THE STORIES 



27 



hero and creator (or rather transformer) of the Hupa 

 of California fertilised two women by his look. The 

 incident is related not merely in the sacred narrative, 

 but also in a charm used to facilitate childbirth. 1 The 

 Yana, another Californian tribe, tell of two sisters each 

 of whom gave birth to a boy in consequence of the 

 chicken-hawk's son's looking at them through his 

 fingers. 2 At Rome the birth of Servius Tullius was 

 by tradition imputed to a look. His mother, Ocrisia, 

 was a slave of Tanaquil the wife of Tarquinius Priscus. 

 The likeness of a phallus appeared on the hearth; 

 and she, who was sitting before it, arose pregnant of 

 the future king. The household Lar was deemed his 

 father, in confirmation of which a lambent flame was 

 seen about the child's head as he lay asleep. 3 



Numerous mdrchen found throughout the continent 

 of Europe belonging to the cycle of the Lucky Fool, 

 represent conception as the result of the utterance of a 

 wish by a man. The power to wish with effect is 

 bestowed sometimes by a supernatural being, some- 

 times by one of the lower animals. But in a story 

 from Damascus a supernatural being himself is by 

 this means the father of the child. 4 So in a saga of 

 the Wishosk of California a supernatural being bearing 

 the euphonious name of Gudatrigakwitl, who was 

 as near an approach to a savage creator as can be 

 found, seems to have formed everything by a wish. 



1 Goddard, Hupa, 126, 279. 



* Curtin, Creation Myths, 348. 



3 Pliny, Nat. Hist, xxxvi. 70. Ovid (Fasti, vi. 629) and Arnobius 

 (Adv. Gent. v. 1 8) regard Ocrisia as not quite so innocent. Accord- 

 ing to the former, Vulcan it was who was the father. Livy (i. 39) 

 rationalises the tale ; Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Plutarch add 

 pomp and circumstance. 4 Oestrup, 57 (Story No. 3). 



