Sheila-Na-Gig Soap Mold

Sheila Na Gig Celtic Goddess Soap Casting: 3" tall x 2-1/2" wide
Cavities per Mold Sheet: 6
Mold Material: White HIPS

Item # SMLD009
$9.95 / sheet

This mold is not designed to be used for food items!
Please see our Sheila-Na-Gig Candy Mold instead.

Soap Molds are bagged in clear poly bag with parchment header card. Average size of mold sheets are 8-3/4" x 8-3/4" with a totally flat back for clean scrapping of soap to the edge after filling. This facilitates easy clean up and less waste. Designed for both the professional and home hobby soap maker.

Sheila Na Gig Symbolism
The goddess of fertility in British-Celtic mythology -- harkens back to a time when Celts recognized the Doorway of Life as something sacred.

from The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, by Barbara Walker
Carved representation of a naked woman squatting with her knees apart, displaying her vulva, shown as a vesica piscis or double-pointed oval. Sometimes the figure presented the vesica with both hands or drew it open with one. Sheila-na-gig figures appeared all over old Irish churches before the 16th century. Many were still in place during the 19th century, but Victorian prudery defaced or destroyed large numbers of them. Some have been found buried near the churches they once embellished.

Sheila-na-gig figures closely resembled the yonic statues of Kali which still appear at the doorways of Hindu temples, where visitors lick a finger and touch the yoni "for luck." Some of the older figures have deep holes worn in their yonis from much touching.

Derivation of the term sheila-na-gig is obscure. It meant something like "vulva-woman." Gig or giggie meant female genitals and may have been related to the Irish "jig," from French gigue, in pre-Christian times an orgiastic dance. In ancient Erech a gig seems to have been a holy yoni; the sacred harlots of the temple were known as nu-gig.

The vulva as holy symbol of birth and life is a very ancient idea that symbolizes the life-giving and regenerative powers of the Earth Mother. The image of the vulva has a long history of being carved in stone, and is found all over Europe from the Paleolithic and Neolithic Ages. Passage graves were built in the shape of the Goddess, with the passage the vagina, and the tomb chamber itself representing Her uterus. "Tomb" and "womb" were equated, thus ensuring regeneration and continuity after death, in the same way that a "dead" seed is planted in the fertile earth and sprouts up to grow into a complete plant.

Despite the fact that to modern eyes Her pose is "obscene" the Sheila-na-gig is most predominantly found carved in the decoration of churches.

Alternate spellings: Sheela-na-gig, Sheela-no-gig, Sheelanagyg, Irish Síle na gCíoch "Sheila of the Breasts"