Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers

In Egyptian myth, Atum is said to have made the world by masturbating, creating a god and goddess who then made love to produce the earth and sky. (The two had to be forcibly separated to give the world its present shape.) In Maori myth, the Rangi gods were born from the love-making of Nothing and the Night, crawling into a dark world made of the space between their bodies. In the earliest of the Upanishads of India, atman (the Self) caused itself to divide into two pieces, male and female. In human shape, these two copulated to make the first human men and women; in the forms of cow and bull they copulated to make cattle, and so forth, until the world was populated. In many of the oldest mythological stories, a mother goddess (Ishtar, Isis, Cybele, etc.) is partnered by a male sexual consort who dies each winter and is reborn each spring, symbolizing the seasonal cycle of nature’s renewal in forest and field… as well as the ancient idea that the phallus “dies” after orgasm, only to rise again with renewed potency. In Celtic lore, the wild Green Man of the wood (depicted as a male face disgorging vegetation from the mouth) has his female counterpart in the Sheela-na-gig, a female figure disgorging vegetation from between swollen vulva lips—a potent symbol of the mythic connection between human sexuality and the fecundity of the earth. (In a sexual rite found in cultures the world over, and still quietly practiced by some today, couples made love in freshly sown fields to insure a good autumn harvest.) Cousin to the Sheela-na-gig carvings found in old churches in Celtic countries are the carvings of female figures found near the doorways of shrines in India, seated with their legs apart to expose the vulva, or yoni (a sacred symbol of the feminine half of the double-sexed divine.) It was (and remains) customary to lick a finger and touch the yoni for luck; as a result, the carvings have been worn into deep, smooth holes with the passage of time.

In the East and the West alike, mytho-eroticism is found across a wide spectrum of stories both serious and humorous—from myths of “sacred sexuality” (sexual pleasure as a divine cosmological force) to bawdy tales about the follies engendered by rampant carnal appetites. It is in the later category that Trickster makes his appearance, a wicked gleam in his eye and a tell-tale bulge beneath his breeches. Trickster is a paradoxical creature who is both very clever and very foolish, a culture hero and destructive influence—often at one and the same time. Hermes, Loki, Pan, and Reynardine are all European aspects of the Trickster myth; others from around the world include Maui of Polynesia, Legba and Spider in African lore, Uncle Tompa in Tibet, and the shape-shifting foxes of China and Japan. Trickster is a particularly powerful presence in the legends of Native American tribes, where he takes the form of Crow, Raven, Hare, or Old Man Coyote. Coyote tales in particular are often sexual, scatological, and very funny—tales of seduction (usually foiled), rape (which usually backfires), and all manner of sexual tom-foolery: penises that sail through the air to reach their intended target, farts and turds with magical powers, gender switches or impersonations involving animal bladders disguised as genitalia, and other tricks intended to appease a gluttonous sexual appetite. The Asian shape-shifting fox Tricksters are darker and more dangerous, seeking sexual possession of men and women in order to feed upon the vital life force which maintains their power.

Trickster tales bridge the gap between the great cosmological myth cycles and folk tales told ’round the fireside—for Trickster is equally at home in the house of the gods (as Loki or Hermes) and in the woods with the fairies (as Phooka, Puck, or Robin Goodfellow.) Turning from mythological stories to humble folk and fairy tales, we find that the overwhelming force of Eros is still a common theme. The woods of Europe, the mountains of Asia, the rainforests of South America and the frigid lands of the Canadian north are all filled with fairy creatures, nature spirits, and other apparitions who bewitch, beguile, and entice human beings into sexual encounters. The fairy lore most people know today comes from children’s books or Disney animations, and so the popular image of fairies is of sweet little sprites with butterfly wings, sexless as innocent children. Yet our ancestors knew the fairies as creatures of nature: capricious, dangerous, and well-acquainted with the earthly passions. Folklore is filled with cautionary tales outlining the perils of faery seduction, reminding us that a lovely maid met on a woodland path by dusk might be a fairy in disguise; her kisses sweet could cost a man his sanity, or his life.