Note 92.1 — Chapter IV · THE INCIDENT OF THE SUPERNATURAL BIRTH IN MÄRCHEN.
Reading edition
In the Annamite story of The Lazy Man mentioned just now, the fish had been washed in the man’s urine. A variant, also from Annam, describes a sort of female Tom Thumb, born in answer to prayer, as eating the rind of a water-melon, the substance of which had been eaten by a prince. The prince, before throwing the rind away, had made water into it; and the heroine consequently became pregnant.92.1 In both these cases it is the man’s urine that confers the efficacy upon the food. A nasty Nubian tale ascribes the same result to a woman’s drinking, under stress of great thirst, the urine of an ass.92.2