I have never seen a more perfect Katherine

Jeepers

This will be more scattered and less considered than my usual post (the kind with shit in it, not the random ones) because I woke up about an hour ago from a dream in which I said to three women "I learned I am the sense of love that pours from the center of the world." They told me that I had to present my case to God, and I realized they were the fates in the maiden-mother-crone aspect. If I provided good reasoning, that was the end of the universe. If I was just being boastful, we would have a party. Since then I have been unable to go back to sleep because I have so many things on my mind, many of which relate to this project.


I am in a class this semester about Celtic and Norse mythology. We just hit mid-term and finished what we are going to discuss about the Celts. I have learned quite a bit, especially about triune goddesses, including that word, which is delightfully concise. I just have a sort of basic and new knowledge of all these things, rattling around in my head in terms of my Katherines.

For one, triune goddesses were a big deal at one point, but they often fell into the form of single goddesses that took care of one of the aspects, for example Morrigan. She was originally threefold, but her warlike crone aspect was the most popular for some reason. Thus she sort of shuffled off the other two, but hints of her original triunity remain in a lot of things. The same for Brigid (who I know much less about), who is one of those virgin goddesses... the Celts really had no use for virgins so her other aspects are much more visible.

There is also this whole concept in pagan societies of sorta... sharing, like the way the Greek and Roman pantheons are very similar with different names. If you have a lot of gods, it's not a big deal to add more. . The way my teacher put it is that if Christianity is presented to a Viking and he converts, he is basically thinking "Now I worship Odin, Thor, and Christ." Then of course similar ones are grouped together and can blend Everything gets mixed around. This is how I currently fit the poor lost child Hecate into the picture, though I still curse my Oxford wall.

When I say the Celts had "no use" for virgins I mean that it is considered a state of stasis, which is unnatural. Apparently one of the biggest stories in the culture is called the winter-summer myth. A virgin is kept locked away by an old crone, and a noble man has to come save her and bring her back into the cycle of things by making her a mother. These stories lingered of course... Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rapunzel. In several the concept of stasis is emphasized by a forced real stasis... the death-like sleeping, which incapacitates the whole kingdom in Sleeping Beauty!

What does this have to do with Katherine? Jeepers creepers, it could be a lot.


That tendency for triune goddesses to lose aspects is very interesting to me, because Katherine is often an old maid. She is a maiden AND a crone, somehow skipping the motherhood and straight into the ornery old lady. And the crone is not really stasis, she just changes the world through destruction rather than creation (which is part of why all three parts even exist in triune goddesses... two sides of a coin as Neil Gaiman would say, I guess the mother is when it lands on its edge.) I had no idea I'd come across such an interesting thematic connection! (Again, think of "Taming of the Shrew" on these terms. O Katherine, my Katherine!)

Then, think Christian era. The new God is unchanging. Virginity is suddenly the goal and a lot of virgin goddesses are suddenly virgin saints. Things get twisted around a lot, but remember Saint Katherine? She has a lot of destruction around her... it is an "everyone dies" story.

The thing that I find exciting is that there are hundreds and hundreds of documented Celtic gods and goddesses, and the Celts... they didn't write shit down. All of this documentation is after Christianity took over. Documented by monks who worship Christian God and no gods before him (though possibly some gods after him). It is probably a tiny fraction of what really exists. The stories of the virgin and crone with the mother left out are everywhere.

I am pretty convinced now, that Katherines somehow fall from this tradition. It is fascinating. We may be clinging to connotations of a name that are practically forgotten and nigh incomprehensible in the world as we currently see it. I mean, even if you remove the influence of Christianity and its obsession with virginity, we have the confused world of feminism. Women should be allowed to do what they want, and basically they are.

Think about Mary in "It's a Wonderful Life," when George doesn't exist. She's an old maid, about to close up the library!! Oh no!! It strikes us as ridiculous today, and probably did so for certain people when it was written. But it isn't really that unusual to consider the fact that she has shut herself out of the gene pool sort of horrible. We don't really subscribe to the concept of "old maids" anymore? But for some reason there is still something about these grumpity ladies who don't want to have babies, even those who want to make different kinds of contributions, that sets them aside, at least puts them in "best friend" status in stories, because there is something off about them.

...And there is of course Cethlenn. That is for another time.

Katherinity

Practical research: I find that giving in to my Katherine-esque tendencies yields a much higher likelihood of getting shit done. For example, at the end of class today I was trapped in the world's warmest lecture hall in a large cluster of people trying to sign the attendance sheet. I'd already signed it, and rather than standing in the shuffle for ten years trying to get out I shouted "Clear a path!"

