CHAPTER I 

 THE STORIES 



The subject proposed. Stories of supernatural birth de- 

 4 fined. Birth as a result of eating or drinking. Birth from 

 absorption of some portion of a dead man. Birth from 

 smell or from simple contact with a magical substance. 

 Mediaeval and other fancies as to the Annunciation. 

 Impregnation by wind, by bathing, by rain or sunshine, 

 by a glance, by a wish. 



4 



STORIES of supernatural birth may be said to have a 

 currency as wide as the world. Everywhere heroes 

 (and what nation has not such heroes ?) of extra- 

 ordinary achievement or extraordinary qualities have 

 been of extraordinary birth. The wonder or the 

 veneration they inspired seems to demand that their 

 entrance upon life, as well as their departure from the 

 earth, should correspond with the total impression left 

 by their career. Moreover women desirous of off- 

 spring are everywhere found to make use of means to 

 produce conception analogous to and often identical 

 with the means attributed to the mothers of those 

 heroes : means that in any case are equally remote 

 from the operations of nature. To examine these 

 phenomena, so extended if not universal in their 

 range, and to determine if possible alike the origin of 

 the stories and of the customs, is the object of the 

 following pages. 



