Wading into Kudrun; on the Trail of a Legendary Mystery Man

Wade of Kudrun sits uneasily as a migration era hero in a high medieval romance. (Photo illustration by Rachel Hellman.)

Not much is as troubling as the discovery that you’ve lost something, particularly something of value. Medieval writers suggest that we should have a story about a figure that we know just enough about to be tantalized, and troubled. The mystery of Wade is a good tale. Scandinavia recalls him as a sea giant. Mallory knew him to be a great knight. Chaucer obliquely recalls his boat and a tale that could be told. The breadcrumbs are lined up and it’s difficult not to follow.

Every known reference to the legendary Wade has been gathered neatly together for generations. The trail seems to begin sometime in the tales spread by Germanic-speaking tribes as they fanned out across Europe. All of the English literary references to Wade had faded to almost a name. Old English recalls him as a legendary ruler. Middle English celebrates him for his strength, chivalry and the defeat of a dragon. Folklore in England connects his name to sites in the north related to a giant. The Old Norse Wade was a giant, the son of a king and a sea woman (often translated to mermaid.) 

But it is the German Wade, I feel, that requires our attention, as this Wade gives us the most insight into who readers of a specific time knew him to be, and how he may have changed from the distant past. Unlike other extant literary sources, Wade is a major character in the anonymously-written mid-thirteenth-century poem called Kudrun. Kudrun presents a Wade that seems to have become a stock figure of fiction, a blustering, sometimes comic, sometimes troubling old curmudgeon who prefers to do things the old way. But the poem preserves features of Wade that would have been a perfect fit in the Beowulf era and maybe even earlier, when he could have been a mythological figure, even a deity.

Throughout Kudrun, Wade’s most obvious attributes are his age, his strength, and his terrifying violence on the battlefield. What most struck me as a reader though, were clues that this continental, thirteenth-century Wade (Wate in German) was already a known commodity to readers. He performs a function in the story that presumes that the reader is already aware of him. Wade is mentioned by name in the poem before the royal lover, whose difficult suit Wade will facilitate, against a king who murders the envoys of his daughter’s suitors. It is a job only Wade can perform, the young king is told, though the strategy, to sneak into the kingdom disguised as a merchant, does not sit well for him: “I’m not suited to selling pretty trinkets to women.” Wade’s discomfort in this role is the beginning of a series of comic moments predicated on his being a warrior of an earlier time being forced into a courtly romance. 

The character who most dislikes the need to pretend to be something he isn’t, is, of course, the character most comic to be pressed to play a role. Despite Wade’s misgivings to play the part, everyone in the foreign court wants an audience with him. Scholar R.W. Chambers suggested that it is his rich clothing that draws their attention, but the Kudrun poet maintains that all of Wade’s contingent is dressed in the finest clothing possible as a means of disarming the Irish king into allowing them close to his daughter. Yet, in the midst of younger courtiers in his throng, everyone is curious about Wade, whose only described attribute is his large gray beard.

Perhaps it is just the beard that marks Wade as different from the younger courtiers, who would seem more likely to attract the attention of young ladies, but the ladies of the court pay the most attention to “old” Wade. The queen says that Wade “is such a strange man,” that she wishes to see him and even rises from her seat when he enters. The young ladies study Wade to see his behavior, and they flirt as girls might with an aged man they find funny. They ask whether Wade is more comfortable with young ladies or in danger on the battlefield, to which he states his preference is the battlefield. It is hard to know how the ladies would be able to tell that this is a warrior, but perhaps Kudrun’s intended audience already knew that Wade was a man from from before the civilized times of this romance.

The reader discovers that Wade’s lack of control over his rage and tendency to be gruff to the point of rudeness are characteristics that become so predictable about him. Given this, I suspect that the scene with the ladies and others are predicated on dramatic irony, the reader’s knowledge that Wade is only at home slaughtering enemies, and putting him in fine clothes in a courtly setting would effectively be a condition to cause him to blow his cover as a merchant in the scheme. The Kudrun poet must have thought that this scene would be so enjoyed by readers that he wrote two more based on the same joke, one where the princess essentially asks for a second meeting to study Wade (though not to kiss him!) and a scene with her father, King Hagan, a man in the mold of Wade.

