Muiredach's cross is a high cross from the 10th or possibly 9th century, located at the ruined monastic site of Monasterboice, in County Louth, Ireland. On one of the lowest panels of the cross there is a relief depicting two men pulling each other's beards.
Expression "Pulling someone's beard" means "Challenging someone's authority". Does anyone know how old this expression is?
Pulling someone's beard out was an act of insult. In Isaiah 50:6 we read: "I let them beat my back and pull out my beard. I didn't turn aside when they insulted me and spit in my face". This is because beard was a sign of manhood so pulling the beard out was a symbolic castration...
Romanesque sculpted stone capital from the Church of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption in Thiviers (Dordogne, France), likely dating from the 12th century.
The link between beard and penis is symbolically represented in this late 15th century polychrome stone stature of Adam from Albi cathedral, showing Adam covering his penis with fig leaf with one hand and touching his beard with the other...
Earlier romanesque depictions of the same symbolic scene are much more explicit :) Like this one from the church of San Martín de Elines (dated to 8th-10th century AD). Basically Beard = Penis = Fertility = Fatherhood
Serbian expression "He acts like he had pulled god's beard" which means "he acts like god gave him power", has another version "He acts like he had pulled god's penis".
I talked about the link between penis and sceptre (symbol of power) in my post "Sceptre"...
For instance, in Sumerian: ñišuš-bar: ruler's staff; sceptre, literally means 'penis' + 'to see, show'...
So are beard stroking penis wielding figures like this one from Mansilla de la Sierra depictions of god?
Like this Ithyphallic Norse statue of the male fertility god Freyr Holding his beard and his penis...
Remember god is god the creator, god the father. Beard = Penis = Procreation = Fatherhood...
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