Chapter V: Notes

[105.1] Featherman, _Chiapo-Mar._, 351. Owing to this writer’s method of heaping his authorities together at the end of each section, a practice as mysterious as any recorded of savages, I have been unable to discover on what authority this statement is made by him, or what are the details of the story.

[105.2] Aubrey, _Miscellanies_, 58.

[106.1] i. _Leg. Punjâb_, 1; Steele, 247. Cf. Swynnerton, _Rájá Rasálu_, 3, where the rice is omitted.

[106.2] Elliot, i. _N. W. Prov._, 256, note. Other accounts assert that the two barleycorns, or cocoa-nuts, were given to Gogá’s mother. Other examples in iii. _N. Ind. N. and Q._, 205, 243.

[107.1] James, _The Long White Mountain_, 31, note, citing a Chinese chronicle; Charencey, _Le Fils de la Vierge_, 15, citing Köppen, _Die Religion des Buddha_; _ibid._, 8, citing _Ambassade mémorable à l’Empereur du Japon_.

[108.1] Charencey, _Le Fils_, 14, citing Barrow’s _Voyage to China_. Cf. Maury, _Légendes Pieuses_, part 1, for numerous mediæval examples of miracles in competition with the Bible.

[108.2] Rydberg, 156, citing the _Volsungasaga_.

[111.1] ii. _Silva Gad._, 19, translating a MS. of the sixteenth century in the British Museum. Stories of dreams of this kind are found everywhere. Compare, for example, Ragnhild’s dream of her son Harold Fairhair (i. Morris and Magnússon’s _Heimskringla_, 83) and the well-known stories of Athelstan’s mother and Cyrus’ mother. So Gorm, king of Denmark, dreamed of the sons, Knut and Harald, who were to be born of his wife Thyra, daughter of Ethelred, king of England. Saxo, 319 (Elton’s version, 387). According to a writer quoted by Southey (iii. _Commonplace Bk._, 753) Joan of Arc’s mother dreamed she gave birth to a thunderbolt.

[112.1] iii. Bancroft, 99, apparently quoting Holmberg, _Ethn. Skizz._; Ensign Niblack, in _Nat. Mus. Rep._, 1888, 379. The allied people, the Koniagas of the southern shores of Alaska, have a similar tradition concerning Elkh, the founder of their race. The Thlinkit and Koniagan traditions seem in fact to be one and the same. Featherman, _Aoneo-Mar._, 458. The Lenâpe tradition of Nanabozho, as reported by Lindstrom about 1650, seems to attribute that hero’s birth to his mother’s drinking out of a creek. Brinton, _Lenâpe_, 131.

[113.1] Capt. Bourke, in ix. _Rep. Bur. Ethn._, 590, quoting Mendieta.

[113.2] Hahn, _Tsuni_-ǁ_goam_, 69, 68.

[113.3] Busk, _Sagas from the Far East_, 267. Unhappily Miss Busk’s translations in this work cannot be trusted; but it contains the only English version of the _Ardshi-Bordshi_ with which I am acquainted. i. Cosquin, 69. Another version of the story, as told by an illiterate Buddhist monk of Zain Shaben in north-western Mongolia, is given iii. _F.L. Journ._, 321.

[114.1] _Voyage de Siam des Pères Jesuites_, 296. In one of the Magic Songs of the Finns, Louhiatar swallows iron hail, the siftings of Tuoni’s mortar, and after thirty summers is disburdened of a progeny which “become all sorts of sicknesses, a thousand causes of injury.” Hon. J. Abercromby, in iv. _Folklore_, 40. Probably this too is a cosmological myth.

[115.1] iii. _Sacred Books_, 307.

[115.2] De Charencey, _Le Fils_, 13.

[115.3] iv. _F.L. Record_, 23.

[115.4] Liebrecht in a note to _Gerv. Tilb._, 72, quoting d’Herbelot. Cf. De Charencey, _Le Fils_, 13, where a similar Chinese tale is mentioned.

[116.1] ii. _Silva Gad._, 1, translating a MS. written in 1780-82, which in its turn is a transcript of a translation from a Latin life of this somewhat doubtful saint, printed in the _Acta Sanctorum Hiberniæ_ at Louvain, 1645. The MS. in question is in the British Museum.

[116.2] vi. _Rev. Celt._, 179; D’Arbois de Jubainville, _Épopée Celtique_, 16; both translating MSS. of the fourteenth century now in the library of the Royal Irish Academy at Dublin.

[117.1] D’Arbois de Jubainville, _Épopée Celtique_, 37, translating _Leabhar na hUidhre_ (_Book of the Dun Cow_), MS. dating back to about the year 1100. See another translation, ix. _Rev. Celt._, 12. For Balor’s story as given in modern folklore, see _ante_, p. 15.

[117.2] ii. _Silva Gad._, 23.

[118.1] ii. _Silva Gad._, 89, translating _Leabhar na hUidhre_.

[118.2] Prof. Whitley Stokes, in ii. _Rev. Celt._, 199, translating the _Leabhar breac_, a MS. written shortly before 1411, now in the Royal Irish Academy.

