BY

DR. OTTO RANK

The entire text of

THE MYTH OF THE BIRTH OF THE HERO:
A PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF MYTHOLOGY

1914

Introduction

The prominent civilized nations, such as the Babylonians, Egyptians, Hebrews, and Hindoos, the inhabitants of Iran and of Persia, the Greeks and the Romans as well as the Teutons and others, all began at an early stage to glorify their heroes, mythical princes and kings, founders of religions, dynasties, empires or cities, in brief their national heroes, in a number of poetic tales and legends. The history of the birth and of the early life of these personalities came to be especially invested with fantastic features, which in different nations even though widely separated by space and entirely independent of each other present a baffling similarity, or in part a literal correspondence. Many investigators have long been impressed with this fact, and one of the chief problems of mythical research still consists in the elucidation of the reason for the extensive analogies in the fundamental outlines of mythical tales, which are rendered still more enigmatical by the unanimity in certain details, and their reappearance in most of the mythical groupings.

The mythological theories, aiming at the explanation of these remarkable phenomena, are, in a general way, as follows:

The “Idea of the People,” propounded by Adolf Bastian. This theory assumes the existence of elementary thoughts, so that the unanimity of the myths is a necessary sequence of the uniform disposition of the human mind, and the manner of its manifestation, which within certain limits is identical at all times and in all places. This interpretation was urgently advocated by Adolf Bauer, as accounting for the wide distribution of the hero myths.

The explanation by original community, first applied by Th. Benfey to the widely distributed parallel forms of folklore and fairy tales. Originating in a favorable locality [India] these tales were first accepted by the primarily related [namely the Indo-Germanic] peoples, then continued to grow while retaining the common primary traits, and ultimately radiated over the entire earth. This mode of explanation was first adapted to the wide distribution of the hero myths by Rudolf Schubert.

The modern theory of migration, or borrowing, according to which the individual myths originate from definite peoples [especially the Babylonians], and are accepted by other peoples through oral tradition [commerce and traffic], or through literary influences.

The modern theory of migration and borrowing can be readily shown to be merely a modification of Benfey’s theory, necessitated by newly discovered and irreconcilable material. The profound and extensive research of modern investigations has shown that not India, but rather Babylonia, may be regarded as the first home of the myths. Moreover the mythic tales presumably did not radiate from a single point, but travelled over and across the entire inhabited globe. This brings into prominence the idea of the interdependence of mythical structures, an idea which was generalized by Braun, as the basic law of the nature of the human mind: Nothing new is ever discovered as long as it is possible to copy. The theory of the elementary thoughts, so strenuously advocated by Bauer over a quarter of a century ago, is unconditionally declined by the most recent investigators, who maintain the migration and purloining theory.

There is really no such sharp contrast between the various theories, and their advocates, for the theory of the elementary thoughts does not interfere with the claims of the primary common possessions and the migration. Furthermore, the ultimate problem is not whence and how the material reached a certain people; but the question is, where did it come from to begin with? All these theories would only explain the variability and distribution, but not the origin of the myths. Even Schubert, the most inveterate opponent of Bauer’s view, acknowledges this truth, by stating that all these manifold sagas date back to a single very ancient prototype. But he is unable to tell us anything of the origin of this prototype. Bauer likewise inclines to this mediating view and points out repeatedly that in spite of the multiple origin of independent tales, it is necessary to concede a most extensive and ramified purloining, as well as an original community of the concepts, in related peoples. The same conciliatory attitude is maintained by Lessmann, in a recent publication, in which he rejects the assumption of the elementary thoughts, but admits that primary relationship and purloining do not exclude one another. As pointed out by Wundt, it must be kept in mind, however, that the appropriation of mythical contents always represents at the same time an independent mythical construction; because only that can be permanently retained which corresponds to the purloiner’s stage of mythological ideation. The faint recollections of preceding narratives would hardly suffice for the re-figuration of the same material, without the persistent presence of the underlying motives; but precisely for this reason, such motives may produce new contents, which agree in their fundamental motives, also in the absence of similar associations.

Leaving aside for the present the enquiry as to the mode of distribution of these myths, the origin of the hero myth in general is now to be investigated, fully anticipating that migration, or borrowing, will prove to be directly and fairly positively demonstrable, in a number of the cases. When this is not feasible, other view points will have to be conceded, at least for the present, rather than barricade the way to further progress by the somewhat unscientific attitude of Winckler, who says: When human beings and products, exactly corresponding to each other, are found at remote parts of the earth, we must conclude that they have wandered thither; whether we have knowledge of the how or when makes no difference in the assumption of the fact itself. Even granting the migration of all myths, the provenance of the first myth would still have to be explained.

Investigations along these lines will necessarily help to provide a deeper insight into the contents of the myths. Nearly all authors who have hitherto been engaged upon the interpretation of the myths of the birth of heroes find therein a personification of the processes of nature, following the dominant mode of natural mythological interpretation. The new born hero is the young sun rising from the waters, first confronted by lowering clouds, but finally triumphing over all obstacles. The taking of all natural, chiefly the atmospheric phenomena into consideration, as was done by the first representatives of this method of myth interpretation; or the regarding of the myths in a more restricted sense, as astral myths —is not so essentially distinct, as the followers of each individual direction believe to be the case. Nor does it seem to be an essential progress when the purely solar interpretation as advocated especially by Frobenius was no longer accepted and the view was held that all myths were originally lunar myths, as done by G. Hüsing, in his “Contributions to the Kyros Myth”, following out the suggestion of Siecke, who claims this view as the only legitimate obvious interpretation also for the birth myths of the heroes, and it is beginning to gain popularity.

The interpretation of the myths themselves will be taken up in detail later on, and all detailed critical comments on the above mode of explanation are here refrained from. Although significant, and undoubtedly in part correct, the astral theory is not altogether satisfactory and fails to afford an insight into the motives of myth formation. The objection may be raised that the tracing to astronomical processes does not fully represent the content of these myths, and that much clearer and simpler relations might be established through another mode of interpretation. The much abused theory of elementary thoughts indicates a practically neglected aspect of mythological research. At the beginning as well as at the end of his contribution, Bauer points out how much more natural and probable it would be to seek the reason for the general unanimity of these myths in very general traits of the human psyche, than in a primary community or in migration. This assumption appears to be more justifiable as such general movements of the human mind are also expressed in still other forms, and in other domains, where they can be demonstrated as unanimous.

Concerning the character of these general movements of the human mind, the psychological study of the essential contents of these myths might help to reveal the source from which has uniformly flowed at all times, and in all places, an identical content of the myths. Such a derivation of an essential constituent, from a common human source, has already been successfully attempted with one of these legendary motives. Freud, in his “Dream Interpretation,” reveals the connection of the Œdipus fable [where Œdipus is told by the oracle that he will kill his father and marry his mother, as he unwittingly does later on] with the two typical dreams of the father’s death, and of sexual intercourse with the mother, dreams which are dreamed by many now living. Of King Œdipus he says that “his fate stirs us only because it might have been our own fate; because the oracle has cursed us prior to our birth, as it did him. All of us, perhaps, were doomed to direct the first sexual emotion towards the mother, the first hatred and aggressive desire against the father; our dreams convince us of this truth. King Œdipus, who has murdered his father Laios, and married his mother Iokaste, is merely the wish fulfilment of our childhood.” The manifestation of the intimate relation between dream and myth,—not only in regard to the contents, but also as to the form and motor forces of this and many other, more particularly pathological psyche structures,—entirely justifies the interpretation of the myth as a dream of the masses of the people, which I have recently shown elsewhere. At the same time, the transference of the method, and in part also of the results, of Freud’s technique of dream interpretation to the myths would seem to be justifiable, as was defended and illustrated in an example, by Abraham, in his paper on “Dreams and Myths”. The intimate relations between dream and myth find further confirmation in the following circle of myths, with frequent opportunity for reasoning from analogy.

The hostile attitude of the most modern mythological tendency [chiefly represented by the Society for Comparative Mythological Research] against all attempts at establishing a relation between dream and myth is for the most part the outcome of the restriction of the parallelization to the so-called nightmares, as attempted in Laistner’s notable book, “The Riddle of the Sphinx,” 1889, and also of ignorance of the relevant teachings of Freud. The latter help us not only to understand the dreams themselves, but also show their symbolism and close relationship with all psychic phenomena in general, especially with the day dreams or phantasies, with artistic creativeness, and with certain disturbances of the normal psychic function. A common share in all these productions belongs to a single psychic function, the human imagination. It is to this imaginative faculty—of humanity at large rather than individual—that the modern myth theory is obliged to concede a high rank, perhaps the first, for the ultimate origin of all myths. The interpretation of the myths in the astral sense, or more accurately speaking as “almanac tales,” gives rise to the query, according to Lessmann,—in view of a creative imagination of humanity,—if the first germ for the origin of such tales is to be sought precisely in the processes in the heavens; or if, on the contrary, readymade tales of an entirely different [but presumably psychic] origin were only subsequently transferred to the heavenly bodies. Ehrenreich makes a more positive admission: The mythologic evolution certainly begins on a terrestrian soil, in so far as experiences must first be gathered in the immediate surroundings before they can be projected into the heavenly universe. And Wundt tells us that the theory of the evolution of mythology according to which it first originates in the heavens whence at a later period it descends to earth, is not only contradictory to the history of the myth, which is unaware of such a migration, but is likewise contradictory to the psychology of myth-formation which must repudiate this translocation as internally impossible. We are also convinced that the myths, originally at least, are structures of the human faculty of imagination, which at some time were projected for certain reasons upon the heavens, and may be secondarily transferred to the heavenly bodies, with their enigmatical phenomena. The significance of the unmistakeable traces which this transference has imprinted upon the myths, as the fixed figures, and so forth, must by no means be underrated, although the origin of these figures was possibly psychic in character, and they were subsequently made the basis of the almanac and firmament calculations, precisely on account of this significance.

