8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



that a trout came swimming straight into her mouth. 

 She swallowed the fish and her wish was by that means 

 fulfilled. 1 The three women of the lady's dream are ob- 

 viously mythological figures of pre-christian antiquity. 

 In the modern European m'drchen belonging to the 

 cycle of Perseus, one of the favourite agencies of 

 conception is a fish. The typical story comes from 

 Brittany, and is called the King of the Fishes. A 

 poor and childless fisherman once caught in his net a 

 fish whose scales shone like gold. It prayed for life, 

 which was granted and the fisherman obtained 3 

 bountiful catch in exchange. But the fisherman's wife 

 desired to eat the King of the Fishes ; and when her 

 husband again caught it he was not to be moved by 

 its supplications. The fish then directed its captor to 

 gives its head to his wife to eat, and to throw the scales 

 into a corner of his garden and cover them with earth, 

 promising that his wife should give birth to three 

 beautiful boys with stars on their foreheads, and that 

 from its scales should grow three rose-trees correspond- 

 ing to the three children. One of the rose-trees was 

 to belong to each of the boys and to become his life- 

 token, so that when he should be in danger of death 

 his tree should wither. 2 In some variants parts of the 

 fish are to be given to the fisherman's mare and his 

 bitch, which accordingly bring forth young to the 

 number of the children. Beyond the limits of 

 Europe the Tupis of Brazil in one of their sacred 

 legends represent a supernatural being as fertilising a 

 young virgin by the gift of a mysterious fish ; 8 and in 



1 Bartels, Zeits. Ethnol. xxxii. 54, citing Arnason. 



2 Sebillot, Contes Pop. i. 124 (Story No. 18). 

 8 Denis, 94. 



