In all our valleys the light is the same. And it's the light that matters

[sovay]

So I have a theological question.

I am re-reading Elizabeth Goudge's The Valley of Song (1951) for the nth time. It's one of the books where I notice different things with each reading; that's part of the reason it's her best book, although others include the beauty of the writing and the numinous generally busting out all over. This time, a line in the scene in which the protagonist is waiting outside the door to the Valley of Song (only children may enter this country which is called by mortals "Fairyland, or the Garden of Eden, or Arcadia, or the Earthly Paradise, or the Elysian Fields, or some such ridiculous name. We just call it the Workshop," so in order to let someone else go in, Tabitha has taken on some of their years as her own and is now too old herself to be allowed inside) sprang out at me:

Andrew turned to Tabitha, his face radiant. "I may go in!" he said, and he gripped her hand. "Come on, Tabitha."

Tabitha pulled her hand away and leaned against the wall, hiding her face, and the same misery that had overwhelmed her when Julie went in without her came over her again. This dreadful shut-out and cast-away feeling! She had never felt so wretched. She had not known one could feel so miserable. Her voice came to Andrew from behind her hands, muffled and forlorn. "I can't go in with you. I'm too old."

"Too old? You can't be!" said Andrew, and he pulled her hands away from her face.

"Five years too old!" sobbed Tabitha. "I'm fifteen. I can't go in."

There was a long and anguished silence, while Andrew struggled to make up his mind about something, then he took a deep breath. "Then I'm not going in either," he said. "If you're shut out, I'll be shut out too."

Tabitha liked to hear him say that. It was almost worth being shut out to hear him say that. The door swung wide and a great breath of life-giving air blew through it.

"Come in, both of you," said the splendid voice, and there was almost a note of celestial impatience in its splendour. "Little girl, you carried that burden well, but long enough for a child. Come in and be with him. He'll need firm handling. Boy, you were ready to be exiled with her, and the readiness is all. Am I to be until the Last Trump holding this door open?"

Those of you who have read Mary Renault may be nodding already, because this is a concept I learned first from The King Must Die (1958):

"Horses go blindly to the sacrifice, but the gods give knowledge to men. When the King was dedicated, he knew his moira. In three years, or seven, or nine, or whenever the custom was, his term would end and the god would call him. And he went consenting, or else he was no king, and power would not fall on him to lead the people. When they came to choose among the Royal Kin, this was his sign: that he chose short life with glory, and to walk with the god, rather than live long, unknown like the stall-fed ox. And the custom changes, Theseus, but this token never. Remember, even if you do not understand . . . It is not the sacrifice, whether it comes in youth or age, or the god remits it; it is not the bloodletting that calls down power. It is the consenting, Theseus. The readiness is all."

Where does this idea originate? Is it as simple as going back to the Binding of Isaac: that it was enough for Abraham to be willing to sacrifice his son? Is there a more complicated aetiology I don't know about, or a particularly Christian significance that would have been important to Goudge? I happen to believe it, just as I believe that an unconsenting sacrifice has no power (see Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn (1968): "Real magic can never be made by offering someone up else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back. The true witches know that"), and I think it is not an uncommon belief. But I don't know where it comes from, if it doesn't come from the story I thought of first, and I'm curious.

Comments

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

I second the Hamlet citation; it's certainly what leaped out at me.

Tangential to the sacrifice topic: I came up with a notion for a magic system years ago (and never did anything with it), based around the notion of Conservation of Uncertainty. You can make unlikely (or at least uncertain) things guaranteed to happen, but only by trading off *increased* uncertainty somewhere else. If you want to do a very large magical working, say to ensure a good harvest or a nation's success in war, you need an equally large vector of uncertainty -- the traditional implementation of which would be to put the King into a situation where he had a 50% chance of dying. As Kings grew in political power, this practice got corrupted into the ceremonial and/or proxy 'sacrifices' that we see in recorded history. Such practices don't actually work (in a magical sense), but they had a lot of cultural inertia behind them.

[sovay]

Consent, or at least not active opposition, is thought (I BELIEVE) to be a reason for sacrificed humans to be drugged in some way. Get them so high they're happy when they go, kind of thing.

Heh. I'm not sure that counts as consent from my perspective, but I'll accept archaeological arguments to the contrary.

[ETA: And it shows up in Iphigeneia, too...]

Yes! See replies to rushthatspeaks and nineweaving—I was looking for a Christian origin, but I might just start with the classics and branch out from there. The thing is that I don't actually expect consenting sacrifice in all cultures, although it might be nice to think so. Human sacrifice is the sort of thing that's hard to study because it can so easily tip over into blood libel, but when you're looking at, say, the burial of a royal person with the bodies of all their slaves or retainers around them—Cahokia, Ur, Pazyryk burials—I'm willing to believe that not everyone in those tombs had a say in the matter.

The idea recently turned up in The Vikings when the family go to the big shindig at Uppsala and it turns out that Ragnar Lothbrok had pledged a sacrifice who wasn't actually willing to do it.

How is the situation resolved?