In a general way it would seem as if those investigators who make use of an exclusively natural mythological mode of interpretation, in any sense, were unable, in their endeavor to discover the original sense of the mythical tales, to get entirely away from a psychological process, such as must be assumed likewise for the creators of the myths. The motive is identical, and led to the same course in the myth creators as well as in the myth interpretorsIt is most naïvely uttered by one of the founders and champions of comparative myth investigation, and of the natural mythological mode of interpretation, for Max Müller points out in his “Essays” that this procedure not only invests meaningless legends with a significance and beauty of their own, but it helps to remove some of the most revolting features of classical mythology, and to elucidate their true meaning. This revolt, the reason for which is readily understood, naturally prevents the mythologist from assuming that such motives as incest with the mother, sister or daughter; murder of father, grandfather or brother could be based upon universal phantasies, which according to Freud’s teachings have their source in the infantile psyche, with its peculiar interpretation of the external world and its denizens. This revolt is therefore only the reaction of the dimly sensed painful recognition of the actuality of these relations; and this reaction impels the interpreters of the myths, for their own subconscious rehabilitation, and that of all mankind, to credit these motives with an entirely different meaning from their original significance. The same internal repudiation prevents the myth-creating people from believing in the possibility of such revolting thoughts, and this defence probably was the first reason for the projecting of these relations to the firmament. The psychological pacifying through such a rehabilitation, by projection upon external and remote objects, can still be realized, up to a certain degree, by a glance at one of these interpretations, for instance that of the objectionable Œdipus fable, as given by a representative of the natural mythological mode of interpretation. Œdipus, who kills his father, marries his mother, and dies old and blind, is the solar hero who murders his procreator, the darkness; shares his couch with the mother, the gloaming, from whose lap, the dawn, he has been born, and dies blinded, as the setting sun.

It is intelligible that a similar interpretation is more soothing to the mind than the revelation of the fact that incest and murder impulses against the nearest relatives are found in the phantasies of most people, as remnants of the infantile ideation. But this is not a scientific argument, and revolt of this kind, although it may not always be equally conscious, is altogether out of place, in view of existing facts. One must either become reconciled to these indecencies, provided they are felt to be such, or one must abandon the study of psychological phenomena. It is evident that human beings, even in the earliest times, and with a most naïve imagination, never saw incest and parricide in the firmament on high, but it is far more probable that these ideas are derived from another source, presumably human. In what way they came to reach the sky, and what modifications or additions they received in the process, are questions of a secondary character, which cannot be settled until the psychic origin of the myths in general has been established.

At any rate, besides the astral conception, the claims of the part played by the psychic life must be credited with the same rights for myth formation, and this plea will be amply vindicated by the results of our method of interpretation. With this object we shall first take up the legendary material on which such a psychological interpretation is to be attempted for the first time on a large scale; selecting from the mass of these chiefly biographical hero myths those which are the best known, and some which are especially characteristic. These myths will be given in abbreviated form as far as relevant for this investigation, with statements concerning the provenance. Attention will be called to the most important, constantly recurrent motives by a difference in print.

Sargon

Probably the oldest transmitted hero myth in our possession is derived from the period of the foundation of Babylon (about 2800 B.C.), and concerns the birth history of its founder, Sargon the First. The literal translation of the report—which according to the mode of rendering appears to be an original inscription by King Sargon himself—is as follows:

“Sargon, the mighty king, King of Agade, am I. My mother was a vestal, my father I knew not, while my father’s brother dwelt in the mountains. In my city Azupirani, which is situated on the bank of the Euphrates, my mother, the vestal, bore me. In a hidden place she brought me forth. She laid me in a vessel made of reeds, closed my door with pitch, and dropped me down into the river, which did not drown me. The river carried me to Akki, the water carrier. Akki the water carrier lifted me up in the kindness of his heart, Akki the water carrier raised me as his own son, Akki the water carrier made of me his gardener. In my work as a gardener I was beloved by Istar, I became the king, and for 45 years I held kingly sway.”

Moses

The biblical birth history of Moses, which is told in Exodus, chapter 2, presents the greatest similarity to the Sargon legend, even an almost literal correspondence of individual traits. Already the first chapter (22) relates that Pharaoh commanded his people to throw into the water all sons which were born to Hebrews, while the daughters were permitted to live; the reason for this order being referred to the overfertility of the Israelites. The second chapter continues as follows:

“And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink. And his sister stood afar off to wit what would be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river’s side and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she opened it, she saw the child, and behold the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, this is one of the Hebrews’ children. Then said his sister to Pharaoh’s daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child’s mother. And Pharaoh’s daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it. And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.”

This account is ornamented by Rabbi mythology through an account of the events preceding Moses’ birth. In the sixtieth year after Joseph’s death, the reigning Pharaoh saw in his dream an old man, who held a pair of scales, all the inhabitants of Egypt lay on one side, with only a sucking lamb on the other, but nevertheless this outweighed all the Egyptians. The startled king at once consulted the wise men and astrologers, who declared the dream to mean that a son would be born to the Israelites, who would destroy all Egypt. The king was frightened, and at once ordered the death of all newborn children of the Israelites in the entire country. On account of this tyrannical order, the Levite Amram, who lived in Goshen, meant to separate from his wife Jocabed, so as not to foredoom to certain death the children conceived from him. But this resolution was opposed later on by his daughter Miriam, who foretold with prophetic assurance that precisely the child suggested in the king’s dream would come forth from her mother’s womb, and would become the liberator of his people.

Amram therefore rejoined his wife, from whom he had been separated for three years. At the end of three months, she con[Pg 15]ceived, and later on bore a boy at whose birth the entire house was illuminated by an extraordinary luminous radiance, suggesting the truth of the prophecy. (After Bergel, “Mythology of the Hebrews,” Leipzig, 1882.)

Similar accounts are given of the birth of the ancestor of the Hebrew nation, Abraham. He was a son of Therach—Nimrod’s captain—and Amtelai. Prior to his birth, it was revealed to King Nimrod, from the stars, that the coming child would overthrow the thrones of powerful princes, and take possession of their lands. King Nimrod means to have the child killed immediately after its birth. But when the boy is requested from Therach, he says: Truly a son was born to me, but he has died. He then delivers a strange child, concealing his own son in a cave underneath the ground, where God permits him to suck milk from a finger of the right hand. In this cave, Abraham is said to have remained until the third (according to others the tenth) year of his life. (Compare Beer, “The Life of Abraham,” according to the interpretation of Jewish traditions, Leipzig, 1859, and Aug. Wünsche, “From Israel’s Temples of Learning,” Leipzig, 1907.) Also in the next generation, in the story of Isaac, appear the same mythical motives. Prior to his birth King Abimelech is warned by a dream not to touch Sarah, as this would cause woe to betide him. After a long period of barrenness, she finally bears her son, who (in later life, in this report) after having been destined to be sacrificed by his own father (foster-father) Abraham, is ultimately rescued by God. But Abraham casts out his own son Ishmael, with Hagar, the boy’s mother (Genesis 20, 6. See also Bergel, loc. cit.).

Karna

A close relationship with the Sargon legend is also shown in certain features of the ancient Hindu epic Mahâbháràta, of the birth of the hero Karna. The contents of the legend are briefly rendered by Lassen (“Indische Altertumskunde,” I, p. 63).

The princess Pritha, also known as Kunti, bore as a virgin the boy Karna, whose father was the sun god Surya. The young Karna was born with the golden ear ornaments of his father and with an unbreakable coat of mail. The mother in her distress concealed and exposed the boy. In the adaptation of the myth by A. Holtzmann, verse 1458 reads: “Then my nurse and I made a large basket of rushes, placed a lid thereon, and lined it with wax; into this basket I laid the boy and carried him down to the river Acva.” Floating on the waves, the basket reaches the river Ganga and travels as far as the city of Campa. “There was passing along the bank of the river, the charioteer, the noble friend of Dhrtarastra, and with him was Radha, his beautiful and pious spouse. She was wrapt in deep sorrow, because no son had been given to her. On the river she saw the basket, which the waves carried close to her on the shore; she showed it to Azirath, who went and drew it forth from the waves.” The two take care of the boy and raise him as their own child.

Kunti later on marries King Pandu, who is forced to refrain from conjugal intercourse by the curse that he is to die in the arms of his spouse. But Kunti bears three sons, again through divine conception, one of the children being born in the cave of a wolf. One day Pandu dies in the embrace of his second wife. The sons grow up, and at a tournament which they arrange, Karna appears to measure his strength against the best fighter, Arjuna, the son of Kunti. Arjuna scoffingly refuses to fight the charioteer’s son. In order to make him a worthy opponent, one of those present anoints him as king. Meanwhile Kunti has recognized Karna as her son, by the divine mark, and prays him to desist from the contest with his brother, revealing to him the secret of his birth. But he considers her revelation as a fantastic tale, and insists implacably upon satisfaction. He falls in the combat, struck by Arjuna’s arrow. (Compare the detailed account in Lefmann’s “History of Ancient India,” Berlin, 1890, p. 181, et seq.)

A striking resemblance of the entire structure with the Karna legend is presented by the birth history of Ion, the ancestor of the Ionians, of whom a relatively late tradition states the following: 

Apollo, in the grotto of the rock of the Athenian Acropolis, procreated a son with Kreusa, the daughter of Erechtheus. In this grotto the boy was also born, and exposed; the mother leaves the child behind in a woven basket, in the hope that Apollo will not leave his son to perish. On Apollo’s request, Hermes carries the child the same night to Delphi, where the priestess finds him on the threshold of the temple in the morning. She brings the boy up, and when he has grown into a youth makes him a servant of the temple. Erechtheus later on gave his daughter Kreusa in marriage to the immigrated Xuthos. As the marriage long remained childless, they addressed the Delphian oracle, praying to be blessed with progeny. The god reveals to Xuthos that the first to meet him on leaving the sanctuary is his son. He hastens outside and meets the youth, whom he joyfully greets as his own son, giving him the name Ion, which means “Walker.” Kreusa refuses to accept the youth as her son; her attempt to poison him fails, and the infuriated people turn against her. Ion is about to attack her, but Apollo, who did not wish the son to kill his own mother, enlightened the mind of the priestess so that she understood the connection. By means of the basket in which the newborn child had lain, Kreusa recognizes him as her son, and reveals to him the secret of his birth.

Œdipus

The parents of Œdipus, King Laios and his queen, Jocaste, lived for a long time in childless wedlock. Laios, who is longing for an heir, asks the Delphic Apollo for advice. The oracle answers that he may have a son if he so desires; but fate has ordained that his own son will kill him. Fearing the fulfilment of the oracle, Laios refrains from conjugal relations, but being intoxicated one day, he nevertheless procreates a son, whom he causes to be exposed in the river Kithairon, barely three days after his birth. In order to be quite sure that the child will perish, Laios orders his ankles to be pierced. According to the account of Sophocles, which is not the oldest, however, the shepherd who has been intrusted with the exposure, surrenders the boy to a shepherd of King Polybos, of Corinth, at whose court he is brought up, according to the universal statement. Others say that the boy was exposed in a box on the sea, and was taken from the water by Periböa, the wife of King Polybos, as she was rinsing her clothes by the shore. Polybos brought him up as his own son.

