Note 127.1 — Chapter V · THE SUPERNATURAL BIRTH IN SAGAS.

The Dorahs of New Guinea trace their parentage to a solitary old man, who caught the Morning Star in the act of stealing his palm-wine. As ransom he obtained from the felon a magical wand. This wand possessed the property of making a virgin a mother, by simply touching her bosom. The old man put its virtue to proof at once upon the loveliest girl of his island-home. She gave birth to a son called Konori, who proved his miraculous descent, as these children alone know how to do, by pointing out his father.127.1 This calls to mind a well-known passage of the Mabinogion of which Lady Charlotte Guest’s modesty made nonsense. I venture to quote her charming English, with the needful correction. Math, the son of Mathonwy, is taking counsel with Gwydion and Gilvaethwy, the sons of Don, what maiden he shall seek for a wife. “ ‘Lord,’ said Gwydion, the son of Don, ‘it is easy to give thee counsel; seek Arianrod, the daughter of Don, thy niece, thy sister’s daughter.’ And they brought her unto him, and the maiden came in. ‘Ha, damsel,’ said he, ‘art thou a maiden?’ ‘I know not, lord, other than that I am.’ Then he took up his magic wand and bent it. ‘Step over this,’ said he, ‘and I shall know if thou art a maiden.’ Then stepped she over the magic wand, and there appeared forthwith a fine chubby yellow-haired boy. And thereupon some small form was seen; but before any one could get a second glimpse of it Gwydion had taken it and flung a scarf of velvet around it and hidden it. Now the place where he hid it was the bottom of a chest at the foot of his bed.” The yellow-haired boy was baptized by the name of Dylan. “As Gwydion lay one morning on his bed awake, he heard a cry in the chest at his feet; and though it was not loud, it was such that he could hear it. Then he arose in haste, and opened the chest: and when he opened it, he beheld an infant boy stretching out his arms from the folds of the scarf, and casting it aside. And he took up the boy in his arms, and carried him to a place where he knew there was a woman that could nurse him. And he agreed with the woman that she should take charge of the boy. And that year he was nursed. And at the end of the year he seemed by his size as though he were two years old. And the second year he was a big child and able to go to the Court by himself.” This second boy was afterwards named Llew Llaw Gyffes, and the rest of the story deals with his adventures.128.1 It is clear that the wand is credited with phallic power. A saga of the Warraus of British Guiana is unambiguous in the ascription of such power to the stump of a tree. This stump was half-submerged in a pool where two Indian women were bathing, when one of them touched it and it promptly made her its wife. To her brothers’ indignation, a child was born; and after it died, a second interview with the stump resulted in a second child. This child, a boy, was slain by his mother’s brothers, who cut his body into small pieces. But from the grave arose a man stronger and fiercer than any Warrau. He was the first Carib; and hence there has always been enmity between the Caribs and the Warraus.128.2