Note 542 — Chapter V · SYMBOLISM OF THE MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH

Just as the tree has the phallic nature as well as a maternal significance, so in myths the demonic old woman (she may be favorable or malicious) often has phallic attributes, for example, a long toe, a long tooth, long lips, long fingers, pendulous breasts, large hands, feet, and so on. This mixture of male and female motive has reference to the fact that the old woman is a libido symbol like the tree, generally determined as maternal. The bisexuality of the libido is expressed in its clearest form in the idea of the three witches, who collectively possessed but one eye and one tooth. This idea is directly parallel to the dream of a patient, who represented her libido as twins, one of which is a box, the other a bottle-like object, for eye and tooth represent male and female genitals. Relative to eye in this connection, see especially the Egyptian myths: referring to tooth, it is to be observed that Adonis (fecundity) died by a boar’s tooth, like Siegfried by Hagen’s spear: compare with this the Veronese Priapus, whose phallus was bitten by a snake. Tooth in this sense, like the snake, is a “negative” phallus.