Œdipus, on hearing accidentally that he is a foundling, asks the Delphian oracle for his own parents, but receives the prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother. In the belief that this prophecy refers to his foster parents, he flees from Corinth to Thebes, but on the way unwittingly kills his father Laios. By solving a riddle, he frees the City from the plague of the Sphinx, a man-devouring monster, and in reward is given the hand of Jocaste, his mother, as well as the throne of his father. The revelation of these horrors, and the subsequent misfortune of Œdipus, were a favorite subject for spectacular display among the Greek tragedians.

An entire series of Christian legends have been elaborated on the pattern of the Œdipus myth, and the summarized contents of the Judas legend may serve as a paradigm of this group. Before his birth, his mother Cyboread, is warned by a dream that she will bear a wicked son, to the ruin of all his people. The parents expose the boy in a box on the sea. The waves cast the child ashore on the Isle of Scariot, where the childless queen finds him, and brings him up as her son. Later on, the royal couple have a son of their own, and the foundling, who feels himself slighted, kills his foster brother. As a fugitive from the country, he takes service at the court of Pilate, who made a confidant of him and placed him above his entire household. In a fight, Judas kills a neighbor, without knowing that he is his father. The widow of the murdered man, namely his own mother, then becomes his wife. After the revelation of these horrors, he repents and seeks the Saviour, who receives him among his apostles. His betrayal of Jesus is known from the Gospel.

The legend of St. Gregory on the Stone—the subject of the narrative of Hartmann von Aue—represents a more complicated type of this mythical cycle. Gregory, the child of the incestuous union of royal lovers, is exposed by his mother in a box on the sea, saved and raised by fishermen, and is then educated in a convent for the church. But he prefers the life of a knight, is victorious in combats, and in reward is given the hand of the princess, his mother. After the discovery of the incest, Gregory does penance for seventeen years, on a rock in the midst of the sea, and he is finally made the Pope, at the command of God. (Compare Cholevicas, “History of German Poetry, According to the Antique Elements.”)

A very similar legend is the Iranese legend of King Dârâb, told by King Firdusi in the Book of Kings, and rendered by Spiegel (Eranische Altertumskunde, II, 584). The last Kirânian Behmen nominated as his successor his daughter and simultaneous wife Humâi; so that his son Sâsân was grieved and withdrew into solitude. A short time after the death of her husband, Humâi gave birth to a son, whom she resolved to expose. He was placed in a box, which was put into the Euphrates, and drifted down stream, until it was held up by a stone, which had been placed in the water by a tanner. The box with the child was found by him, and he carried the boy to his wife, who had recently lost her own child. The couple agreed to raise the foundling, and as the boy grew up, he soon became so strong that the other children were unable to resist him. He did not care for the work of his father, but learned to be a warrior. His foster mother was forced by him to reveal the secret of his origin, and he joined the army which Humâi was then sending out to fight the king of Rûm. Her attention being called to him by his bravery, Humâi readily recognized him as her son, and named him her successor.

Paris

Apollodorus relates of the birth of Paris: King Priamos had with his wife Hekabe a son, named Hektor. When Hekabe was about to bear another child, she dreamed that she brought forth a burning log of wood, which set fire to the entire city. Priamos asked the advice of Aisakos, who was his son with his first wife Arisbe, and an expert in the interpretation of dreams. Aisakos declared that the child would bring trouble upon the city, and advised that it be exposed. Priamos gave the little boy to a slave, who carried him to the top of Mount Ida; this man’s name was Agelaos. The child was nursed during five days by a she-bear. When Agelaos found that he was still alive, he picked him up, and carried him home to raise him. He named the boy Paris; but after the child had grown into a strong and handsome youth, he was called Alexandros, because he fought the robbers and protected the flocks. Before long he discovered his parents. How this came about is told by Hyginus, according to whose report the infant is found by shepherds. One day messengers, sent by Priamos, come to these herders to fetch a bull which is to serve as the prize for the victor in the combats arranged in commemoration of Paris. They selected a bull which Paris valued so highly that he followed the men who led the beast away, assisted in the combats, and won the prize. This aroused the anger of his brother Deiphobos, who threatened him with his sword, but his sister Kassandra recognized him as her brother, and Priamos joyfully received him as his son. The misfortune which Paris later on brought to his family and his native city, through the abduction of Helena, is well known from Homer’s poems, as well as their predecessors and successors, their prologue and epilogue.

A certain resemblance with the story of the birth of Paris is presented by the poem of Zal, in Firdusi’s Persian hero-myths (translated by Schack). The first son is born to Sam, king of Sistan, by one of his consorts. Because he had white hair, his mother concealed the birth. But the nurse reveals the birth of his son to the king. Sam is disappointed, and commands that the child be exposed. The servants carry it on the top of Mount Alburs, where it is raised by the Somurgh, a powerful bird. The full grown youth is seen by a travelling caravan, whose members speak of him “as whose nurse a bird is sufficient.” King Sam once sees his son in a dream, and sallies forth to seek the exposed child. He is unable to reach the summit of the elevated rock where he finally espies the youth. But the Somurgh bears his son down to him, he receives him joyfully and nominates him as his successor.

Telephos

Aleos, King of Tegea, was informed by the oracle that his sons would perish through a descendant of his daughter. He therefore made his daughter Auge a priestess of the goddess Athene, and threatened her with death should she mate with a man. But when Herakles dwelt as a guest in the sanctuary of Athene, on his expedition against Augias, he saw the maiden, and when intoxicated he raped her. When Aleos became aware of her pregnancy, he delivered her to Nauplios, a rough sailor, with the command to throw her into the sea. But on the way she gave birth to Telephos, on Mount Parthenios, and Nauplios, unmindful of the orders he had received, carried both her and the child to Mysia, where he delivered them to King Teuthras.

According to another version, Auge secretly brought forth as a priestess, but kept the child hidden in the temple. When Aleos discovered the sacrilege, he caused the child to be exposed in the Parthenian mountains, Nauplios was instructed to sell the mother in foreign lands, or to kill her. She was delivered by him into the hands of Teuthras.

According to the current tradition, Auge exposes the newborn child and escapes to Mysia, where the childless King Teuthras adopts her as his daughter. The boy, however, is nursed by a doe, and is found by shepherds who take him to King Korythos. The king brings him up as his son. When Telephos has grown into a youth he betakes himself to Mysia, on the advice of the oracle, to seek his mother. He frees Teuthras, who is in danger from his enemies, and in reward receives the hand of the supposed daughter of the king, namely his own mother Auge. But she refuses to submit to Telephos, and when he in his ire is about to pierce the disobedient one with his sword, she calls on her lover Herakles in her distress, and Telephos thus recognizes his mother. After the death of Teuthras he becomes king of Mysia.

Perseus

Akrisios, the king of Argos, had already reached an advanced age without having male progeny. As he desired a son, he consulted the Delphian oracle, but this warned him against male descendants, and informed him that his daughter Danae would bear a son through whose hand he would perish. In order to prevent this, his daughter was locked up by him in an iron chamber, which he caused to be carefully guarded. But Zeus penetrated through the roof, in the guise of a golden rain, and Danae became the mother of a boy. One day Akrisios heard the voice of young Perseus in his daughter’s room, and in this way learned that she had given birth to a child. He killed the nurse, but carried his daughter with her son to the domestic altar of Zeus, to have an oath taken on the true father’s name. But he refuses to believe his daughter’s statement that Zeus is the father, and he encloses her with the child in a box, which is cast into the sea. The box is carried by the waves to the coast of Seriphos, where Diktys, a fisherman, usually called a brother of King Polydektes, saves mother and child by drawing them out of the sea with his nets. Diktys leads the two into his house and keeps them as his relations. Polydektes, however, becomes enamoured of the beautiful mother, and as Perseus was in his way, he tried to remove him by sending him forth to fetch the head of the Gorgon Medusa. But against the king’s anticipations Perseus accomplishes this difficult task, and a number of heroic deeds besides. In throwing the discos, at play, he accidentally kills his grandfather, as foretold by the oracle. He becomes the king of Argos, then of Tiryath, and the builder of Mykene.

Gilgamos

Aelian, who lived about 200 A.D, relates in his “Animal Stories” the history of a boy who was saved by an eagle. 

“Animals have a characteristic fondness for man. An eagle is known to have nourished a child. I shall tell the entire story, in proof of my assertion. When Senechoros reigned over the Babylonians, the Chaldean fortune-tellers foretold that the son of the king’s daughter would take the kingdom from his grandfather; this verdict was a prophecy of the Chaldeans. The king was afraid of this prophecy, and humorously speaking, he became a second Akrisius for his daughter, over whom he watched with the greatest severity. But his daughter, fate being wiser than the Babylonian, conceived secretly from an inconspicuous man. For fear of the king, the guardians threw the child down from the Akropolis, where the royal daughter was imprisoned. The eagle, with his keen eyes, saw the boy’s fall, and before the child struck the earth, he caught it on his back, bore it into a garden, and set it down with great care. When the overseer of the place saw the beautiful boy he was pleased with him and raised him. The boy received the name Gilgamos, and became the king of Babylonia. If anyone regards this as a fable, I have nothing to say, although I have investigated the matter to the best of my ability. Also from Achaemenes, the Persian, from whom the nobility of the Persians is derived, I learn that he was the pupil of an eagle.”

Kyros

The myth of Kyros, which the majority of investigators place in the center of this entire mythical circle, without entirely sufficient grounds, it would appear—has been transmitted to us in several versions. According to the report of Herodotus (about 450 B.C.), who states (I, 95) that among four renderings known to him, he selected the least “glorifying” version, the story of the birth and youth of Kyros is as follows, I, 107 et seq.

