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

[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?

[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.)

[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 . . . .

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

How is the situation resolved?

A priest perceives that the intended sacrifice has no idea what Ragnar has promised him for and determines that in fact he is not a willing sacrifice. Therefore, the offering is refused.

Nothing bad happens to Ragnar for trying to game the system; he is not shamed or shunned. A member of the extended family/household volunteers for the sacrifice in order to secure the blessing for everyone that a full nine-man sacrifice to Odin is believed to bring.

The show is a bit soapy, and I used FF a bit to get through some of it, but it's got some good earnest bits in it. And Aslaug's shieldmaidens are great.

[sovay]

Nothing bad happens to Ragnar for trying to game the system; he is not shamed or shunned. A member of the extended family/household volunteers for the sacrifice in order to secure the blessing for everyone that a full nine-man sacrifice to Odin is believed to bring.

So what I want to know is whether this emphasis on consent is consistent with Viking sacrificial practice or whether it's a tweak on the screenwriters' part to make the practice of human sacrifice more sympathetic to a modern audience. Because we understand self-sacrifice: it's a heroic standard. Sacrificing other people is pretty strictly a marker of villainy if not outright evil. I'm not saying it never happens, but I am often suspicious when the moral codes of the past align comfortably with our own.

[edit] So I've got a review of an article I can't get access to indicating that Viking sacrifices were less voluntary in ways that can't just be filtered as the prejudice of Christian/Muslim sources. It looks like the author has similar reservations. I'd like to read the article, but the gist of the review makes sense to me. Again, I am not saying that consent/assent/willingness was unimportant to Norse religion—Týr put his hand in the Fenris-wolf's mouth of his own choosing—but I know it's important to our culture, and we're the ones telling this story.

(Incidentally, that issue looks awesome. I would love to read about the ethics of Halloween, Daenerys Targaryen, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Beowulf, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Dammit, I miss my Yale proxy.)

The show is a bit soapy, and I used FF a bit to get through some of it, but it's got some good earnest bits in it. And Aslaug's shieldmaidens are great.

I've been seeing gifs of it on Tumblr for the last couple of years. Visually, at least, it looks great.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

There was a wonderful background bit in one of them when people are preparing for a voyage, much business on the beach, and four shieldmaidens are visible apparently making themselves ritually fit to go to sea by gravely passing a basin from one to the other by rinsing their mouths and spitting and clearing their noses, so they are cleanly and inoffensive (I assume).

Oh, I remember also there's another willing sacrifice, a woman, but she's drugged to the gills. I don't remember the circumstances (there are a lot of deaths in this series).

The series is on Amazon Prime for streaming, so if you have that or access to it, have a look. Skipping the credits and any recap makes it much more manageable.

[sovay]

Oh, I remember also there's another willing sacrifice, a woman, but she's drugged to the gills. I don't remember the circumstances (there are a lot of deaths in this series).

I was in the process of editing my latest reply to you when your comment came in, so I'll just put it here:

Although the review's description of the incident in Ibn Fadlan sounds more like an issue of revoking consent: at first the girl volunteered, but there's no way out built into the ritual for a sacrifice who changes their mind; once she's committed herself, she has to go through with it, whatever the brutality required to kill a person who resists rather than waits for their death. And in fact, according to this translation, that's what we're looking at here: "Having said this ['Who among you will die with him?'–'I shall'], it becomes incumbent upon the person and it is impossible ever to turn back. Should that person try to, he is not permitted to do so. It is usually slave-girls who make this offer." Which goes along with steepholm's suggestion that a willing sacrifice is the ideal, and if the actuality doesn't live up to it, that's not something the ritual acknowledges. Conscious and consenting, high to the point of not caring, or terrified and fighting, the girl is sacrificed just as if she were looking forward to it.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Another Vikingish incident of self-sacrifice, or at least Scandinavian, is Odin's sacrifice of himself on the world-tree for knowledge of the runes, as described in the Hávamál.