessor instructed her to disbelieve her visions, which sent her into a profound psychosomatic crisis manifesting as pains and spasms.
Two years later, her visions began taking the form of imagining physical attacks by young men who tried to persuade or force her away from the convent. Because of this, Benedetta was assigned a fulltime companion to keep an eye on her and the leaders of the convent began to think how the presence of a holy visionary might be useful to the institution. The local community heard of her experiences, when she had visions of the Madonna and guardian angels during a public religious procession.
And then, while meditating on the crucifixion, Benedetta received stigmata (wounds) on her hands, feet, and chest. And this was witnessed by her companion, Bartolomea Crivelli, who shared her room. Unlike her visions, these signs were visible to other people. It was shortly after this that Benedetta was elected to be abbess.
Unusually (for a woman), Benedetta was allowed to preach sermons, but only when speaking in a trance in the voice of her guiding angel. Next, her visions took an even more dramatic turn when Christ appeared to her as a handsome young man, accompanied by Saint Catherine and other figures, and explained that he had come to take her heart. Whereupon the vision reached into Bendetta’s side and she felt a great pain, then he showed her the steaming heart that he’d taken from her before placing the heart in his own chest. Benedetta’s companion was a witness to all this via Benedetta’s narration of what the vision of Christ said to her.
Three days later the vision of Christ returned, with a great retinue of saints, and asked Benedetta to disrobe so he could place his own heart into her, in exchange for the one she had given him. After that, Christ gave her strict instructions on living a pure life in order to protect his heart. At this point, a new character is introduced who will be significant. Benedetta is assigned the guardian angel Splenditello, who appeared as a beautiful boy. The vision of Christ instructed Benedetta to prepare for a wedding ceremony with him, giving highly specific and detailed instructions for the decorations and rituals. The convent and her confessor supported her in carrying these out.
In all the occasions when Christ is speaking through Benedetta, he is praising her and promoting her virtues, but when Benedetta is speaking as herself to her companions, she constantly worries that she is being deceived by the devil and protests that she is not worthy. Thus she has plausible deniability against suspicions that the whole experience is an act to gain attention and status. But after the marriage ceremony, some people started to voice doubts and concerns that some of what she voiced was bordering on heresy. An investigation was instigated and Benedetta was relieved of the office of abbess.
First Benedetta’s stigmata were examined, as the only concrete evidence. When her hands and head were washed of the blood, small wounds were found that bled freely and she reported that they pained her, but not as much on Sundays. Through several more visits, the wounds were seen to be healing, and Benedetta communicated while in trance that Christ had chosen the convent as his own special place and that the investigators and church officials were to take special care of it. After coming out of the trance, Benedetta said she was unaware of what she had written and said in Christ’s voice.
After this, the stigmata were observed to be bleeding again, and at one point while being examined and questioned, Benedetta was allowed to step out of the room and then returned with wounds on her head bleeding freely. (The head wounds represent the effects of the crown of thorns.) Benedetta reported that Christ was angry with the people of Pescia for doubting her.
This first investigation lasted 4 months, with over a dozen individual sessions, most of which were either recorded or can be reconstructed from notes. The shape of the investigation is fairly ordinary in the context of claims of sanctity and visions. When Benedetta spoke in her own voice, her ideas and opinions were orthodox and repeated the investigators’ concerns that she might be deluded or imagining things. But within these conversations came hints that Benedetta’s relationship with her fellow nuns might involve a bit more conflict than her prior election might indicate. Just ordinary disagreements and punishments, but perhaps enough that some of the nuns wouldn’t mind seeing Benedetta taken down a peg or two. Benedetta’s companion, Bartolomea Crivelli, was questioned and at that time her testimony supported the events as Benedetta related them.
The investigation concluded with a judgment that there was nothing amiss and that Benedetta’s experiences were credible. She was reinstated as abbess and it looked like that would be an end of things.
For the next two years, Benedetta worked as an able administrator of the convent, as well as continuing her role as resident mystic. Then—perhaps in reaction to news of her father’s death—Benedetta began to prophecy her own death and even experience some sort of event interpreted as death and revival. Her rhetoric around this event included threats that the convent and town could only be saved through her presence and intervention, which stirred up fear and resentment. To top it off, the standard three-year term as abbess was coming to a close and there was a serious movement to elect a different woman for the next term. Benedetta’s fame might be useful to the convent, but her autocratic control and rhetoric was beginning to grate.
What happened next is a bit confused, but the upshot was that a new investigation was opened, this time by the papal nuncio rather than the local authorities. The evidence and testimony were examined again, this time perhaps more critically, and a variety of contradictions and unorthodoxies were poked at. This time, the investigators concluded that her visions were demonic in origin. Several of the nuns came forward with testimony that they had witnessed Benedetta manufacturing evidence of supposedly “spontaneous” bleeding of statues and such. That when Benedetta claimed that Christ would kiss her forehead and leave a golden star as a mark, a nun had spied on her and seen her create the star and stick it on herself using wax. Two other nuns reported having spied on Benedetta and seeing her enlarging her stigmata with a needle. The golden ring that appeared on her finger to mark her marriage to Christ was found to be painted on using saffron.
Perhaps the nuns had previously been too intimidated to report these things. Perhaps they had genuinely believed in Benedetta at first but then began to notice the tricks involved. Perhaps Benedetta grew careless—and there’s also the question of Benedetta’s mental health and to what extent she initially believed in her visions and only later felt the need to reinforce the evidence artificially.
And then the papal nucio’s investigators heard some very unexpected testimony from Benedetta’s companion, Bartolomea.
For two years, about three times each week, after the two of them had retired to their chamber for sleep and disrobed, Benedetta would summon Bartolomea saying she needed her, and when Bartolomea came to her, Benedetta would grab her and pull her down onto the bed. “Embracing her, she would put her under herself and kissing her as if she were a man, she would speak words of love to her. And she would stir on top of her so much that both of them corrupted themselves.”
This was so startling to the investigators that the scribe’s handwriting—previously very neat—became sloppy and full of crossed-out errors.
Questioned further, Bartolomea reported that Benedetta told her their sexual encounnters weren’t a sin because it was the angel Splenditello who was responsible. Splenditello promised Bartolomea that if she would be his beloved, some day she would see the same mystical visions that Benedetta did. Sometimes, instead of Splenditello, it was Christ himself speaking and acting through Benedetta.
The investigators were far more skeptical than Bartolomea had been. (Though we must keep in mind that Bartolomea had strong reasons to present herself both as an unwilling participant and as credulous about exactly who was having sex with her.) Bartolomea expanded on her unwillingness: sometimes she had refused to come and Benedetta had climbed into her bed. Sometimes Bartolomea succeeded in eluding her and then Benedetta would masturbate to orgasm.
Why had it taken so long for Bartolomea to come forward? The answer was a jumble of believing the voices that she hadn’t sinned, and being too ashamed, and having no confidence that her confessor would believe her or do anything about it. (The priest who served as confessor to the convent was one of Benedetta’s consistent supporters.) Bartolomea’s credulity had already been established during her witnessing to the heart removal and replacement. So it’s quite possible that she was ready to believe that an angel was responsible for the assault, while at the same time being uncertain enough to feel shame.
And perhaps, at some level, she enjoyed the sexual encounters. She reports that “both of them corrupted themselves,” i.e., had orgasms. And while it doesn’t negate the coercive aspect, it may be that pleasure and the enjoyment of being loved—whether by an angel or by a beloved abbess—contributed to her hesitation.
Physical relations between nuns—though rarely recorded overtly—were not unheard of. Convent rules often included restrictions to avoid the opportunity for private sexual encounters and penitential manuals clearly allowed for the possibility. Romantic correspondence and love poetry between nuns includes clearly erotic language. So the fact of Benedetta’s desires falls within familiar parameters, what’s unusual is the cover story she created for acting on them. It may have been the only way she could think of to get past her culture’s assumptions about gender roles, as well as the chastity required of her as a nun.
With this as the conclusion to their report, the investigators handed it off to the papal nuncio for action. For whatever reason, he was hesitant. He sent another visitation, who found that all physical signs of Benedetta’s experiences had vanished and she reported no longer seeing any visions, angels, or other apparitions. She agreed that she had been deceived by the devil and was now living as an ordinary nun, obedient to a new abbess. Her alignment with the conclusions of the investigation gave her an out for forgiveness and a new start.
There is no formal record of nuncio’s conclusions and actions, but a record from the convent much later reported Benedetta’s death at age 71 after serving 35 years in prison—i.e., having started her imprisonment 3 years after the final report from the investigation. Imprisonment may have been the most lenient option in front of her. Female sodomy was technically punishable with death by burning, though the number of recorded instances of that penalty are almost certainly a small fraction of the possible instances. There is evidence suggesting that Bartolomea experienced no penalty at all.
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Tuesday, May 6, 2025 - 10:43
I'm testing the limits of what you can post by teathering a laptop to a spotty phone connection, because that's what you get on Amtrak crossing the vastness of Colorado...
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LHMPFull citation:
Bronski, Michael. 2012. A Queer History of the United States (ReVisioning American History). Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0807044650
(Before reading) I rather expect this book to be thin on information within the scope of the project, either in not focusing on women, or in focusing on the 20th century. And as the topic is “queer history,” the inclusion of gender-crossing by assigned female persons doesn’t necessarily fall in the category “lesbian.” Expect somewhat spotty coverage of the actual contents.
(After reading) The strongest aspect of this book is situating queer history within the broader social history of the USA. But that means that a lot of time is spent discussing that broader social history without reference to queer topics. This makes it almost feel like the author had very little actual queer history to work with and was trying to pad it out with context, but I don’t think that’s the case. There is a very strong focus on the northeastern part of the USA, with very little attention to the Midwest, West, and South to the extent that they might have had different contexts and experiences (except for the occasional nod to San Francisco). Well over half the book is focused on the 20th century. So overall I think my initial predictions panned out.
# # #
Introduction
The author points out that this is an inescapably political book and should be read in that context. He points out that the question of “who is queer” is not at all straight-forward [pun intentional] in a historic context, and that queer figures have been silently and invisibly embedded in US history far deeper than most people are aware.
He focuses on two concepts: that queer people have substantially contributed to our understanding of US history (even if we aren’t aware of their queerness), and that ‘LGBT history’ of the US does not exist as something that can be separated (dare I say, segregated) from the mainstream of US history. History should not be viewed as a chronological sequence of people and events, but as a complex interweaving.
LGBT history has its roots in a focus specifically on queer desire and its meaning within specific lives. There was a period when the goal of queer historians was to naturalize queer desire to achieve social and legal acceptance.
The author reviews a chronology of the language used to identify queer people and how it reflected and shaped social attitudes. [Note: as usual, he cites the completely false assertion that words for lesbianism only entered the language in the late 19th century.] He notes the limitations of vocabulary as a path to tracing queer history, and notes the importance of popular entertainment for finding expressions of queer identity.
A key struggle in US queer history is the conflict between “social purity” movements (beginning in the 19th century) and the right of individual self-expression and self-determination (long considered a foundational US principal).
The book is structured roughly chronologically, beginning with the European presence in the Americas and covers up through the 1980s and AIDS activism.
Chapter 1: The Persecuting Society
When European invaders began the project of forcing indigenous Americans into a Western, Christian mold, one aspect that came under attack was gender roles and sexual practices they considered unacceptable. This included people of both sexes taking on gender roles associated with the other sex. These roles varied considerably across various cultures and do not align necessarily with ideas of self-identity. (The examples given all involve assigned-male persons.)
A brief background is given for 16-17th century English attitudes toward sexuality and cross-dressing. (The author asserts “same-sex relationship were illegal” but is either ignorant of, or indifferent to, the fact that this only applied to men.) Legal attitudes toward same-sex activity and other sexual crimes in the colonies derived in part from English legal traditions and in part from Puritan moral attitudes. The author notes two law codes (Rhode Island 1647, New Haven 1655) that explicitly mention female same-sex activity. But law codes didn’t mean that the laws were consistently or universally enforced, and cases can be identified of men known for soliciting and engaging in same-sex activity but not prosecuted due to the specifics of the social context.