Royal sway over the Medes was held, after Kyaxares, by his son Astyages, who had a daughter named Mandane. Once he saw, in a dream, so much water passing from her as to fill an entire city, and inundate all Asia. He related his dream to the dream interpreters among the magicians, and was in great fear after they had explained it all to him. When Mandane had grown up, he gave her in marriage, not to a Mede, his equal in birth, but to a Persian, by name of Kambyses. This man came of a good family and led a quiet life. The King considered him of lower rank than a middle class Mede. After Mandane had become the wife of Kambyses, Astyages saw another dream vision in the first year. He dreamed that a vine grew from his daughter’s lap, and this vine overshadowed all Asia. After he had again related this vision to the dream interpreters, he sent for his daughter, who was with child, and after her arrival from Persia, he watched her, because he meant to kill her offspring. For the dream interpreters among the magicians had prophesied to him that his daughter’s son would become king in his place. In order to avert this fate, he waited until Kyros was born, and then sent for Harpagos, who was his relative and his greatest confidant among the Medes, and whom he had placed over all his affairs. Him he addressed as follows: “My dear Harpagos, I shall charge thee with an errand which thou must conscientiously perform. But do not deceive me, and let no other man attend to it, for all might not go well with thee. Take this boy, whom Mandane has brought forth, carry him home, and kill him. Afterwards thou canst bury him, how and in whatsoever manner thou desirest.” But Harpagos made answer: “Great King, never hast thou found thy servant disobedient, and also in future I shall beware not to sin before thee. If such is thy will, it behooves me to carry it out faithfully.” When Harpagos had thus spoken, and the little boy with all his ornaments had been delivered into his hands, for death, he went home weeping. On his arrival he told his wife all that Astyages had said to him. But she inquired, “What art thou about to do?” He made reply: “I shall not obey Astyages, even if he raved and stormed ten times worse than he is doing. I shall not do as he wills, and consent to such a murder. I have a number of reasons: in the first place, the boy is my blood relative; then, Astyages is old, and he has no male heir. Should he die, and the kingdom go to his daughter, whose son he bids me kill at present, would I not run the greatest danger? But the boy must die, for the sake of my safety. However, one of Astyages’ men is to be his murderer, not one of mine.”

Having thus spoken, he at once despatched a messenger to one of the king’s cattle herders, by name Mithradates, who, as he happened to know, was keeping his herd in a very suitable mountain pasturage, full of wild animals. The herder’s wife was also a slave of Astyages’, by name Kyno in Greek, or Spako (a bitch) in the Medean language. When the herder hurriedly arrived, on the command of Harpagos, the latter said to him: “Astyages bids thee take this boy and expose him in the wildest mountains, that he may perish as promptly as may be, and the King has ordered me to say to thee: If thou doest not kill the boy, but let him live, in whatever way, thou art to die a most disgraceful death. And I am charged to see to it that the boy is really exposed.” When the herder had listened to this, he took the boy, went home, and arrived in his cottage. His wife was with child, and was in labor the entire day, and it happened that she was just bringing forth, when the herder had gone to the city. They were greatly worried about each other. But when he had returned and the woman saw him again so unexpectedly, she asked in the first place why Harpagos had sent for him so hurriedly. But he said: “My dear wife, would that I had never seen what I have seen and heard in the city, and what has happened to our masters. The house of Harpagos was full of cries and laments. This startled me, but I entered, and soon after I had entered, I saw a small boy lying before me, who struggled and cried and was dressed in fine garments and gold. When Harpagos saw me, he bid me quickly take the boy, and expose him in the wildest spot of the mountains. He said Astyages had ordered this, and added awful threats if I failed to do so. I took the child and went away with it, thinking that it belonged to one of the servants, for it did not occur to me whence it had come. But on the way, I learned the entire story from the servant who led me from the city, and placed the boy in my hands. He is the son of Mandane, daughter of Astyages, and Kambyses the son of Kyros; and Astyages has ordered his death. Behold, here is the boy.”

Having thus spoken, the herder uncovered the child and showed it to her, and when the woman saw that he was a fine strong child, she wept, and fell at her husband’s feet, and implored him not to expose it. But he said he could not do otherwise, for Harpagos would send servants to see if this had been done; he would have to die a disgraceful death unless he did so. Then she said again: “If I have failed to move thee, do as follows, so that they may see an exposed child: I have brought forth a dead child; take it and expose it, but the son of the daughter of Astyages we will raise as our own child. In this way, thou wilt not be found a disobedient servant, nor will we fare ill ourselves. Our stillborn child will be given a kingly burial, and the living child’s life will be preserved.” The herder did as his wife had begged and advised him to do. He placed his own dead boy in a basket, dressed him in all the finery of the other, and exposed him on the most desert mountain. Three days later he announced to Harpagos that he was now enabled to show the boy’s cadaver. Harpagos sent his most faithful body guardians, and ordered the burial of the cattle herder’s son. The other boy, however, who was known later on as Kyros, was brought up by the herder’s wife. They did not call him Kyros, but gave him another name.

When the boy was twelve years old the truth was revealed, through the following accident. He was playing on the road, with other boys of his own age, in the village where the cattle were kept. The boys played “King,” and elected the supposed son of the cattle herder. But he commanded some to build houses, others to carry lances; one he made the king’s watchman, the other was charged with the bearing of messages; briefly, each received his appointed task. One of the boy’s playmates, however, was the son of Artembares, a respected man among the Medes, and when he did not do as Kyros ordained, the latter made the other boys seize him. The boys obeyed, and Kyros chastised him with severe blows. After they let him go, he became furiously angry, as if he had been treated improperly. He ran into the city and complained to his father of what Kyros had done to him. He did not mention the name of Kyros for he was not yet called so, but said the cattle herder’s son. Artembares went wrathfully with his son to Astyages, complained of the disgraceful treatment, and spoke thus: “Great king, we suffer such outrageous treatment from thy servant, the herder’s son,” and he showed him his own son’s shoulders. When Astyages heard and saw this, he wished to vindicate the boy for the sake of Artembares, and he sent for the cattle herder with his son. When both were present, Astyages looked at Kyros and said: “Thou, a lowly man’s son, hast had the effrontery to treat so disgracefully the son of a man whom I greatly honor!” But he made answer: “Lord, he has only received his due. For the boys in the village, he being among them, were at play, and made me their king, believing me to be the best adapted thereto. And the other boys did as they were told, but he was disobedient, and did not mind me at all. For this he has received his reward. If I have deserved punishment, here I am at your service.”

When the boy spoke in this way, Astyages knew him at once. For the features of the face appeared to him as his own, and the answer was that of a highborn youth; furthermore, it seemed to him that the time of the exposure agreed with the boy’s age. This smote his heart, and he remained speechless for a while. Hardly had he regained control over himself, when he spoke to get rid of Artembares, so as to be able to question the cattle herder without witnesses. “My dear Artembares,” he said, “I shall take care that neither thou nor thy son shall have cause for complaint.” Thus he dismissed Artembares. Kyros, however, was led into the palace by the servants, on the command of Astyages, and the cattle herder had to stay behind. When he was all alone with him Astyages questioned him whence he had obtained the boy, and who had given the child into his hands. But the herder said that he was his own son, and that the woman who had borne him was living with him. Astyages remarked that he was very unwise, to look out for most cruel tortures, and he beckoned the sword bearers to take hold of him. As he was being led to torture, the herder confessed the whole story, from beginning to end, the entire truth, finally beginning to beg and implore forgiveness and pardon. Meanwhile Astyages was not so incensed against the herder, who had revealed to him the truth, as against Harpagos; he ordered the sword bearers to summon him, and when Harpagos stood before him, Astyages asked him as follows: “My dear Harpagos, in what fashion hast thou taken the life of my daughter’s son, whom I once delivered over to thee?” Seeing the cattle herder standing near, Harpagos did not resort to untruthfulness, for fear that he would be refuted at once, and so he proceeded to tell the truth. Astyages concealed the anger which he had aroused in him, and first told him what he had learned from the herder; then he mentioned that the boy was still living, and that everything had turned out all right. He said that he had greatly regretted what he had done to the child, and that his daughter’s reproaches had pierced his soul. “But as everything has ended so well, send thy son to greet the newcomer, and then come to eat with me, for I am ready to prepare a feast in honor of the Gods who have brought all this about.”

When Harpagos heard this, he prostrated himself on the ground before the king, and praised himself for his error having turned out well, and for being invited to the king’s table, in commemoration of a happy event. So he went home, and when he arrived there, he at once sent off his only son, a boy of about thirteen years, telling him to go to Astyages, and to do as he was bid. Then Harpagos joyfully told his wife what had befallen him. But Astyages butchered the son of Harpagos when he came, cut him to pieces, and roasted the flesh in part; another portion of the flesh was cooked, and when everything was prepared he kept it in readiness. When the hour of the meal had come, Harpagos and the other guests arrived. A table with sheep’s meat was arranged in front of Astyages and the others, but Harpagos was served with his own son’s flesh, without the head, and without the choppings of hands and feet, but with everything else. These parts were kept hidden in a basket. When Harpagos seemed to have taken his fill, Astyages asked him if the meat had tasted good to him, and when Harpagos answered that he had enjoyed it, the servants, who had been ordered to do so, brought in his own son’s covered head, with the hands and feet, stepped up to Harpagos, and told him to uncover and take what he desired. Harpagos did so, uncovered the basket, and saw the remnants of his son. When he saw this, he did not give way to his horror, but controlled himself. Astyages then asked him if he knew of what game he had eaten; and he replied that he knew it very well, and that whatever the king did was well done. Thus he spoke, took the flesh that remained, and went home with it, where he probably meant to bury it together.

This was the revenge of Astyages upon Harpagos. Concerning Kyros, he took counsel, and summoned the same magicians who had explained his dream, then he asked them how they had at one time interpreted his vision in a dream. But they said that the boy must become a king, if he remained alive, and did not die prematurely. Astyages made reply: “The boy is alive, and is here, and as he was staying in the country, the boys of the village elected him for their king. But he did everything like the real kings, for he ordained to himself as the master, sword bearers, gate keepers, messengers, and everything. How do you mean to interpret this?” The magicians made reply: “If the boy is alive, and has been made king without the help of anyone, thou canst be at ease so far as he is concerned, and be of good cheer, for he will not again be made a king. Already several prophecies of ours have applied to insignificant trifles, and what rests upon dreams is apt to be vain.” Astyages made reply: “Ye sorcerers, I am entirely of your opinion that the dream has been fulfilled when the boy was king in name, and that I have nothing more to fear from him. Yet counsel me carefully as to what is safest for my house and for yourselves.” Then the magicians said: “Send the boy away, that he may get out of thy sight, send him to the land of the Persians, to his parents.” When Astyages had heard this, he was greatly pleased. He sent for Kyros, and said to him: “My son, I have wronged thee greatly, misled by a deceitful dream, but thy good fortune has saved thee. Now go cheerfully to the land of the Persians; I shall give thee safe conduct. There wilt thou find a very different father, and a very different mother than the herders, Mithradates and his wife.” Thus spake Astyages, and Kyros was sent away. When he arrived in the house of Kambyses, his parents received him with great joy when they learned who he was, for they believed him to have perished at that time, and they desired to know how he had been preserved. He told them that he had believed himself to be the son of the cattle herder, but had learned everything on the way from the companions whom Astyages had sent with him. He related that the cattle herder’s wife had saved him, and praised her throughout. The bitch (Spako) played the principal part in his conversation. The parents took hold of this name, so that the preservation of the child might appear still more wonderful, and thus was laid the foundation of the myth that the exposed Kyros was nursed by a bitch.

