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Theresa Louisa Walmsley-Hall

Theresa Louisa Walmsley-Hall is the pen name of Teri Anne Walmsley; Hall being the surname of her maternal grandmother, Marie (pronounced Ma-ri). Theresa has an Open University Batchelor of Arts Honours Degree, (1989) a City and Guilds Further and Adult Teacher Training Certificate (1995) and an Open University Postgraduate Certificate in Education (1997). Au fait with distance learning techniques, Theresa is a prose writer specializing in non-fiction who, at the age of sixty-nine, has self-published a history of the women’s movement; (1169-2019) a history of the cultural legacy of civilization (3300 BCE-CE 1615) and an introduction to philosophy (3300 BCE-CE 2005). A humanist and a radical liberationist; in common with the 19th century French feminist writers, Jeanne Desirée Véret Gay, Pauline Roland and Suzanne Voilquin, Theresa prefers to use her forename rather than her patriarchal surname.

Contents (hide)                                                Theresa Louisa Walmsley-Hall

1. Early Life and Education

2. University                                        Photograph

3. Blackburn, Lancashire

4. Radical Liberation:                          Birth Name: Theresa Anne Heaney

5. Publications                                     Nationality: Anglo-Irish

Born: 6th April 1949 (age 69)

Father’s Name: Thomas Bernard Heaney

Mother’s Name: Joyce Heaney née MacEwen

Married Name: Teri Anne Walmsley

Pen Name: Theresa Louisa Walmsley-Hall

Husband: Neil Walmsley

University: The Open University

Qualifications: B.A. Honours Degree in Combined Arts

Post Graduate Certificate in Education

Further and Adult Teacher Training Certificate

Interests: Distance Learning Techniques

Feminist Theory & Ethics

Mainstream & Feminist Philosophy

Sociology: Change and Evolution

The Historical Legacy of Civilization

Culture, Mythology & Legend

1. Early Life and Education:

Born to an Irish father and an English mother; Theresa Anne Heaney was raised in London and has four younger brothers. Educated at the Annunciation Convent Junior School, Burnt Oak, Edgeware; St Thomas Convent School, Stanmore, Middlesex and St James Convent School, Burnt Oak, Edgeware; she gained GCE O Levels in English Language and English Literature and started work at the age of sixteen, as a Tracer at the G.P.O. Research Station, Dollis Hill. Married at seventeen, she gave birth to her first daughter in April 1967 and to her second daughter in February 1968. In 1979, Teri remarried. Her third daughter was born in April 1980 in Kettering, Northamptonshire.

2. University:

In 1982, Teri gained GCE O Levels in Sociology and Mathematics and subsequently enrolled with the Open University undertaking the Combined and General Arts Course: English Literature, History, Philosophy, Social Science, Music and Art, and, in 1989, was awarded a Batchelor of Arts Honours Degree. Refused admission to a Teacher Training College, she undertook the Professional Women Returners Programme (1990) at Nene College, Northampton and was subsequently employed by Northampton County Council as their Litter Abatement Officer.

3. Blackburn, Lancashire:

Following her move to Blackburn; Teri married Neil Walmsley, whose brother, Lionel Morton, was the lead singer of the musical group, The Four Pennies. Their hit single, Juliet (1964) kept the Beatles and the Rolling Stones from the number one position in the U.K. Singles Chart. Lionel married the stage, screen and television actress, Julia Foster, with whom he has a daughter.

In 1995, Teri completed the City and Guilds Further and Adult Teacher Training Course at Blackburn Technical College and, enrolling with the Open University, undertook her teacher-training at Rhyddings High School. Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire. She was awarded her Post Graduate Certificate in Education in 1997 and for several years worked as a supply teacher. In 2002, the couple moved to Almeria, Andalucía in Southern Spain.

4. Radical Liberation:

Theresa Walmsley-Hall upholds the radical belief that it is necessary to dismantle patriarchal governmental and legal organizations and destroy the capitalist owner-worker system and calls for the reordering of society in order to eliminate male supremacy in legal, social and economic contexts. Theresa is critical of the gender pay-gap; patriarchal gender roles, on-line misogyny; the feminization of poverty; workplace sexual harassment; slut-shaming and victim-blaming; domestic violence, marital rape and intimate partner femicide; corrective rape and lesbicide; female genital mutilation; forced arranged marriages and honour killings; sex-trafficking and involuntary prostitution.

5. Publications:

Compiled in chronological order; in HERSTORY: from Quill Pen to Internet: 1169-2019: the Quest of the Second Sex, (2019) Theresa Louisa Walmsley-Hall argues that almost all societies worldwide are patriarchal having social systems in which a male élite is socially privileged and holds power and moral authority; gender, race and class differentiations reinforcing inequality thereby helping to make the system of domination and subordination appear to be natural.

