Outlander: Syncretism in the Beliefs of Scottish Highlanders

When it comes to understanding the culture of the Scottish Highlanders in the Outlander Series, one must consider their syncretic religion. What is syncretism? Catholics all over the world adhere to the teachings and dogma of the Roman Catholic Church. However, there are certain local differences among the Catholic population. When Christianity began to expand all over Europe, the missionaries encountered people of different cultural backgrounds and, of course, with different religions. In some cases, eliminating the worship of “pagan” deities was impossible. As a result, many deities became saints. Virgin Mary was introduced to those ones who worshipped a goddess. This amalgamation of religions is known as syncretism. Many years ago, as an undergrad student, I came across a good example of syncretism when looking for certain information for an essay. The case in question was in Guatemala (1980s) when a young priest was sent to a an area in which most of the population was indigenous. Everybody in the village believed in the Christian God. However, they also believed in vassal deities with aboriginal names.

In regards to Outlander, Jamie Fraser is probably one of the best examples of a character exhibiting syncretic beliefs. He is attracted to some particular “Places” in which he does some blood offerings. One of these “Places,” the White Spring, is marked by a white boulder with a cross carved on it.

Here is a link to a blog post discussing the White Spring in more detail. 

The Duality of Jamie Fraser or Religion in Outlander

An important detail of the citation in this blog post is what Jamie says about the spring:

“Whatever it is that lives in such water is older than the notion of saints,” he’d assured her.

Which Celtic entity is associated with the springs or other bodies of water? Kelpies and waterhorses do not seem to be friendly enough to be associated with saints. Furthermore, the beginning of the association between Saint Killian and small bodies of water is not clear.

Rites in which blood is withdrawn are not Roman Catholic or Christian in origin. They are a lot older, and would be consider “pagan” by the Church. This includes the Gaelic version of the marriage vows. However, the priest performing the ceremony, as a typical Highlander, did not object to this old practice. It is obvious that the early monks or missionaries who converted the Scottish Highlanders could not eliminate certain ancient religious practices. Throughout the centuries they continue to believe in fairies, silkies, waterhorses, kelpies, changelings and in a variety of charms (I will be writing about charms mentioned in Drums of Autumn soon). This belief in Old Celtic entities is still prominent in the 20th Century, even though it is not promoted by the Church at all.

“There’s no place on earth with more of the old superstitions and magic mixed into its daily life than the Scottish Highlands. Church or no church, Mrs. Baird believes in the Old Folk, and so do all the neighbours.” (“Outlander” 6)

The persistence throughout the centuries associated with the old faith can be attributed to the isolation of the Scottish Highlands, an area that was not accessible until recently. This makes it possible to create a cultural barrier against outsiders and external influences. Furthermore, there was a tendency for people to marry their own until very recently. For example, a year ago I met a couple in their 60s. He is a second generation Italian and she is American of English background. He mentioned to me that back in his youth, his family expected him to marry somebody of Italian background. If this was the case in the 20th century, just imagine how the marriage between Claire and Jamie was seen back in the 18th century. The population isolation in the Scottish Highlands is exposed by Claire in The Fiery Cross when discussing with Roger about blood types. Based on Brianna’s blood type, Claire is able to deduce that Jamie’s blood type has the B allele. According to her, Type B is particularly present in small, isolated populations, a concept that applies to the Scottish Highlanders (1252).

One of the reasons I decided to write this post is Jamie’s fondness of Saint Guignole, whose statue has a resemblance to a charm given to Murdina Bug. 

A charmer, Johnnie Howlat, gave Mrs. Bug a charm to prevent her from miscarrying babies at the expense of her husband’s life.

It was a small chunk of stone, pale pink in color, and veined with gray, badly weathered. It had been crudely carved into the shape of a pregnant woman, little more than a huge belly, with swollen breasts and buttocks above a pair of stubby legs that tapered to nothing. I had seen such figures before – in museums. Had Johnnie Howlat made it himself? Or perhaps found it in his pokings through wood and moor, a remnant of much more ancient times?

Murdina opted to forgo any children in order to spend a life with her husband. She made this choice out of love but at the same time she did what the Roman Catholic Church dictates in regards to the sacrament of marriage: the spouse comes before the children in terms of decision-making. I wrote about the choice of choosing a spouse over children in regards to Jamie and Claire in a post concerning episode 113, “The Watch.”

Claire’s Admission to Being Infertile

Roger MacKenzie confirms that Mrs. Bug’s charm is likely to be thousands of years old based on similar items that he has seen in museums. Based on Claire’s conversation with Mrs. Bug, she is not happy to see Brianna interested in this little charm, even though Roger is looking forward for his wife to touch it .

I could almost imagine that he was willing her to touch the thing, as strongly as I was willing her not to.

The belief of both Claire and Roger that this charm might work even though they share the rational mind of the 20th century is worthy of note. However, this is understandable based on their experiences and abilities as time travellers.

The description of Saint Guignole is comparable to Murdina’s charm.

“He’s invoked against impotence.” The glint got stronger. “I saw a statue of him in Brest once; they did say it had been there for a thousand years. ‘Twas a miraculous statue – it had a cock like a gun muzzle, and -“

“A what?”

“Well, the size wasna the miraculous bit,” he said, waving me to silence. “Or not quite. The townsfolk say that for a thousand years, folk have whittled away bits of it as holy relics, and yet the cock is still as big as ever.” He grinned at me. “They do say that a man wi’ a bit of St. Guignole in his pocket can last a night and a day without tiring.” (“Drums” 1023)

Based on this description it seems that St. Guignole was probably a fertility deity that eventually became a saint with the rise of Christianity in Europe. Is this the case? I decided to check a little bit more about the origins of St. Guignole. I found this page on Wikipedia about phallic saints. 

Phallic Saints

Here is the link to Saint Guignole.

Saint Guignole

Was Saint Guignole (Saint Winwaloe) an actual saint or a deity invoked for fertility? Based on the information detailed for Saint Guignole, it seems that he was an actual saint and not an old deity. Is this saint listed in the Wikipedia article the same one that Jamie is referring to? It is possible since Jamie mentions that he saw an statue of the saint in Brest; the Monastery of Winwaloe is south of Brest. Based on the saint’s dates of birth and death, it is possible for the statue at Brest to be older than thousand years. 

The list of phallic saints detailed in one of the links has some who were most likely deities that predated the Christian era: Saint Guerlichon and Saint Foutin. In regards to Saint Guerlichon, it seems that early missionaries could not stop their converts from worshipping him, and that is why he was canonized.

One thing is certain about the phallic saints: people have been invoking for thousands of years deities with sexually enticing anatomical features for fertility. This practice predated and continued into the Christian era.

I will be writing a little bit more about charms in my next post. However, it is going to take a little bit longer since I am currently working on an Outlander-related project on the side. I am also about to start the seventh book of the series, and I am in the process of collecting information for blog posts from The Fiery Cross and A Breath of Snow and Ashes

The featured image is from Outlander-online.com.

Excerpts from 

Gabaldon, Diana. Outlander. New York: Bantam Books, 1991. Print.

Gabaldon, Diana. The Fiery Cross. New York: Bantam Dell. 2001. Print.

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