Sculpture on a corbel from the Church of St. Mary and St. David, Kilpeck, Herefordshire, Great Britain, dating to the XII century. The image represents what is locally called Sheela na Gig, a naked woman displaying a vulva of exaggerated dimensions. The local term, which seems to derive from an expression indicating an old hag, designates a typology of images rather frequent in Irish medieval art, which probably had the purpose to turn away evils and dangers, showing what is opposed to the forces of destruction and death: the generative organ from which life derives. However, such images, which evidently are in contrast with the habitual Christian attitude towards explicit manifestations of sexuality, seems to take their origin in pre-Christian folk customs.

[Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheela_na_gig#mediaviewer/File:SheelaWiki.jpg]