Note 114 — Chapter V · WORSHIP OF THE MALEVOLENT DEAD.
Reading edition
Marco Polo, writing of Zardandan, gives a good example:—“When one of their wives has been delivered of a child, the infant is washed and swathed, and then the woman gets up and goes about her household affairs, whilst the husband takes to bed with the child by his side, and so keeps his bed for forty days; and all the kith and kin come to visit her, and keep up a great festivity. They do this because they say the woman has had a bad time of it, and it is but fair that the man should have a share of suffering.”114 Professor Rhys remarks that the gods of Celtic Ireland used to practise the Couvade.115