#derbforgaill

[annebeatrice-art]

FATE FAN SERVANT | DERBFORGAILL (ダーボルギル)

SERVANT CLASS: CASTER

Contrary to the legend, this person is not the actual Derbforgaill, but rather someone whose story follows a similar set of events.

This particular incarnation is the younger version of Emer.

ASCENSION SHEET

Artist’s Note: I mostly used bits of the story as my reference in sketching the designs. Nevertheless, it was still difficult to picture what they would look like. The 1st one is pretty much her princess attire, while the 2nd is supposed to be her outfit when she departed for Ireland. The last one is a white dress with a double meaning; it's supposed to represent the 'violent death' she had, but also a subtle foreshadowing of what she will become later on (a bride).

Regarding the name, translating it into Japanese was hard since I couldn’t find anything on Wikipedia Japan (unless I’m not looking hard enough). I had to look up the actual pronunciation online, which was twice as difficult because most of the sources I found didn’t include the phonetics. Luckily, I managed to find one, and I had it translated using a reliable machine translator.

[eire-diamond]

Legend tells of a princess named Derbforgaill (‘Daughter of Forgall’) who became infatuated with the hero, Cú Chulainn, upon hearing stories about him. She traveled to the Emerald Isle (Ireland), where she asked to be his lover, but he refused. Nevertheless, he took the princess back to his country, where she was wed to one of his foster brothers. Unfortunately, her presence attracted the jealousy of the country women, and she met a gruesome death because of it. At least, that’s how it goes in Proper Human History.

However, this incarnation is not the actual ‘Derbforgaill’ but another princess who happens to fit the name's meaning and whose story follows nearly identical events to the actual one.

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[finnlongman]

"The violent rejection by the other women of Derbforgaill, the woman who can melt snow like a man, ultimately rests as much on the heat as the amount of the urine. With her Galenic humours, theories of heat as the prerogative of male bodies and moisture of women's, are confounded; Derbforgaill is dangerous, both as the woman from outside the group and also as the woman with the subversive body who might be capable of both giving and experiencing pleasures in sex in ways that usurp a long-standing male prerogative and disturb the standard of gender by which women themselves collectively orient their gender identity."

-- Ann Dooley, Playing The Hero, p. 180

So, this definitely isn’t what Dooley is going for, but what I’m getting out of this analysis is that a trans reading of Derbforgaill would be fascinating. Her whole story is about the fact that she’s called upon to participate in a urination game (they didn’t have Netflix in those days), which she hesitates to do “because she was not a lewd woman”. When she does as she’s asked, she immediately faces violence for it from the women who put her in that position in the first place, because her body is unlike theirs. If we read Derbforgaill as a trans woman, it adds a whole new layer to the other women’s rejection of her based on her ability to urinate in a particular way which they themselves are unable to achieve earlier in the scene.

(It’s also then interesting to me that Cú Chulainn, as an ambiguously-gendered figure, is the one to come to her defence. This is meaningful even without a trans reading of either of them -- both are positioned as outsiders -- but that gender element adds an additional layer to the interaction.)

[eire-diamond]

FATE FAN SERVANT | Derbforgaill (ダーボルギル)

SERVANT CLASS: CASTER

Before she was Emer Foltchaín (Emer of the Beautiful Hair), she was Derbforgaill (Daughter of Forgall). A young princess hailing from Lochlann (Scandinavia), who desperately wants to carve her path, yet is caged by her father. Read more

[annebeatrice-art]

I missed doing cross-hatching in my sketches. Anyways, here are sketches of Emer’s other versions: Derbforgaill (Emer Lily) & Eithne Ingubai (Emer Alter).

[eire-diamond]

Writing Derbforgaill’s lore and making it seamlessly fit with Emer’s story was a challenge since it’s two distinct stories, and there’s also the tragic ending to consider (it’s the literal title of the source story).

[mahojicha]

If Emer Lily’s lore is anything close to the story of Deebforgall, it’s gonna be tragic 🥲

It…kinda is 😅 I kept the part of how the actual Derbforgaill died cuz it’s one of the important details; even the title of the story itself is straightforward of what’s about to happen.

But the good news is Derbforgaill’s (Emer Lily) story here is not totally tragic; and yes, because this has the typical TM twist 😂