Witchlines: Bird-Woman’s Foot

This next tale for Witchlines, in relation to The Frog Princess, is inspired by a clay temple model from Old Europe, which has a bird’s head above the body of the structure, and a leg and human foot below. In this strange object is a mixture of ideas and symbolism: of the Neolithic Goddess in her guise of Bird-Woman; of the sacred work of women (weaving, bread-making, pottery), which took place in Old European temples; of the structure and meaning of the temples themselves—the womb-like sanctuary of transformation, the microcosm of the Goddess’s body; of the bird-like Baba Yaga, whose house stands on chicken legs … This is the story that grew from this intriguing vessel. 

Temple model found at Aszód north of Budapest, placed in the grave of a young girl, 49th–47th centuries B.C.
(Image from The Civilisation of the Goddess, by Marija Gimbutas, p. 84) 

Bird-Woman’s Foot

Once, in an old, old land, there was a village. In that village, in the centre of the many houses, was a building—a temple—and inside the temple, which was painted with spirals in red and white, was an oven with a round dome. Inside the oven bread was baking, round domes of dough rising and fattening, like babies in a womb. Beside the oven, which radiated its generous warmth into the room, sat three women: one old, one in the prime of life, and one just barely out of girlhood. They were all very wise, in their three different ways. The oldest woman sat at a loom, weaving, her hands moving rhythmically; the middle woman brushed flour from her hands as she checked the bread did not burn; and the young woman was dreaming, and singing out her dream as she sat on a low stool in the dimmest corner of the room.

Inside the dream-song she sang was a tale the three women knew well, for it had been told, mother to daughter, forever; and inside the tale was a beginning.

*

In the beginning, Bird-Woman flew everywhere. There was nothing her wings did not touch, did not bless with their flight; there was no place that was not her. Then, one clawed foot touched the ground, followed by the other, sinking into sweet smelling soil. Here, she said, is earth. Standing now, she flapped her massive wings, and raised her regal head, and the winds unfurled and clouds gathered. Here is sky. She looked down at her round belly, and felt an egg forming inside. Here is water, womb and dream. 

With her fierce and gentle heart, Bird-Woman loved what had been born from herself, and what was yet to be born, and she spread her wings wide in protection of all that is, was, and will be. Then she sang.

And in her song was the force that created life from death and death from life, and time spiralled out and danced.

*

Inside the temple, where the three women did their sacred work, opposite the domed oven, was an altar, on which sat a small temple. A model made of clay, it had a rounded, hollow body with a proudly uplifted bird’s head; below the body was a leg, a column, on a wide-soled foot. A temple within a temple—Bird-Woman inside herself, in the village, in the old, old land, that was inside her.

The foot was the foot that had first touched earth. The head was the head that had first made sky. And the body was the womb from which all things were born.

Each woman knew, from the tale of the beginning, and from the temple model, that we are connected to the earth by our soles, and our souls. Like Bird-Woman’s foot, like tree root, like snake belly, we touch the ground; we raise our heads and see the sky; and in our bellies we carry our dreams. By our life-making, our movement, our dreaming, and our deaths, and by the mingling of earth, sky, water and dream, we are made whole. Life-energy travels from earth through sole into body out to sky, and from sky into body through sole into earth.

From the altar, Bird-Woman, with her earth-bound foot, watched the women doing the work of creation. The old woman paused her weaving to admire the fine cloth she had made. The middle woman took the golden-brown loaves from the oven and looked at the food she had created. And the young woman kept singing out her dream, knowing that Bird-Woman’s wings were still spread wide in protection of all that is, was, and will be.