HERSTORY: from Quill Pen to Internet includes writers, novelists and biographers, journalists and academic theorists from Mediaeval, Renaissance and Enlightenment wordsmiths to the current Feminists, Pro-feminists, Womanists and Humanists who recognize that liberation from oppression involves the refusal to accept cultures that support subservience and deference, violence, prejudice and bigotry.

The European female literary debate was instigated in 1402 by Christine de Pizan, a prominent Italian French mediaeval ethicist who maintained that she had difficulty in finding a book by any male author which did not devote at least one chapter to belittling or attacking women. In their letters and essays, female Renaissance Humanists discussed such concerns as the inferior position of women in society; the exclusion of women from public life and political discussion; provided counter-arguments to the male assertion that the female gender is intellectually and morally inferior; proposed a morality that would raise the female gender to intellectual and sexual parity; discussed female contributions to intellectual life; and expounded the virtues of womankind.

HERSTORY: from Quill Pen to Internet also includes female activists and their male supporters who, since 1907, have participated in demonstrations including the U.K. Mud March, the U.S. Suffrage Hikes and the Suffrage Procession; the Suffragette and Silent Sentinel protests; the Lavender Menace protest; Reclaim the Night marches; and the Greenham Common Peace Camp protest. Since 2011, SlutWalks have been held annually, many on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. In most Spanish-speaking countries SlutWalks were renamed Marcha de las P.U.T.A.S; (Por Una Transformacíon Auténtica y Social). In 2011, Argentina, Brazil and Colombia held simultaneous demonstrations.

The first Women’s March was a worldwide protest held on 21st January 2017 in order to protect legislation and policies regarding human rights that include a woman’s right to contraception and abortion; immigration and healthcare reforms. Worldwide, an estimated 4.8 million people participated in at least six hundred rallies.

In the U.S.A, the second Women’s March was held on Saturday 20th January 2018. The following day, at a demonstration in London named The Time’s Up Rally, organisers argued that time’s up for the systematic, politically motivated underfunding of social services; time’s up for gender-based violence and sexual harassment; time’s up for victimizing rape survivors and allowing their abusers to avoid accountability; time’s up for the misogynistic abuse of the female gender by social medias and time’s up for cultures that socialise men to believe that they are entitled to women’s bodies.

In more than thirty countries around the world, women gathered together on Saturday 19th January 2019 in order to participate in the Global Women’s Wave, a march held in order to protest against violence towards the female gender and the impact of policies of austerity. Named ‘Bread and Roses’ (2019) the London march was held in honour of the Polish-born American feminist, Rose Schneiderman who, following the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911 in which one hundred and forty-six mainly female garment-industry workers had died; asserted that the worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too.

The march also reflected the hunger of the current marchers to thrive and not just survive on bread; organisers accusing a patriarchal government of ignoring the feminization of poverty and the gender pay-gap. Theresa maintains that, united by the invisible bonds of internet on-line technology; men, women and younger people who consider social responsibility to be a matter of common sense are enabled to fight in support of a more just and equitable humanitarian world.

In her book, Mightier than the Sword: an Introduction to the Philosophical Quests to discover the Nature of the Cosmos and How Best to Live (2019) Theresa Louisa Walmsley-Hall traces the development of philosophy, a social science that embodies rationally critical thinking of a systematic kind about fundamental problems concerning such diverse matters as the essence of the Cosmos; the nature of reality; the abstract concept of being; the justification of belief and the conduct of life; whether the world is divided into mind and matter and, if so, what is mind and what is matter; or whether there is a way of living that is noble and, if so, how it can be achieved.

The ancient Sumerians conceptualized a code of law that embodied the fundamental controlling principles of the Universe and established the Aristocratic Code of Honour, an ethical and moral system that places value on honour, hospitable guest-friendship, courteous and respectful behaviour and readiness to help the weak and defenceless. In his ethical quest to know how best to live; in circa 2380 BCE, Urukagina of Lagaš decreed ordinances that protected ordinary citizens from exploitation by government, the priesthood and large property owners.

The founder of the Neo-Sumerian Empire, Ur-Nammu’s code of law reflected an enlightened judicial philosophy that included the concept of monetary compensation. Hammurabi of Babylon described Sumer as the great land of divine law that had set the ethical ideals of civilization upon humankind, lofty ideals robed in enduring light. The ruler of an aggressive patriarchal society; the principal of Hammurabi’s code of law, Lex Talionis, (An Eye for An Eye) reveals the Amorite emperor’s belief in the necessity for retaliatory retribution.