Later on, Kyros, on the instigation of Harpagos, stirred up the Persians against the Medes. War was declared, and Kyros, at the head of the Persians, conquered the Medes in battle. Astyages was taken a prisoner alive, but Kyros did not harm him, but kept him with him until his end. Herodotus’s report concludes with the words: “But from that time on the Persians and Kyros reigned over Asia. Thus was Kyros born and raised, and made a king.”

The report of Pompeius Trogus is preserved only in the extract by Justinus. Astyages had a daughter but no male heir. In his dream he saw a vine grow forth from her lap, the sprouts of which overshadowed all Asia. The dream interpreters declared that the vision signified the magnitude of his grandson, whom his daughter was to bear; but also his own loss of his dominions. In order to banish this dread, Astyages gave his daughter in marriage neither to a prominent man, nor to a Mede, so that his grandson’s mind might not be uplifted by the paternal estate besides the maternal; but he married her to Kambyses, a middle-class man from the then unknown people of the Persians. But this was not enough to banish the fears of Astyages, and he summoned his pregnant daughter, in order to have her infant destroyed before his eyes. When a boy had been born, he gave him to Harpagos, his friend and confidant, to kill him. For fear that the daughter of Astyages would take revenge upon him for the death of her boy, when she came to reign after her father’s death, he delivered the boy to the king’s herder for exposure. At the same time when Kyros was born, a son happened to be born also to the herder. When his wife learned that the king’s child had been exposed, she urgently prayed for it to be brought to her, that she might look at it. Moved by her entreaties, the herder returned to the woods. There he found a bitch standing beside the child, giving it her teats, and keeping the beasts and birds away from it. At this aspect he was filled with the same com[Pg 33]passion as the bitch; so that he picked up the boy and carried him home, the bitch following him in great distress. When his wife took the boy in her arms, he smiled at her as if he already knew her; and as he was very strong, and ingratiated himself with her by his pleasant smile, she voluntarily begged the herder to (expose her own child instead and) permit her to raise the boy; be it that she was interested in his welfare, or that she placed her hopes on him. Thus the two boys had to exchange fates; one was raised in place of the herder’s child, while the other was exposed instead of the grandson of the king.

The sequel of this apparently more primitive report agrees essentially with the relation of Herodotus.

An altogether different version of the Kyros myth is extant in the report of a contemporary of Herodotus, Ktesias, the original of which has been lost, but is replaced by a fragment of Nikolaos of Damaskos. This fragment from Nikolaos summarizes the narrative of Ktesias, which comprised more than an entire book in his Persian history. Astyages is said to have been the worthiest king of the Medes, after Abakes. Under his rule occurred the great transmutation through which the rulership passed from the Medes to the Persians, through the following cause: The Medes had a law that a poor man who went to a rich man for his support, and surrendered himself to him, had to be fed and clothed and kept like a slave by the rich man, or in case the latter refused to do so, the poor man was at liberty to go elsewhere. In this way a boy by name of Kyros, a Mard by birth, came to the king’s servant who was at the head of the palace sweepers. Kyros was the son of Atradates, whose poverty made him live as a robber, and whose wife, Argoste, Kyros’ mother, made her living by tending the goats. Kyros surrendered himself for the sake of his daily bread, and helped to clean the palace. As he was diligent, the foreman gave him better clothing, and advanced him from the outside sweepers to those who cleaned the interior of the king’s palace, placing him under their superintendent. This man was severe, however, and often whipped Kyros. He left him and went to the lamp-lighter, who liked Kyros, and approached him to the king, by placing him among the royal torch bearers. As Kyros distinguished himself also in his new position, he came to Artembares, who was at the head of the cup bearers, and himself presented the cup to the king. Artembares gladly accepted Kyros, and bade him pour the wine for the guests at the king’s table. Not long afterwards, Astyages noticed the dexterity and nimbleness of Kyros’ service, and his graceful presentation of the wine cup, so that he asked of Artembares whence this youth had come who was so skillful a cup bearer. “O Lord,” spake he, “this boy is thy slave, of Persian parentage, from the tribe of the Mards, who has surrendered himself to me to make a living.” Artembares was old, and once on being attacked by a fever, he prayed the king to let him stay at home until he had recovered. “In my stead, the youth whom thou hast praised will pour the wine, and if he should please thee, the king, as a cup bearer, I, who am an eunuch, will adopt him as my son.” Astyages consented, but the other confided in many ways in Kyros as in a son. Kyros thus stood at the king’s side, and poured his wine by day and by night, showing great ability and cleverness. Astyages conferred upon him the income of Artembares, as if he had been his son, adding many presents, and Kyros became a great man whose name was heard everywhere.

Astyages had a very noble and beautiful daughter, whom he gave to the Mede Spitamas, adding all Media as her dowry. Then Kyros sent for his father and mother, in the land of the Medes, and they rejoiced in the good fortune of their son, and his mother told him the dream which she had at the time that she was bearing him, while asleep in the sanctuary as she was tending the goats. So much water passed away from her that it became as a large stream, inundating all Asia, and flowing as far as the sea. When the father heard this, he ordered the dream to be placed before the Chaldeans in Babylon. Kyros summoned the wisest among them, and communicated the dream to him. He declared that the dream foretold great good fortune to Kyros, and the highest dignity in Asia; but Astyages must not learn of it, “for else he would disgracefully kill thee, as well as myself the interpreter,” said the Babylonian. They swore to each other to tell no one of this great and incomparable vision. Kyros later on rose to still higher dignities, created his father a Satrap of Persia, and raised his mother to the highest rank and possessions among the Persian women. But when the Babylonian was killed soon afterwards by Oebares, the confidant of Kyros, his wife betrayed the fateful dream to the king, when she learned of Kyros’ expedition to Persia, which he had undertaken in preparation of the revolt. The king sent his horsemen after Kyros, with the command to deliver him dead or alive. But Kyros escaped them by a ruse. Finally a combat took place, terminating in the defeat of the Medes. Kyros also conquered Egbatana, and here the daughter of Astyages and her husband Spitamas, with their two sons, were taken prisoners. But Astyages himself could not be found, for Amytis and Spitamas had concealed him in the palace, under the rafters of the roof. Kyros then ordered that Amytis, her husband, and the children should be tortured until they revealed the hiding place of Astyages, but he came out voluntarily, that his relatives might not be tortured on his account. Kyros commanded the execution of Spitamas, because he had lied in affirming to be in ignorance of Astyages’ hiding place; but Amytis became the wife of Kyros. He removed the fetters of Astyages, with which Oebares had bound him, honored him as a father, and made him a Satrap of the Barkanians.

A great similarity to Herodotus’ version of the Kyros myth is found in the early history of the Iranese royal hero, Kaikhosrav, as related by Firdusi, in the Sâh-nâme. This myth is most extensively rendered by Spiegel (Eranische Altertumskunde, I, 581 et seq.). During the warfare of King Kaikaus of Baktria and Iran, against King Afrâsiâb of Turan, Kaikaus fell out with his son, Siâvaksh, who applied to Afrâsiâb for protection and assistance. He was kindly received by Afrâsiâb, who gave him his daughter Feringis to wife, on the persuasion of his Wesir, Pirân, although he had received the prophecy that the son to be born of this union would bring great misfortune upon him. Garsevaz, the king’s brother, and a near relative of Siâvaksh, calumniates the son-in-law, and Afrâsiâb leads an army against him. Before the birth of his son, Siâvaksh is warned by a dream, which foretold destruction and death to himself, but royalty to his offspring. He therefore flies from Afrâsiâb, but is taken prisoner and killed, on the command of the Sâh. His wife, who is pregnant, is saved by Pirân from the hands of the murderers. On condition of announcing at once the delivery of Feringis to the king, Pirân is granted permission to keep her in his house. The shade of the murdered Siâvaksh once comes to him in a dream, and tells him that an avenger has been born, and Pirân actually finds in the room of Feringis a newborn boy, whom he names Kaikhosrav. Afrâsiâb no longer insisted upon the killing of the boy, but he ordered Pirân to surrender the child with a nurse to the herders, who were to raise him in ignorance of his origin. But his royal descent is promptly revealed in his courage and his demeanor; and as Pirân takes the boy back into his home, Afrâsiâb becomes distrustful, and orders the boy to be led before him. Instructed by Pirân, Kaikhosvrav plays the fool, and reassured as to his harmlessness, the Sâh dismisses him to his mother, Feringis. Finally, Kaikhosvrav is crowned as king by his grandfather, Kaikaus. After prolonged, complicated, and tedious combats, Afrâsiâb is at last taken prisoner, with divine assistance. Kaikhosvrav strikes his head off, and also causes Garsivaz to be decapitated.

A certain resemblance, although more remote, to the preceding saga, is presented by the Iranese myth of Feridun, as told by Firdusi in his “Persian Hero-Myths” (translated by Schack). Zohâk, the king of Iran, once sees in a dream three men of royal tribe. Two of them are bent with age, but between them is a younger man who holds a club, with a bull’s head, in his right hand; this man steps up to him, and fells him with his club to the ground. The dream interpreters declared to the king that the young hero who will dethrone him is Feridun, a scion of the tribe of Dschemschid. Zohâk at once sets out to look for the tracks of his dreaded enemy. Feridun is the son of Abtin, a grandson of Dschemschid. His father hides from the pursuit of the tyrant, but he is seized and killed. Feridun himself, a boy of tender age, is saved by his mother Firânek, who escapes with him and entrusts him to the care of the guardian of a distant forest. Here he is suckled by the cow Purmâje. For three years he remains in this place, but then his mother no longer believes him safe, and she carries him to a hermit on the mountain Alburs. Soon afterwards Zohâk comes to the forest, and kills the guardian as well as the cow.