Hagan also picks Wade out from all of the courtiers, to test his fighting skills. Hagan seems up to mischief and perhaps means to pressure Wade into a sword demonstration with Hagan’s best swordsman. Wade feigns ignorance of swordplay and even a reader who has not seen Wade fight expects a situation in which all are shocked to find Wade to be the greater fighter. Hagan’s fencing master quickly fears for his life fighting Wade, which leads Hagan himself to face him. Hagan’s strength, prowess, and battle rage are all established earlier in the tale and Hagan’s danger is the entire cause of Wade’s charade in his court, to avoid facing him in battle. Testing Wade, Hagan quickly learns that Wade is as strong as Hagan is (it is said of both Wade and Hagan that they have the strength of twenty-six men) and an expert swordsman. Hagan has to steel himself not to lose his temper in their friendly match. For his part, Wade drops the act that swordplay is unknown to him and attacks Hagan “like a wild Saxon or Frank.” The scene is made more interesting supposing the dramatic irony of knowing that Wade is more than a match for Hagan or his sword-master. The humor of Wade’s protesting not knowing how to fight and of Hagan’s patronizing him by offering to teach Wade “out of affection” for him, is greater if the reader knows what happens to anyone who fights Wade. Wade’s response that Hagan must vow not to kill him further raises the comic stakes, and demonstrates a level of coyness that fits the comic scene more than the incendiary Wade.

Wade Represents an Earlier Ethos

Wade’s fighting prowess is essential in all of the military actions in Kudrun, and must have been an understood element of the character. But the developing difficulty in Kudrun, is that Wade represents a theory of war that is out of step with the rest of the characters of the story. This further places Wade as a fish out of water, and is played for humor as Wade goes far beyond what is acceptable for this time. Where Wade’s young prince and princess would prefer to take hostages in battle and enact political marriages, Wade will slaughter to the last, even women and children. He is described as terrible and terrifying, dreadful, wild and ferocious. He fights like a wild lion, bellows like a wild boar. His eyes blaze, his teeth grind and he is at times drenched in the blood of his enemies. He is repeatedly described as merciless. Wade’s friends must continually pull Wade back to save the men he is fighting. But they cannot always stop him. In this manner, he slaughters babies in cribs. He cuts off the heads of noblewomen who have begged quarter. 

Wade’s practice to become enraged in battle, and dangerous to both friend and foe, was a feature of heroes in the Beowulf mold, whom Wade could have once been. Beowulf, like his monstrous adversaries–or our own, modern, Incredible Hulk–physically swells with rage during his fights. Beowulf is once praised for never killing a kinsman, hardly a high bar in many other places and times, certainly in the era of Kudrun. Wade’s friends only approve of his violence to the moment when the enemy is ready to surrender, while Wade is unwilling to stop until he has killed everyone, even threatening to kill both friend and foe to achieve his aims. Wade, the hero, the victor, is censored for his slaughter: “What good would come of it, if you killed everyone in this land of his?” one comrade complains. This version of Wade is more at home with the figure of the berserker of the Lewis Chessmen, biting his shield, ready to storm into battle.

Like the Incredible Hulk, Wade becomes a figure in Kudrun that cannot turn off the violence, and as with the Incredible Hulk, this is sometimes played for humor. After failing to stop him from executing the evil queen and a traitorous gentlewoman in front of her terrified ladies in waiting, Kudrun recognizes that they will just have to agree to disagree: “Wate can do what he wants with his own hostages.” Kudrun’s comment is funny because it understates her lack of control over him.  Just as humorously, Wade complains that his friends are too merciful. To the man who complains about Wade killing children, Wade retorts, “You’re like a child yourself.”  When Kudrun’s kidnapper prays for his freedom, Wade responds, “I would quickly make sure that his chains never bothered him again.” Wade’s frustration with Kudrun and his younger relations is that they would take the opportunity at victory to promote a lasting peace by intermarrying with their enemy’s family, which seems a larger message of the poem. But Wade sees in orphans a future war party returning for vengeance, as has happened in the story already.