In her book, Mightier than the Sword, Theresa Walmsley-Hall also includes the Hindu and Buddhist philosophies of Ancient India; Hellenic (Greek) philosophy including the Pythagoreans, Eleatics and Atomists, Socrates and Plato; and Hellenistic philosophy which broadly applies to Cynicism, rooted Plato’s Academy; Skepticism, established in the Lyceum, Aristotle’s ‘peripatetic’ school, so named from his custom of walking whilst teaching; Epicureanism, practiced in the Garden School of Epicurus; and Stoicism, named for the stoa poikile (painted porch) under which Zeno of Citium taught. Roman philosophers include Marcus Tullius Cicero, Lucius Annaeus Seneca ‘the Younger’ and Marcus Aurelius who continued to strive to discover how true happiness can be achieved and how to free humankind from the fear of death. Neoplatonists include Plotinus who maintained that two movements run throughout the whole of Nature; the coming-out of all things from their original unitary source and their subsequent return to source.

According to Theresa, from the late 8th century, philosophical activity was centred in Baghdad's new academy, the Bayt al-Hikma (House of Wisdom). Widely renowned as the first person to write philosophy in Arabic; Al Kindi was the first of the Moslem peripatetic philosophers; whilst Abû Naşr al-Fârâbĩ (aka Alpharabius) was a Neoplatonist who bears the title ‘Second Teacher’ for his achievement in logic. The most abstract Moslem Neoplatonist, Ibn Gabirol (aka Avecebrol) considered the ethical question of how an understanding of one’s own nature helps one to understand the nature of being in order to better inspire the doing of good deeds; whilst Ibn Sina (aka Avicenna) is best known for his philosophical distinction between essence and existence.

An Irish Neoplatonist, John ‘Scotus’ Eriugena’s treatise, On the Division of Nature was written in Greek. Eriugena considered Nature under four headings: that which creates and is uncreated; that which is created and creates; that which is created and does not create; and that which neither creates nor is created. The complexity and sophistication of Eriugena’s work throws a favourable light on 9th century Irish culture.

Practiced by all major philosophers of the twelfth century, Scholasticism remained the dominant European philosophy until the 15th century when it gave way to Renaissance Humanism, a philosophy that emphasizes human status, achievements, interests and authority. Humanist leading doctrines were that reason is one’s central capacity; that all people are equal in respect of rationality; and that beliefs must be based of reason, critical thinking and evidence.

Theresa Louisa Walmsley-Hall also considers the philosophers of the 17th century Age of Enlightenment including Reneé Descartes, a leading figure in Continental Rationalism, a theory that asserts that knowledge acquired by reason is the proper basis for regulating ethics, morals and conduct. An advocate of Materialism; Thomas Hobbes developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought: the rights of the individual; the natural equality of humankind; and the artificial character of political order; whilst John Locke defined the self as a conscious, thinking thing capable of happiness and misery. Voltaire praised English Constitutionalism and freedom of thought thereby criticizing their lack in France; whilst Jean-Jacques Rousseau distinguished between natural inequality which is a product of nature and political inequality which causes differences in power and wealth.

According to Theresa, Immanuel Kant maintained that the Age of Reason was the emergence of humankind from self-imposed infancy. The term ‘infancy’, Kant defined as an inability to use one’s reason without the guidance of another and ‘self-imposed’ because it depends on a deficiency, not of reason, but of the resolve and courage to use reason without external guidance. A German philosopher, Johann Fichte argued that revealed religion is an important element in the moral education of imperfect humanity.

Johann von Herder asserted that history does not begin with a contract or divine intervention but develops out of Nature in a process characterized by continuity, evolution and design; Johann von Goethe viewed Nature as a living unity in which mind and matter are inextricably linked; Friedrich von Schelling maintained that every natural phenomenon has its place in a logically ordered system of development; Nature beginning in the emergence of matter from the forces of attraction and repulsion and ending in the human organism, the embodiment of practical reason; Georg Hegel emphasized how human ideas, particularly beliefs and values, shape society; Arthur Schopenhauer was convinced that the world is a godless, irrational affair of ceaseless striving and suffering; whilst Frederic Nietzsche asserted that religion poisoned the wellsprings of human vitality.

With regard to 20th century philosophers, Theresa Walmsley-Hall asserted that George Moore had focused on the indefinability of the word ‘good’ arguing that no matter what definition is proposed, the question can always be asked, ‘But is that good?’ Bertrand Russell led the early twentieth century British revolt against Idealism, the doctrine that thought or the mind is the only reality and that external objects consist merely of ideas; whilst Jean-Paul Sartre maintained that human beings are the only living creatures that are conscious of their own existence, ‘who I am’ being far more important than ‘what I am’.