When Feridun was sixteen years old, he came down from Mount Alburs, learned of his origin through his mother, and swore to avenge the death of his father and of his nurse. On the expedition against Zohâk he is accompanied by his two older brothers, Purmâje and Kayânuseh. He orders a club to be forged for his use, and ornaments it with the bull’s head, in memory of his foster mother the cow. With this club he smites Zohâk, as foretold by the dream.

Tristan

The argument of the Feridun story is pursued in the Tristan saga, as related in the epic poem by Gottfried of Strassburg. This is especially evident in the prologue of the Tristan-saga, which is repeated later on in the adventures of the hero himself (duplication). Riwalin, king in the land of the Parmenians, in an expedition to the court of Marke, king of Kurnewal and England, had become acquainted with the latter’s beautiful sister, Blancheflure, and his heart was aflame with love for her. While assisting Marke in a campaign, Riwalin was mortally wounded and was carried to Tintajole. Blancheflure, disguised as a beggar maid, hastened to his sick bed, and her devoted love saved the king’s life. She fled with her lover to his native land (obstacles) and was there proclaimed as his consort. But Morgan attacked Riwalin’s country, for the sake of Blancheflure, whom the king entrusted to his faithful retainer Rual, because she was carrying a child. Rual placed the queen for safekeeping in the castle of Kaneel. Here she gave birth to a son and died, while her husband fell in the battle against Morgan. In order to protect the king’s offspring from Morgan’s pursuits, Rual spread the rumor that the infant had been born dead. The boy was named Tristan, because he had been conceived and born in sorrow. Under the care of his foster-parents, Tristan grew up, equally straight in body and mind, until his fourteenth year, when he was kidnapped by Norwegian merchants, who put him ashore in Kurnewal, because they feared the wrath of the gods. Here the boy was found by the soldiers of King Marke, who was so well pleased with the brave and handsome youth that he promptly made him his master of the chase (career), and held him in great affection. Meanwhile, faithful Rual had set forth to seek his abducted foster son, whom he found at last in Kurnewal, where Rual had come begging his way. Rual revealed Tristan’s descent to the king, who was delighted to see in him the son of his beloved sister, and raised him to the rank of a knight. In order to avenge his father, Tristan proceeded with Rual to Parmenia, vanquished Morgan, the usurper, and gave the country to Rual as a liege, while he himself returned to his uncle Marke. (After Chop: Erläuterungen zu Wagner’s Tristan, Reclam Bibl.)

The actual Tristan saga goes on with a repetition of the principal themes. In the service of Marke, Tristan kills Morald, the bridegroom of Isolde, and being wounded unto death, he is saved by Isolde. He asks her hand in marriage, for his uncle Marke, fulfils the condition of killing a dragon, and she follows him reluctantly to Kurnewal, where they travel by ship. On the journey they partake unwittingly of the disastrous love potion, which binds them together in frenzied passion. They betray the king, Marke, and on the wedding night Isolde’s faithful serving maid, Brangäne, represents the queen, and sacrifices her virginity to the king. Next follows the banishment of Tristan, his several attempts to regain his beloved, although he had meanwhile married Isolde Whitehand, who resembled her. At last he is again wounded unto death, and Isolde arrives too late to save him.

A plainer version of the Tristan-saga, in the sense of the characteristic features of the myth of the birth of the hero, is found in the fairy tale, “The True Bride,” quoted by Riklin (“Wunscherfüllung und Symbolik im Märchen,” p. 56) from Rittershaus’ collection of fairy tales (XXVII, p. 113). A royal pair have no children. The king having threatened to kill his wife, unless she bears a child by the time of his return from his sea-voyage, she is brought to him during his journey, by his zealous maid-servant, as the fairest of three promenading ladies, and he takes her into his tent without recognizing her. She returns home without having been discovered, gives birth to a daughter, Isol, and dies. Isol later on finds a most beautiful little boy in a box by the seaside, whose name is Tristram, and she raises him to become engaged to him. The subsequent story, which contains the motive of the true bride, is noteworthy for present purposes only in as far as here again occur the draught of oblivion, and two Isoldes. The king’s second wife gives a potion to Tristram, which causes him to forget the fair Isol entirely, so that he wishes to marry the black Isota. Ultimately he discovers the deception, however, and becomes united with Isol.

Romulus.

The original version of the story of Romulus and Remus, as told by the most ancient Roman annalist, Fabius Pictor, is rendered as follows by Mommsen. “The twins borne by Ilia, daughter of the preceding king Numitor, from the embrace of the war god Mars were condemned by King Amulius, the present ruler of Alba, to be cast into the river. The king’s servants took the children and carried them from Alba as far as the Tiber on the Palatine Hill; but when they tried to descend the hill to the river, to carry out the command, they found that the river had risen, and they were unable to reach its bed. The tub with the children was therefore thrust by them into the shallow water at the shore. It floated for a while; but the water promptly receded, and knocking against a stone, the tub capsized, and the screaming infants were upset into the river mud. They were heard by a she-wolf who had just brought forth and had her udders full of milk; she came and gave her teats to the boys, to nurse them, and as they were drinking she licked them clean with her tongue. Above them flew a woodpecker, which guarded the children, and also carried food to them. The father was providing for his sons: for the wolf and the woodpecker are animals consecrated to father Mars. This was seen by one of the royal herdsmen, who was driving his pigs back to the pasture from which the water had receded. Startled by the spectacle, he summoned his mates, who found the she-wolf attending like a mother to the children, and the children treated her as their mother. The men made a loud noise to scare the animal away; but the wolf was not afraid; she left the children, but not from fear; slowly, without heeding the herdsmen, she disappeared into the wilderness of the forest, at the holy site of Faunus, where the water gushes from a gully of the mountain. Meanwhile the men picked up the boys and carried them to the chief swineherd of the king, Faustulus, for they believed that the gods did not wish the children to perish. But the wife of Faustulus had just given birth to a dead child, and was full of sorrow. Her husband gave her the twins, and she nursed them; the couple raised the children, and named them Romulus and Remus. After Rome had been founded, later on, King Romulus built himself a house not far from the place where his tub had stood. The gully in which the she-wolf had disappeared has been known since that time as the Wolf’s Gully, the Lupercal. The image in ore of the she-wolf with the twins was subsequently erected at this spot, and the she-wolf herself, the Lupa, was worshipped by the Romans as a divinity.

The Romulus saga later on underwent manifold transmutations, mutilations, additions, and interpretations. It is best known in the form transmitted by Livy (I, 3 et seq.), where we learn something about the antecedents and subsequent fate of the twins.

King Proca bequeaths the royal dignity to his first born son Numitor. But his younger brother, Amulius, pushes him from the throne, and becomes king himself. So that no scion from Numitor’s family may arise, as the avenger, he kills the male descendants of his brother. Rea Silvia, the daughter, he elects as a vestal, and thus deprives her of the hope of progeny, through perpetual virginity as enjoined upon her under the semblance of a most honorable distinction. But the vestal maiden was overcome by violence, and having brought forth twins, she named Mars as the father of her illegitimate offspring, be it from conviction, or because a god appeared more creditable to her as the perpetrator of the crime.

The narrative of the exposure in the Tiber goes on as follows: The saga relates that the floating tub, in which the boys had been exposed, was left on dry land by the receding waters, and that a thirsty wolf, attracted from the neighbouring mountains by the children’s cries, offered them her teats. The boys are said to have been found by the chief royal herder, supposedly named Faustulus, who took them to the homestead of his wife, Larentia, where they were raised. Some believe that Larentia was called Lupa, a she-wolf, by the herders, because she offered her body, and that this was the origin of the wonderful saga.

Grown to manhood, the youths Romulus and Remus protect the herds against the attacks of wild animals and robbers. One day Remus is taken prisoner by the robbers, who accuse him of having stolen Numitor’s flocks. But Numitor, to whom he is surrendered for punishment, was touched by his tender age, and when he learned of the twin brothers, he suspected that they might be his exposed grandsons. While he was anxiously pondering the resemblance with the features of his daughter, and the boy’s age as corresponding to the time of the exposure, Faustulus arrived with Romulus, and a conspiracy was hatched, when the descent of the boys had been learned from the herders. The youths armed themselves for vengeance, while Numitor took up weapons to defend his claim to the throne he had usurped. After Amulius had been assassinated, Numitor was re-instituted as the ruler, and the youths resolved to found a city in the region where they had been exposed and brought up. A furious dispute arose upon the question which brother was to be the ruler of the newly erected city, for neither twin was favored by the right of primogeniture, and the outcome of the bird oracle was equally doubtful. The saga relates that Remus jumped over the new wall, to deride his twin, and Romulus became so much enraged that he slew his brother. Romulus then usurped the sole mastery, and the city was named Rome after him.

The Roman tale of Romulus and Remus has a close counterpart in the Greek myth of a city foundation by the twin brothers Amphion and Zethos, who were the first to found the site of Thebes of the Seven Gates. The enormous rocks which Zethos brought from the mountains were joined by the music drawn from Amphion’s lute strings to form the walls which became so famous later on. Amphion and Zethos passed as the children of Zeus and Antiope, daughter of King Nykteus. She escaped by flight from the punishment of her father, who died of grief; on his death bed he implored his brother and successor on the throne, Lykos, to punish the wrongdoing of Antiope. Meantime she had married Epopeus, the king of Sikyon, who was killed by Lykos. Antiope was led away by him in fetters. She gave birth to twin sons in the Kithairon, where she left them. A shepherd raised the boys and called them Amphion and Zethos. Later on, Antiope succeeded in escaping from the torments of Lykos and his wife, Dirke. She accidentally sought shelter in the Kithairon, with the twin brothers, now grown up. The shepherd reveals to the youths the fact that Antiope is their mother. Thereupon they cruelly kill Dirke, and deprive Lykos of the rulership.

The remaining twin sagas, which are extremely numerous, cannot be discussed in detail in this connection. Possibly they represent a complication of the birth myth by another very ancient and widely distributed myth complex, that of the hostile brothers, the detailed discussion of which belongs elsewhere. The apparently late and secondary character of the twin type in the birth myths justifies the separation of this part of mythology from the present theme. As regards the Romulus saga, Mommsen renders it highly probable that it originally told only of Romulus, while the figure of Remus was added subsequently, and somewhat disjointedly, when it became desirable to invest the consulate with a solemnity founded on the old tradition.