Hints of a Mythological Past

Chambers detected the hint that Wade began life as a storm deity in the manner of his death in Thidreks Saga: being buried by an avalanche. There are myths about storm gods being trapped underground or in the underworld realm of death. Chambers’s logic works on the premise that mythological tales sometimes undergo changes that make them appealing to audiences that no longer seek mythology or deities in tales. Gods then become mortal heroes, here a storm god demoted to a giant who wades across the sea and happens to be killed by a landslide. Chambers’s logic applied to Kudrun reveals details that could also suggest a mythological figure transformed into an exceptional man. One may start with Wade’s perpetual stage of agedness.   

Ever Gray

Kudrun does not imbue its characters with the sort of detail one expects of modern fiction. No character’s age is addressed with specificity. So it is not strange that Wade’s specific age is never stated. What does seem to be unusual, even within the style of the poem, is that Wade is old at the beginning of a story that spans generations and is old at the end. Wade kidnaps a princess at the beginning of the poem, and then rescues that princess’s adult daughter at the end. Wade, who was an old man when he met the mother, says he will have to wait for children to grow up to seek vengeance. Wade has no doubts of his longevity, but the mother’s response is “Ah, if only I could live that long.”  It may not be exceptional for a normal person to live through several generations, but it is strange that the queen, who viewed Wade as an aged curiosity when she was young, expects that she will not outlive him.

A Man with a Storied Past

Of the characters of Kudrun, Wade is the only one with a past that extends beyond the action of the narrative. Not only does Kudrun’s Wade have a past, but all of the details of his past are remarkable for their connections to magic. In the first bloody battle of the tale, when Wade faces off against the similarly powerful Hagan, Hagan’s kidnapped daughter begs her captors to stop Wade from killing her father. It is then revealed that Wade is a “master” healer: “They had heard a long time ago that Wate had learned healing from a forest woman.” Kudrun translator William Whobrey shares that his translation of wilden wibe has the possible sense of herbalist, healer, witch, and even creatures half woman, half animal. He shares the glosses “woman adept in magic,” and “wise woman of the woods” that two other translations have used. After all of Wade’s bloodshed in this battle, he is able to save lives and bring wounded men back to health. Wade’s sudden willingness to heal his enemies, if not his ability to heal itself, is incongruous with his behavior in the rest of the story.

Wade also tells a story when his fleet of ships is captured by a magnetic force when they pass the mountain at Givers, a geographically indeterminate location given the hazy geography of Kudrun: “Long ago as a child, I heard tell seafaring stories that in the mountain at Givers a great kingdom was founded. People live in comfort there.” Wade goes on to describe rivers of silver and gold and says that all who are pulled to the mountain are rich forever. Wade, on his dire mission of rescue and revenge, then prays they are pulled to the mountain, as if lost in reverie, while his companions remain in the moment and wish to escape the magnetic power. The overpowering strength of the seas on ships has probably led to many myths. The Odyssey has the whirlpool Scylla, the Sirens and Circe, who all overpower seafarers in various ways. By sharing his story, Wade recalls a childhood that gives him a history outside the boundaries of the story, which make him exceptional in Kudrun.

Mythological Connections to the Sea

Wade frequently travels in ships in the poem Kudrun, but I noticed details that I think have the flavor of a deity connected to the sea. The first is Wade’s horn, which he uses to rouse his troops to battle at dawn. His first horn blast can be heard thirty miles from shore. His second blast moves all of the troops into position, but the description of the third blast stuck out to me: “He signaled a third time with such great force that the shore quaked and the waves echoed the sound. The cornerstones of Ludwig’s castle could have been shaken loose.” The horn and the power of creating earthquakes are attributed respectively to the sea gods Triton and his father Poseidon, the earth shaker. This is also not the first time in the poem that Wade shook the earth. In his fight with Hagan early in the story, the text runs: “Then old Wate bore down and the shoreline shook.” 

