Note 105.1 — Chapter V · THE SUPERNATURAL BIRTH IN SAGAS.

We began our review of märchen containing the incident of the Supernatural Birth by examples of the results of eating a magical fish or fruit. The fish is a means of impregnation comparatively little known in sagas. A legend of the Tupis of Brazil, however, bearing resemblances to stories of the type of Beauty and the Beast, represents the hero, a supernatural being, as fertilising a young virgin by means of a mysterious fish.105.1 A curious piece of gossip is recorded by John Aubrey concerning Archbishop Abbot’s mother, who is said to have dreamed that if she ate a jack the son then in her womb would be a great man. Accordingly, “she arose early the next morning and went with her pail to the river-side (which runneth by the house, now an ale-house, the sign of the Three Mariners) to take up some water, and in the water in the pail she found a good jack, which she dressed, and ate it all, or very near.” Her son in due time was born, and grew up to be Archbishop of Canterbury.105.2 If not exactly a great man, he was an able and honest one and a patriot, who suffered, by no means alone, from the superstition, or the malignity, of his successor, the “martyr” Laud.