The author discusses the problem of how to interpret personal letters and papers that clearly express intense same-sex emotions. To what extent can we know or impute erotic feelings on that basis? If a writer records self-disgust at same-sex erotic desire, given the Puritan context, do we assign the reaction to the same-sex aspect or the erotic aspect?
A great deal of this chapter is an exploration of the general theme of enforcing social conformity and approved morals via persecution of “others.”
Chapter 2: Sexually Ambiguous Revolutions
Political revolution was accompanied by a revolution in ideas about how gender/sex related to “the citizen.” Puritan influence had faded, but while individual regions like Pennsylvania had relatively progressive ideas about religion, abolition, and indigenous relations, this didn’t translate directly to sexual liberty. Pennsylvania law briefly downgraded the official penalty for sodomy from death to mere corporal punishment, hard labor, and fines, but then reverted to the death penalty a generation later.
Overall, the colonies remained a very unequal and persecution-based society. Slavery embedded itself from being temporary indenture to permanent racialized status. There is an extensive discussion of how slavery shaped and affected the entirety of US society, including sexual imagery. This includes “Indian captive” narratives that helped shape the image of the “innocent white woman in sexual peril from the Other.”
The Enlightenment was an essential foundation of the American experiment but erased and skipped over entire populations. The Continental Enlightenment led to decriminalization of homosexuality in France, whereas this interpretation of individual rights with respect to sexuality did not take root in the US. A new, specifically American, model of masculinity evolved: a rugged, aggressive, independent stereotype specifically developed in opposition to the stereotype of the English man as refined, weak, and effeminate. The American male was also stereotypically white, propertied, and free (it goes without saying).
The development of the ideal image of the American woman was less coherent. Women’s strength and independence were essential to surviving in the early colonies, and many US women adopted Enlightenment principles and applied them to gender, but this was met by strong pushback from men and contrasted with the “vulnerable/innocent white woman” stereotype that was developing.
Strong gender divisions in society give rise to homosocial practices, which in turn could be a breeding ground for same-sex relations of various types. The book moves on to a discussion of “romantic friendship”—the importance, the range of expressions, evidence for its significance to those who participated, and how it developed a political flavor.
The revolutionary spirit in the late 18th century did create a context for some individuals to reject normative ideas of gender. One notable example is Jemima Wilkinson who had a religious revelation that expressed as non-binary (and possibly asexual) identity as “the Publick Universal Friend.” There were also many real and fictional women who took up a masculine role in war time, and sometimes retained it afterward, of whom Deborah Sampson/Robert Shurtliff is probably the best known. Literary examples include The Female Marine, or the Adventures of Miss Lucy Brewer, by Nathanial Hill Wright, and Ormond, or The Secret Witness by Charles Brockden Brown. Although exceptional, these lives and stories created a space in the culture for envisioning non-normative lives for women.
Chapter 3: Imagining a Queer America
In the 19th century, America experiences several significant challenges to its sense of identity, including the abolition of slavery, a vast increase in non-British immigration, and territorial expansion that incorporated areas settled by other cultural groups.
The escape from laws and social rules represented by the frontier also allowed for an escape from sexual/gender norms and expectations. Gender roles were blurred due to simple necessity, and gender presentation often followed. For women, this could mean a greater acceptance of taking on “masculine” professions and adopting male-coded clothing to various degrees. On the flip side, to the extent that gender segregation (and extreme gender imbalances) persisted, it encouraged homosocial bonding and organizing as the expected pattern. Male bonding was valorized in the west, just as women’s romantic friendships were back east. The continuing paradox of American masculinity was being defined simultaneously by prominent heterosexual desire and a rejection of mixed-gender socializing, where men disdained to be constrained by women’s supposed “civilizing” influence. The Wild West was coded as masculine; the urban East as feminine. Women, in the Wild West, either assimilated to masculinity (see, e.g., Calamity Jane) or are seen as the encroaching force of civilization that would eventually destroy “cowboy masculinity.”
San Francisco in the mid 19th century is presented as an example of the cultural effects of severe gender imbalance on practices and norms around gender and sexuality (This discussion is necessarily focused on men’s experiences.)
The discussion now shifts to the urban east and the presence of romanticism in the writing and letters of male intellectuals, such as Walt Whitman. Here “nature,” rather than representing the rugged cowboy, reflects an Enlightenment sensibility of equality and freedom from traditional morals. This was also the heyday of women’s romantic friendships, documented in letters, poetry, and philosophical writing (see e.g., Margaret Fuller, Emily Dickinson). There is a discussion of the American literary tradition of male mixed-race homoerotic relationships.
Chapter 4: A Democracy of Death and Art
This chapter examines the influence of the Civil War on religion and social attitudes (and vice versa)—how wartime violence shaped ideas of masculinity. But intense homosocial bonding among men in wartime also prompted new types of affective behaviors.
There is a discussion of “passing women,” both in the army and afterward in civilian contexts. The combination of the common experience of hard manual labor by women, with the overall young age of soldiers, made gender-crossing more likely to be successful. The motivations of such women were varied. Popular media was fascinated with such stories, when they were made public.
The post-Civil War era also saw a growth in women’s rights activity including the suffrage movement. There was a growth in women’s colleges and this strictly homosocial environment encouraged and supported romantic friendships between women. In reaction, intellectual women were often disparaged as “unwomanly” regardless of their emotional relationships. Feminism encouraged women to see themselves as a community and to see same-sex relationships as a political act.
The life and career of actress Charlotte Cushman is given as an example of women in openly romantic relationships who formed woman-centered communities. The increased potential for economic independence aided resistance to marriage for those who were so inclined and made female couples more viable. Prominent figures like Cushman served as a model and inspiration for such choices. There is a discussion of the rise of the “Boston Marriage”—female couples openly living in marriage-like arrangements and socially recognized and accepted as such. Most of the evidence for these relationships comes from literate middle-class women, but glimpses of more marginalized couples, such as Black working-class women like Rebecca Primus and Addie Brown, show that such relationships were prevalent regardless of class and race. Female same-sex couples were common among the faculty of women’s colleges, in part due to requirements that those women be unmarried. The text discusses too many specific people to list or tag.
Inherited wealth and social position helped women have the privilege of designing their own lives. [Note: There are some relevant consequences for women’s financial independence in the differences in inheritance practices between England and the US.]
There is a comparison of how female and male sculptors differed in how they shaped images of American masculinity in the post-Civil War era. Women chose monumental depictions of progressive American statesmen, while men returned to classical aesthetics.
International conversations began around male homoeroticism and the beginnings of positive sexological models (relatively speaking). This male-focused material treated women as an afterthought and valorized specifically m/m relations, not same-sex relations in general. The author points out that artistic and philosophical celebration of m/m relations did not always translate to an open embracing of men’s own desires.
Chapter 5: A Dangerous Purity
The second half of the 19th century saw rapid social and economic change, including the establishment of a capitalist upper class, characterized as the “Gilded Age.” Social movements were prominent, but not focused on sexuality except in the negative (e.g., misandry among women’s movements). The cause of social problems was sometimes characterized as male lust versus female virtue. This generated “purity” movements such as temperance and anti-masturbation. Such movements made little distinction between same and opposite sex activity.
The Comstock Act of 1874 banned “obscene” material from the US Mail (the only practical distribution system for publications), and covered personal correspondence as well as published material. Although most morality laws focused on heterosexual activity, the tone was anti-sex in general. These morality-centered movements also supported abolition of slavery and promoted women’s suffrage and labor organizing. It is a mistake to try to interpret them in terms of modern progressive politics. The various movements clashed over the question of “protecting” versus “empowering” women, and abolition was not automatically aligned with anti-racism. Feminists could be racists and anti-Semitic. Abolitionists could oppose suffrage. Labor activists could scorn concerns they considered only relevant to the upper class. And women involved in romantic same-sex relationships did not necessarily view that as a revolutionary act that implied support for other revolutionary movements. Indeed, some women in f/f relationships viewed the arrangement as the pinnacle of “purity culture” as long as they could understand their relationships as not involving “sex” by their own definition. Movements to reform racial and sexual attitudes both found themselves struggling against the prevailing “social reform” movements.
European sexological discourse began appearing in the US in the last decade or so of the 19th century, and often followed the trend of linking homosexuality with criminality and mental illness, even when no direct causal relationship was proposed. The anarchist movement was the most compatible with, and supportive of, sexual liberation, and early leaders of the latter often came out of the former. “Free love” when embraced as a principle, necessarily included same-sex relationships. (A lot of this chapter focuses on the general atmosphere of social movements, especially labor and racial movements.)
Sexological theory of the time basically defined everyone as heterosexual, but some as transgender. I.e., gender was defined in opposition to the object of desire. This framing dominated medical discourse (and infiltrated popular imagination) for at least half a century, promulgating the stereotypes of the effeminate gay man and the mannish lesbian.
In contrast to the allegedly sexless image of romantic friendship, the “mannish lesbian” was viewed as inherently sexual. But she was also considered separate from the older image of the “passing woman.” (In actual practice, f/f sexual relations could be part of any of these framings—it is only the stereotypes that make the distinction.)
In the early 20th century, along with medical discourse, we begin to have personal memoirs of people expressing same-sex desire. One of the few authored by a woman mentioned here is Mary Casal’s The Stone Wall (1930).
Rising movements in the early/mid 20th century to separate the connections between sex, pleasure, and reproduction did not necessarily support broad ideas of sexual liberation, often being entangled in purity culture and eugenics. Medical “sex manuals” began to emerge, but were focused on sex within heterosexual marriage and typically condemned other types of activity. Even those with relatively tolerant attitudes attributed lesbianism to “boredom and loneliness” rather than viewing it as a viable option.
Chapter 6: Life on the Stage/Life in the City
This chapter steps back in time a little and shifts from social politics to entertainment and urban contexts, with coverage of the 19th century and later. Examples are given of transgressive gender and sexuality in the theater (both performers and performances) that included bisexuality, cross-dressing, and deliberately mixed-gender costuming. Gender-bending performances parodied dominant attitudes toward homosexuality and normalized the latter in a space set apart from “real life.”
Urban spaces around the turn of the 20th century were shaped by the normalization of unmarried adults of both sexes living apart from their families of origin. Living spaces included boarding houses, rooming houses, and single-gender hotels, as well as independent apartments. In group living situations, gender segregation was most typical, but immigrant communities formed around charitable “settlement houses” that served both families and singles. These settlement houses were often founded by women’s charitable groups, and prominent leaders included female couples, such as the founders of Hull House in Chicago. [Note: The prominence if female couples in charitable work and social activism in the later 19th century can be directly connected to the expectation that married women would focus exclusively on their own families.]
There’s a discussion of how single-sex spaces unintentionally became meeting places for homosexual socializing and networking. This is a vague parallel to how racial segregation contradictorily encouraged the development of vibrant and thriving Black communities and subcultures.
Burlesque and vaudeville theater offered a context for performing diverse gender and sexuality, even when the intent was parody or mockery. Both male and female impersonation were popular genres, though in general the pop culture portrayal of the “mannish lesbian” was less common She was also more often seen as a threatening figure than an entertaining one. In the early decades of the 20th century, theatrical productions with lesbian themes were regularly suppressed for depicting “perversion.”
The overlap between theater and early Hollywood in the 1920s and 30s produced the occasional overt depiction of queer characters, such as Marlene Dietrich’s character in Morocco (1930), but though the sex lives of Hollywood performers were fairly freewheeling, the content of films was more restrained, even before the introduction of the Hayes Code in 1930.
Live stage continued to be the more common performance context where transgressive sexuality was on display to the public. And the stage acting community was full of networks of female same-sex lovers.
Urban centers with a strong tradition of transgressive performance gave rise to a tourist trade in “slumming’ (ostensibly straight, white, upper class visitors looking to be entertained by the Other), just as racialized performance communities in places like Harlem did. (Examples are drawn from the 1920s and 30s.) In the late 1930s, these communities and venues were disrupted by active morality panics and campaigns. By the 1940s, the stereotype of the homosexual child molester was being invented. Homosexual social movements shifted to focusing on a “right to privacy” rather than a right to exist in public.