The three major battles Wade fights in Kudrun are on the shore near ships that he has piloted, as others have noted, “strong rudder in his hand.” It seems unusual, if not implausible, that each of these battles take place on the beach, as if to accommodate a figure traditionally connected to the sea, or who may have traditionally gained power from the sea. In the first battle, Wade’s forces debark to find Hagan’s forces approaching from sea. During the second battle Kudrun’s kidnappers debark on an island that is not their destination for reasons not explained. Finally, Kudrun’s kidnappers’ castle that Wade shakes with a blast of his horn is also on the sea, above a beach that Wade’s forces have landed on.

The Man from Stormland

Finally, Kudrun’s Wade is from a place that Whobrey gives alternately as Stormarn and Stormland. No detail is ever given of this location, but Wade is summoned from there frequently and returns there between quests for his king. Though the geography of Kudrun is hard to relate to real places, locations are often named, some, like Ireland, seem to correspond to a real location, others, like Waylays and Ormanie, which bear similarities to the lands Wales or Normandy, but do not seem to correspond to them. Stormarn could refer to the district of Schleswig-Holstein of modern Germany, but, again, the inner logic of place names in Kudrun, if there is one, is not understood. Obviously, a figure associated with storms and the sea hailing from Stormland would seem significant.

There are details of Wade’s battles that can be interpreted as related to storms. In his battle with Hagan, “many brave men saw sparks flying off the helmets like flashes from a smithy’s fire…then old Wate bore down and the shoreline trembled.” Though I have suggested that the ground trembling could be the hint of a figure able to cause earthquakes, it is also possible to envision the flashes of fire and trembling earth as thunder and lightning. In a later battle, Wade’s charge in battle darkens the sun with a cloud of dust, which could hint at a gathering storm cloud.

A Retirement 

Wade ends his story in Kudrun being given a position of honor in the queen’s household, which seems a bit of a downgrade from his job of commanding one of the king’s castles, which was his role at the beginning of it. Whobrey’s translation says he is made “seneschal,” which is a court officer in charge of ceremonies and feasts (the German was truhsæze), but the etymology of seneschal indicates that it once meant “old servant,” which Wade clearly was in the history of this kingdom. I see the shift as an indication that the queen recognizes that the time of Wade as the commander of armies and warrior-in-chief have passed. I like to see it as a fond farewell to a figure whose time had really passed in the era of Kudrun, to the extent that he has fairly or unfairly lapsed into the role of a comical figure. In this manner Wade sits uneasily in Kudrun given that he is the only figure who enables the happy ending that this romance wants as its proper conclusion. 

We have lamented the loss of a “Tale of Wade,” that elaborates on his magic boat and whether that version of Wade relates to the giant of the sea. However, here we have a Wade that seems modeled on the wild Saxon or Frank (or Geat) that would have fit into migration age stories represented in the poems “Widsith,” and “Deor.” That may not bring us closer to understanding who Wade was in his lost English tale, but it fills in a gap for a character long enough lived for literature to ease him into retirement. 

Her Undying Love; Gothic Viking Zombie Mayhem

Hild, unable to bear the deaths of her lover and father, raises their bodies with the bodies of their warriors, leading to an endless cycle of slaughter.

It has the makings of a great gothic romance. Unwilling to accept the loss of her slain love, she reanimates him night after night until the twilight of the gods. But it gets better. She also reanimates his enemies so he can defeat them in battle. And every day they will slaughter each other again.

This is the story of Hild, usually known as the story of her father, Hagen and her lover Heoden, or by the war they endlessly fight, the Hjaðningavíg, in English, the Battle of the Heodenings. And if Gothic Viking zombie mayhem is your jam, you’ll be surprised to hear that this is a very old tale that seems almost lost to time. Sure, it’s referred to in two Old English poems, a few Scandinavian image stones, the Gesta Danorum and several Norse and German sources, but why did Shakespeare miss it? Surely a Brontë could have done a bang-up treatment of it. Or Wagner: what opera has a story of tragic love and vengeance and reanimated Viking armies? It would serve as a great backstory for a graphic novel or Marvel movie.

