THE STORIES 25 



of a woman on whom, so she said, a vapour about the 

 size of an egg descended from the sky and caused her 

 pregnancy. 1 



So also the rays of the sun fertilise women. Perhaps 

 this was the original form of the story of Danae : the 

 incident appears in several modern European marchen 

 which are variants of that story. In China impregna- 

 tion by the sun seems to have been a common fate of 

 the mothers of distinguished emperors. 2 A Japanese 

 legend tells of a poor maiden, into whose body as 

 she slept by the shore of a lagoon the rays of the sun 

 drove like the shafts from a celestial bow and caused 

 her to be pregnant. She was delivered of a red jewel 

 which, acquired at length by the chiefs son, was 

 changed into a fair girl and became his wife. 3 A 

 Siamese legend reported by a Jesuit father in the 

 seventeenth century attributes the birth of the deity 

 Sommonocodon (an obvious form of Buddha) to the 

 same cause. 4 The Admiralty Islanders deduce the 

 descent of mankind from a woman who was fecundated 

 by the sun. 6 The Samoan saga of the invention of 

 the fish-hook relates that a woman was fructified 

 by the rays of the rising sun and directed by a 

 sunbeam to call the child Aloaloalela. 6 Among the 

 Pueblo peoples of North America the tale recurs 

 more than once. In all cases the offspring are twins, 

 who are benefactors of their tribe. 7 The Kwakiutl 



1 De Charencey, 188, citing the Marquis d'Hervey-Saint-Denis. 

 8 Instances are collected by De Charencey, 208, 203. 

 8 Rev. Hist. Rel. Hi. 43 note, 46 note. 

 * Second Voyage du Pere Tachard^ 247. 



5 Anthropos, ii. 938. Int. Arch. xv. 170. 



7 Matthews, Navaho Leg. 105, 231 ; Fewkes, Journ. Am. F. L. 

 viii. 132 ; Gushing, Zuni F. T. 431 ; Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 43. 