Both male and female homosexual characters began appearing in novels in the 1920s and 1930s, typically echoing the theories of sexologists, even when relatively sympathetic to the characters.
Even though many homosexuals were prominent in the Harlem Renaissance, there was strong pressure in the Black community to keep sex lives out of public to avoid undermining racial progress.
Overall, this was the era when urban culture made it more viable for a “homosexual culture” to emerge and thrive, even through shifts in the permitted expressions.
Chapter 7 to 10
The rest of the book is solidly focused on the 20th century and—while fascinating—is out of scope for the Project. So in the interests of efficiency, I’m going to skip taking notes.
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Saturday, May 3, 2025 - 07:00
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 313 - On the Shelf for May 2025 - Transcript
(Originally aired 2025/05/03 - listen here)
Welcome to On the Shelf for May 2025.
At the time you listen to this, I will officially be retired from my job as a failure analyst for biotech pharmaceutical manufacturing. It’s not the most fun time to be retiring on a 401K, but I’ll be ok as long as I watch my expenses. Of course, at the time you listen to this, I still won’t have an answer to “what does it feel like to be retired” because my first act is to head off on the train to the medieval congress at Kalamazoo. I’ve always wanted to take the train rather than flying, but I could never justify it when I was hoarding my vacation days. So I guess that’s one way it feels different.
You probably won’t notice any changes in the blog and podcast at first, because those have been at the top of the priority list. Mostly I plan to spend a lot more time working on my fiction, as well as starting to put the Lesbian Historic Motif Project book together. (I’m going to need to come up with a better title for it, because simply titling the book “The Lesbian Historic Motif Project” would be too confusing.)
I do hope to have time for doing a bit more promotion around the blog and podcast. It would be nice to increase our listener numbers and maybe add some special content on the Patreon to encourage people to support the Project monetarily. And that brings me to another aspect of retirement. In the past when I’ve debated whether to continue the fiction series for another year, it’s mostly had to do with listener numbers and the level of engagement. But now I need to take a hard look at the finances of the series. If I buy four stories at the maximum of 5000 words, that’s $1600 in royalties. If I hire narrators, rather than doing all the narration myself, that adds another few hundred dollars. (And I’m not even talking about hosting costs and whatnot.) Currently the Project’s Patreon brings in $240 a year. I haven’t pushed the Patreon as strongly as most people do, because covering expenses out of pocket wasn’t a big deal. Well, going forward it’s going to be a somewhat bigger deal. So I’m going to start putting a more active emphasis on soliciting support. Whether or not the fiction series continues past next January is going to be influenced by whether listeners value it enough to support the show. So if you think it’s a good thing that the Lesbian Historic Motif Project exists, and especially if you enjoy our fiction series, consider whether you’re able to express that appreciation with cash.
That said, we’ll have our second story in this year’s series at the end of the month and it’s absolutely amazing. Make sure you don’t miss it!
News of the Field
One thing I hope to have more time for is analyzing trends in sapphic historicals. I used to do a year-end analysis of settings, publishers, and so forth, but I let that slide a few years ago. I want to pull up my database and fill in the missing years to get caught up. We are seeing more and more sapphic historicals from mainstream publishers, but what feels like a serious drop in historicals from the most prominent small queer presses. The greatest diversity of stories and settings tends to come from independent authors, but those books often have limited distribution due to an over-reliance on Kindle and struggle to find visibility. I want to bring the data to these questions and return to tracking the market more closely.
I hope to have more time to do reviewing and to have author interviews on a more regular basis. Any other ideas for things to add to the Patreon or the show will be cheerfully entertained.
Publications on the Blog
No recent book shopping for the blog. I’ve followed up on my impulse to start focusing on books on queer history in the USA, but haven’t put any of it up on the blog yet. Let’s just say that the past month has been a bit distracted.
Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
Before plunging into the new fiction, I want to return to a topic I’ve been discussing for the last couple of months. As you may recall, I’ve been noticing a new phenomenon flooding my book spreadsheet. It involves series of relatively short books, typically revolving around a specific theme but not usually a connected narrative. The series is all released in a very brief timespan. But there are a number of other features of this trend. The stories are typically only loosely rooted in history—more “vibes” than facts—and often involve ahistorical gender-neutral casting. Regardless of the author, the cover copy tends to all have a very similar feel, and when I’ve dipped into the contents previews, the prose also has a very consistent feel. Another consistent feature is that the authors have essentially no online presence outside of the book listings, and most commonly have published only series books, rather than also including stand-alones.
So: all of that being said. I have become increasingly more and more suspicious that this phenomenon represents books generated from large language models. (The covers have strong AI vibes, but that’s a more widespread issue.) Therefore I’ve made an executive decision not to include books that fit this profile in my new book listings. (I’m still tracking them in my database, but with annotation.)
If anyone listening to this show is, in fact, an author using this model and has additional information that might change my mind on this point, I’m willing to entertain it. But currently, I’m following my gut. My show, my rules.
On a more positive note, here are the new and recent books I’ve found this month.
There are two April books, one of which I held over to this month to coordinate with interviewing the author. This is The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Lindz McLeod from Carina Adores. I’m always a sucker for a good Jane Austen take-off.
When Mr. Collins dies after just four years of marriage, Charlotte is lost. While not exactly heartbroken, she will soon have to quit the parsonage that has become her home. In desperate need of support, she writes to her best friend, Lizzie. Unable to leave Pemberly, Lizzie sends her sister, Mary Bennet, in her stead.
To Charlotte’s surprise, Mary Bennet is nothing like she remembers. Mary’s discovery of academia and her interest in botany (as well as getting out from under her mother’s thumb) have caused her to flourish. Before long, Charlotte is enraptured—with Mary, and with the possibilities that lie beyond their societal confines. With each stolen glance and whispered secret, their friendship quickly blossoms into something achingly real.
But when her time at the parsonage begins to dwindle and a potential suitor appears, Charlotte must make a choice—the safety and security of another husband, or a passionate life with Mary outside the confines of the ton’s expectations.
The other April book is Midnight Letters by Rowan Wilder.
In the gilded halls of Victorian London, Eleanor Blackwell's carefully arranged life is unraveling at the seams. Trapped in a loveless engagement to the controlling Lord James Harrington, she finds herself drawn to Vivian Foster, the rebellious portrait artist hired to immortalize their impending union.
What begins with a mysterious sketch and a provocative question—"You seemed trapped. Are you?"—soon blossoms into a secret correspondence that awakens desires Eleanor never knew existed. As midnight letters pass between them, Eleanor and Vivian risk everything to steal precious moments together in moonlit gardens and hidden alcoves.
But in 1890s London, two women daring to love is more than scandalous—it's dangerous. When their forbidden relationship is discovered, Eleanor must make an impossible choice: surrender to societal expectations or follow her heart into the unknown with Vivian.
From the rigid drawing rooms of aristocratic England to the bohemian artist cafés of Paris, Midnight Letters is a sweeping tale of courage, sacrifice, and the transformative power of love. As Eleanor and Vivian build a new life together against all odds, they discover that the most profound revolution can happen in the human heart.
There are six May releases, most of them from major publishers. (This has a lot to do with indie books not having advance publicity, so they tend to get identified only after they’ve been released.)
The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling from Harper Voyager had a note in my database to confirm the hints of sapphic content, but I was able to find advance reviews that satisfied me.
Aymar Castle has been under siege for six months. Food is running low and there has been no sign of rescue. But just as the survivors consider deliberately thinning their number, the castle stores are replenished. The sick are healed. And the divine figures of the Constant Lady and her Saints have arrived, despite the barricaded gates, offering succor in return for adoration.
Soon, the entire castle is under the sway of their saviors, partaking in intoxicating feasts of terrible origin. The war hero Ser Voyne gives her allegiance to the Constant Lady. Phosyne, a disorganized, paranoid nun-turned-sorceress, races to unravel the mystery of these new visitors and exonerate her experiments as their source. And in the bowels of the castle, a serving girl, Treila, is torn between her thirst for a secret vengeance against Voyne and the desperate need to escape from the horrors that are unfolding within Aymar’s walls.
As the castle descends into bacchanalian madness—forgetting the massed army beyond its walls in favor of hedonistic ecstasy—these three women are the only ones to still see their situation for what it is. But they are not immune from the temptations of the castle’s new masters… or each other; and their shifting alliances and entangled pasts bring violence to the surface. To save the castle, and themselves, will take a reimagining of who they are, and a reorganization of the very world itself.
The enthusiasm for books set in the Roaring 20s continues with Murder at the Cabaret by Dana Gricken from Bella Books.
In New York City, 1925, twenty-two-year-old Penny Fox has a lot on her plate.
After her father’s untimely death, she’s just inherited his cabaret club—The Primrose—complete with a speakeasy in the basement, made possible by local mob boss Sonny Hargrove. By night, she’s managing her father’s business while being hounded by a greedy crime lord, and by day, working as a private investigator at her agency called The Sly Fox to help women flee abusive partners and catch their husbands affairs.
To make matters worse, she’s currently being sued by a client’s husband for snapping pictures of him with his secretary and ruining his marriage. When she comes across another woman being abused, Cora Bellinger, she decides to help her and falls in love, making her fiancé a sworn enemy while trying to process her feelings.
But it isn’t until the dancers at her club begin going missing—and then murdered—that Penny realizes a serial killer is on the loose. If she wants to save her club and stop more women from being killed, she’ll have to put her private eye skills to good use—before it’s too late.
We haven’t had as many cross-time stories lately, but Give My Love to Berlin by Katherine Bryant from Walrus Publishing follows a popular structure that jumps between the past and present, following memories and family secrets.
In 1927, the beautiful city of Berlin is the gay capitol of the world. Ruth, a performer at one of the nightclubs in the city, and her girlfriend, Tillie, are living their lives and enjoying the freedom of the Weimer Republic. They are surrounded by a chosen family that includes drag performers, transgender women, and the prominent physician, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld. Ruth, Tillie, and their best friends, James and Ernesto spend much of their time at the Institute for Sexual Science, the hub of the queer community in the twenties and early thirties. As the ’20s come to a close, Tillie watches her father, a prominent lawyer, as he becomes more entrenched with the Nazi Party. Working in his law office as his secretary, she meets prominent figures in the Nazi Party, including Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring, and becomes increasingly concerned as time passes that there is much more at stake than just her relationship with Ruth, who is also Jewish. Tillie becomes privy to the planning of rallies, the plans the Nazi party is making in order to ensure Nazi victories in major elections, and how the Nazis are taking over Germany one neighborhood at a time. The novel jumps between the twenties and thirties and the early nineties and a young woman named Thea. Thea is dealing with the onset of her grandmother’s dementia, and discovers secrets hidden away that her grandmother never intended for her to uncover. Alternating between Tillie’s perspective during the ’20s and ’30s as the Weimar Republic slowly gives way to a dictatorship and Thea’s perspective in the ’90s as the secrets of her grandmother’s history come to light, Give My Love to Berlin follows the lives of two gay couples—Tillie and Ruth, and their best friends, James and Ernesto—trying to navigate falling in love, thriving in their community, and coming to terms with the danger they are in just by being who they are.
Actual medieval epics had a fascination with stories in which a woman in disguise earns fame as a knight and attracts the romantic interest of a fair lady. To the Fairest by M. Walker takes up this motif, although it turns the “convenient twin brother” trope on its head.
In medieval Europe, Elena Montfort has always dreamed of competing in the knights' tournament—an arena forever closed to women. When her twin brother falls gravely ill before an important competition that could save their financially struggling family, Elena makes a daring decision: she will don his armor, assume his identity, and enter the lists as "Sir Elric."
What begins as a desperate gamble transforms when Elena presents a rose to the beautiful Lady Isolde, setting in motion a romance neither woman anticipated. As Elena continues her masquerade through increasingly prestigious tournaments, she must navigate court intrigue, jealous rivals, and her growing feelings for Lady Isolde, who believes herself in love with a man who doesn't exist.
Will Elena's deception be discovered? Can love flourish when built on necessary lies? And when forced to choose between duty to family and the desires of her own heart, what will this unlikely knight sacrifice?