[sovay]

Such practices don't actually work (in a magical sense), but they had a lot of cultural inertia behind them.

I've never been sure whether the sacrifice at the end of The Wicker Man (1973) will work or not. In terms of ritual practice, the victim has fitted himself for the part, but in terms of willingness, he's unconsenting all the way. We'd have to see the harvest on Summerisle next year. Sergeant Howie may be quite right that Lord Summerisle, who could not after all get away with a substitute king, will be the one in flames next May Day.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

In her autobiography, The Joy of the Snow. Somewhere in my library, as it's been for years, but thanks to derspatchel, I could lay my hands on it. All praise, the alphabet!

The other two are The Dean's Watch, set in her beloved Ely, and The White Witch, because she'd fallen in love with Pembrokeshire.

Nine

[sovay]

Somewhere in my library, as it's been for years, but thanks to derspatchel, I could lay my hands on it. All praise, the alphabet!

Oh, wonderful! I'm glad you have it back.

The other two are The Dean's Watch, set in her beloved Ely, and The White Witch, because she'd fallen in love with Pembrokeshire.

You know, I was guessing The Dean's Watch, but I would not have expected The White Witch. I can remember barely anything about that one except that I don't think it worked for me. Does it read very well in terms of landscape?

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Oh, wonderful! I'm glad you have it back.

Me too! You wouldn't believe what's been excavated. It's like having a whole new library.

Does it read very well in terms of landscape?

I can't remember! The Dean's Watch reads like a beloved book, and is clearly one of her strongest.

Nine

[sovay]

The Quran, however, states that Abraham's son (who is not directly named in the telling; scholars have argued it may have been Abraham's eldest, Ismail) consents after Abraham tells him of the vision of sacrifice he received.

Thank you, preacher's kid!

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I know that Mesoamerican sacrificial practices included both the consenting and unconsenting sort; I can't recall whether the notion that the former is more powerful is actually from the historical record, or something my brain grafted on at one point when I was telling Mesoamerican-based stories of various kinds. I was always particularly fascinated by what sometimes gets called auto-sacrifice: self-inflicted bloodletting, which doesn't sound that bad until you read about the details of how they did it. (Which I will happily share, but only if you first tell me you don't mind a dose of gruesomeness.)

[sovay]

I know that Mesoamerican sacrificial practices included both the consenting and unconsenting sort

Do you remember which sorts went with which practices?

I was always particularly fascinated by what sometimes gets called auto-sacrifice: self-inflicted bloodletting, which doesn't sound that bad until you read about the details of how they did it. (Which I will happily share, but only if you first tell me you don't mind a dose of gruesomeness.)

I am familiar with Mayan myth and ritual, so unless we're talking a TMI step up from barbed ropes and stingray spines through the tongue and genitals, I'll be fine.

(To be honest, chances are I'll be fine even if we are. Almost all of the things I find difficult to think about are emotional in nature, not physical, and almost never related to violence or gore. This causes the occasional problem where I recommend someone something I did not realize they would find disturbing, because I didn't.)

[sovay]

In English folklore, you're supposed to ask certain trees' consent before you lop them.

What happens if you don't?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Looking at this through the other end of the telescope, if I were a god I would certainly prefer sacrifices to be willing: they taste much sweeter when they're not stressed out (ask any slaughterman).

It seems that a lot of ritual practice is designed in one way or another to disguise unwilling sacrifices as willing ones. Just as the temporary king is meant to be accepted as the real king (well, he's got a crown don't he?), the unwilling sacrifice is to be accepted as the willing one (well, Sgt. Howie ran to the right spot of his own accord, didn't he?). Gods aren't stupid, but accept this kind of clumsy legerdemain when the real thing isn't available. It does suggest though that willingness is the ideal, or just possibly the original, form of the thing.

On a human level, many time-honoured institutions couldn't function if unmeant words weren't taken as meant in the right ritual circumstances - i.e. as part of the marriage vow in an arranged marriage.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Do you remember which sorts went with which practices?

Auto-sacrifice was consenting (or at least I presume it generally was, for values of "consenting" that include "my political status means I'm expected to do this even if I reeeeeeeeeally would prefer not to"); I think the rain sacrifice was supposed to be consenting. The ritualized and extended torture of enemy captives and their eventual execution, not so much. That's all I recall off the top of my head, as it's been a solid decade since this stuff was fresh in my mind.

I am familiar with Mayan myth and ritual, so unless we're talking a TMI step up from barbed ropes and stingray spines through the tongue and genitals, I'll be fine.

You already know what I was going to describe, then. :-)

Almost all of the things I find difficult to think about are emotional in nature, not physical, and almost never related to violence or gore.

Likewise. (I've often reflected on the fact that if you asked me to list the top five most horrible things I've ever done to a character, I don't think a single one of them would be physical.) But I figure I should ask before trotting out tales of barbed ropes pulled through pierced genitalia on somebody else's blog . . . .

[sovay]

Looking at this through the other end of the telescope, if I were a god I would certainly prefer sacrifices to be willing: they taste much sweeter when they're not stressed out (ask any slaughterman).