Considering feminist philosophers, Theresa Walmsley-Hall maintains that, in 1949, Simone de Beauvoir had argued that Western culture treats females as a second sex compelled to assume the status of the ‘other’ since the standard human being is implicitly defined as male; in the 1950s Karen Horney had rejected Freud’s patriarchal assumption of a castration complex, maintaining that he had merely identified female jealousy of male power and control; and that Phillipa Foot’s Virtue Ethics emphasized the role of character and the virtues that character embodies for evaluating ethical behaviour.

In the 1960s, Jo Freeman argued that the word Bitch serves the social function of discrediting females who incorporate qualities traditionally defined as masculine because they threaten patriarchal social values; whilst, in 1970, Germaine Greer explored how a male-dominated world affects a female’s sense of self; how sexist stereotypes undermine female rationality, autonomy, power and sexuality; and criticized the patriarchal creation of female stereotypes maintaining that the male marketing of female sexuality separates a woman from her erotic carnality thus turning her into a eunuch.

Theresa further asserts that, in 1974, Luce Irigaray had maintained that, within philosophy, the identification of certain dominant topics or interests with masculine values implicitly or explicitly excluded women because traditional philosophy has constructed the world according to a single patriarchal perspective that excludes or suppresses the feminine; Catharine MacKinnon had argued that sexual harassment is employed by patriarchal society in order to reinforce social inequality; whilst Patricia Hill Collins had asserted that a powerful male élite classifies all females in terms of their position to a White male hub, the Black woman defined as the Negative Other.

In her book, Culture, Mythology and Legend; the Legacy of Civilization, (2019) Theresa Louisa Walmsley-Hall reveals that the techniques and conventions displayed in Sumerian and Babylonian literature are inherent in Hellenic, Hellenistic, Roman, Persian, Celtic and European mythology, epics and legends; knights, champions and heroes displaying virtues that include chivalry and heroism, bravery and honour, generosity and restraint, patience and self-control, shrewdness and determination, endurance and resourcefulness; but also vices that include jealousy and impulsiveness, greed and deceit, duplicity and corruption.

The oldest documented deities in the world, the Sumerian gods and goddesses were the deification of the elements of the cosmos and the forces of nature. Governing every aspect of life, their principle roles were the prosperity of the land and the defence of civilization. Theresa asserts that, whilst few Sumerian monarchs believed themselves to be divine; Sumerian kings were the originators of the concept of the divine right to rule, the belief that the sovereign is subject to no earthly authority but derives his prerogative directly from the will of the gods.

The Sumerians created the first legend involving a primordial battle fought between the forces of good and evil and the earliest of the seasonal confrontation legends that explain the seasonal demise of the green world to drought. The Sumerian semi-divine super-hero, Gilgameš (c. 2600 BCE) is the first recorded ‘Knight in Shining Armour’ the champion of Inanna, goddess of the Morning and Evening Star (Venus).

Composed for an aristocratic audience, the retelling of epic stories had a moral purpose. In Sumerian literature, Gilgameš displays debilitating flaws that include a vanity to exhibit his physical prowess, his endless feats of strength exhausting the young men of the city. Furthermore, expected to be the shepherd of his sheepfold, Gilgameš behaves more like a rampant bull sexually harassing the daughters of his warriors and exercising his droit de seigneur (right of the master) over the virgin brides of young men. The Old Babylonian creation epic, Enuma Elish, is named after its opening words, ‘When on High’. In the Old Babylonian epic, Gilgameš, He who saw the Watery Deeps, (c. 1600 BCE) the Mesopotamian super-hero is depicted as coarse and arrogant, conceited and insensitive; insulting the goddess, Ištar by comparing her to a door that is unable to keep out winds and gusts, to a battering-ram that destroys its own city walls, to a leaky water skin, and to an ill-fitting shoe.

Theresa maintains that the ancient Egyptian system of belief included the concept of divine kingship. For thirty dynasties, indigenous god-kings ruled Egypt in unbroken succession, each recognized as the embodiment of Horus, god of the Universe. In legend, Seth, the paramount god of Lower Egypt, fought an eighty-year war of attrition with Horus, the principal god of Upper Egypt. When the Court of the Gods ruled in favour of Horus who became overlord of both kingdoms; Seth joined the sun-god Ra in the skies as god of storms. Seth was particularly associated with destructive desert sandstorms.