Hild and the Never-Ending Battle

An earlier, less plastic, version of Hild and the Hjaðningavíg in a detail from the 7th Century Stora Hammars Stone in Gotland, Sweden. (Image by Berig from Wikipedia)

There are several versions of the story, but in all of them, Heoden runs off with Hild and is sought after by her father Hagen, who corners them on an island. Both men are backed by armies. Hild tries to reconcile her father to the man she sees as her husband, but something in her manner leads to Hagen’s refusal. There is a battle the next day and then Hild begins to revive the dead, who rise the following day to fight again. The extant details are priceless storytelling, and the fogginess allows us to guess at what must have gone wrong to end in such a circle of violence. The Hjaðningavíg, the never-ending battle, including Hild, strikes me as an excellent metaphor for the generational cycles of blood feud between families in Old English poems like Beowulf, and the typical tragic failure of a peace bride, called a peaceweaver, who is meant to knit the feuding families together. One can read about generations of Beowulf’s family or Hrothgar’s family fighting with a traditional enemy, or one can read about the same two men dying and returning to life and making the same mistake over and over forever.

The Endless Battle

Hild’s father and lover are doomed to fight and kill each other for all time.

There are several versions of the tale, which was known in England, Scandinavia and Germany. Snorri tells us that the never-ending battle became a kenning, or metaphor, “the storm of the Hiadnings (Heodenings),” for battles in general. Weapons were called the “Hiadnings’ fires” or “Hiadnings’ rods.” It must have been an immensely popular tale throughout the middle ages. The later medieval German version from Kudrun weaves in the sea giant Wade, a tantalizing figure, born of a mermaid, and the singer known in Old English as Heorrenda, who was famous enough to be mentioned in the poem “Deor.” In this version, Heoden wins Hild’s love and elopes with her with the help of these extraordinary figures from a jealous Hagen unwilling to part with his daughter. This version of the story ends happily and omits the never-ending battle. While the Kudrun version represents a late telling of the story (c. 1250), Raymond Wilson Chambers points out the close proximity between Heoden, Hagen and Wade in “Widsith,” on lines 21 and 22 respectively. “Widsith” would be the earliest literary reference to the tale and the “Widsith” poet clearly placed character names from well-known tales in proximity of one another. Chambers argues that this suggests that Wade and Heorrenda were part of the story in its earliest known traditions.

Wade the Boatman

The tantalizing figure Wade, the boatman, was always associated with the sea. The Saga of Didrik of Bern says that he was born of a king and a mermaid and that he was a giant. Chaucer refers to his magic boat, which was called Guingelot. Wade is the father of the more famous Weland, the legendary smith, and grandfather to the hero Wideke (Wudga in Old English).

Snorri’s version of Hild makes her a sort of antagonist in the story, a bloodthirsty, vengeful figure who seems to want to punish her father. In Snorri’s Edda, she becomes “the woman full of evil” who “purposed to bring…the bow-storm to her father.” It is not clear at all why she is angry, but that can be fun to imagine. The “Sörla þáttr,” a short story version from the Flateyjarbók, introduces a second female figure of evil intention, who bewitches Heoden into killing Hagen’s queen and looting his kingdom, in addition to kidnapping his daughter, whom Hagen would have freely given to Heoden to wed. Hild knows that Heoden is under a spell and still tries to reconcile him to her father. In this version, the never-ending battle continues until a Christian warrior of King Olaf kills every combatant, exorcising the evil for good.

Whatever version of the never-ending battle one chooses as their favorite, they will find magic and romance and in most versions, tragedy. They will usually find a cinematic battle fought by men continually raised from the dead by a woman stuck in the middle of a cycle of violence and wrath. But currently, this story needs to be sought out in fragments from many old sources. It has not been brought into the modern era. And clearly, it should be. I can only hope that my efforts to hand off the tale to modern readers may find some success in inspiring a creator to pick it up and bring it to more people.