Poem, please.

the unwilling sacrifice is to be accepted as the willing one (well, Sgt. Howie ran to the right spot of his own accord, didn't he?)

Heh. See reply above to alexx_kay.

Gods aren't stupid, but accept this kind of clumsy legerdemain when the real thing isn't available. It does suggest though that willingness is the ideal, or just possibly the original, form of the thing.

That makes sense to me. How far back, though, can you trace the idea that willingness is an acceptable substitute for action—as well as a necessary component of the successful sacrifice?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

The Abraham-Isaac example is the earliest that occurs to me, too. Though there's an interesting variant in the judgement of Solomon, where the mother gains her son once she demonstrates her willingness to lose him.

[sovay]

The Abraham-Isaac example is the earliest that occurs to me, too.

Jephthah doesn't count because he actually sacrifices his daughter. I hadn't thought of the mother in the story of Solomon; thank you!

As soon as I finished my reply to you, I went crazy trying to find a story I remembered from Jewish folklore: when the ritual is lost and only the memory of it remains, remembering the ritual is sufficient to make it work; telling the story is as strong as the thing itself. It looks like it was collected by Martin Buber and retold by Elie Wiesel in The Gates of the Forest (1966):

When the great Rabbi Israel Ba'al Shem-Tov saw misfortune threatening the Jews it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light the fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted.

Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Magid of Mezritch, had occasion, for the same reason, to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say: "Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer." And again the miracle would be accomplished.

Still later, Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sasov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say: "I do not know how to light the fire, I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient." It was sufficient and the miracle was accomplished.

Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: "I am unable to light the fire and I do not know the prayer; I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is tell the story, and this must be sufficient." And it was sufficient.

God made man because he loves stories.

That would be an argument in favor of the independent power of willingness, I think. The ritual is not needed if the desire is there.

(I didn't read it in Wiesel, though, so I'm still going crazy trying to figure out who else retold it that I would have read. Either it's in a collection by Howard Schwartz I don't own or it's used in a novel or a short story I can't remember. This doesn't exactly narrow it down. It feels like Peter S. Beagle, but I don't think it is.)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That's a great story! And storyteller's moral at the end, there.

I like it partly because it's so ambiguous: is it a story about God's infinite mercy (he'll accept the sacrifice no matter how etiolated and malformed because he's that kind of person he is) or about a paring away to the the essentials - revealing the ritual accoutrments as utlimately disposable props? Certainly, if the sequence had ended with someone standing in the forest saying, "I've got a goat, a fire and a piece of paper with special words, but darned if I know what I'm doing here," it would be unlikely to have had such a happy conclusion.

Another parallel! Reepicheep's tail is restored after the other mice say they'll cut their own tails off in solidarity. That's in Dawn Treader, just a couple of years after Goudge.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think it goes back into prehistory- and was already old and perhaps not fully understood when it began cropping up in the written records.

The prehistoric example that comes to my mind is Lindow Man- a sacrificial victim who turned up well-preserved in a bog in Cheshire. Examination of the body suggested he had been a member of the elite- smooth hands, manicured nails- and that he'd been rather well treated up to the moment of his death. These things don't prove consent but rather suggest it.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

It surely can't be only springing from a biblical tradition; it must occur anywhere that people think about sacrifice. Not to say that cultures *don't* make unwilling sacrifices--clearly they do--but especially in the case of a personally undertaken sacrifice, the two most powerful components seem to be that it's a genuine sacrifice (i.e., it doesn't count to offer up something you don't care about) and that you're doing it with full consent.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

God made man because he loves stories.

That's a great thought.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

It must float around, because my late grandfather, a United Church of Canada (similar to United Methodists) minister, quoted it in the intro to his memoirs.

[zdenka]

I don't know if this helps you figure out where you saw it, but I first heard it read aloud by the rabbi conducting High Holy Days services at the MIT Hillel.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

I know I've seen this story in a Schwartz anthology. I'm pretty sure it's in The Captive Soul of the Messiah.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

The Wicker Man is one of Kestrell's favorite movies, so we discuss it often. Yeah, it would be dramatically appropriate for Lord S to have to go willingly himself, and I think he would.

Kes wants to see a modern-day sequel, where Summerisle is now a data haven. Given Christopher Lee's age during the original, we figure his heir was probably off at college, so even if dad did have to sacrifice himself, that wouldn't necessarily mean the end of the line.

[sovay]

I know I've seen this story in a Schwartz anthology. I'm pretty sure it's in The Captive Soul of the Messiah.

Thank you! It wasn't in either of the collections I owned, but it felt exactly like the sort of thing he would have retold. The problem is that I really feel I encountered it first in a fictional context that wasn't Wiesel, and that could be almost anyone.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

The midrashim generally make him a willing participant, both by taking particular note of chronology in a way that makes him 37 (thus stronger than his ged father) and in at least one text (I'm too lazy, and too covering in sleeping baby, to look up which/how many versions) have him tell Abraham to bind him so that he won't unwillingly flinch and spoil the sacrificial cut.