According to the Egyptian Osirian Legend, Osiris, god of Order, Corn and Vegetation, was a benign deity, moral, upright and virtuous. So good that he could see no harm in others; Osiris was murdered by his brother, Seth, god of Disorder. After much searching, Isis ‘Mistress of Magic’ brought the body of her brother-consort home and impregnated herself with his semen before Osiris entered the underworld. Rediscovering his body, Seth hacked it into fourteen pieces which he scattered along the Nile Valley, an act symbolic of the winnowing and scattering of grain. However, since his penis had created an heir, Seth threw it to a crocodile. With this exception, Isis collected together the fourteen pieces of her consort’s body which Anubis fashioned into the first mummy. Isis created a duplicate penis which became the focus of a cult. At festivals, women paraded models with articulated members that they manipulated to demonstrate his virility.

In early times, the Punjab was known as the Land of Five Rivers, the greatest of which is the Indus. From circa 2800 BCE, settlers built houses in valleys and within four hundred years a wealthy city-based civilization was flourishing. The Harappan civilization is India’s earliest urban culture. At its peak, the lands of this ancient people covered an area greater than that of Egypt. Veneration of the mother-goddess is evidenced in India from circa 3000 BCE and many figures of nude or partially clothed females have been unearthed on Harappan sites.

In common with the Sumerians and Egyptians, the Harappans held the fundamental belief in the existence of a primordial mound generated from the primeval waters. At Prayag, the junction where the River Ganges joins the River Jumna, a mound of alluvial silt gradually appears as the annual floodwaters subside. On the north end of the island, a shrine was erected to Kaliya, the primordial serpent who protects the sacred undying tree. The only tree of its kind to have been discovered in India and now a stump, the undying tree was still alive in the 17th century.

Homer is considered to be the author of the first written epics in Greek literature, the Iliad and Odyssey. Theresa maintains that, whilst nothing factual is known about him, Homer was believed to have been without sight since the memorizing and recitation of poetry were regarded as suitable occupations for the blind. A number of cities claim to be Homer’s birthplace but in probability he was born on Smyrna but worked on Chios since Simonides ascribes a passage from the Iliad to the blind man of Chios. The only Greek epic about the Trojan War to have survived intact, The Iliad (c. 750 BCE) has themes of heroism and honour, duplicity and corruption. Displaying parallels with ancient Mesopotamian epics; Homer’s Odyssey (c. 750 BCE) embodies a change from the doom-fraught heights of passionate heroism to the quieter virtues of patience and self-control.

Hesiod is generally regarded as the first poet in the Western tradition to regard himself as an individual who had an active role to play in his subject. Influenced by the Mesopotamian creation text, Enuma Elish, (When on High) in his Theogony; (c. 700 BCE) Hesiod traced the heritage of the Olympian gods back to the primordial divine forces involved in creation; recording how they established permanent control over the Cosmos. Hesiod maintained that Chaos, an entity which formed the empty space which existed before the formation of the cosmos, spontaneously engendered Nyx, ‘Essence of the Night’ a goddess of such exceptional power and beauty that she was feared even by Zeus. Throughout the ancient world, night was acknowledged as an elemental force since it concealed unknown enemies and evils.

In Greek mythology; King Amphitryon, a grandson of Perseus and Andromeda, was anticipated by Zeus who, taking his form, prolonged the night to the length of three in order to sire the mighty Herakles. A semi-divine super-hero of massive stature, Herakles derives directly from the Sumerian semi-divine champion, Gilgameš (c. 2600 BCE) and performs feats of great courage and strength engaging in combat with mythical creatures that are comparable to those found on Mesopotamian seals.

In 168 BCE, Greece was enslaved, her artistic treasures looted and carried to Italy. The mythology and legends of the Hellenes were absorbed into Roman culture although the names of all deities were changed with the sole exception of Apollo. The Aeneid (29-19 BCE) is half the size of the Homeric epics but endeavours to understand Iliadic battles and Odyssean wanderings. Set a thousand years earlier; Vergil’s epic is nonetheless about the Roman emperor, Octavian Augustus who is mentioned in explicit passages of prophecy and also by implication.

The seriousness of Vergil’s purpose weighs against the attractiveness of his hero, for a man who is burdened with the responsibilities of Aeneas cannot possibly rival the glorious, heroic deaths achieved by the Trojan and Greek semi-divine heroes, Hector and Achilles. To achieve his destiny, Aeneas must preserve his own life and that of his companions in order to establish an enduring state, the essential quality for which is pietas, the acceptance and fulfilment of duty towards gods and man.