It totally worked and I am pretty fine with how that makes me look.

I will probably return to looking into this Katherine thing when I've settled into the semester. The wedding is this weekend so afterward all should return to normality.

Where I am

I assume everyone reading this knows I got engaged.

We are planning on a wedding this September, so a lot of my free time is filled up with wedding plans. Research time is few and far between. I'm not giving up, or anything, I just felt like I should explain my absence.

Onowhatnow?

So I worked up some nerve and I emailed the school English language, linguistics, humanities, and a million other things librarian about my problem. Basically it said blah blah Oxford wall blah can you point me at some specific databases because I am lost blah blah.

His response was roughly 4.6 million times better than I expected:

I could locate nothing specifically on the origins of your name in either the MLA Bibliography or the LLBA (the Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts), but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.  If you wish to continue in these two databases, they use the term "onomastics" for research into the history of names.

Two sentences, three useful things and... he tried to actively help me research?? He also gave me some advice on how to go about searching for books in the library on names. I love libraries and I love school.

Retraction

That thing I said about Katherine's beheading is incorrect. I am taking a class in Chaucer - the 2nd Nun's tale is about a virgin saint who was beheaded in that manner. They got mixed together in my head. Sorry!

More about Saint Catherine

The Cult of St Katherine of Alexandria in Late Medieval England  has proven to be fairly interesting. It told a version of her story that encompasses every recorded version with embellishments over time. The details of her martyrdom have been pretty static, other than at some point they decided that angels appeared and took her body to Mt. Sinai.

The details of her life were embellished a lot over time. One of the later additions is that of her "mystical marriage" to Jesus. Not "she became a nun" but she married Jesus, upon Mary's suggestion. He gave her a ring and everything. That is how she was converted, a messenger came and told her how awesome Jesus was and all about his religion. She was one of those uppity young princesses who refuses to marry a man who isn't as perfect as she is. Katherine also refused to marry a man whose mother was not a virgin. So really that's only one option - lucky thing Jesus was available.

After her marriage she obviously didn't see her husband (It's ~300 AD. He's gone). Her parents died and she ruled her kingdom until she was 18 - about four years - and then Maxentius butted in. The story follows from there about as I told it. One detail of her death - after the spiked wheel broke she was sentenced to be beheaded. The executioner couldn't cut through her neck. He gave the back of it three blows and some sort of law prevented him from administering more. So she suffered a slow, painful, bleed-out kind of death during which she continued to try and spread the word to people who visited her.

Neat, huh?!

I don't think I am the only one

I picked up a book today in our scary, gigantic library called The Cult of St Katherine of Alexandria in Late Medieval England. From the table of contents, it seems to have a pretty good overview of the saint in various aspects, and as far as I can tell it has excellent reviews. It was published in 2000 by a woman named... Katherine J. Lewis.

Hahahaha.

That is all, really. Katherine Lewis. I haven't started reading it. I just think it may be the most interesting proof I have, so far, that Katherines are all the same self centered bitch.

Burned by Occam's Razor again.

WHEN one is looking for a dictionary of first names at school, one should begin by looking at the list of available dictionaries and encyclopedias. What the fuck. From the Oxford Dictionary of First Names:

Katherine -  The name is of unknown etymology; the suggestion that it may be derived from Hecate, the pagan goddess of magic and enchantment, is not convincing. From an early date, it was associated with the Greek adjective katharos ‘pure’. This led to spellings with -th- and to a change in the middle vowel.

SO claims I've ready of the association with pure being folk etymology are correct, but it is old enough that it counts. All that is left here is to find out who is associating it with Hecate. Because seriously, you old men are avoiding this topic. Oxford debunks it. From whom. Where is it? Damn them for not needing to explain themselves.

Oxford also gave me more Shakespeare - I've never read any histories so I was unaware: "It was used by Shakespeare for two important characters: the daughter of the King of France who is wooed and won by King Henry V, and the ‘shrew’ in The Taming of the Shrew."

If Shakespeare had such a clear idea of what girls named Katherine are like, where did it COME from??

She's got... τιμή?

I just finished "A Portrait of Hecate." It was a tough read. I couldn't have done it, say... five years ago, because I'm pretty sure the internet wouldn't have supported my need to search in Greek characters. It also isn't what I wanted! It is an analysis of Hecate's presence in Hesiod's Theogeny, rather than something about her. Still, I found some interesting things.

