48 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



the roof where it is worm-eaten and the worm-dust 

 falls. Her husband strikes the beam with something 

 heavy, so as to shake the dust out of the worm-holes ; 

 and she drinks the water containing the dust that falls. 

 Many a woman seeks in knots of hazelwood for a 

 worm, and eats it when found. 1 All these women 

 thus do voluntarily what the mothers of Conchobar 

 and Cuchulainn are reported to have done against 

 their wills, Hungarian Gipsy-women gather the 

 floating threads of cobweb from the fields in autumn, 

 and in the waxing of the moon they, with their hus- 

 bands, eat them, murmuring an incantation to the 

 Keshalyi, or Fate, whose sorrow at this season for her 

 lost mortal husband causes her to tear out her hair. 

 These threads are believed to be the Keshalyi's hair ; 

 and the incantation attributes the hoped-for child to 

 them, and invites the Fate to the baptism. 2 A Gipsy 

 tradition from Transylvania derives the origin of the 

 Leila tribe from a king's daughter who ate some of 

 the hairs of a compassionate Keshalyi, dropped for 

 the purpose in her way. 3 



The last-mentioned practice, as well as some referred 

 to on a previous page and some of the others which 

 follow, are not confined to women. They seem to 

 have been extended by analogy to the other sex. 

 The fish is a prolific symbol so well known that it is 

 not surprising occasionally to find its use thus extended. 

 English gallants at one time were said to swallow 

 loaches in wine to become prolific. Farquhar in 



1 Krauss, Sitte und Branch, 531. Compare a Gipsy story, ron 

 Wlislocki, Volksdicht. 343. 



1 von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Zig. 13. 

 1 von Wlislocki, Volksdicht. 183. 