Another standard structure in the cross-time group is the “romance of the archives” in which research into a historic document uncovers a sapphic romance. Time After Time by Mikki Daughtry from G.P. Putnam's Sons combines this with the supernatural version in which past lives may be intertwined.
Libby has always been inexplicably drawn to the old Victorian house on Mulberry Lane. So much so that when she sees a For Sale sign go up in the front yard, Libby uses all the money her grandmother left her to pay for college to buy the house instead, determined to fix it up herself—even though she knows her parents will be furious.
Tish, a brash, broke fellow student, doesn’t need much to get by. She can fix almost anything, so she makes do by building sets for the theater department and working odd jobs at the nearby salvage yard. Tish passes by the house one day and is mysteriously compelled to knock on the door. Libby offers her a room in exchange for her help with repairing the old house, and as they begin to work together, the two young women quickly find themselves growing closer.
Soon after moving in, Libby discovers a journal written by a young woman, Elizabeth, who lived in the house a century earlier and was deeply in love with her personal maid, Patricia. As Elizabeth’s journal entries delve deeper into her secret affair with Patricia—a love that was forbidden and dangerous in their time—Libby can’t help but notice uncanny similarities between that young couple and Tish and herself.
Have she and Tish lived this life before? And is this their chance to get it right?
Paranormal themes underly A Spell for Change by Nicole Jarvis from Titan Books.
Kate Mayer has always been troubled by visions of the future. No matter what she does, her disturbing premonitions come to pass—often with terrible consequences. But Kate has a secret: swirling, romantic dreams of a strange boy, and a chance meeting in the woods.
Oliver Chadwick Jr. returned from the Great War disabled, disillusioned, and able to see the dead. Haunted by the death of his best friend, Oliver realizes that his ability to communicate with spirits may offer the chance of closure he desperately seeks.
Nora Jo Barker’s mother and grandmother were witches, but she has never nurtured her own power. Always an outsider, she has made a place for herself as the town's schoolteacher, clinging to the independence the job affords her. When her unorthodox ideas lead to her dismissal, salvation comes in the form of a witch from the mountains, who offers her a magical apprenticeship. Yet as she begins to fall for another woman in town, her loyalties pull her in disparate directions.
Rumors of a dark force stalking the town only push Kate, Oliver, and Nora Jo onwards in their quest to determine their own destinies. But there are powers in the world stronger and stranger than their own, and not all magic is used for good...
Other Books of Interest
I put one title in the “other books of interest” category due to it teetering on the edge between historic fantasy and pure fantasy. For some reason, authors seem to find it impossible to write about ancient Greece without treating myths and gods as real. It’s not the only setting that seems to exist only in the mythic imagination as far as fiction is concerned. This one is: The Olive and the Spear by J.A. Rainbow.
In the midst of the Greco-Persian War, where the clash of swords and the cries of warriors fill the air, an unexpected love story unfolds. Athena, the revered Goddess of War and Wisdom, watches over the battlefield with a keen eye. Her divine duties are interrupted when she encounters Andromeda, a fierce and valiant Spartan warrior whose courage and strength are unmatched.
As Andromeda fights to protect her homeland, she captures not only the admiration of her fellow soldiers but also the heart of the goddess herself. Drawn together by their shared valour and unyielding spirits, Athena and Andromeda forge a bond that transcends the mortal and divine realms.
But in a world where duty and honour reign supreme, their love faces insurmountable challenges. As battles rage on and enemies close in, Athena must navigate her divine responsibilities while protecting Andromeda from both human and celestial threats. Together, they must find a way to preserve their love amidst the chaos of war.
What Am I Reading?
And what am I reading? Not much, I’m afraid, and nothing new. I did a re-listen to Kate Heartfield’s The Chatelaine in preparation for discussing it on someone else’s podcast. But mostly I’ve been too distracted by retirement preparations to settle down with books.
Author Guest
As previously mentioned, today we have an interview with Lindz McLeod about her new release The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet.
[interview transcript will be available at a later date]
Show Notes
Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.
In this episode we talk about:
- Retirement
- Financing the podcast
- Expanded analysis projects
- A new policy affecting the new book listings
- Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
- The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Lindz McLeod
- Midnight Letters by Rowan Wilder
- The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
- Murder at the Cabaret by Dana Gricken
- Give My Love to Berlin by Katherine Bryant
- To the Fairest by M. Walker
- Time After time by Mikki Daughtry
- A Spell for Change by Nicole Jarvis
- Other Titles of Interest
- What I’ve been consuming
- The Chatelaine by Kate Heartfield
- This month we interview Lindz McLeod and talk about:
- The appeal of adapting Jane Austen’s fiction
- Communicating with the language of flowers
- Other Austen characters who might have interesting stories
- The wide variety of Lindz’s work
- The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Lindz McLeod
- The Miseducation of Caroline Bingley by Lindz McLeod (forthcoming)
- An Honour and a Priviledge by Lindz McLeod (forthcoming)
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Links to Lindz McLeod Online
- Website: https://lindzmcleod.co.uk/
- Twitter: @lindzmcleod
- Instagram: @lindzmcleod.bsky.social
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LHMPThursday, May 1, 2025 - 16:50
So when I learned I was a Hugo finalist for Best Related Work, and they (the Hugo management folks) were giving us a pep talk about leveraging our status for publicity, it occurred to me that Bayer's "human interest" feature in the site newsletter would be perfect for talking about how the "cliff" analysis was in many ways similar to my work on discrepancy investigations. So I pitched it to our communications person, and he linked me with their publicity person who interviewed me about it, and yesterday (you remember yesterday? my last day at work?) they finally got me a proof to approve and then got it up on the website.
Only this is the behind-the-firewall intranet site that only employees can read. Makes it hard to brag about.
But anyway, here's what the article says:
From Discrepancy Investigation to Science-Fiction Award Finalist
When controversy swirled around unusual voting results in the 2023 Hugo Awards, the preeminent annual award program for science fiction and fantasy literature, people throughout the fandom
clamored for answers. That included Heather Rose Jones, a long-time conformance investigator at Bayer Berkeley.
[Picture of me sitting at my home desk pretending to write something.]
Picture caption: Heather Rose Jones is a just-retired discrepancy investigator for Bayer in Berkeley. Outside of work, she writes queer fantasy and historical fiction, including the Regency-era Alpennia series and the fairy-tale novella The Language of Roses, as well as multiple short stories. She has non-fiction publications on topics ranging from biotech to historic costume to naming practices and has a PhD in Linguistics. Heather creates the Lesbian Historic Motif Project blog and podcast, presenting research on sapphic themes in history as a resource for authors writing historic-based fiction.
Jones, who worked at Bayer from 2003 until her retirement on April 30, also is a science fiction writer with a keen interest in the Hugo Awards results. She turned the investigative skills she honed studying manufacturing issues into a detailed analysis of the complex crowdsourced nominating process.
“What I wanted to do when I started my analysis was say, ‘Let’s define exactly what’s happening,’” she said. “‘Let’s see which categories it’s happening in. Let’s see which nominees it privileges and which ones it did not and try to get a sense of what went wrong.’”
It was the same approach Jones used every day in her work as a discrepancy investigator at Bayer.
“When something goes wrong, we’re the ones who try to figure out what happened, why and how to fix it,” she said. “When I see interesting data patterns, my immediate reaction is to gather all the data we have and start slicing and dicing it from different directions.”
She wrote a few blog posts with her analysis, which indicated the results were, in fact, tampered with. Soon, another blogger who was working on his own deep dive into the data asked her to collaborate on an essay, Charting the Cliff: An Investigation Into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics.
In an interesting turn of events, that essay has itself been named a Hugo Award finalist. Voting is going on now, and the organization will announce the winners in August. Charting the Cliff is one of six finalists in the best related works category.
And now that she’s retired from Bayer, Jones will have even more time for her writing. She writes lesbian historical fiction and has a blog and podcast focused on researching lesbian history for others who write in the genre. Her next project is to turn her podcast material into a nonfiction book.
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PromotionSunday, April 20, 2025 - 17:19
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 312 – Our F/Favorite Tropes Part 17: The Governess - transcript
(Originally aired 2025/04/20 - listen here)
The “Our F/Favorite Tropes” series examines popular historic romance tropes from the point of view of female couples and considering both the similarities and differences from opposite-sex couples. In literature, a trope is a recurring motif that is understood to carry a certain expected structure and meaning. The trope could be a situation, such as forced proximity, or a character type, such as the lovable rogue. It could be a type of relationship, such as a second-chance romance, or even a mini-script, such as a Cinderella story.
One popular type of trope is based on occupations that come with a certain set of social expectations about how the character will relate to those around her, including potential love interests. Today, we’re going to look at the governess romance.
The governess was part of the educational ecosystem in well-off European families beginning around the 17th century, but coming to its heyday in the later 18th and 19th centuries. (Wealthy American families might also employ a governess, but the institution was less established there.) Our image of the governess comes largely from English history, and the prevalence of the profession varied in different countries. Though the majority of governesses were of the same nationality as their pupils, there was a certain degree of international exchange. Families might prize foreign governesses—especially French ones—if language instruction was valued. And English governesses similarly had opportunities to work in other countries—though few as far away as Anna Leon-Owens, the inspiration for the character in The King and I.
The education of girls was less prioritized than that of boys and had different goals. For the middle and upper classes, boys typically were sent away to school. For girls there was a wider range of possibilities. Some received no formal schooling at all, picking up basic literacy and essential arithmetic at home, and otherwise focusing on the skills of a homemaker. Some did go to boarding schools, or perhaps to day-schools closer to home. But if the family could afford it, girls often received both their formal education and training in social skills, such as music and art, from a governess in their own homes. If a family had a governess, she would also typically be responsible for the initial education of young boys before they were sent away. The daughters of the family would be her responsibility until they were old enough to come out in society. Once her charges were married, she would need to find a new position, or perhaps strike out on her own running a school.
In a previous trope episode, when I discussed employer-employee relationships, I didn’t include the governess because she occupies a somewhat anomalous position—much like a professional companion does. Like the lady’s companion, the governess is expected to be of good social class—perhaps even of the same class as her employer—because part of her duties is to instill those class expectations in her pupils. But in contrast to the companion, the governess is clearly an employee, who receives wages. She is embedded in the family, but not part of the family; accompanying them when they traveled as long as her charges were present, but not socializing or dining with them except perhaps in rare informal circumstances. At the same time, like the lady’s companion, she was definitely not a servant, and did not socialize with the household servants or share the same quarters as them.
The anomalous position meant that her life was often lonely and isolated. It goes without saying that a governess was, by definition, unmarried. Before the later 19th century, the job was one of the few respectable options for unmarried women of the professional classes: the daughters of clergymen, or those in legal or medical professions—all situations where there would be no family money to provide a dowry or independence. The novels of Jane Austen provide a multitude of examples of the dynamics of the profession. Ironically, as more professional opportunities opened for women across the 19th century, women became more willing to view governess as a deliberate career choice, rather than a last chance to avoid poverty—an alternative to marriage, rather than a poor second choice.
The ideal governess was well-educated, widely read, multi-lingual, and accomplished in the arts—the same characteristics that were supposed to make her pupils valuable marriage prospects. All this is the complex background behind the attraction of the governess romance: her suitability as a partner in everything except her financial situation, her close connection with her employer’s family, and yet the strict social taboo that nominally prevents any more intimate relationship.
In the heterosexual governess romance, the central conflict is the violation of that social barrier, due to attraction sparked by the inescapable proximity of the two characters. The male protagonist is typically either an adult son of the family (who risks disinheritance if he falls for an inappropriate object) or a widowed father of the governess’s charges. Another option being an unmarried male guardian to the girls she is to teach. The governess is in a double-bind: she is expected to retain the highest moral standards (as an example for her pupils), but if she rejects the romantic advances she risks being dismissed. In real life, she may also be subject to less romantic advances from an already-married man in the household, but outside of Jane Eyre, this is rarely a good set-up for a romance novel.