Vergil represents Aeneas as the political precursor of Octavian Augustus; both men bringing peace to an age exhausted by civil war. Vergil may have found some aspects of the totalitarian rule of the emperor distasteful but he nonetheless accepted his official patronage and portrayed his reign as the culmination of a thousand years of history and prophecy. An enthusiastic supporter of the victorious, Vergil describes Octavian Augustus as a man of divine race whose destiny is to establish a new Golden Age. Unfinished at his death, Vergil’s epic was published posthumously.

Irish Gaelic is the third oldest language in the western world after Greek and Latin, the traditions of the Irish people the oldest of any European race north and west of the Alps. Irish Celtic legends are the ancestral memory of a race of people handed down orally over the centuries, altered and amended on the whim of the storyteller. During the 12th century, monastic scribes transcribed the ancient oral traditions of pagan Ireland to written form thus preserving a record unique in the Western world. Only the Greeks have a mythology that is comparable in scope and variety.

In common with the Mesopotamian creation epic, Enuma Elish and Hesiod’s Theogony; the Irish succession manuscript, An Lebor Gabála (Book of Invasions) provides the earliest coherent account of how the Irish gods and mortals came into being. A powerful mythology; it unites all the Irish dynasties and peoples by descent from a single set of ancestors employing race, language, land and landscape as the basis for national unity.

According to the succession manuscript, the fertility god, Partholón created a treeless, grassless plain, three lakes and nine rivers and helped to civilize Ireland by introducing agriculture. In fact, the Partholóns originated in Greece and are credited with the introduction of dwellings, ploughing and agriculture, the domestication of cattle, cooking and the first brewing of beer. They also had a form of law giving and ritual.

The next race to invade Ireland consisted of nine hundred warriors led by Nemed, a divine warrior from Scythia which suggests that the Nemedians were a nomadic tribe of Celts who inhabited the steppes north of the Black Sea between the rivers Danube and Don. Flourishing between the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, the Nemedians had trading links with Persia (Iran).

When the Nemedians attacked a Formorian fortress, only thirty survived the battle; some travelled northwards, some became the ancestors of the Britons whilst others went to Greece where they were enslaved. The enslaved Nemedians were forced to carry bags of clay and thus became known as the Fir Bolg (Men of Bags). After two hundred and thirty years they sailed back to Ireland. The five chieftains of the Fir Bolg divided the country into provinces known as fifths: Ulster, Leinster, Connaught, Munster and Meath. The Fir Bolg was challenged by the supernaturally gifted Tuatha De Danaan, (Tribe of Danaan) an association of gods and goddesses that form a hierarchy of the supernatural, the forces of light.

The Tuatha de Danaan arrived in three hundred ships under the leadership of Nuada, god of War, Healing and Wealth. The Tuatha de Danaan brought three special treasures to Ireland; the magical cauldron of Oc ‘the Dagda’ that can never be emptied; the massive magical spear of the sun-god, Lugh which, upon being drawn, roared and flashed with fire whilst struggling against its thongs; and Nuada’s Sword of Light which, unsheathed, was said to be so powerful that no one could escape it. The Tuatha de Danaan also brought with them the Lia Fáil (Stone of Destiny) which was set up at Tara, a low hill six miles southeast of Navan, County Meath. The High Kings of Tara were crowned on the Lia Fáil.

The Milesians, (aka: Gaels) who arrived in Ireland under the leadership of Míl Espáine; engaged in battle with the High Kings of Tara, Éthur, Téthur and Céthur who were killed in single combat fighting Éber Finn, Érimón and Amergin. Eventually it was agreed that the Milesians would rule the visible parts of Ireland whilst the Tuatha de Danaan would take possession of the Tir Na n-Og, (Land of Youth) the invisible regions of the Otherworld accessible through caves, lakes and, above all Sidhes, (Fairy Mounds) the prehistoric burial mounds of Ireland. Under Christian influence, the Tuatha de Danaan was placed in the ranks of fairies, elves and goblins.

The Ulster Cycle is set during the reign of Conchobar mac Ness who ruled the kingdom of Ulster from Emain Macha. Unlike the An Lebor Gabála, (Book of Invasions) which presents Ireland as largely united under the succession of the High Kings; the Ulster Cycle depicts a country divided into provincial kingdoms ruled by a warrior aristocracy that has no effective central authority; the bonds between aristocratic families cemented by the fosterage of each other’s children.

The civilization depicted is pastoral; wealth calculated by herds of cattle whilst warfare mainly takes the form of cattle raids or single combats between champions who fight with swords, spears and shields; take and preserved the heads of slain enemies; and ride in two-horse chariots driven by skilled charioteers drawn from the lower classes. Kings and chieftains are advised by powerful Druids who act as priests, teachers and judges, whilst poets, bards and filids (seers) compose verses in praise of their patrons and other aristocrats and learn by heart the traditions and genealogies of their people, thus preserving legends and, more importantly, pedigrees.

