PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 77 



lengthened) are more revolting than the incidents in 

 the numerous stories wherein portions of dead bodies, 

 given to maidens and other women, render them 

 pregnant. Special power is, as we might expect, 

 ascribed to saints, ascetics and persons put to a violent 

 death. The latter are often apotheosised, quite inde- 

 pendently of their character, or the reason for their 

 untimely decease. Executed criminals share the 

 honour with the most harmless martyrs ; and ruffianism 

 is no bar to divinity. That corporal relics of such 

 personages should have the power of kindling new life 

 in a barren woman may perhaps be regarded as only one 

 of their wonder-working powers. But there would seem 

 to be a further reason. Ascetics do not transmit life in 

 the ordinary way. Those who suffer violent death are 

 cut off before they have exhausted their power of trans- 

 mission. In either case, therefore, there remains a 

 fund which may be drawn upon by contact, or the 

 performance of the proper ceremonies. Both stories 

 and practices, however, point beyond an unexhausted 

 power of transmission to the possibility of securing the 

 life itself. It will be more convenient to pursue this 

 subject in the next chapter. 



The water wherein the Cairene women washed 

 would owe its power to the putrefying blood. Wash- 

 ing in water endowed with supernatural power is not 

 uncommon elsewhere. Incidental allusion has already 

 been made to the practice, which we may now further 

 illustrate. Transylvanian Saxon women not only drink 

 of baptismal water : they also wash in it, preferably 

 on Midsummer Day. 1 Among the Galician Jews 

 unfruitful women when they bathe according to their 

 1 von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Sieb. Sachs. 75, 152. 