On the positive side, the contexts for initiating romantic feelings can include bonding with a guardian or widowed father over concern for the girls, which can reframe them as a sort of fictive “couple”—a sort of “fake it till you make it” situation. In the case where the male romantic prospect is an adult son of the family, there may be all manner of reasons for the initial attraction to break through the social barrier, while the major hurdle may be figuring out how to achieve a happy ending despite family opposition—or perhaps how to resolve that opposition. All manner of other tropes can be combined with the governess scenario.
But let’s shift over to exploring the possibilities for a same-sex governess romance. Some of these may be closely parallel. The widowed mother of the governess’s charges? Both may be feeling the lack of human connection with someone who could be a peer, whether the bereavement is old or recent. If the marriage was not a love-match, the widow may have no previous experience of enjoying romance. If you take a broad-minded notion of romance structures, she needn’t even be widowed. A long-absent husband may leave a mother longing for closer companionship. The same social barrier will need to be broken down, but without the same risk to the governess’s reputation. Conversely, such a pairing might bring in questions of jealousy between two competing maternal figures with respect to the girls.
As with a heterosexual romance, the students might be orphans under the guardianship of someone other than a parent, though it should be noted that “guardianship” here probably wouldn’t mean full legal control, as the law would give precedence to a male relative for that position. Still a female relative might be the one with primary day-to-day oversight, and that could introduce a tension into the romance if a separate legal guardian disapproved of the romantic relationship.
In these previous cases, there is still the hazard of an employment relationship morphing into a romantic one, with the governess not feeling entirely free to be honest in her reactions.
Even without the problems of male attention, the governess’s anomalous social position creates similar issues for establishing and maintaining a romance with another female member of her employer’s family—a visiting relative or one living in the household on a long-term basis. If the governess is being treated as an equal by a member of the family, she may be perceived as stepping out of line by those who have control over her employment. Conversely, if she becomes romantically involved with a woman in a lower social position, her partner will be perceived as stepping out of line and would face disapproval from all sides. One category of person who might seem a natural option, if present in the household, would be a lady’s companion—both stand outside the usual hierarchies, while falling roughly within the same social status. Their major romantic barrier might be the degree to which their time is not their own.
And what about the possibility of a governess falling in love with one of her pupils? Or perhaps a bit less questionably, with the older sister of one of her pupils. Governesses were sometimes not substantially older than their charges. Imagine something like Jane Austen’s Emma where the sublimated romantic jealousy that Emma feels towards Miss Taylor is more overt, and a relationship that has shifted from teacher-pupil to friendship, then shifts further to love? Or perhaps a governess is hired to teach young children and then an absent older sister returns home and finds herself drawn to this person whom her sisters adore. The social barrier has already been disrupted because the two are expected to have a close connection. We can imagine further possibilities where a close emotional bond between teacher and pupil is reignited if the two meet again later in life, with the dynamic merging into something akin to “childhood sweethearts.”
Regardless of the exact details, the governess romance rests on several key points: intellectual and class equality, an artificial social barrier, economic precarity, and a degree of inescapable proximity. Beyond that, all you need to do is mix in a basis for attraction, a handful of personal qualms about the wisdom of pursuing that attraction, and an external crisis or two to trip them up before finding their happy ending.
Show Notes
In this episode we talk about:
- The dynamics of the “governess romance”
- F/f possibilities for governess romances
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
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LHMPSunday, April 6, 2025 - 13:30
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 311 - On the Shelf for April 2025 - Transcript
(Originally aired 2025/04/06 - listen here)
Welcome to On the Shelf for April 2025.
Usually when the podcast comes out later than my target Saturday, it’s because life has gotten busy and I’m scrambling to finish writing the script and recording that weekend. For the essay show in March, it was because my brain entirely lost track of what week it was and I recorded the episode a week late. But for this current episode, I delayed release for a couple days because of a special announcement that just came out.
News of the Field
If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you might possibly remember that a year ago I published several articles analyzing the very peculiar nomination and voting data behind the 2023 Hugo Awards, one of the premier science fiction and fantasy awards, chosen annually by members of the World Science Fiction Society in conjunction with Worldcon. Several people were digging into various aspects of those voting peculiarities, which created quite the ruckus at the time, even making it into mainstream media. One of those other analysts, who goes by the pen name Camestros Felapton, asked me to collaborate with him on an extensive data analysis titled “Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics.”
Now, another thing you need to know is that one of the categories for the Hugo Awards is the “Best Related Work” for SFF-related items that don’t fall in any of the fiction or art categories, often a non-fiction book or essay. And our essay, “Charting the Cliff” has been selected as a finalist for the Best Related Work Hugo Award.
I don’t know to what extent the listeners of this podcast overlap with SFF fandom, but this is rather huge. I’ve been vibrating with excitement for the last several weeks, but unable to tell anyone why until the official finalist announcements.
So…not in any way directly related to lesbian history or historical fiction, but very meaningful for me.
And, of course, the other exciting thing in my life is that my retirement date is less than a month away now. I’m still working on lining up all the necessary ducks for that, because bureaucracy moves slowly. You might hear them quacking away in the background.
[sound of quacking]
Publications on the Blog
In March, the blog continued my progress through some article collections, this time with more solid lesbian relevance, with Homosexuality in Modern France edited by Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. The specific articles I selected for inclusion are “The Enlightenment Confronts Homosexuality” by Bryant T. Ragan Jr., “The Marquis de Villette and Mademoiselle de Raucourt: Representations of Male and Female Sexual Deviance in Late Eighteenth-Century France” by Jeffrey Merrick, “Pass as a Woman, Act like a Man: Marie-Antoinette as Tribade in the Pornography of the French Revolution” by Elizabeth Colwill, and “Invisible Women: Lesbian Working-class Culture in France, 1880-1930” by Francesca Canadé Sautman.
After finishing those, I grabbed several random books from the shelf that looked like I could get through them quickly. The Lesbian History Sourcebook: love and sex between women in Britain from 1780 to 1970 by Alison Oram and Annmarie Turnbull is a collection of extracts from historic texts intended for use in the classroom. Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister by Anne Choma is the companion book to the tv series, laying out Lister’s actual history during the period covered by the show. And finally, The Case of The Abbot of Drimnagh: A Medieval Irish Story of Sex-Change by Tadhg Ó Síocháin analyzes a supernatural tale from an early Irish manuscript and what it says about gender and storytelling.
Looking over the “to do” section of my bookshelves, I’m thinking of spending some time reading USA-centered histories—a field I often find myself overlooking when I reach for something to read.
Book Shopping!
I haven’t been shopping for new books for the blog lately. Not sure whether it’s because we’re in a slump for relevant publications or whether titles simply aren’t coming to my attention. Though goodness knows I have plenty of to-do items lying around!
Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
New lesbian and sapphic historical fiction is an interesting mix this month. The non-series books—and I’ll talk about the series books later—are all from mainstream presses. I’m not sure where the indie and small press sapphic historicals are this month. Is it an empty blip in the calendar? Or are my usual search processes not turning them up? In any event, here’s what I’ve got.
Glitter in the Dark by Olesya Lyuzna from Mysterious Press follows the recent trend for books set in the Prohibition Era.
Ambitious advice columnist Ginny Dugan knows she’s capable of more than solving other people’s beauty problems, but her boss at Photoplay magazine thinks she's only fit for fluff pieces. When she witnesses the kidnapping of a famous singer at Harlem’s hottest speakeasy, nobody takes her seriously, but Ginny knows what she saw―and what she saw haunts her.
Guilt-ridden over her failure to stop the kidnappers and hard-pressed for cash to finally move out of her uptight showgirl sister’s apartment, Ginny resolves to chase down the truth that will clear her conscience and maybe win her a promotion in the process. She manipulates a brooding detective into a reluctant partnership and together they uncover a sinister plot that pulls them into the dazzling yet dangerous world of the Ziegfeld Follies. Meanwhile, Ginny grapples with a secret of her own―she's fallen for Gloria Gardner, the star of the show. In the Roaring Twenties, their love isn't just scandalous; it’s illegal.
But when a brutal murder strikes someone close to her, Ginny realizes the stakes are higher than she ever imagined. This glamorous world has a deadly edge, and Ginny must shatter her every illusion to catch the shadowy killer before they strike again.
It took me a couple volumes into The Forge and Fracture Series by Brittany N. Williams from Amulet Books to spot the clues of sapphic content. (And to be clear, the reference is to the female protagonist being torn between female and male love interests, and I don’t know how that resolves.) So I’m including the series for the third book’s release: Iron Tongue of Midnight (The Forge & Fracture Saga #3). The two earlier volumes—That Self-Same Metal and Saint-Seducing Gold—came out in 2023 and 2024. As a bit of background from book 1:
Sixteen-year-old Joan Sands is a gifted craftswoman who creates and upkeeps the stage blades for William Shakespeare’s acting company, The King’s Men. Joan’s skill with her blades comes from a magical ability to control metal—an ability gifted by her Head Orisha, Ogun. Because her whole family is Orisha-blessed, the Sands family have always kept tabs on the Fae presence in London.
In the current book, we get the following:
Tensions between humans and fae have never been higher. Magical metal-worker Joan Sands, Shakespeare’s players, and King James I himself have been driven out of London by fae queen Titanea. Her fairy monsters have been unleashed in the city, harassing and slaughtering innocent people. Joan knows there’s only one way to bring peace: She must reforge the pact between humanity and fae.
But first, Joan must unravel the mystery behind the original pact, with the help of her two loves, Rose and Nick. As Queen Titanea’s power grows, Joan realizes her gifts may not be enough to stop her. And when the king’s whims lead to dire consequences, Joan must decide: Is her world even worth saving?
I had to check reviews to confirm that Mere by Danielle Giles from Pan MacMillan has sapphic content, but it was solidly established.
Norfolk, 990 AD. Deep in the Fens, isolated by a vast and treacherous mere, an order of holy sisters make their home. Under the steely guidance of Abbess Sigeburg they follow God’s path, looking to their infirmarian, Hilda, to provide what comfort and cures she can.
But when the mere takes a young servant boy, Sigeburg’s grip falters and Hilda quickly realizes this place holds secrets darker and more unholy than she can fathom.
Then proud Sister Wulfrun, a recent arrival to the convent, has a vision: a curse is upon them and change must be brought. Is she saint or serpent? To Hilda, Wulfrun is a signal bolder and brighter than any fire set – one she cannot help but follow . . .
Renegade Girls: A Queer Tale of Romance and Rabble-Rousing by Nora Neus and Julie Robine is a graphic novel from Little, Brown Ink.
Seventeen-year-old Helena “Nell” Cusack came to New York this summer looking for a story—a real story. She dreams of one day writing hard-hitting articles for the New York Chronicle, but so far she's only managed to land a job as a lowly society reporter. That is, until Alice Austen strolls into her life, an audacious street photographer who encourages Nell to shake up polite society…and maybe also take a chance on love.
When her best friend, Lucia, is injured while working in a garment factory, Nell is determined to crack the story wide open. Posing as a seamstress, she reports on the conditions from the inside, making a name for herself as the Chronicle’s first ever stunt girl. But as Nell’s reporting gains momentum, so do the objections of those who oppose her. Will Nell continue to seek justice—even if it hurts her in the end?
Based on real-life stunt girl Nell Nelson and photographer Alice Austen, this tenderly drawn narrative is about bringing buried stories to light and the bravery of first love.
Last month I noted that a couple of authors had released whole handfuls of series books within a short time period, and I discussed my concerns about whether this was a red flag regarding content. The same phenomenon dominates the total numbers of books this month, representing three-quarters of the titles in my spreadsheet. I’m going to say quite honestly that I still have an uneasy feeling about this topic. I don’t see any obvious “tells” of the books being AI generated. The settings are much more “just vibes” than accurate history, but that goes for a large number of sapphic historicals, even those that aren’t overtly historic fantasy. But when it comes down to it, I just feel weird about giving that much air time to individually listing these cookie-cutter series all in a big lump. So my compromise is to discuss each series as a whole with a high-level overview, but not giving the cover copy for each individual title.
