Note 136.1 — Chapter V · THE SUPERNATURAL BIRTH IN SAGAS.

Not only water but wind has been deemed sufficient to cause the birth of gods and heroes. The examples most familiar to us are those of Hera, who conceived Hephaistos without male concurrence by simply inhaling the wind, and of the maiden (in Longfellow’s poem, called Wenonah) who was quickened by the west wind and bore Michabo, the Algonkin hero better known as Hiawatha.136.1 To these we may add the blind Loujatar, source of all evils, ugliest and most hateful of Mana’s daughters, fructified by the east wind and bearing at a birth nine sons—nine several diseases to decimate mankind. Nor was she the first in the Finnish mythology to conceive in this manner, for Väinämöinen himself was the son of the virgin Ilmatar, who in the beginning, while as yet there was neither earth nor sun, moon nor stars, lay down upon the waters and was fecundated by the east wind. She bore her child for seven hundred years before she could bring him to the birth.136.2