Reading My Sources

The most useful source, to me, in studying the different versions of Hild and the never-ending battle is Chambers’s Widsith, a Study in Old English Heroic Legend. Of course, this is an in-depth study of the Old English poem, but I haven’t seen another source that investigates the different versions of this story and comments on them as intelligently—and Chambers does this for every story referred to in “Widsith.” Chambers is also my source for the Kudrun version of the tale, though that can be read in synopsis online. Snorri’s version (scroll to page 188 in link or search “Hjadnings”) from the Edda can be found in many places online. I did not find an English translation of “Sörla þáttr” online, but Olivia E. Coolidge’s 1951 Legends of the North (out of print, but available) has a version of the tale that seems most in line with it, including the bewitching woman. If you are interested in reading about the sea giant Wade, and his family, (and many other Germanic heroes) in a more romantic, Arthurian style, I would recommend Ian Cumpstey’s The Saga of Didrik of Bern.

The Widsith Project

My years-long effort to share the excellent stories known to the author of the Old English poem, “Widsith.”

I am, of course, engaged in the tale because it is referred to in the Old English poem “Widsith,” a compendium of the great old stories of the north that I have been studying and sharing for almost a decade. “Widsith” is a poor poem to seek out an understanding of the tale of Hild and the never-ending battle. It refers to stories by referring to names, and Hagen and Heoden are mentioned, along with the sea giant Wade. That said, without “Widsith,” I wouldn’t have encountered this story and many others that were so popular and well known in the middle ages that just hearing the names of characters from them would conjure the tales for the listener. These tales were frequently tragic and violent and forced the main characters into positions where they had to choose allegiances when no answer was correct. This is also not the only tale referred to in “Widsith” that involves raising the dead. I plan next to tell the story of the shieldmaiden Hervor, who raises her father from his barrow to claim his cursed sword, from The Saga of Hervör and Heidrek.

Immortal Queer; LGBTQ+ Narratives in Mythology

Loki consumes the female Gullveig’s heart, and is impregnated, an illustration of lines from Hyndluljóð, or Song of Hyndla, by John Bauer, 1911.

The moment you suggest that in the “good old days” men were men and women, women, and all of this LGBTQ+ stuff is rather new and “woke,” I will refer you to the story of Hercules, who abandoned the other manly Argonauts to save his male lover, Hylas, from the nymphs. Or of Loki, from the ostensibly manlier Norse pantheon, who turns himself into a female horse to distract a stallion and winds up pregnant. Head to the east and you will find Krishna, who becomes a woman so a hero doesn’t die a virgin—yes, Krishna, one of the most revered deities in the world, became a woman and slept with a man. The Chinese have a gay god as do the Japanese, as did the Aztecs and Egyptians. Etc, etc, and so forth. Pride month is new, but queer is immortal.

‘Him Have I Lost’; Achilles and Patroclus

Achilles tending Patroclus wounded by an arrow, identified by inscriptions on the upper part of the vase. Tondo of an Attic red-figure kylix, ca. 500 BC. From Vulci (Wikipedia).

Perhaps the best-known of Greek same-sex lovers were Achilles and Patroclus of Homer’s Iliad. Achilles famously sulks in his tent, refusing to help the Greeks, until Trojan Hector kills Patroclus. If Menelaus’s rage at having Helen stolen from him motivates the Greek siege of Troy, Achilles’ rage at Patroclus’s death is what leads the Greeks to defeat the Trojans. His anger at Patroclus’s death is equaled by his grief. A “black cloud of grief” surrounds him as he tears his hair and covers his face with dust. Antilochus, who bears the news of Patroclus death, restrains the hands of the moaning Achilles for fear he may cut his own throat in grief. Achilles’s goddess mother hears Achilles’s grief and tries to comfort him. His response: “My mother...what pleasure have I therein, seeing my dear comrade is dead, even Patroclus, whom I honored above all my comrades, even as mine own self? Him have I lost.”

Achilles and Patroclus may be the most famous of male lovers from Greek mythology, but they are far from the only ones. The gods Zeus, Apollo, Pan and Dionysus had same-sex lovers, as did Hercules! The Greeks clearly saw no conflict between same-sex love and being respected, admired, revered.

