“On one of our walks to the fort he had described the town of Bath, and how it had been built around the hot springs where the goddess Sulis lived. Sulis’s followers, my uncle said, used to throw lead tablets into the water inscribed with requests for children or good harvests, or sometimes curses” (Livesey 27).

This is the first instance in which Sulis is invoked in The Flight of Gemma Hardy. When her uncle first relates the mythos of the goddess to a young Gemma, she admits that “the idea that just by saying certain words you could harm someone fascinated [her]” (Livesey 28). Later, Gemma recalls Sulis at Claypoole during one of Mr. Waugh’s sermons, and again on page 147 after she responds cooly to the vicious Mr. Milne: “My mouth burned as if each word I’d spoken had been a fiery nugget. My curse wasn’t written on a lead tablet and offered to Sulis, but I hoped it would nonetheless prove effective” (Livesey). For Gemma, clearly, the story of Sulis is connected to the idea of rhetoric and power, but there are other interesting links between Sulis and Gemma that build upon themes already present within the novel.

The most obvious connection between Gemma and Sulis lies in their origins. We know that Gemma feels like an outsider due to her background, having been born in Iceland, losing her parents, and then forced to begin anew in Scotland. Similarly, Sulis is also a product of cultural appropriations: originally a Celtic goddess known as Sul, the Lady of the Spring, she was adapted by Roman colonialists to become “Sulis Minerva.” Minerva was the Roman equivalent of the Greek Athena, goddess of wisdom and justice. Additionally, Minerva was known as a virgin warrior who fought for the rights of women and children (it is important to note that, before modern patriarchy remodeled this term, the word “virgin” described an unmarried woman who was “whole” onto herself). With these new dimensions, Sulis became an even more complex character with strong dual-natured abilities, a solar deity of healing and medicine as well as a fearsome punisher linked to the shadowy Underworld. As Gemma is pulled to the myth of Sulis, so too is Sulis concerned with Gemma, lending weight to the uncle’s rhetorical question: “who doesn’t wish they had a god on their side, ready to smite their enemies?” (Livesey 28).

The context of Sulis within the novel also demonstrates the dual nature of mankind, especially in women, who have been historically conditioned to bury their “less desirable” traits: rage, sarcasm, politics, sexuality, and so on. Gemma has strived to be a “good” girl in the eyes of society but is repeatedly punished or scorned, complicating her need to embrace all of her inner aspects. In a way, Sulis serves as a role model for Gemma by demonstrating women’s innate range of talents, and the ability to heal just as easily as she might condemn. In short, she defies any simple categorization.

Bowman, Marion. “Belief, Legend and Perceptions of the Sacred in Contemporary Bath.” Folklore, vol. 109, 1998, pp. 25–31. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1260567.

Livesey, Margot. "The Flight of Gemma Hardy: a Novel." Harper Perennial, 2013.