Delilah Kent, who presented us with the Scandal & Sapphire series last month, has a 6-volume series named The Highwaywomen, with the titles The Scarlett Highwaywoman, A Thief’s Kiss, Velvet & Vengeance, The Butcher’s Bride, The Duchess and the Dagger, and Reckless Hearts. The stories appear to be standalones and are set variously in the Regency and Victorian eras. Based on the cover copy, only one of the volumes appears to concern an actual highwaywoman, but all involve the criminal underworld in some fashion.
The Lesbian Pirates series by Marina Tempest—and there’s a carefully designed pen name if I ever saw one—adds four more titles to the two mentioned last month: Banshee’s Cry, Lucky Harp, Mercy’s Blade, and Midnight Serpent. Sapphic pirate romances rarely aim for strict historic accuracy, but the gender-blind casting of characters associated with the British Navy takes on new heights in this series, breaking free of the constraints of reality. The stories appear to all be stand-alones.
The Velvet & Vice series by V.C. Sterling is set in the 1920s, dealing with Prohibition, the criminal underworld, and the denizens of one particular speakeasy, The Velvet Viper. Each title focuses on the adventures and love life of a different couple. The five March and April titles newly added in today’s listings are: Rum & Roses, Brandy & Betrayal, Absinthe & Affection, Moonshine & Mayhem, and Scotch & Secrets.
What Am I Reading?
And what have I been reading in the past month? I don’t usually double-dip and count something both as personal reading and reading for the blog, but I’m going to do it for Gentleman Jack by Anne Choma. I don’t usually consume books for the blog via audiobook -- makes it hard to take notes! It made sense in this case because it’s more of a narrative history rather than a scholarly analysis. And my blog reads more like a book review than my usual summary. It’s a very readable biography and helps point out (though it doesn’t emphasize) the places where the tv show revised Lister’s actual life to make better drama.
On the fiction side, I listened to The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison. I think this finishes up the Cemeteries of Amalo series, set in the same universe as The Goblin Emperor. As with previous books in the series, there are a number of plot threads that braid together in the resolution. Our protagonist, a "witness for the dead" who can communicate with dead souls finds himself representing a murdered dragon. One of the other major plot threads about an escaped insurgent ties back in at the climax in a way that feels a little too convenient. And there's a surprising twist to a hinted-at romance arc that's been developing across the series. All in all, if this is the last book in this sequence, it’s a satisfying conclusion.
I also listened to The Suffragette Scandal by Courtney Milan. This is part of a multi-book series, so some of the character back stories come out in bits and pieces, but it stands alone well enough in my opinion. I've read several Courtney Milan historic romances in the past, with mixed impressions. This one worked very well for me, centering around the Victorian-era feminist movement and one of her favorite tropes: aristocrats who are desperately trying to escape their fate. But the reason I picked it up was for the very-much-in-the-background sapphic romance that has been slipped into the cracks of the main story.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed the last episode with our first short story of the year. I love how Rhiannon Grant constructs entire societies out of archaeological fragments. If you liked this Iron Age story, you should pick up her Neolithic duology.
Show Notes
Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.
In this episode we talk about:
- A special announcement about your host
- Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
- Ragan, Bryant T. Jr. 1996. “The Enlightenment Confronts Homosexuality” in Homosexuality in Modern France ed. by Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-509304-6
- Merrick, Jeffrey. 1996. “The Marquis de Villette and Mademoiselle de Raucourt: Representations of Male and Female Sexual Deviance in Late Eighteenth-Century France” in Homosexuality in Modern France ed. by Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-509304-6
- Colwill, Elizabeth. 1996. “Pass as a Woman, Act like a Man: Marie-Antoinette as Tribade in the Pornography of the French Revolution” in Homosexuality in Modern France ed. by Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-509304-6
- Sautman, Francesca Canadé. 1996. “Invisible Women: Lesbian Working-class Culture in Ferance, 1880-1930” in Homosexuality in Modern France ed. by Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-509304-6
- Oram, Alison & Annmarie Turnbull. 2001. The Lesbian History Sourcebook: love and sex between women in Britain from 1780 to 1970. Routledge, New York. ISBN 9-78-0-415-11485-3
- Choma, Anne. 2019. Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister. Penguin Books, New York. ISBN 978-0-14-313456-5
- Ó Síocháin, Tadhg. 2017. The Case of The Abbot of Drimnagh: A Medieval Irish Story of Sex-Change. Cork Studies in Celtic Literatures. ISBN 978-0-9955469-1-2
- Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
- Glitter in the Dark by Olesya Lyuzna
- That Self-Same Metal (The Forge & Fracture Saga #1) by Brittany N. Williams
- Saint-Seducing Gold (The Forge & Fracture Saga #2) by Brittany N. Williams
- Iron Tongue of Midnight (The Forge & Fracture Saga #3) by Brittany N. Williams
- Mere by Danielle Giles
- Renegade Girls: A Queer Tale of Romance and Rabble-Rousing by Nora Neus and Julie Robine
- The Scarlett Highwaywoman (The Highwaywomen #1) by Delilah Kent
- A Thief's Kiss (The Highwaywomen #2) by Delilah Kent
- Velvet & Vengeance (The Highwaywomen #3) by Delilah Kent
- The Butchers Bride (The Highwaywomen #4) by Delilah Kent
- The Duchess and the Dagger (The Highwaywomen #5) by Delilah Kent
- Reckless Hearts (The Highwaywomen #6) by Delilah Kent
- Banshee's Cry (Lesbian Pirates #3) by Marina Tempest
- Lucky Harp (Lesbian Pirates #4) by Marina Tempest
- Mercy's Blade (Lesbian Pirates #5) by Marina Tempest
- Midnight Serpent (Lesbian Pirates #6) by Marina Tempest
- Rum & Roses (Velvet & Vice #3) by V.C. Sterling
- Brandy & Betrayal (Velvet & Vice #4) by V.C. Sterling
- Absinthe & Affection (Velvet & Vice #5) by V.C. Sterling
- Moonshine & Mayhem (Velvet & Vice #6) by V.C. Sterling
- Scotch & Secrets (Velvet & Vice #7) by V.C. Sterling
- What I’ve been consuming
- Gentleman Jack by Anne Choma
- The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison
- The Suffragette Scandal by Courtney Milan
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Major category:
LHMPSunday, April 6, 2025 - 12:29
The Hugo Award finalists were just annouced, so I can finally go public. In the category of Best Related Work, the essay "Charting the Cliff: An Investigation Into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics" by Camestros Felapton and Heather Rose Jones received enough nominations to be on the final Hugo Awards ballot.
More details to come.
Major category:
ConventionsSaturday, March 29, 2025 - 07:00
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 310 – A Falling Star and a Flying Bird by Rhiannon Grant - transcript
(Originally aired 2025/03/29 - listen here)
Today’s story kicks off the 2025 fiction series with “A Falling Star and a Flying Bird” by Rhiannon Grant. Rhiannon lives in Birmingham, UK, with her wife and lots of books and teddy bears. She has been fascinated by British prehistory ever since visiting stone circles in Cornwall as a child. In addition to her fiction she researches, teaches, and writes nonfiction about the Quaker tradition and philosophy of religion.
I’ve had Rhiannon as a guest on the podcast a couple years ago, discussing her sapphic historical novels set in Neolithic Orkney: Between Boat and Shore and Carving a New Shape. The current story is almost modern in comparison, set in the British Iron Age a few centuries before those pesky Romans show up. As with her longer work, Rhiannon has built on archaeological knowledge to envision entire societies, including plausible ways in which queer people might have moved in those societies.
If you want to find out more about Rhiannon Grant and her work, check out her blog at brigidfoxandbuddha.wordpress.com via the link in the show notes.
I will be the narrator for this story.
This recording is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License. You may share it in the full original form but you may not sell it, you may not transcribe it, and you may not adapt it.
A Falling Star and a Flying Bird
By Rhiannon Grant
Singing Oak gets upset about the big stuff, like being humiliated in public or having her authority as our Druid undermined. I won't say that doesn't bother me on her behalf, but I have less power to lose and so it's the little digs which get to me. Take now, for example. Victory is holding my baby. I know she thinks of Tiny Spark as her son Brook's baby, and therefore in some sense her baby, but I was the one who carried her and when she cries to be fed, she'll have to come back to me. But for the time being she's happy enough being cuddled by her grandmother and it leaves me with my hands free to slice apples to eat with the pork when it's roasted.
Victory isn't happy, though. She's describing to little baby Tiny Spark, who's only been able to hold up her own head for a month or so, how she ought to be starting training to get strong and ready for battle. Ready for battle! Victory might have sent her son out to fight when he was too young to understand what was happening, and left him with all the nightmares you'd expect from that, but I don't want to let my daughter become a warrior unless she really wants to. If I've anything in mind for her, it's probably Druid training, but who am I to say what the gods will give her?
Such scruples about waiting for divine favour are important to Singing Oak, and although I'd be a bit more willing to hope for something specific, I also value the principle of waiting for a sign to be sure. Victory, on the other hand, likes to think she can make things happen. She brought her husband to her, a powerful man who fought well and died in the process, leaving her with the one child, a son who might have moved away – taking much of her money and all of his fame with him – if she hadn't arranged for him to get both a Druid wife who had already left her family and a lower-class woman who wouldn't want to marry him. Singing Oak is the Druid and I'm the lower-class woman, by the way.
Fortunately, I'm fond of Brook in a general sense and didn't mind getting pregnant, but I don't care about him enough to be longing for his attention all the time. Sometimes I wonder which would be worse, to love him less or to love him more. Since in fact I love Singing Oak dearly, and she loves me, and Brook loves riding out to be alone, we're all pretty happy when Victory isn't trying to tell us to do something different.
"Silver Wheat?" It's Singing Oak, and it sounds like it's not the first time she's asked. I blink and turn to her with a smile. "I asked if you saw something in the fire. You were staring."
I'd been resting my gaze there in an effort not to scowl at Victory or worry about whether Tiny Spark was going to remember any of the nonsense she was hearing, so I shook my head. "No, only the logs burning."
"You were miles away."
"Thinking about something else." I made myself refocus on the apples in the bowl, slicing another one open and cutting out a maggot. "How are the stars? Did you see better from the rampart?"
"Yes, but there's nothing new." Singing Oak sat down beside me and watched the young man who served Victory as he turned the meat over the fire. The smell was filling the air now and every mouth in the village would be watering soon. "I did see Spot tethered up to graze, so Brook must be back."
People gathered and we ate. It was one of those clear autumn nights when you can feel the winter's cold beginning, without it being sharp enough to stop you sitting around. Victory handed Tiny Spark over to Brook and she was fussing in his arms, trying to look around at however much a little baby can see. Singing Oak wasn't finished with the stars, and took breaks from her meal to watch the skies. Beautiful though she is when she's thoughtful, almost like one of the goddesses she's trying to understand, I kept myself focussed on trying to get plenty of food before Tiny Spark came back to me.
So it was that Singing Oak saw it first. She said, "Look!" and we all turned.
Burning through the sky was a star. It looked like a ball of light, and it flew over us for several breaths before it winked out. It was very bright, much brighter than the evening star which we could see not far away from it.
"I thought it was coming towards us," Brook said when it had gone dark. He bounced Tiny Spark, who was grizzling a little bit, perhaps getting hungry or disconcerted by the adults all looking up.
Then there was a thump.
It was loud enough to feel a little shake in the ground as well. It was somewhere on the far side of the fort, in the area where we dig our storage pits.
"What was that?" I asked, and I wasn't alone. People who hadn't been gathered around the fire started to come up to us, wanting to be close to their family members or find out what was happening.
Brook put on his booming voice.
He doesn't like using it but it does come in handy when there's an emergency or general confusion.
"The gods are sending messages," he said. "Singing Oak, where shall we look?"
She pointed, and we all traipsed back over to the storage area. With the sun almost gone we had to look around with lamps and torches, anything we could light. I checked the new storage pits first – if the gods had sent something to destroy our harvest, we would have had a very serious problem – but the seals were all intact. I went a bit further, testing my footing at every step – I didn't want to fall into an old pit in the dark – when something beneath my torchlight seemed a different colour. I knelt down to find a deep black dust scattered around the mouth of one of last year's storage pits.
"You found it," Singing Oak said behind me as I picked up some of the grit and rubbed it between my fingers.