Mother Loki

Loki takes the form of a mare and flirts with the giant’s horse in “Loki and Svadilfari” by Dorothy Hardy, 1909.

Norse Loki takes on a female form more than once, most famously when he becomes the mare who bears Odin’s eight-legged steed in the text Gylfaginning. It is the tale of the building of Asgard’s walls, which a giant in disguise offers to build in exchange for the hand of Freya. Loki convinces the gods to accept the builder’s offer, but to set a deadline he could not possibly meet. However, the builder and his horse make such fast progress on the wall that the gods fear they will have to give him Freya. They threaten Loki if he does not remedy the situation so he hatches a scheme. Loki realizes that the builder’s horse is crucial to the builder meeting the deadline. The next day, when the builder starts working, “a mare suddenly ran out of the woods to the horse and began to neigh at him.” The mare, Loki in disguise, drives the giant’s horse mad and it chases Loki into the forest, delaying the giant. The Gylfaginning coyly relates that Loki “had run such a race” with the giant’s horse that he bears a foal some time afterward.

Loki’s impregnation feels like a punchline, a comeuppance, but the fertility god Freyr was also said to be worshipped by gay priests. For more on Freyr and other Viking attitudes toward gay sex, check out this excerpt from Gunnora Hallakarva's Viking Lady Answer Page post, “The Vikings and Homosexuality.”

Krishna Becomes Woman

The exceptionally alluring Mohini, Krishna’s (Vishnu’s) female form. Photograph of a famous statue of Mohini from the 12th Century Chennakeshava Temple, of Belur in the state of Karnataka, India. (Wikipedia.)

There are so many instances in Hindu stories of gods and heroes changing gender or having multiple genders, that it seems more the rule than the exception. A striking example of this is that of Krishna, who is God on earth, becoming a woman specifically to marry and sexually consummate that marriage with a hero who is asked to sacrifice himself for the good of the universe. Aravan is the son of the great hero Arjuna and a Naga princess. His death in the great Mahabharata war is required for the forces of good to succeed, but Aravan is a virgin and does not want to die a virgin. Not only does Krishna become the woman for Aravan—he becomes an exceptionally alluring woman. Krishna’s female name, Mohini, is meant to suggest the essence of female beauty and attraction. And it is not only a marriage of convenience. After Aravan’s death, Mohini mourns his loss. The story lives on in an annual ritual with transgender women and men dressed as women ritually marrying Aravan (whose name seems to become Iravan in ritual or after his death). According to the article “Celebrating the Third Sex” in the English newspaper, The Telegraph, 25,000 transgender people participated in the event in 2007.

‘Neither and Either:’ The ‘Two-Fold form’ of Hermaphroditus

Hermaphroditus in their male-female form is not an uncommon figure to find in art. "Sleeping Hermaphroditus," an ancient sculpture on a mattress by Gian Lorenzo Bernini; Louvre Museum. (Photo by Pierre-Yves Beaudouin, Wikipedia)

What strikes me most about Ovid’s story of the son of Hermes and Aphrodite isn’t that he becomes intersex after his encounter with the naiad Salmacis, but the nymph’s palpable desire for him when he is a man. Of course, in begging the gods never to be separated from him, she finds herself physically merged with him, but otherwise lost.

Salmacis is said to be the only female of Greek mythology to attempt to rape a male and by Ovid’s description, she certainly steps over the line of being forward. After proposing marriage (or offering to sleep with him if he is already married or promised) Salmacis seems to give up when Hermaphroditus threatens to leave the woods if she doesn’t leave him alone. But she spies on him and when he removes his clothes to dive into a pool, she strikes. Ovid describes her as ivy on a tree or as the cuttlefish grappling with its prey, kissing him this way and that. When Hermaphroditus refuses her, she makes her wish to never be parted from him and in the way of gods or genies granting the word of a wish, she is merged with him: “they were not two, but a two-fold form, so that they could not be called male or female, and seemed neither or either.” Hermaphroditus’s limbs are “softened” and he speaks “not with the voice of a man.”

