Note 8 — Chapter XII · Race in Folklore and Myth

Two versions of a story to account for the Ultonian couvade have been published with a translation into German, by Prof. Windisch, in the Berichte der k. sächs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften (phil.-hist. Classe) for 1884, pp. 338 et seq. Sundry references to the couvade will also be found in my Hibbert Lectures, where certain mythological suggestions made with reference to it require to be reconsidered. But when touching on this point it occurred to me that the wholesale couvade of the Ultonian braves, at one and the same time of the year, implied that the birth of Ultonian children, or at any rate those of them that were to be reared, took place (in some period or other of the history of their race) at a particular season of the year, namely, about the beginning of the winter, that is when food would be most abundant. I have since been confirmed in this view by perusing Westermarck’s work on the History of Human Marriage, and by reading especially his second chapter entitled ‘A Human Pairing Season in Primitive Times.’ For there I find a considerable body of instances in point, together with a summary treatment of the whole question. But in the case of promiscuity, such as originally prevailed doubtless at the Ultonian Court, the question what men were to go into couvade could only be settled by the confinement of them all, wherein we have an alternative if not an additional reason for a simultaneous couvade. ↑