Hercules

After the loss of his numerous sons, Elektryon betroths his daughter, Alkmene, to Amphitryon, the son of his brother, Alkäos. However, Amphitryon, through an unfortunate accident, causes the death of Elektryon, and escapes to Thebes with his affianced bride. He has not enjoyed her love, for she has solemnly pledged him not to touch her until he has avenged her brothers on the Thebans. An expedition is therefore started by him, from Thebes, and he conquers the king of the hostile people, Pterelaos, with all the islands. As he is returning to Thebes, Zeus in the form of Amphitryon betakes himself to Alkmene, to whom he presents a golden goblet as evidence of victory. He rests with the beauteous maiden during three nights, according to the later poets, holding back the sun one day. In the same night, Amphitryon arrives, exultant in his victory and aflame with love. In the fulness of time, the fruit of the divine and the human embrace is brought forth and Zeus announces to the gods his son, as the most powerful ruler of the future. But his jealous spouse, Hera, knows how to obtain from him the pernicious oath, that the first-born grandson of Perseus is to be the ruler of all the other descendants of Perseus. Hera hurries to Mykene, to deliver the wife of the third Perside, Sthenelos, of the seven months child, Eurystheus. At the same time she hinders and endangers the confinement of Alkmene, through all sorts of wicked sorcery, precisely as at the birth of the god of light, Apollo. Alkmene finally gives birth to Herakles and Iphikles, the latter in no way the former’s equal in courage or in strength, but destined to become the father of his faithful friend, Iolaos. In this way Eurystheus became the king in Mykene, in the land of the Argivians, in conformity with the oath of Zeus, and the after born Herakles was his subject.

The old legend related the raising of Herakles on the strength giving waters of the Dirke, the nourishment of all Theban children. Later on, however, another version arose. Fearing the jealousy of Hera, Alkmene exposed the child which she had borne in a place which for a long time after was known as the field of Herakles. About this time, Athene arrived, in company with Hera. She marvelled at the beautiful form of the child, and persuaded Hera to put him to her breast. But the boy took the breast with far greater strength than his age seemed to warrant; Hera felt pains and angrily flung the child to the ground. Athene, however, carried him to the neighboring city and took him to Queen Alkmene, whose maternity was unknown to her, as a poor foundling, whom she begged her to raise for the sake of charity. This peculiar accident is truly remarkable! The child’s own mother allows him to perish, disregarding the duty of maternal love, and the stepmother who is filled with natural hatred against the child, saves her enemy without knowing it (after Diodor, IV, 9; German translation by Wurm, Stuttgart, 1831). Herakles had drawn only a few drops from Hera’s breast, but the divine milk was sufficient to endow him with immortality. An attempt on Hera’s part to kill the boy, asleep in his cradle, by means of two serpents, proved a failure, for the child awakened and crushed the beasts with a single pressure of his hands. As a boy, Herakles one day killed his tutor, Linos, being incensed about an unjust chastisement. Amphitryon, fearing the wildness of the youth, sends him to tend his ox-herds in the mountains, with the herders, among whom he is said by some to have been raised entirely, like Amphion and Zethos, Kyros and Romulus. Here he lives from the hunt, in the freedom of nature (Preller, II, 123).

The myth of Herakles suggests in certain features the Indian saga of the hero Krishna, who like many heroes escapes a general infanticide, and is then brought up by a herder’s wife, Iasodha. A wicked she-demon appears, who has been sent by King Kansa to kill the boy. She takes the post of wet nurse in the home, but is recognized by Krishna, who bites her so severely in suckling (like Hera, when nursing Herakles, whom she also means to destroy), that she dies. (The early history of the pastoral god Krishna is related in the so-called Kariwamsa.)

Jesus

The Gospel according to Luke (1, 26 to 35) relates the prophecy of the birth of Jesus, as follows:

“And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail! thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women! And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary; for thou hast found favor with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son and call his name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shalt give unto him the throne of his father David. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall he called the Son of God.”

This report is supplemented by the Gospel according to Matthew (1, 18 to 25), in the narrative of the birth and childhood of Jesus: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But, while he thought on these things, behold the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shall call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins. (Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which, being interpreted, is God with us.) Then Joseph, being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife. And knew her not, till she had brought forth her first born son; and he called his name Jesus.”

Here we interpolate the detailed account of the birth of Jesus, from the Gospel of Luke (2, 4 to 20): “And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and lineage of David), to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her first born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you, ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. And it came to pass as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, let us now go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which has come to pass, which the Lord has made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all the things which they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.”

We now continue the account after Matthew, in the second chapter: “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that was born King of the Jews, for we have seen his star in the east, and have come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, in Bethlehem of Judea: for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou Bethlehem in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda, for out of thee shall come a governor which shall rule my people Israel.

Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also. When they had heard the king they departed; and lo the star, which they saw in the east, went before them till it came and stood over where the young child was.

When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream, that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way. And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt; and was there until the death of Herod; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men. But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying arise and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child’s life. And he arose and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard Archelaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee. And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.”

Similar birth legends to those of Jesus have also been transmitted of other “founders of religions”; such as Zoroaster, who is said to have lived about the year 1000 before Christ. His mother Dughda dreams, in the sixth month of her pregnancy, that the wicked and the good spirits are fighting for the embryonic Zoroaster; a monster tears the future Zoroaster from the mother’s womb, but a light god fights the monster with his horn of light, re-encloses the embryo in the mother’s womb, blows upon Dughda, and she became pregnant. On awakening, she hurries in her fear to a wise dream interpreter, who is unable to explain the wonderful dream before the end of three days: The child, which she is carrying, is destined to become a man of great importance; the dark cloud and the mountain of light signify, that she and her son will at first have to undergo numerous trials, through tyrants and other enemies, but at last they will overcome all perils. Dughda at once returns to her home, and informs Pourushacpa, her husband, of everything that has happened. Immediately after his birth, the boy was seen to laugh: this was the first miracle through which he drew attention to himself. The magicians announce the birth of the child as a portent of disaster to the prince of the realm, Durânsarûn, who betakes himself without delay to the dwelling of Pourushacpa, in order to stab the child. But his hand falls paralyzed, and he must leave with his errand undone. This was the second miracle. Soon after, the wicked demons steal the child from his mother and carry him into the desert, in order to kill him; but Dughda finds the unharmed child, calmly sleeping. This is the third miracle. Later on, Zoroaster was to be trampled upon, in a narrow passage way, by a herd of oxen, by command of the king. But the largest of the cattle took the child between his feet, and preserved it from harm. This was the fourth miracle. The fifth is merely a repetition of the preceding. What the cattle had refused to do, was to be accomplished by horses. But again the child was protected by a horse from the hoofs of the other horses. Durânsurûn thereupon had the cubs in a wolf’s den killed during the absence of the old wolves, and Zoroaster was laid down in their place. But a god closed the jaws of the furious wolves, so that they could not harm the child. Two divine cows arrived instead and presented their udders to the child, giving it to drink. This was the sixth miracle, through which Zoroaster’s life was preserved. (Compare Spiegel’s Eranische Altertumskunde, I, pp. 688 et seq., also Brodbeck, Zoroaster, Leipzig, 1893.)

Related traits are also encountered in the history of Buddha, whose life is referred to the sixth century before Christ; such as the long sterility of the parents, the dream, the birth of the boy under the open sky, the death of the mother and her substitution by a foster-mother, the announcing of the birth to the ruler of the realm; later on the losing of the boy in the temple (as in the history of Jesus; compare Luke 2, 40-52).

Siegfried

The old Norse Thidreksaga, as registered about the year 1250 by an Icelander, according to oral traditions and ancient songs, relates the history of the birth and youth of Siegfried, as follows: King Sigmund of Tarlungaland, on his return from an expedition, banishes his wife Sisibe, the daughter of King Nidung of Hispania, who is accused by Count Hartvin, whose advances she has spurned, of having had illicit relations with a menial. The king’s counsellors advise him to mutilate instead of kill the innocent queen, and Hartvin is ordered to cut out her tongue in the forest, so as to bring it to the king as a pledge. His companion, Count Hermann, opposes the execution of the cruel command, and proposes to present the tongue of a dog to the king. While the two men are engaged in a violent quarrel, Sisibe gives birth to a remarkably beautiful boy; she then took a glass vessel, and after having wrapped the boy in linens, she placed him in the glass vessel, which she carefully closed again and placed beside her (Rassmann). Count Hartvin was conquered in the fight, and in falling kicked the glass vessel, so that it fell into the river. When the queen saw this she swooned, and died soon afterwards. Hermann went home, told the king everything, and was banished from the country. The glass vessel meantime drifted down stream to the sea, and it was not long before the tide turned. Then the vessel floated on to a rocky cliff, and the water ran off so that the place where the vessel was perfectly dry. The boy inside had grown somewhat, and when the vessel struck the rock, it broke, and the child began to cry. [Rassmann] The boy’s wailing was heard by a doe, which seized him with her lips, and carried him to her litter, where she nursed him together with her young. After the child had lived twelve months in the den of the doe, he had grown to the height and strength of other boys four years of age. One day he ran into the forest, where dwelt the wise and skilfull smith, Mimir who had lived for nine years in childless wedlock. He saw the boy, who was followed by the faithful doe, took him to his home, and resolved to bring him up as his own son. He gave him the name of Siegfried. In Mimir’s home, Siegfried soon attained an enormous stature and strength, but his wilfulness caused Mimir to get rid of him. He sent the youth into the forest, where it had been arranged that the dragon Regin, Mimir’s brother, was to kill him. But Siegfried conquers the dragon, and kills Mimir. He then proceeds to Brynhild, who names his parents to him.

Similarly to the early history of Siegfried, an Austrasiatic saga tells of the birth and youth of Wolfdietrich. His mother is likewise accused of unfaithfulness, and intercourse with the devil, by a vassal whom she has repulsed, and who speaks evil of her to the returning king, Hugdietrich of Constantinople.

The king surrenders the child to the faithful Berchtung, who is to kill it, but exposes it instead, in the forest, near the water, in the hope that it will fall in of its own accord and thus find its death. But the frolicking child remains unhurt, and even the wild animals, lions, bears, wolves, which come at night to the water, do not harm it. The astonished Berchtung resolves to save the boy, and he surrenders him to a game keeper who, together with his wife, raises him and names him Wolfdietrich. 

