Note 254 — Chapter XIII

Thus, the ancients attributed to the lion a particular antipathy to strong smells, such as garlic, and the pudenda of a woman. But this superstition must be classed with that which ascribes sterility to the lioness. The women of antiquity, when they met a lioness, considered it as an omen of sterility. In the Æsopian fable, the foxes boast of their fruitfulness before the lioness, whom they laugh at because she gives birth to only one cub. "Yes," she answers, "but it is a lion;" under the sign of the lion, the earth also becomes arid, and consequently unfruitful.