‘The Daughters of the Well’, ceramic sculpture by Sanna Pöyhönen
In Norse mythology, the Norns are three figures at the roots of Yggdrasil, the World Tree: Urðr, Verðandi and Skuld. Their names represent what has been, what is becoming, and what is owed or destined. Together they weave the threads of fate and tend to the Tree, drawing water from the sacred well of Urðarbrunnr to keep it alive at the centre of the cosmos.
In the Christian tradition, there are also three women known as the Three Marys, associated with the crucifixion and the empty tomb. They came to tend to Christ’s body, carrying spices and ointments, only to discover that the tomb was empty. Mary Magdalene, in particular, became one of the most enduring female figures in Christianity and symbolically associated with the sea. This connection between woman, water and the sacred stayed with me.
Water remained central to Christian sacramental life, most visibly through baptism, even as women’s religious authority was increasingly marginalized. Yet echoes of older feminine traditions seem to linger beneath the surface. I began to wonder whether, in the stories of the Holy Grail, the knights’ search for the mystical chalice might also be understood as a journey into a forgotten feminine domain – a return to something connected with water, nourishment, mystery and life.
While working on this sculpture, I found myself following many stories of women and water. I encountered Nammu, the Mesopotamian primordial goddess associated with the primeval sea and creation. In River Sutra by Gita Mehta, one of my favourite books, the Narmada river becomes an almost goddess-like presence: continuously changing, continuously nourishing, and connecting the lives of those who encounter her. In Tarot, the High Priestess sits before a veil, with the mysterious waters beyond it, embodying hidden knowledge, intuition and the feminine.
I also discovered that one of my distant ancestors, Petronella van Saksen, established a nunnery near the North Sea, not far from where I live today. The discovery made the stories I had been following feel suddenly personal: as if the threads of women and water were reaching through centuries to meet me here.
This sculpture is dedicated to my Granny Petronella as well as to the women whose stories were forgotten, and to all the beautiful mermaids of our times.