Some random thoughts:

• She is associated with child-rearing, and guarding entryways.
• She overlaps other deities... this specifically mentioned Poseidon, Hermes, Zeus, Ares, and Athena "at least." Basically she is involved with "the daily affairs of men." And people do a lot of things!
• She is "willful." She giveth and she taketh away. The parts that spoke about will felt as though Marquardt was dancing around the idea of the Judeo-Christian God. Not sure what to make of that.
• Actually, it specifies that she does not take away but "takes it for herself." Nice.
• This article doesn't say much about her in her maiden/mother/crone idiom, because Hesiod apparently would not have known her in that form.
• Theodor Kraus is referenced as theorizing that this form appeared when she became associated with Thessalian witchcraft. I was wondering when I would get there. It looks like my research will allow me to understand every allusion in the Sandman if nothing else comes of it.
• I thought a particularly interesting note was that she has nothing to do with sex (or music!) A willful, sexless woman. Very Katherine.

About my title... the one point Marquardt really pushes is of Hecate's τιμή, which basically means honor and value generally considered to be bestowed by Zeus. This is not explained in the article. Philologists are like that. When I start mingling words from foreign languages into my writing without explaining them, shut me down.

UPDATE!:
Okay, so... New World Encyclopedia? Can someone tell me what their deal is? I can't trust religious organizations that don't mention that they are religious organizations, but their sources on this topic seem very good. And they sent me to some interesting places. This is parts of the passage of Theogeny that the article is talking about.

...And she conceived and bare Hecate whom Zeus the son of Cronos honoured above all. (...) For to this day, whenever any one of men on earth offers rich sacrifices and prays for favour according to custom, he calls upon Hecate. (...) Whom she will she greatly aids and advances: she sits by worshipful kings in judgement, and in the assembly whom she will is distinguished among the people. (...) And she is good to stand by horsemen, whom she will: and to those whose business is in the grey discomfortable sea, and who pray to Hecate and the loud-crashing Earth-Shaker, easily the glorious goddess gives great catch, and easily she takes it away as soon as seen, if so she will. (...) So, then. albeit her mother's only child, she is honoured amongst all the deathless gods.

Marquardt was not joking about the emphasis on her will! I was not sure before, but I think that if there is a parallel, it will be findable.

This search is still very frustrating, however. I got seriously creeped out today when I ended up at an ancient Greek/English dictionary written by Henry Liddell. You know, Alice in Wonderland's father.

My next goals: Look into Saint Catherine some more. She is my earliest definite connection. Going from a witch to a saint is not an easy task. Also, I may ask a librarian at school about a good place to look for the etymology of names. A linguistics librarian? An English language librarian? When I decide I will send them an email.

Maybe I should take some classes...

I am cool with the Wiccan embrace of the internet. I'd be pleased if they were a little less fond of the Papyrus font, but otherwise they are ages ahead of most groups of that sort when it comes to the internet. They just aren't particularly good sources for factual information.

And they really like Hecate. This research is tough. Kind of like researching names, there is SO MUCH but it's mostly bull. She is apparently goddess of everything and associated with any goddess you can pick out of a hat. It's very frustrating. If I could just find a professor or something...

I stopped writing there and went to find one. (My imaginary friend Blackbird helped.) Update re: an article called "A Portrait of Hecate" from a 1981 issue of the American Journal of Philology (and wherever that takes me) soon!

Spring break is over, and rather than schoolwork I did this. So maybe I will slow down for a while.

Literary Katherines

This list made me realize I must read a lot of things by chicks. Jump on in with whatever others you can! Also... if you know of any database that can be searched by character name... that would be nice.

Known Katherines:
Katherine - "Taming of the Shrew," Shakespeare (1590ish)
Lady Catherine de Bourgh - Pride and Prejudice, Austen (1813)
Catherine Earnshawe/Linton and daughter - Wuthering Heights, Bronte (1847)
Kate Vaughn - Little Women, Alcott (1869)
Katherine Brooke - Anne of Windy Poplars, Montgomery (1936)
Katherine - Katherine, Min (1995)
This one possibly does not count? She is named because of a language barrier. Chinese doesn't have the "th" sound, so they pronounce it "ka-see-rin" ([kæsirIn]?) which apparently translates to "kill a dead person." I plan to reread it anyway.

Mystery Katherines:
Catherine Barkley - A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway
Katherine Swynford (fictionalized) - Katherine, Seton
Katherine Barlow - Holes, Sachar
Kate Swift - Winesburg, OH, Anderson
Cathy Ames - East of Eden, Steinbeck
Kate Morkan - "The Dead" from Dubliners, Joyce
Katie Nolan - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Smith
Cathy - The House on Mango Street, Cisneros

St. Catherine of Alexandria

SO um... I love the Oxford English Dictionary. Sometimes I think access to it is the only thing keeping me in school. There are certain problems with it, though. I generally don't have a problem with this but... it was conceived in the mid 19th century by white Christian men. So here is their definition of "Catherine":

[F. Catherine, mod.L. Catharina, earlier Katerina, repr. Gr. Αίκατερίνα name of the saint, subseq. assimilated in spelling to καθαρός pure.]