For centuries, the storyteller’s art kept ancient Islamic fables and myths alive but it was not until the reign of Harun al-Rashid (r. 786-809) that Persian poets wrote them down for posterity. Islamic literature can be understood in several ways, myths and legends demonstrating political and social rules of conduct and employing symbolic language in relation to spiritual events. What might appear to be a florid narrative style is, for the Eastern reader, a familiar sign language which needs no interpretation; the moon represents perfection whilst the light of the sun is representative of love; the narcissus is associated with expressive eyes and the rose stands for inner beauty. Virtues are called jewels whilst musk represents the paradox of love being both sweet and bitter.

According to Islamic legend, King Shahryār was deceived and betrayed and, hardening his heart; became a woman-hating tyrant, his sense of justice turning to vengeance and his love turning to lust. Shahryār ordered his servants to behead every deflowered virgin who had spent the night with him. Eventually every virtuous Moslem girl in the vicinity had been executed save for the two beautiful daughters of Shahryār’s vizier (prime-minister).

The eldest, Scheherazade, was very wise for she had been tutored in ancient law and had studied the writings of philosophers and poets. Seeking out her father, she asked to marry the king in order to free him from his madness. Scheherazade was afraid to go to the king’s chamber alone and brought with her Dunjazad, her younger sister. When midnight approached, Dunjazad asked her sister to tell her a story and the king, who was also wide awake, agreed so Scheherazade related a fable but, at dawn, she stopped talking although the story was incomplete. The king deferred her execution because he wanted to hear the outcome. For one thousand nights and one; Scheherazade told ennobling stories of kings and princes and instructive tales from days gone by. When Scheherazade had completed her final story, she knelt before the king saying that she had borne him three fine sons but that, during all that time, the threat of the executioner’s blade had hung over her and Shahryār was overcome with remorse. The king demanded that the scribes of his court write down each of the stories and call them Aif Laila Va Laila (One Thousand Nights and One) in honour of Scheherazade.

In contrast to their peers who built societies based on land-holding nobility and agriculture; Islamic civilization grew and expanded on the basis of a merchant economy. Islamic navigational sciences became highly developed. The Kamal, a rudimentary sextant was in use together with a magnetic compass which, combined with detailed maps, gave sailors the ability to cross oceans rather than skirt along coasts.

Moslem sailors were responsible for the reintroduction of large three-masted merchant vessels to the Mediterranean Sea, their ships carrying textiles, furs and silks, dyes and spices from China and India. The techniques and conventions displayed in the Babylonian epic, Gilgameš (1600 BCE) and Homer’s Odyssey (750 BCE) are inherent in the Seven Voyages of Sinbád. A relatively late addition to the Aif Laila Va Laila, (One Thousand Nights and One) the epic, which first appeared as an independent cycle in the 17th century, reinforces the importance of the aristocratic code of honour.

In common with the Arabs, the Viking nations were more advanced than their European neighbours most notably in maritime technology which enabled them to cross European waters during a period when other sailors feared to venture out of sight of land.

The poetry of the English Heathen Age was addressed to an aristocratic audience who maintained an interest in heroic tradition; knew many courts and peoples and had knowledge of their customs and folklore. Copied by two Christian scribes from a much older work, the 10th century manuscript Beowulf holds a unique place as the oldest epic narrative in any modern European tongue, the destruction of heathen manuscripts leaving it the only surviving poem in which a traditional theme is treated in epic scale, encapsulating the courageous spirit of the Northern Heroic Age. The material of which the narrative is shaped is of primitive Scandinavian life derived from Continental chronicles and legends. Of unknown authorship, the poem was influenced by Hellenic, Hellenistic and Classical epics, in particular The Aeneid which was well known and much admired in mediaeval Europe.

Successive generations of European writers rediscovered Hellenic, Hellenistic and Roman epics upon which they based their Classical Romances; authors generally beginning their account of the Trojan War with the capture of Troy. Although the site of Troy had been long forgotten, legends of its vanished glory were reinforced by reports made by merchants and crusaders of its mediaeval counterpart, Byzantium. In his Collection of Trojan Histories, (1464) Raoul Lefèvre described the fabled glories of Troy in terms of the French or Burgundian ideal.