[119.1] Francisco de Avila’s Narrative, translated by Markham, _Rites and Laws_, 125. It is needless to point out the analogy of part of this tale to modern folktales like Basile’s tale of Pervonto, cited in the last chapter.

[120.1] De Gubernatis, ii. _Zool. Myth._, 331. The ancient nations of the Mediterranean basin believed that the mouth was the ordinary way of impregnation for fishes. Herod. ii. 93; Ælian, _Nat. Anim._, ix. 63. I have found a similar belief among the peasantry of Gloucestershire, where I am writing, as regards the pea-hen.

[120.2] Von Wlislocki, _Volksdicht._, 300.

[121.1] v. _Sacred Bks._, 187. Unfortunately Mr. West, the translator, has not given that part of the _Selections_ which relates to Zoroaster’s life--only a summary of its contents.

[121.2] viii. _Rev. Trad. Pop._, 601, translating S. H. Marian.

[122.1] Landes, _Annam._, 12. There is a Japanese tale of a lady who, having been barren for many years, at length, as the result of much prayer to the gods, bore five hundred eggs. They were thrown into the water in a box, but rescued by a fisherman, incubated in an oven, and all happily hatched. Five hundred heroes were thus produced, whom their mother was afterwards glad to recognise and receive back. This is the legend of Bunsio, the goddess of fruitfulness and riches. Ploss, i. _Weib_, 441, quoting Horst.

[122.2] Hon. J. Abercromby, in i. _Folklore_, 331.

[122.3] iv. _F.L. Journ._, 21.

[123.1] M. Dragomanov in _Compte Rendu du Congrès_, 46.

[124.1] ii. _Tuti-Nameh_, 85. With these stories may be compared a Transylvanian Gipsy saga concerning the origin of the Ashani tribe. Ashani, the eponymous mother of the tribe, was the child of a man to whom a supernatural being appeared in a dream riding on the man’s own cow, and commanded him to slay the cow, burn its flesh and let his wife eat of the ashes. He was then to sleep with her upon the cowhide. Compliance with this command was followed by Ashani’s birth. Von Wlislocki, _Volksdicht._, 184.

[124.2] ii. Gonzenbach, 165; Crane, 208.

[124.3] Von Wlislocki, _Volksdicht._, 183. See also his _Volksgl. Zig._, 14. On the Keshalyi’s hair, see _post_, p. 155.

[125.1] Dennys, 135, citing the _China Review_.

[125.2] i. _Leg. Panjâb_, 139, 142.

[125.3] Liebrecht in a note to _Gerv. Tilb._, 69. Jonas Hanway refers to a Mohammedan belief that the Virgin Mary conceived Our Lord by the smell of a rose. i. Hanway, 179. I have not been successful in tracing his authority.

[125.4] Arnobius, _Adv. Gentes_, v. 5; Pausanias, vii. 17.

[126.1] iii. Bancroft, 296, quoting Torquemada; Müller, _Amer. Urrel._, 601. The account given by Dr. Brinton makes Coatlicue a virgin and the ball of feathers merely “some white plumes.” _Amer. Hero-Myths_, 77. It does not appear on what authority this account rests. I feel sure, however, that it has not been given without reason. The round shield borne by the god in his usual representations was studded with white pellets of feathers. Zelia Nuttall, in v. _Internat. Archiv._, 39.

[127.1] Featherman, _Papuo-Mel._, 43.

[128.1] _Mabinogion_, 421; i. _Y Llyvyr Coch_, 68. Note the singular resemblance of the production of Llew Llaw Gyffes to that of the children in the Zulu and Kaffir tales mentioned on p. 98. Compare also the Thlinkit cosmogonic saga of the child born from a cockle-shell. _Rep. Nat. Mus._ (1888), 378.

[128.2] Im Thurn, 378. Cf. the tradition of the first khan of the Diurbiuts, a Mongolian tribe. It was revealed to ten men in a dream that of the tree Urun and the bird of the same name was born a divine son; he became the khan: iv. _F.L. Journ._, 20. See also a curious tale from New Guinea on the origin of death: xix. _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, 465.

[129.1] _Popol Vuh_, 89.

[130.1] Landes, _Annam._, 63. See also a curious myth of the aborigines of Hayti, one of the few descended to us, which represents a male personage as becoming pregnant by the spittle of another. Having been cut open, he brought forth a woman, by means of whom the island was subsequently peopled. Liebrecht, in a note to _Gerv. Tilb._, 71, quoting indirectly Peter Martyr.

[130.2] iii. _Sacred Bks._, 396; De Charencey, _Le Fils_, 9.

[130.3] Grimm, _Teut. Myth._, 1449. In a modern Indian _märchen_ from Salsette the heroine is born in an extraordinary manner. A woman pours into a mendicant’s hands some rice boiling hot from the caldron, raising a big blister on his thumb. When his wife breaks the blister a little girl comes out. Miss Cox, _Cinderella_, 260, abstracting a story in xx. _Indian Antiquary_, 142.

