OLDER THAN SIN

@croned / croned.tumblr.com

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alright,  but if the house gets burned down then i am not liable for the damages.
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“why you plannin’ on burning down anything? this ain’t an act of worship, baby, we’re just makin’ some treats. go open that book there where it’s bookmarked.”

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Despite Hawthorne's usage of derogatory descriptors for elderly women, his crones characteristically exhibit a sharpness and strength that gainsay cultural stereotypes defining age in terms of loss and decay. The vigor of such characters anticipates work by twentieth-century feminist writers and geropsychologists who observe that older women often discover new potentialities and capabilities in the decades that follow their childbearing years. (6) Simone de Beauvoir contends, for instance, that growing old affords women new experiences of gender, often releasing them from the social and physical constrictions faced in younger years. In older age, she writes,

woman finds herself freed from the servitudes of the female; she is not comparable to a eunuch, because her vitality is intact; however, she is no longer prey to powers that submerge her: she is consistent with herself. It is sometimes said that older women form "a third sex"; it is true they are not males, but they are no longer female either; and often this physiological autonomy is matched by a health, balance, and vigor they did not previously have. (Second Sex 43)

- "The Glory Roundabout Her": Hawthorne, Feminism, and the "Serious Business" of the Aged Crone

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Żywia / Živa / Ziva / Siwa

The early medieval chronicler Helmold mentioned the Slavic goddess whose name he spelled in Latin as “Siwa”. It’s translated to Slavonic languages as Żywia / Živa. It’s not incidental that she appears also in the chronicles of Długosz who called her Żywie. She was the goddess of life and living [the root żyw* / živ*], being in charge over the nature and its annual cycles of rebirth. In the Polish language the verb “żywić” means also to nourish, feed, cherish; and the noun “żywicielka” could describe a provider, breadwinner or a feeding mother.

It is difficult to determine how far away from the Elbe river [inhabitated by the Slavic tribes described by Helmold] and from the early Polish tribes [known as one of the Polish godesses after decriptions by Długosz] was the cult of Żywia spread, or mark the exact areas of Slavonia where she was worshipped as the goddess of life.

Modern research helped to designate that the cult of her was most likely present in the areas of the modern-day Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and eastern Germany [areas formerly inhabitated by the Slavic tribes]. Name Živa is also mentioned in the epic poem by the Slovene poet France Prešeren. 

A rare local legend of the town of Żywiec in southern Poland [yes, the same which is famous for producing the beer] says that the name of the town comes from the name of this goddess - such information was written down in Jan Nepomucen Gątkowski’s book published in 1867 that is describing the Żywiec region.

Source of image: Stanisław Jakubowski “Bogowie Słowian” [”Gods of the Slavs”], 1933. Text is based on the same source, rephrased with corrected grammar and modern English spelling of the names, and contains some additional / updated informations.

For the Polish readers: you might check my bibliography page for more resources under the section dedicated to Slavs and Slavic history.

Check more under my tags Slavic mythology or Polish mythology, and other stories uder the tag tales and legends.

According to legend, a temple of the goddess Živa used to stand where the church on the Bled Island stands today.   {x}

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she’s got all kinds of names. nana, granny, meemaw, ouma, grandma, CRONE, CRONE, CRONE. the last one kinda grows on you, don’t it?

you like your mother goddesses but what about her mother? or the mother before that? what came first, the grandma or her mother? you can scratch your head about it if you want or you can come visit your nan and let the puzzle be a puzzle.

like or reblog if you luv ur meemaw.

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