Femininity in Tamrielic Faith Part 2: Kyne

Like Part 1 of this series, I am going to address how the Nordic Kyne is represented. We will focus primarily on her representation of the Feminine, using Shor Son of Shor as our primary source.

This post was actually harder to write than the one on Mara, not sure why. I hope I give Kyne her due. She is my favourite.

Kyne, Queen of the Nords, Kiss at the End, War-Wife to Shor, Mother of Tears

One of the first things that stood out to me was, why Mother of Tears? If Mara is the Tear-Wife, why does she not bear the title of Mother of Tears?

The Nords assign Kyne that title because legend has it that when Shor died, Kyne wept, and her tears became the first rain to fall on Tamriel. Kyne also referred to herself as such in C0DA. In the chaos of the Grey Maybe, it was Kyne/Kynareth that made room for creation, sheltering it so it would not come apart, tearing apart the weak so the strong could have room. The Tears belong to Mara, but without Kyne there would be no Creation and Mara would have no reason to cry. This is why Mara is the handmaiden; she may be the Mother, but Kyne is the Matriarch.

A matriarch. What comes to mind when we picture a matriarch? A dignified older woman; children grown, or maybe a childless woman who became head of a business, clan or noble house, sometimes she is a queen. She is a woman who transcends the feminine dichotomy of sensuality and fecundity, or simply ages past them. Unencumbered by the stereotypes of youth, she can assume more traditionally masculine roles and exert her power outside the traditionally feminine sphere. Kyne is all these things; all the while maintaining a distinctly and almost universally female identity.

The matriarch also shoulders the burden of a great melancholy. If childless, sometimes there is regret, envy or jealousy about it. If she did have children (spiritual or literal, doesn't matter), sometimes those children must be sent to fight and die for her cause. The Queen sometimes has to stand by and watch her dominion crumble away, everything she worked for, fought for, made room for. I dare say her sadness is deeper than Mara’s because Kyne does not have the distraction of always making something new. Often Kyne only sees the battle and the end.

For this is why she is the War-Wife, and why she is so sad. She was the first to agree to Shor’s plan, his greatest ally, defender, enabler and it is she who picked up his cause and continued the fight after he died. Kyne fought to give shape and strength to the Nords, she helped Paarthurnax gain mastery over his nature, and she helped give shape to countless beasts and nature spirits, all through her simultaneously destructive and sheltering qualities. Kyne not only engages in conflict, she embodies it.

Consider her Dovah name, Kaan, Kiss at the End. The End of what? To a more-or-less immortal Aka-Shard of a dragon, what is the End? Not the End of their life cycle because they have not one, but of all cycles. Consider the Thu’um, Kyne’s Peace. The Peace of the Kiss at the End, where the animals do not flee, instead they accept their deaths with calm aplomb. Peace for Kyne means death.

In Shor son of Shor, Kyne is confused and irritated that she does not get her kiss, but is wise enough to know that she will understand when the dawn breaks and the twilight is lifted. When the Dawn comes, the fighting begins again, and she returns to the battlefield, clear in her intention and purpose once again.

Apparently to the Nords, when the spirit of the Void embraces the War-Wind spirit, that is the End of All. That is a very interesting and powerful image to me, like the negatively charged cumulonimbus cloud towering over the positively charged earth, and then their energies clashing in an explosion of plasma and electricity, wreaking absolute havoc before completely dissipating in a shower of light. And we thought Dibella was the Goddess of sexual energy! Actually all three of the Nordic Goddesses represent certain aspects of female sexuality/sensuality, but that is a discussion I want to save until I have had a chance to give Dibella her due in this series.

I would like to conclude this post with a confession about how these posts have changed my perception. I had always imagined Kyne as a rather ageless woman, but if I had to draw her, she would have probably looked like Artemis, a slender young huntress, a forest spirit, maybe with a big sword. This was wrong, and simply a reflection of my own personal ageist bias. I realise now that to depict Kyne as a young woman does not do her the justice she deserves. She is a seasoned warrior, who has fought countless battles through countless cycles, and who has wept countless times over the deaths of her husband and her children (spiritual and/or literal, whatever you prefer). She would have rough hands, grey in her hair, and if drawn as a mortal, maybe a few lines around the eyes and mouth, marks of the strain of being the embodiment of change and conflict. For once she finally gets her kiss, that will be the End of the fighting, which is to say the end of the Arena. Peace at last, but the end of Nirn.

Let it be noted that even in C0DA, despite attending the bachelor party and wedding with her husband, she still had not gotten her kiss. The battle continues, somewhen and somewhere, and as long as Kyne is fighting, she is making room for creation.

The next essay will be about the Nordic Dibella.