Note 157.4 — Chapter VI · THE SUPERNATURAL BIRTH IN PRACTICAL SUPERSTITIONS.

Eggs are naturally supposed to ensure pregnancy. A Gipsy husband will sometimes take an egg and blow the contents into his wife’s mouth, she swallowing them;157.4 or in Transylvania she will give him at full moon the egg of a black hen to eat by himself.157.5 On the island of Keisar in the East Indies, an infertile woman takes a hen’s first egg to an old man with a reputation for knowledge, and asks him for help. He lays the egg on a nunu-leaf, and with it presses her breast, muttering blessings the while. Then he cooks the egg in a koli-leaf, takes a bit of it, lays it again on the nunu-leaf, and gives it to the woman to eat. After that, he presses the leaf on her nose and breasts, and lightly rubs it upon her shoulders, passing it always downwards, wraps another bit of the egg in the nunu-leaf, and causes it to be preserved in the branches of one of the highest trees in the neighbourhood of her dwelling.158.1 On the other hand, in Galicia the last egg laid by a hen is credited with having two yolks. It is said to be no bigger than a pigeon’s egg. A barren woman who swallows its contents will henceforth bear; or it is given to a cow or other animal with a similar object.158.2