"Do you think so?"
Singing Oak was carrying a branch, alight at one end, and she lowered the flame into the old pit. There were some little weeds growing on the walls, now covered in black dust, and earth freshly turned over, and at the bottom, below where we would be able to easily reach, a dark stone smaller than my palm.
"The fireball fell here," she said. "I suppose this is the ash it made, or perhaps it's soft like chalk and scattered this when it landed." People were starting to gather around now, including Brook. I stood up, still holding a handful of dark dirt, and Brook gestured for Singing Oak to speak.
She waited for quiet. There are about a hundred people living here at the moment, safely enclosed in our fort, farming the land around, trading with our neighbours when we can, and defending ourselves against them – or going out to raid their herds – when we can't. Some of the children were already asleep, or people were preparing themselves for tomorrow, or simply too tired to care about strange things in the sky, so perhaps thirty or thirty-five people were gathered to hear her.
"The gods have sent a blessing," she began. There were a few murmurs in the crowd, a few deep exhalations as people heard that and welcomed it. Any sign could go either way. The lamb's entrails in the spring had been complex and Singing Oak had told us, regretfully, that difficult times could lie ahead. There had been more rain than usual in the summer and the fields had turned golden later than usual, making it a rush to get everything cut and stored before the days started getting too short. A big flock of ravens had made their home on the east side of the fort, making everyone worry that fighting was on the way – although Singing Oak always told us that they could be waiting for something else. In short, when strange things started to happen, we were all on edge for bad news, and if Singing Oak thought this was a blessing, we were ready for it.
"There are two messages here," she went on. "The first was the falling star." She gestured with her torch, indicating the path of the light we had seen in the sky. The torchlight also shone on her red hair and lit her lively green eyes and wasn't quite bright enough to show all the freckles on her cheeks, freckles which I loved dearly and which she worried might form inauspicious patterns. It was lovely to look at. I had to restrain the urge to remind everyone that she was my wife, especially when they were all gazing at her hopefully as well.
"A falling star is like a bolt of lightning. It comes from Taranis and it means growth is coming. Lightning comes with rain and it means physical growth is coming; the falling star is a quiet, dry light, and it means we will be bigger and stronger as a people." I snuck a look around. Everyone was watching; even Tiny Spark wasn't fussing, perhaps even sleeping in Brook's arms. Singing Oak's voice had the power of authority and the mention of Taranis, her patron deity, probably helped. She had full authority to interpret his oracles. "The second message is this stone and dark earth, come to one of our old pits."
She paused, and someone took the opportunity to call out, "Is it the falling star? Is it a star that landed?"
I knew Singing Oak well enough to see her trying to decide about that. On the one hand, this thing had hit the ground so soon after the light in the sky it seemed they should be related. On the other hand, it looked like a stone; whatever made stars glow, it didn't have it. Slowly, she said, "Perhaps a piece of it. If a star is like a lamp, perhaps this is part of the frame."
Victory frowned. "I'm not sure..." she started.
I glanced at Brook, in case he was about to speak, but he bent his head to check on Tiny Spark and avoid getting involved. "The mystery of stars is far beyond us," I said. "Whatever fell, our question is about what the gods are telling us, not where it came from."
"Wouldn't you need to understand the origin to grasp the message? What if this fell from the sky and not from the gods?" Victory asked. She was as pious as you could wish for and sometimes more pious than I could stand when the gods were on her side, and could be an outright atheist when they weren't.
"Singing Oak, what does your wisdom tell you?"
In pausing, Singing Oak had risked losing the crowd. The bickering had given everyone a brief distraction. Now she was ready to take her cue from me. She adjusted her shawl and said, much more firmly, "This is a blessing on our harvest. We've seen two signs: the falling star for light and the stone for soil. The gods have sent it to bless even our old pits; our new pits will be full and safe all winter, and we will have plenty of bread. We are safe and well."
Everyone cheered, perhaps not as loudly as they would when that phrase was used in our spring-time rituals, but enough to show that Singing Oak had convinced them. She walked through the crowd towards the living quarters, torch held high, and people turned to follow her as she went.
Brook and I ended up at the back. Tiny Spark was mewling and once we were back on solid ground, I opened my tunic to feed her. It's not easy to walk at the same time but sometimes it's better than waiting until she screams.
"I'm sorry about my mother," Brook said.
I shrugged. It's not really his fault that she behaves like that. Even if it were, he should be apologising to Singing Oak, not to me. I didn't say that, though, because the whole messy ground of their marriage arrangement and its ending and my role in everything has been ploughed over so often that while there are very few stones left, it's also hard for anything to stand still long enough to grow. Instead I said, "I wonder if there will be another sign," and when he glanced at me questioningly, I added, "Things come in threes, you know, Singing Oak says that sometimes. Three great blows, three sad stories, three famous weapons."
"A triad of signs," he said, echoing the formal phrase. "But if there is a third sign to come, Silver Wheat, what question will it answer?"
I thought about that when I couldn't sleep that night.
Singing Oak was curled around my back. I could tell from her breathing that she was already asleep. We'd been too tired for more than a hug and kiss when we finally managed to get Tiny Spark to settle, but at least we were tucked safely into bed and behind the blanket which separated our sleeping space from Brook's. Sometimes I thought about how in this woolen cave I was surrounded by the hard work of many hands: the blanket on the bed, of which Singing Oak was currently using more than half, I had woven myself in my mother's house using wool she had shorn from my father's sheep. Although I enjoyed having food every mealtime and not relying on gifts from neighbours who were equally likely to be going hungry in the difficult parts of the year, I missed the laughter in my family.
The brightly dyed hangings which helped to keep the fire's warmth from escaping through the wattle and daub walls were Victory's work, perhaps aided by Brook at times, and had been in use since her husband was alive. We'd washed the smoke out in the summer and been surprised by how much difference it made to the colours. Of course, when I tried to make a joke about it Victory had been offended – I never did work out why, other than that I was both socially inferior and funnier than her – and thinking about them now reminded me how difficult I find it to live here.
Hanging from a roof beam was a blanket which might have been used on the bed, except that Singing Oak had chosen to use her work to separate herself from Brook rather than join him.
I was glad to be on the same side as her. I couldn't really see the blanket in the dark, but I knew it carried patterns representing her own name – oak leaves – and that although her parents had encouraged her to embrace her marriage, it didn't have so much as a shade of blue let alone anything suggesting a brook. I wondered again, as I often had, whether the situation hurt her more than she let on. Druids and the sons of queens can do almost anything they like, but they can also be put into positions they don't like without being able to see a clear way out.
People like me have even fewer options, unless the gods see fit to give us some. I was indeed surrounded by the work of many hands. It turned out that on closer inspection they were also reminders to the ways in which I felt trapped.
Singing Oak sighed and shuffled, unconsciously seeking more of the warmth of my body, and I gladly snuggled into her. Trapped in this case also meant loved. I liked being with her, and where else would I go?
Come to think of it, that would be a question worth divining: what choice do I have?
The gods don't usually bother to answer that sort of thing. In the absence of signs I considered the things I could think of for myself. Stay and spend every day swishing my tail like a horse, trying to flick off a fly which comes back over and over again. Leave alone and go hungry, either an extra mouth trying to make myself useful in my parents' house, or searching for whatever work I could do, or taken in by someone who wanted my body, or maybe enslaved. It didn't seem appealing and I'd miss Singing Oak and Tiny Spark – and Tiny Spark would have to be found a wet nurse or she'd go hungry too. Not that taking her with me would make anything easier.
Maybe in an ideal world, we'd stay and she would go. I pictured Victory riding out of the gates of her own free will, but I knew it would never be a long-term arrangement. She's too attached to the hillfort and the people here are too proud of her and her lineage. I briefly considered murder, but even if the gods would smile on something like that, there are the practical challenges like sneaking up on her at a vulnerable moment, dealing the death-blow, hiding my guilt, and burying the body.
It made for some entertaining images, though.
Perhaps I drifted off to sleep with this in mind, because when I woke I had another picture: Singing Oak and I rode out from the gates with Tiny Spark on my back. I didn't know why, and I immediately dismissed it as unrealistic, but I liked the idea.
I'd woken because Tiny Spark had woken. She was making little noises, not yet crying but on the way, so I slipped out from Singing Oak's arms, wrapped my cloak over the tunic I'd been sleeping in, and took her to the hearth to feed her.
Once she'd had enough milk, I didn't want to lie her down again immediately, so I took her out in the dawn light just to see the day. The sky was clear and the ground soaked with dew. Hardly anyone was moving; even the dogs slept, some of them opening an eye as I passed but ignoring me when they saw I didn't have any food.
Slowly, I walked down the main path through the fort, away from the great wooden gates and towards the far side where Shining Oak goes to commune with the gods. There's an oak tree there which Brook curses sometimes because it would block the view if we were attacked, but it would be ill-luck to fell it when so often the ravens which rest in the branches have served as the gods' mouthpieces.
Some of the ravens looked around as I approached. Not wanting to disturb them – or the people who would hear them if they started shouting – I stopped a good distance away and turned to the east. The sun was just appearing over the ramparts. Our good earthen slopes, topped with a wooden fence, are intended to hamper a raiding party or group of warriors, but they also slow down the sunlight.
Tiny Spark fussed a bit, not yet ready to go back to sleep nor awake enough to look around, and I rocked on the spot while she settled again. I watched the wisps of cloud over the sun and wondered what they meant; I didn't think any god would speak to me, but perhaps a goddess would leave a little trail of clues I could use to work out what to do. Did I have a choice I hadn't seen?
A raven flew past me. Watching, I expected it to go off into the fields or perhaps towards the houses, where they would take dropped wheat grains which the dogs spurned.
But the raven landed on the ground, almost at my feet. I stopped moving. Fortunately, Tiny Spark was quiet. The huge black bird walked a few steps, ignoring me although it was less an arm's length from my feet. It stuck its beak into the grass and came out with a beetle, which it crunched down. I breathed in, and perhaps I made some other noise, because it cocked its head to look up at me before spreading its wings to fly away. I felt the wind as it left the ground, climbing into the sky in an unhurried, deliberate way.
I wished for Singing Oak to tell me what that meant. Then I wondered what it meant to me: the ravens are associated with Brook as our king but also with our people here. We'd been close enough to touch, the raven and I, but it had flown away so that I couldn't follow. It could have walked, as they often did when they searched the ground for food. Did that mean something? Did it mean that I should leave, or that I couldn't, or that the gods were close, or that they were ignoring me? I tried to think of a story in which a raven flew away, but I could only think of stories in which they were forewarnings of battle to come or gathered around the dead afterwards. They weren't hopeful tales and I was pleased that they didn't seem relevant, although it also didn't help me understand whether the raven's actions were a sign.
Another cloud passed over the sun, dimming the light for a moment, then moved on. That was the second and a third one followed behind. The clouds could be us; I looked for, and found, a small one just above the others to represent Tiny Spark. I wondered whether that could be a sign.
The image from my dream came back to me then. Here was Tiny Spark's cloud, slightly above and to the left of the one I had chosen as my own. My cloud was following the one which might represent Singing Oak. But the first one I had seen, which had crossed the sun and drawn my attention, the one which was for Brook, had started to change shape. It was breaking up. Singing Oak's cloud could no longer follow it.
I didn't see a cloud for Victory. The rest of the sky was clear.
Not having a proper offering with which to thank the goddess for her guidance, I pulled a strand of my hair and let it fall to the ground.
I tried to wake Singing Oak quietly, thinking that we could pack and be gone before anyone else noticed, but of course she wanted all the details of the sign, and to interpret it properly, and by the time I'd told her everything and she'd explained to me three reasons I knew nothing about the gods, even though I'd had a prophetic dream and an augury from birds and an explanation in the skies, Brook was awake and on the verge of telling Victory and my plan was about to fail.
"Wait," I said, before he could get out the door. To his credit, he did wait, taking a seat by the hearth and beginning to stir up the fire. That was good, he'd need it to cook his own breakfast when we were gone.
"The interplay between last night's signs and..." Singing Oak began. I think she heard me sigh, because she stopped talking and looked at me, really looked in the light from the refreshed fire, for the first time that morning. "A god did speak to you, didn't they? I can see it in your eyes."
