Gripla - 2022, Page 162

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virgin martyr’s bodily suffering at the hands of temporal and demonic
forces can also be interpreted as echoing women’s labour pains in childbed,
which according to Genesis 3:16 of the Old Testament are the curse of Eve
for disobeying God’s command and thus associated with female shame and
weakness. Through her faith, St. Margaret transforms this intense suffer-
ing into a triumphant experience of salvation and female imitatio Christi.14
Jón Steffensen’s argument that copies of Margrétar saga were openly
used as a birthing aid before the Reformation period in Iceland (1541–
1550) and covertly used for the same purpose after the Reformation is
credible. Seeking saintly intervention in childbirth was encouraged in
late medieval Europe, as attested in birth miracles that describe the use of
saints’ belts and other objects as effective in difficult births.15 The provi-
sion of support for pregnancy and childbirth could be a lucrative prac-
tice, as demonstrated in a birth miracle found in the Old-Norse Icelandic
Life of St. Thomas Becket, in which a wealthy woman in difficult labour
makes a secret vow to the saint and sends a messenger with a golden ring
to purch ase holy water.16 By the time the holy water arrives, the woman is
dead and her husband has gone mad, but the husband’s honourable cousin
sends another ring and asks for a priest to bring relics of St. Thomas,
which not only successfully revive the woman and enable her to give birth
to a healthy son but also cure the husband’s madness.
Although the above example concentrates on the efficacy of vows and
relics, the use of inscribed objects as birthing aids is well documented
in medieval Europe, as testified to by the obstetrical charms in AM 431
12mo. These include the well-known formula “Anna peperit Maria” and
directions for binding a prayer to a woman’s right thigh in labour.17 Such
charms were church sanctioned before being repositioned as popery under
the teachings of reformers in Denmark and elsewhere. Birthing rolls or
14 Allison Adair Alberts, “Spiritual Suffering and Physical Protection in Childbirth in the
South English Legendary Lives of Saint Margaret,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern
Studies 46.2 (2016): 289–314.
15 Hilary Powell, “The ‘Miracle of Childbirth’: The Portrayal of Parturient Women in
Medieval Miracle Narratives,” Social History of Medicine 25.4 (2012): 795–811.
16 C. R. Unger, (ed.), Thomas Saga Erkibiskups: Fortælling om Thomas Becket Erkebiskop af
Canterbury: To Bearbeidelser samt Fragmenter af en tredie (Oslo, 1869), 482.
17 The obstetrical charms in AM 431 12mo are edited in Kristian Kålund (ed.), Alfræði íslenzk:
Islandsk Encyklopædisk Litteratur (Copenhagen: Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk
litteratur, 1908–1918), 3:86–90.