For mediaeval Europeans, Hector of Troy was the ideal knight, the embodiment of chivalry. Given a physical presence unknown to the Greeks; Hector was fair, curly-haired cross eyed and bearded, swift limbed and venerable in appearance, seemly in war-like behaviour and valiant beyond measure. Romancers manage to subtly implicate Aeneas who arranges with Antenor the conference which gives the opportunity to steal the Palladium however they do not have him share in the theft since wide admiration for their hero as the colonizer of Italy demanded that he be portrayed as honourable.

The concept of courtly love developed in four regions, Aquitaine, Provence, Champagne and Burgundy around the time of the First Crusade (1099). Knights returning from the Holy Land had met adversaries who revered women and introduced the concept to Europe. In the 12th century, Eleanor of Aquitaine brought ideals of courtly love first to the royal households of France and then to the palaces and courts of the English king, Henry II.

The English word chivalry, which first appeared in 1292, derives from the French word chevalerie (knighthood). The reading and hearing of chivalrous Romances became a common pastime of the European nobility. As time passed the concept of noble love began to attract much larger audiences. Loving nobly and honourably was viewed as an enriching and ennobling experience. Morally elevating, disciplined and passionate; in essence, courtly love was somewhere between erotic desire and spiritual attainment.

One of the greatest Knights of the Round Table; Sir Lancelot struggles to balance his duties as a warrior with those of a lover bound by the conventions of courtly love. The greatest swordsman and jouster of his age and the bravest of knights; Lancelot is King Arthur’s greatest companion until his adulterous behaviour with Queen Guinevere is discovered.

King Arthur’s knights swear the Pentecostal Oath, which embodies the aristocratic code of honour according to which a knight must never commit outrage, must neither assault nor murder anyone; must always flee from treason since it is a crime against king and country; must never be cruel but grant mercy unto whoever asks for mercy, even in combat; must grant succour to ladies, gentlewomen and widows; must never harm or take by force ladies or gentlewomen and must never undertake battles in wrongful quarrels for love.

Theresa Louisa Walmsley-Hall maintains that, during the Renaissance; the romance genre was attacked as silly, fatuous and barbaric by Humanists who held Greek and Latin classics in high esteem. Romances were also denounced by clerical critics as harmful worldly distractions from more substantive moral works.

Theresa further asserts that, during the 17th century, in the shifting intellectual atmosphere of the Age of Enlightenment, Romances were viewed as clichéd and stereotyped childish literature. In The Ingenious Nobleman, Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, (1605) Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra lampoons the faded conventions of chivalry from an ironic yet consciously realistic viewpoint. Don Quixote’s meetings with innkeepers, prostitutes, priests, escaped convicts and scorned lovers are magnified in his imagination into chivalric quests however his tendency to intervene violently in matters which do not concern him often results in privations, injuries and humiliations that are not necessarily his own.

Unintelligent but greedy, Sancho Panza (panza: paunch) agrees to be Don Quixote’s squire. Sancho Panza furnishes humour and earthy wit and also provides the wisdom of Spanish proverbs for example ‘the truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks and it always surfaces above lies, as oil always floats upon water’.

Many of Sancho Panza’s proverbs reflect the quintessentially Spanish brand of skepticism of the period. Symbolic of practicality over idealism, whilst not sharing his master’s delusional enchantment, Sancho remains his ever-faithful companion-realist. Following the death of Don Quixote, the author, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, emphasized that any further Romances involving chivalry and the aristocratic code of honour would be spurious.

Thomas Shelton’s English translation of the first volume appeared in 1612 whilst Cervantes was still alive; the French translation of the second volume was published in 1618 whilst the first English translation of both volumes appeared in 1620. Pierre Motteux’s edition published in circa 1700, contains a proverb attributed to Cervantes ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’ but in a translation undertaken in 1755, Tobias Smollett notes that the original text reads ‘you will see when the eggs are fried’ a phrase meaning ‘time will tell’.

Birth Name: 		Theresa Anne Heaney Nationality:		Anglo-Irish Born:			6th April 1949 (age 69) Father’s Name:		Thomas Bernard Heaney Mother’s Name:	       Joyce Edith Constance Heaney née MacEwen Married Name:		Teri Anne Walmsley Pen Name:		Theresa Louisa Walmsley-Hall Children:		Sharon Elizabeth 	b. 1967			Tracie Dawn 		b. 1968			Emma Louise 		b. 1980 Husband:		Neil Walmsley School:			St James Convent School University:		The Open University Qualifications:		B.A. Honours Degree in Combined Arts Post Graduate Certificate in Education Further and Adult Teacher Training Certificate Interests:		Distance Learning Techniques Feminist Theory & Ethics Mainstream & Feminist Philosophy Sociology: Change and Evolution The Historical Legacy of Civilization Culture, Mythology & Legend