The name of a legendary Saint and Martyr of Alexandria; whence a female Christian name.

St. Catherine of Alexandria's name... thus... a name? Kind of tenuous.

However, something helpful from this can be found if I look at the quote I posted yesterday from that rinkydink name site. Aικια (aikia) is the Greek word for torture. That is definitely there, in the Greek bit of the etymology. Right? So. Here is St. Catherine.

Please don't take me to be any sort of authority on St. Catherine but I can give you an idea of her story.

She was born pagan but converted to Christianity. She thought the Roman Emperor Maxentius (who ruled from 306-312) was horrifyingly cruel and took him on in a debate, which he lost due to his shaky pagan reasoning. He called for (I believe the story goes) 50 philosophers to argue her, and they all admitted that her reasoning was superior. They were executed. Maxentius offered to have Catherine as his consort, which she refused. She was sent to prison. While in prison she converted some important people. They were killed, and she was sentenced to be tortured to death on a spiked wheel, which we now call a Catherine wheel (the firework was named after the torture device.) When she was strapped onto the wheel, it miraculously broke, and they had to kill her some other way.

For a while, Catherine was a REALLY popular saint. Wikipedia pointed me to the Catholic Encyclopedia, which says that her feast (November 25) was often given more attention than those of the apostles... and that she is second only in holiness/awesomeness to the Virgin Mary. The word "cult" is used to describe worship of her.

At some point it was decided that even though the story is great, there isn't really... much... proof for it! She was actually taken off their calendar for a time.

It's a fantastic, overblown story, which I consider very much in the European folkloric tradition. Which leads me, a hopeless heathen, to believe that the story is older. Boisterous, intelligent, learned chick takes on powerful ruler, wins overwhelmingly... and is executed. (YES it is the Katherine story, thank you for paying attention.) A guy like Maxentius comes around and it grows a fixed point in time and suddenly she's a saint. Very interesting stuff.

A whole fucking WORLD made up of Katherines

When I was emerging from my chrysalis of adolescent self-loathing, somewhere in the middle of my junior year of high school I was asked to read something. I have no idea what it was, but it had a character named Katherine in it. "Gawd! Why are people named Katherine always such total bitches?" I said to anyone willing to listen. It was mostly a joke, but over the years my idea of the literary Katherine stuck with me. She is a sort of... demi-archetype, if you will... of bitchy self-centeredness, who undergoes a change in character that is generally brought about by good lovin'. The obvious example is Kate from "Taming of the Shrew."

There the thought sat for years... basically "Dammit, Shakespeare, you're ruining everything." But it often occurred to me that the idea may be older, especially since Shakespeare is mostly the Lord God King of telling old stories. I did turn it into a sort of running theme in my life. I mentioned it as a possible dissertation topic during a presentation (read as: I was trying to impress a boy) and every so often I tried compiling a list.

For some reason, school isn't really the best time to do personal research. I needed a jump start, and this is where we really begin.

Last week I was thinking about anime and the tsundere archetype. I don't know much about it, but after a few minutes of thought I realized that my Katherines fit this archetype. Boom - good morning, your project just became multi-cultural. I may have actually skipped a class to look into it, which is a shame because my research here sort of fell flat! (Expect this kind of transition often.) We don't really have much access to Japan. Anime and manga are great, but I have no idea how much they reflect older traditions. Very likely, this is another project for another time.

However, at the same time I tried looking into the origin of the name. You have no idea how difficult it is to research the origin of a name. It is such a popular thing to do!! There are a million websites devoted to it, and it is impossible to find a reputable source. However, when I stumbled upon this site, I was shocked.

The etymology is debated: it could derive from the earlier Greek name ‘Εκατερινη (Hekaterine), which came from ‘εκατερος (hekateros) "each of the two"; it could derive from the name of the goddess HECATE; it could be related to Greek αικια (aikia) "torture"

The bold is my emphasis. And holy shit. HECATE? I have NEVER seen that before. I have to find where this kind of debate happens! If Katherine is connected with Hecate, this could be a much deeper trend than I imagined. So far I have no leads. Eventually I will find where all these stupid little sites get their research. Most of them... probably get it from other stupid little sites. If anyone who reads this knows, I'd love your help.

Coming up soon: The OED and St. Catherine of Alexandria, a summary of my research on Hecate, and a list of Katherines