"I think so," I said. I didn't want to be too set on it, although telling the story to Singing Oak had made me more convinced that it was real.
"Yes," she said, slowly, considering. "You've always been special, observant, kind, open... you love me so well, and now the gods have rewarded you."
That was putting it a bit strongly, I thought, although I didn't like to argue with her and we were at risk of getting distracted. I answered her with a kiss, making it strong and sweet but keeping my mouth closed and pulling back when Tiny Spark made a noise. "I do love you, and so do the gods, and maybe they love me enough to help me. My question now is... do we obey? Do we go? Do I go, and do you come with me?"
"And do you take my daughter?" Brook asked. I jumped, having almost forgotten he was there. "More to the point, what do I tell my mother? She won't be pleased, and she won't have much time for anything Silver Wheat says about the gods."
Singing Oak looked into the fire. Perhaps she was searching for a sign of her own; the shapes in the embers are sometimes said to give clues in much the same way as clouds. Perhaps she found one, or something inside her changed, because when she lifted her head I could see that she'd decided that we would go.
"Tell Victory that we've gone to give an offering at the shrine to Brigid," she said to Brook. "Tell her – tell everyone – that we saw signs this morning that we need to give thanks for last night's blessing, and that Brigid brought us the fire and the metal and so we have gone to repay her, on their behalf. It will save us sacrificing any more of the harvest. And tell them to leave the rock where it fell. And get a sword ready to give to the river when the spring comes, because these blessings don't come for nothing."
It was a good plan. The shrine to Brigid was several day's ride away, not so far that we would be expected to spend a long time preparing for the journey but not so near that they would expect us back tomorrow. The other instructions would distract people – especially Victory, who loved the fine work of our excellent blacksmiths and resented it every time we had to kill a perfectly good sword and hand it over to the other world.
Brook stood. "Is this goodbye, then?"
Singing Oak smiled at him. "We'll see each other again, my official and dutiful husband," she said. "We'll bring your daughter when she's old enough for the combat training her grandmother wants to give her."
"Can I see her before that?"
"When the gods will it," I said. I'd had enough talk and handed Tiny Spark to Singing Oak to hold while I threw a few things into a leather bag: some spare clothes, the end of yesterday's bread.
"I'll have them ready your horses," Brook said.
Singing Oak relaxed once we were alone, rocking the baby and handing me things to pack. "Remember your thick cloak," she said. "The weather's already turning."
As we went out the door, I paused to thank the spirits of the hearth and the house who had sheltered me. It wasn't their fault I couldn't stay.
At the gate, Brook was waiting. I took Ivy's bridle from his hand and gave her a brief glance over – my little mare is willing and friendly and prone to scratching herself on sharp posts, so I always look to see if her skin is sore before I ride. Today, fortunately, she seemed fine. One or two people were already walking around, watching us as they went about their business, and if we did anything which seemed remarkable we'd have a crowd before we could blink.
"Give my greetings to Brigid," Brook said loudly once we were mounted, and the groom who had helped Singing Oak echoed the sentiment. Hopefully nobody would think to question that story for some time.
We rode down the hill and onto the plain in silence. We turned west towards the shrine of Brigid, knowing that in some places along the route we could still be seen from the fort; and Singing Oak said, "We might as well make it true, at least to start with, unless we get another sign."
"We'll pray for one," I said, adjusting Tiny Spark as she slept on my back. But the sign that I got that afternoon was nothing more and nothing less than the fulfilment of what I had already seen: Brook's cloud dissolving until there were just the two of us; the raven flying away from me as I was leaving the fort; riding away as I had seen in my dream; the blessing of the full grain pits so we wouldn't be worried about the people at home even if we went hungry in our travels; and the light of Taranis coming overhead and heralding a change. I couldn't make it add up to a neat set of three. I had a feeling that Victory would be proud of the way I made it all fit the answers I wanted to reach.
I didn't mention that to Singing Oak. Instead, when we stopped by a stream to refill our water skins and rest, I hugged her close. "I'm glad we get this time."
"It's a gift," she agreed, and kissed me. The water chattered beside us and Tiny Spark woke up, but I ignored it all for a few more moments thinking only of her lips.
Show Notes
This quarter’s fiction episode presents A Falling Star and a Flying Bird by Rhiannon Grant, narrated by Heather Rose Jones.
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LHMPThursday, March 27, 2025 - 21:00
The Project has very fuzzy boundaries, but I'll admit this falls outside them. Sometimes a publication is just too interesting to skip.
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LHMPFull citation:
Ó Síocháin, Tadhg. 2017. The Case of The Abbot of Drimnagh: A Medieval Irish Story of Sex-Change. Cork Studies in Celtic Literatures. ISBN 978-0-9955469-1-2
This slim book presents an edition and analysis of a medieval Irish anecdote involving a magical sex change from male to female and back to male again. The tale doesn’t align well with what a modern person would consider a transgender story, but it does have some interesting angles on ideas about gender roles and the alignment between bodies and gender identity. To a large extent, the themes in this text lie outside the scope of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project, because there is no intersection with the image of a woman-loving woman in any of the permutations of identity. But as with research into John Rykener, it provides a rare glimpse into pre-modern examples of “male-to-female” transformation.
# # #
We start with an overview of the events of the story. A medieval Irish abbot falls asleep on a hill at Easter, wakes up as a woman, encounters a supernatural female figure, goes to a nearby monastery where he meets, marries, and has children with the “erenagh” of the monastery. [Note: “erenagh” was a post, often hereditary, that served as a sort of business manager for the monastery.] On another Easter, he falls asleep on the same hill as previously and wakes up as a man. He returns to his original home and is told by his wife that he’s only been gone an hour. But the erenagh that he married, and their seven children exist at the neighboring monastery and they arrange for shared custody of the children.
The earliest manuscript versions of the tale date to the 14th century, but linguistic and cultural aspects of the text suggest the original date of composition to be in the early 13th century.
There follows a critical edition of the text with English translation. The focus is on trying to untangle the linguistic and cultural nuances of this anecdote. What did it mean in context? How do the supernatural/otherworldly elements contribute?
The protagonist is described as a beautiful and richly-dressed man, carrying a sword. (Keeping in mind that he’s the abbot of a monastery.) When he wakes as a woman, she is equally beautiful, dressed in women’s clothing, and carrying a distaff. [Note: the sword and distaff are both highly gendered attributes.] While the protagonist is trying to figure out what happened, a large, frightening, ugly woman wearing armor comes along and the protagonist explains her predicament, expressing sorrow and gender dysphoria. (The armor-wearing woman then disappears from the story.) The protagonist travels to a nearby monastery and encounters a tall, martial man who falls instantly in love with her and has sex with her. The protagonist refuses to explain her background or history. This new man says he is the erenagh of the monastery and a widower and that it makes sense for them to marry. The protagonist goes to live with him as his wife for seven years and bears seven children.
At the end of seven years, their entire household is invited to an Easter celebration at the original monastery, resulting in the protagonist falling asleep again on the very same hill. This time he wakes up as a man, with his original sword beside him. He goes to his old home and tells his wife the tale, but she says he’d only been gone less than an hour. The tale now jumps to a legal judgement between him and the erenagh, in which it is decided that they would divide custody of the seven children.
[Note: In some ways, this is structured as a “dream story”—a common context for otherworldly tales. Except that the events in the dream appear to have actually occurred in the “real world” through a warping of time.]
The analysis looks at various other folk tales involving sex change, including the Greek myth of Tiresias and an Urdu legend (from India), among others. In general, fanciful tales of female-to-male change focus on the social role of the protagonist, while these tales about male-to-female change focus on sex and the experience of gender. For them, the sex change is presented as a curse or a catastrophe. The Urdu tale has several striking parallels, in the encounter with an ugly woman (who forcibly marries the protagonist during an interim transformation to a different male body) and the motif of discovering a gendered object associated with the change episode.
Sex change is a frequent motif in Hindu tales, especially triggered by bathing in a magical pool. Sometimes the reverse change happens in the same location, similarly to what happens in the Irish tale. In some of the comparable tales, the male-to-female sex change is a divine punishment.
The motif of no time elapsing (despite pregnancy and childbirth) also occurs in comparable material.
More modern Irish and Scottish folk tales with a sex change motif are not close parallels to this medieval text. They lack the monastic context, the ugly woman, and the fairy hill. [Note: The text rather assumes that the reader is familiar with the “fact” that if you spend the night on a fairy hill, weird stuff is going to go down.] Rather than looking for direct transmission connections to these more recent tales, the author suggests that all of the sex-change tales may be elaborating on an “ancient international motif.”
The article spends a while examining the concept of authorship and narrative voice.
The next section of the text looks at the historic/cultural context of the story and what relationship the story’s characters, places, and events might have to historic “reality.” Both the positions of abbot and erenagh had authority over religious institutions, but were not necessarily clerics (in medieval Ireland), but could be held by secular members of families that had hereditary authority over the religious institutions.
The protagonist is described in heroic terms, not religious ones. Despite his initial anxiety and dysphoria, the protagonist embraces (literally) life as a woman, but retains the same internal consciousness and memories through both changes. Despite this, he has no emotional reaction to leaving/losing a spouse at either of the transformations.
The “ugly woman” that the protagonist first encounters serves no obvious narrative role except possibly to signal the shift to the otherworldly setting that the protagonist has clearly entered. Though one may speculate that she may have effected the change as punishment for him trespassing on a fairy mound. (A motif that occurs in other tales.) The time slippage clearly indicates that the seven years were spent in the otherworld. But the “ugly woman” need not be a malevolent figure if she is seen, instead, as precipitating a necessary hero’s adventure, leaving him with the gift of offspring. (There’s no mention of children from his original wife.) [Note: although the author doesn’t say it in as many words, we may be dealing here with a fragmentary text of an original that included more context and details that would make better sense of these points.]
The next section of the article examines the motifs of metamorphosis and how female symbolism is used. Philosophical and religious misogyny are reflected in all types of sex-change motifs. Male-to-female change is humbling and humiliating; female-to-male change is empowering and ennobling.
The next section discusses the motif of marriage and sexual relations and how they function in the story. This is complex in early Irish society, as a variety of types of unions and relationships had legal status and definition, though all might fall under the umbrella of “marriage.” Clerical marriage was allowed in the early church (and even when later discouraged, might be prevalent).
The next section discusses genre distinctions—oral versus literary, Pagan versus Christian, and how they manifest in the text. “Wonder tales” were universally popular, though they might take different forms in Pagan and Christian culture. (E.g., fairy magic versus saints’ miracles.)
A concluding section sums up the author’s take on this text.
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Wednesday, March 26, 2025 - 21:30
When I have a bunch of items written up in advance, I usually like to space them out to give the appearance of having a regular blog schedule. But the way life has gone lately, if I don't roll these out one after the other, I have half a chance of forgetting entirely that I've written them up. Life is just fighting with one bureaucracy after another these days. Still trying to get all my retirement ducks in a row. Only 35 days to go and some of those ducks are still running around quacking.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Choma, Anne. 2019. Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister. Penguin Books, New York. ISBN 978-0-14-313456-5
I don’t usually consume books for the blog via audiobook -- makes it hard to take notes! It made sense in this case because it’s more of a narrative history rather than a scholarly analysis. As such, this is more in the line of a book review than my usual factual summary.
This is a narrative history of Anne Lister’s life between November 1831 and March 1834, the period covered by the tv series Gentleman Jack. The book was written specifically as a companion to the tv series, giving the actual details of Anne’s life during that period, which differs in various details from the tv series. (The tv series both omitted and invented significant details.) Interspersed in the narrative are extensive quotes from Anne’s diaries.
The account is very readable and will give you a solid background of Anne’s life and times. It is neither a scholarly historical analysis (for that, you might try Jill Liddington) nor an extensive and contextualized survey of significant portions of the diaries (for which you want Helena Whitbread). But it hits a sweet spot for the general reader. And if you’re a fan of the tv series, it makes an interesting “compare and contrast” to understand how history gets adapted for the requirements of drama.
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