Another feature of the story that struck me was Ovid’s initial descriptions of Hermaphroditus, which seem to feminize him. He blushes at Salmacis’s aggressive forwardness and Ovid describes his blush as the color “of an apple in a sunlit tree,” and as “the moon eclipsed, blushing in her brightness.” Hermaphroditus is as the fruit or the feminine moon, and perhaps I read into the ancient descriptions my own associations from much later texts of blushing maids. Men obviously blush and are not always receptive to feminine advances, but it seems to me that Ovid has foreshadowed Hermaphroditus’s end or, as with the aggressive Salmacis, suggested that to be male or female is not so great a difference.

‘A Girl on Fire’; Iphis and Ianthe

Iphis and Ianthe may never have made love as females in Ovid, but that didn’t stop Rodin from depicting it in this statuette; Victoria and Albert Museum.

For a culture that gave us Sappho, satisfyingly modern depictions of lesbian love are absent in the Greek myths I know, and they are not very evident in ancient stories elsewhere, though I don’t count myself an expert on the topic. Ovid’s story of Iphis and Ianthe may come closest. Iphis’s father threatens that if his wife delivers a girl child, he will order it put to death. Of course Iphis, whose name is gender-neutral, is born a girl, and her mother hides it to save her life. Iphis is raised as a boy and Ovid, as with Hermaphroditus, seems to minimize the difference between the sexes in his description of her, “whose features would have been beautiful whether they were given to a girl or a boy.”

Iphis is betrothed to the beautiful Ianthe in childhood and the two grow up together and are very much in love, though Iphis is troubled by her secret: “Iphis loved one whom she despaired of being able to have, and this itself increased her passion, a girl on fire for a girl.” Iphis, heartbreakingly, sees her love for a girl as a monstrosity that outdoes even Pasifaë’s attraction to a bull, which leads to her birthing the minotaur, in that at least Pasifaë is female and the bull, though an animal, male.

Iphis and her mother dread the approaching date of the wedding and with no time left to spare, her mother prays to Isis to save her daughter. I warned that it is a disappointment for queer readers, but Ipis is transformed into a man, a happy ending as far as the Iphis of Ovid’s tale is concerned! In “Lesbian Mythology,” by Christine Downing, 1994, Downing argues that the lack of what we would understand as homosexual relationships between women in the Greek context is the male-centric lens of our received Greek mythology. That lens centers the penis in sex and without it, sexual relationships between women weren’t likely interpreted thus. Downing’s essay examines many of the goddesses and their relationships with other women and men. The closest evidence that a goddess had same-sex relations would be when Kallisto welcomes the kisses and embraces of Zeus when he approaches her disguised as Artemis. Zeus’s rape of Kallisto leaves her pregnant, for which Artemis turns her into a bear in punishment, another unjust ending for a woman in Greek mythology.

A Taste of Queer Deities from World Mythology and Religion

(Left to right): Tu'er Shen, The Rabbit God, a Chinese deity who manages love between homosexual people; image from the 2010 Taiwanese television program The Rabbit God's Matchmaking, Wikipedia; Inari Ōkami, a female Japanese god or spirit associated with same sex love, agriculture, foxes and trickster Kitsune spirits, image by Neko-Y; Aztec “Flower Prince” Xochipilli, patron of homosexuals and homosexual prostitutes Wikipedia; Shaushka, Hurrian goddess of fertility who is depicted as female with male clothes and in groupings of both gods and goddesses, Wikipedia.

Queer may be immortal, but unfortunately, hate is too, and as much progress as LGBTQ+ people have made in the U.S., and as much progress as many straight people have made in accepting queer people, there is still clearly quite a ways to go to securing the rights of all people to live, love and present as they wish. I hope that this modest attempt to share a few of the queer narratives from mythology may help pride and all the progress pride supports. Happy Pride Month, 2021!

Christine Downing’s “Lesbian Mythology” was published in Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques , Summer 1994; Vol. 20, No. 2, Lesbian Histories (Summer 1994), pp. 169-199.