Note 136.3 — Chapter V · THE SUPERNATURAL BIRTH IN SAGAS.

Montezuma, the culture-hero of the Pueblos of New Mexico, was the son of a maiden of exquisite beauty, but fastidious and coy. When the drought fell on her people she opened her granaries and fed them out of her abundance. “At last, with rain, fertility returned to the earth; and on the chaste Artemis of the Pueblos its touch fell too. She bore a son to the thick summer shower, and that son was Montezuma.”136.3 The Chinese and the Tartars appear able as usual to match all these traditions of parthenogenesis. The historian Ma-twan-lin has recorded that the king of the So-li, or northern barbarians, having been absent on a journey, found one of his concubines pregnant at his return. He would have put her to death, had she not asserted that a vapour about the size of an egg descended on her from the sky and caused her interesting condition. He shut her up, however, and she bore a son, who was thrown by the king’s orders into the pigsty. The pigs warmed the babe with their breath. He was thrown into a stable, and the horses did the same, reminding us of the birth of Marjatta’s child. The king then was persuaded of his slave-girl’s truth. He brought up the boy; but he feared him as he grew and became a skilful archer, and sought therefore to destroy him. The youth fled southward until he reached a certain river. There was no way over; so he struck the water with his bow, and the fishes and turtles, gathering together, formed a compact mass, that served as a bridge for the hero. He crossed dryshod, and, reaching a land to the north of Corea, founded there the nation and kingdom of the Fou-yu.137.1