Mother Labyrinth

From Minoan cultures, to Bronze Age Troy and Ithaca, to the women of medieval Wales and Somerset, Sylvia Linsteadt invites us to join her as she searches for the myths, folklore and fairy tales about pregnancy and birth.

She finds pregnancy narratives embedded in our earliest creation myths, and breadcrumbs of wisdom scattered throughout the European fairytale and folktale tradition. They are hidden within the handful of extant, female-centered mythic journeys of the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East, in Inanna's descent, and in Persephone's re-emergence from the underworld, and with Ariadne and her pre-Hellenic labyrinth. She also explores the twin stories of Eve and of the Virgin Mary which have so dominated the Judeo-Christian image of the female body and of female sexuality for the last two thousand years.

This is a readable, evocative journey structured alongside a baby's gestation, month by month, in search of the old stories of pregnancy and birth. Tracking female-led societies as well as the oral story-weavers in the patriarchal past the author uncovers art, story and clue through European and Near Eastern pre-history as well as classical and medieval history.