Note 111.1 — Chapter V · THE SUPERNATURAL BIRTH IN SAGAS.

I have narrated this incident somewhat at length, to exhibit the obvious mixture of heathen and Christian elements which it contains. Marjatta, there can be little doubt, is the Virgin Mary; Ruotus has been identified with Herod; and the discomfiture and departure of Väinämöinen, which follow the cited passages, point very clearly to the expulsion of paganism as typified by the mighty figure of the great sorcerer. Lönnröt’s method in the compilation of the epic from fragmentary songs leaves much to be desired in the certainty of traditional origin of many of its verses, perhaps of entire episodes; and the one before us may not be free from suspicion. Yet it is hardly likely that the poet would have had recourse to the savage conceit of the berry, had he not found it already in the legend he has presented to us. It would be difficult to match it in the sagas of modern Europe. As we saw just now, the analogous conceit of the fish is found in the case of Archbishop Abbot in no bolder shape than a dream. So the Irish Life of Saint Molasius of Devenish, preserved to us in a manuscript, written, probably from dictation, in the sixteenth century—that is to say, not long before the English tale became current—presents the holy man’s mother as dreaming “that she got seven fragrant apples; and the last apple of them that she took into her hand her grasp could not contain it for its size; gold (as it seemed to her) was not lovelier than the apple.” Her husband interprets the dream of “an offspring, excellent and famous, with which the mouths of all Ireland shall be filled:” an interpretation of course justified by the saint’s birth.111.1 We may conjecture that the legend in an earlier form related that impregnation took place by means of an apple; but before it was put into writing, perhaps long before, the incident had been modified by the slowly growing intelligence of the folk who related it.