[131.1] xix. _Sacred Bks._, 2; Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, 183. The father and the mother of Parákrama 1., the restorer of the native kingdom of Ceylon, dreamed the same night that a beautiful elephant entered her chamber; and this was interpreted to foretell the birth of a hero. _Buddhism Primitive and Present in Magadha and in Ceylon_, by Reginald Stephen Copleston (London, 1892), 378.

[132.1] Sale, _Koran_, note on ch. xxix., citing Arab authors.

[132.2] Brinton, _Amer. Hero-Myths_, 90; iii. Bancroft, 271; both citing the Mexican Codex in the Vatican and the _Codex Telleriano-Remensis_.

[133.1] Callaway, _Tales_, 335.

[133.2] Ploss, i. _Weib_, 436.

[134.1] Plutarch, _Names of Rivers and Mountains_, xxiv.

[134.2] Featherman, _Aoneo-Mar._, 80.

[134.3] De Charencey, _Le Fils_, 16.

[134.4] iv. _Sacred Bks._, lxxix.; v. 143 note, 144; xxiii. 195, 226, 307; De Charencey, _Traditions_, 31, quoting Tavernier; Rev. Dr. Mills, in _Nineteenth Century_, Jan. 1894, 51.

[134.5] _Gerv. Tilb._ (Decision i. c. 17), 6, 68.

[135.1] Browne, _Vulgar Errors_ (l. vii. c. 16), 371.

[135.2] _Arcana Microcosmi: or, The hid Secrets of Man’s Body discovered_, etc. By A. R. (London, 1652), 132.

[136.1] Brinton, _Amer. Hero-Myths_, 47, citing Schoolcraft, who must, however, be generally accepted with caution.

[136.2] _Kalevala_, runes xlv. and i. I have already referred to another legend of the fertilisation of Loujatar, p. 114, note. The Magic Songs of the Finns are full of these stories. See Hon. J. Abercromby, in iv. _Folklore_, 35, 37, 47. The Magyars tell of a wind-begotten supernatural steed. Von Wlislocki, _Volksgl. Mag._, 10. Sir Walter Scott refers somewhere to a border ballad of a maiden impregnated by the night-wind; but I have mislaid the reference.

[136.3] iii. Bancroft, 175, note. Cf. Dr. A. W. Bell, in i. _Journ. Ethnol. Soc., N.S._, 250, where “a dewdrop from the Great Spirit” is said to have fallen upon the maiden’s bosom, entered her blood and caused her to conceive. This comes to the same thing; but Bancroft’s version seems more primitive.

[137.1] De Charencey, _Traditions_, 34, citing the Marquis d’Hervey-Saint-Denis. According to an Irish tradition, related in America by a woman from Roscommon, the ass and cow are accounted sacred, because these animals breathed upon the infant Jesus in the manger, and thus kept him warm. vi. _Journ. Amer. F.L._, 264.

[138.1] De Charencey, _Traditions_, 35.

[138.2] i. Reed, 201.

[139.1] _Second Voyage du Père Tachard_, 247. Sommonocodon is obviously Buddha. Both this story and one previously given (on p. 114) have been filtered through the minds of Jesuit fathers anxious to discover identifications with Christian teaching.

[139.2] De Charencey, _Le Fils_, 13.

[142.1] iii. Radloff, 82.

[143.1] De Charencey, _Traditions_, 38, quoting Father Giov. Phil. Marini; Southey, iv. _Commonplace Bk._, 41, quoting Picart.

[143.2] De Charencey, _Traditions_, 36.

[143.3] Ellis, i. _Polyn. Res._, 262. Cf. the account of creation in the Windward Isles, _ibid._, 324.

[143.4] _Ibid._, 326.

[144.1] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._, xxxvi. 70; Ovid (_Fasti_, vi. 629) and Arnobius (_Adv. Gen._, v. 18) regard Ocrisia as not quite so innocent. According to the former, Vulcan it was who was the father. Livy (i. 39) rationalises the tale.

[144.2] Codrington, 406.

[145.1] Southey, iv. _Commonplace Bk._, 142; Featherman, _Chiapo-Mar._, 136.

[146.1] While these sheets were passing through the press, Comte H. de Charencey, of whose studies I have availed myself in the foregoing pages, republished the substance of his articles on the Virgin’s Son, with additions, in a work entitled _Les Folklore dans les deux mondes_ (Paris, Klincksieck, 1894). He seeks there to show that the New World borrowed many of its legends from the Old, and among them that of the Supernatural Birth. If I understand him aright, he follows M. Angrand in attributing Mexican civilisation to an Asiatic origin, and declares that while traditions of a powerful hero born without a father are found among the tribes whose culture was drawn from this source, they are not found among other peoples, like the Mayas and the Peruvians, whose civilisation is to be ascribed to an easterly provenience. It is always dangerous to assert a negative. We have already seen (_ante_, p. 118) that the Peruvians had a tradition of the Supernatural Birth, although the offspring did not turn out a hero. But Hiawatha was a hero exactly of the kind referred to; and the foremother of the Bakaïrí of Central Brazil gave birth to the twin culture-heroes and parents of the race from swallowing two finger-bones. Von den Steinen, 373. The myth is far too widely spread, and far too deeply rooted in the savage beliefs of both hemispheres, to be simply accounted for by borrowing.