The following later hero epics may still be quoted in this connection. In the thirteenth century, the saga of Horn, the son of Aluf, who after having been exposed on the sea, finally reaches the court of King Hunlaf, and after numerous adventures wins the king’s daughter, Rimhilt, for his wife. Furthermore, a detail suggestive of Siegfried, from the saga of the skilfull smith Wieland, who, after avenging his foully murdered father, floats down the river Weser, artfully enclosed in the trunk of a tree, and loaded with the tools and treasures of his teachers. Finally the Arthur legend contains the commingling of divine and human paternity, the exposure and the early life with a lowly man.

Lohengrin

The widely distributed group of sagas which have been woven around the mythic knight with the swan (the old French Chevalier au cigne) can be traced back to very ancient Keltic traditions. The following is the version which has been made familiar by Wagner’s dramatisation of this theme. The story of Lohengrin, the knight with the swan, as transmitted by the medieval German epic [modernized by Junghaus, Reclam] and briefly rendered by the Grimm brothers, in their “German Sagas” (Part II, Berlin, 1818, p. 306) under the title: Lohengrin in Brabant.

The Duke of Brabant and Limburg died, without leaving other heirs than a young daughter, Els, or Elsam by name; her he recommended on his death bed to one of his retainers, Friedrich von Telramund. Friedrich, the intrepid warrior, became emboldened to demand the youthful duchess’ hand and lands, under the false claim that she had promised to marry him. She steadfastly refused to do so. Friedrich complained to Emperor Heinrich, surnamed the Vogler, and the verdict was that she must defend herself against him, through some hero, in a so called divine judgment, in which God would accord the victory to the innocent, and defeat the guilty. As none were ready to take her part, the young duchess prayed ardently to God, to save her; and far away in distant Montsalvatsch, in the Council of the Grail, the sound of the bell was heard, showing that there was some one in urgent need of help. The Grail therefore resolved to despatch as a rescuer, Lohengrin the son of Parsifal. Just as he was about to place his foot in the stirrup a swan came floating down the water drawing a skiff behind him. As soon as Lohengrin set eyes upon the swan, he exclaimed: “Take the steed back to the manger, I shall follow this bird wherever he may lead me.” Having faith in God’s omnipotence he took no food with him in the skiff. After they had been afloat on the sea five days, the swan dipped his bill in the water, caught a fish, ate one half of it, and gave the other half to the prince to eat. Thus the knight was fed by the swan.

Meanwhile Elsa had summoned her chieftains and retainers to a meeting in Antwerp. Precisely on the day of the assembly, a swan was sighted swimming up stream (river Schelde) and drawing behind him a skiff, in which Lohengrin lay asleep on his shield. The swan promptly came to land at the shore, and the prince was joyfully welcomed. Hardly had his helmet, shield and sword been taken from the skiff, when the swan at once swam away again. Lohengrin heard of the wrong which had been done to the duchess, and willingly consented to become her champion. Elsa then summoned all her relatives and subjects. The place was prepared in Mayence, where Lohengrin and Friedrich were to fight in the emperor’s presence. The hero of the Grail defeated Friedrich, who confessed having lied to the duchess, and was executed with the axe. Elsa was alloted to Lohengrin, they having long been lovers; but he secretly insisted upon her avoiding all questions as to his ancestry, or whence he had come, saying that otherwise he would have to leave her instantaneously and she would never see him again.

For some time, the couple lived in peace and happiness. Lohengrin was a wise and mighty ruler over his land, and also served his emperor well in his expeditions against the Huns and the heathen. But it came to pass that one day in throwing the javelin he unhorsed the Duke of Cleve, so that the latter broke an arm. The Duchess of Cleve was angry, and spoke out amongst the women, saying: “Lohengrin may be brave enough, and he seems to be a good Christian; what a pity that his nobility is not of much account for no one knows whence he has come floating to this land.” These words pierced the heart of the Duchess of Brabant, and she changed color with emotion. At night, when her spouse was holding her in his arms, she wept, and he said “What is the matter, Elsa, my own?” She made answer, “the Duchess of Cleve has caused me sore pain.” Lohengrin was silent and asked no more. The second night, the same came to pass. But in the third night, Elsa could no longer retain herself, and she spoke: “Lord, do not chide me! I wish to know, for our children’s sake, whence you were born; for my heart tells me that you are of high rank.” When the day broke, Lohengrin declared in public whence he had come, that Parsifal was his father, and God had sent him from the Grail. He then asked for his two children, which the duchess had borne him, kissed them, told them to take good care of his horn and sword which he would leave behind, and said: “Now, I must be gone.” To the duchess he left a little ring which his mother had given him. Then the swan, his friend, came swimming swiftly, with the skiff behind him; the prince stepped in and crossed the water, back to the service of the Grail. Elsa sank down in a faint. The empress resolved to keep the younger boy Lohengrin, for his father’s sake, and to bring him up as her own child. But the widow wept and mourned the rest of her life for her beloved spouse, who never came back to her.

On inverting the Lohengrin saga in such a way that the end is placed first,—on the basis of the rearrangement, or even transmutation of motives, not uncommonly found in myths,—we find the type of saga with which we have now become familiar: The infant Lohengrin, who is identical with his father of the same name, floats in a vessel upon the sea and is carried ashore by a swan. The empress adopts him as her son, and he becomes a valorous hero. Having married a noble maiden of the land, he forbids her to enquire as to his origin. When the command is broken he is obliged to reveal his miraculous descent and divine mission, after which the swan carries him back in his skiff to the Grail.

Other versions of the saga of the Knight with the Swan have retained this original arrangement of the motives, although they appear commingled with elements of fairy tales. The saga of the Knight with the Swan, as related in the Flemish People’s Book (Deutsche Sagen, I, 29), contains in the beginning the history of the birth of seven children, borne by Beatrix, the wife of King Oriant of Flanders. The wicked mother of the absent king, Matabruna, orders that the children be killed, and the queen be given seven puppy dogs in their stead. But the servant contents himself with the exposure of the children, who are found by a hermit, named Helias, and are nourished by a goat until they are grown. Beatrix is thrown into a dungeon. Later on Matabruna learns that the children have been saved and her repeated command to kill them causes the hunter, who has been charged with the murder, to bring her as a sign of apparent obedience to her behest, the silver neck chains which the children wore already at the time of their birth. One of the boys, named Helias, after his foster father, alone keeps his chain, and is thereby saved from the fate of his brothers, who are transformed into swans, as soon as their chains are removed. Matabruna volunteers to prove the relations of the queen with the dog, and upon her instigation, Beatrix is to be killed, unless a champion arises to defend her. In her need, she prays to God, who sends her son Helias as a rescuer. The brothers are also saved by means of the other chains, except one, whose chain has already been melted down. King Oriant now transfers the rulership to his son Helias, who causes the wicked Matabruna to be burned. One day, Helias sees his brother, the swan, drawing a skiff on the lake surrounding the castle. This he regards as a heavenly sign, he arms himself and mounts the skiff. The swan takes him through rivers and lakes to the place where God has ordained him to go. Next follows the liberation of an innocently accused duchess, in analogy with the Lohengrin saga; and his marriage to her daughter Clarissa, who is forbidden to ask for her husband’s ancestry. In the seventh year of their marriage she disobeys and puts the question, after which Helias returns home in the swan’s skiff. Finally, his lost brother swan is likewise released.

The characteristic features of the Lohengrin saga,—that the divine hero disappears again in the same mysterious fashion in which he has arrived; also the transference of mythical motives from the life of the older hero, bearing the same name, to a younger one, a very universal process in myth-formation, are likewise embodied in the Anglian-Longobard saga of Scëaf, which is mentioned in the introduction to the Beowulf-Song, the oldest German epic, preserved in the Anglo-Saxon tongue (translated by H. v. Wolzogen, Reclam). The father of old Beowulf received his name, Scild Scéfing (meaning the son of Scëaf), because as a very young boy, he was cast ashore as a stranger, asleep in a boat on a sheaf of grain (Anglo-saxon, scéaf). The waves of the sea carried him to the coast of the country which he was destined to defend. The inhabitants welcomed him as a miracle, raised him, and later on made him their king, as an emissary of God. (Compare Grimm, German Mythology, I, p. 306; III, p. 391, and H. Leo: Beowulf, Halle, 1839.) What is told of the ancestor of the royal house, Scaf, or Scëaf, appears in the Beowulf song transferred to his son, Scëafing Scild, according to the unanimous statement of Grimm (see above), and Leo (p. 24): His dead body is exposed at his behest, surrounded by kingly splendor, upon a ship without a crew, which is sent out into the sea. Thus he vanishes in the same mysterious manner in which his father arrived ashore; this trait being accounted for, in analogy with the Lohengrin saga, by the mythical identity of father and son.

A cursory review of these variegated hero myths forcibly brings out a series of uniformly common features, with a typical ground work, from which a standard saga, as it were, may be constructed. This schedule corresponds approximately to the ideal human skeleton which is constantly seen, with minor deviations, on transillumination of figures which outwardly differ from one another. The individual traits of the several myths, and especially apparently crude variations from the prototype, can only be entirely elucidated by the myth-interpretation. The standard saga itself may be formulated according to the following scheme:

The hero is the child of most distinguished parents; usually the son of a king. His origin is preceded by difficulties, such as continence, or prolonged barrenness, or secret intercourse of the parents, due to external prohibition or obstacles. During the pregnancy, or antedating the same, there is a prophecy, in form of a dream or oracle, cautioning against his birth, and usually threatening danger to the father, or his representative. As a rule, he is surrendered to the water, in a box. He is then saved by animals, or by lowly people (shepherds) and is suckled by a female animal, or by a humble woman. After he has grown up, he finds his distinguished parents, in a highly versatile fashion; takes his revenge on his father, on the one hand, is acknowledged on the other, and finally achieves rank and honors.

The normal relations of the hero towards his father and his mother regularly appearing impaired in all these myths, as shown by the schedule, there is reason to assume that something in the nature of the hero must account for such a disturbance, and motives of this kind are not very difficult to discover. It is readily understood—and may be noted in the modern epigones of the heroic age—that for the hero who is exposed to envy, jealousy and calumny to a much higher degree than all others, the descent from his parents often becomes the source of the greatest distress and embarrassment. The old saying that “A prophet is not without honor save in his own country and in his father’s house,” has no other meaning but this, that he whose parents, brothers and sisters, or playmates, are known to us, is not so readily conceded to be a prophet (Gospel of St. Mark, VI, 4). There seems to be a certain necessity for the prophet to deny his parents; also, the well-known opera of Meyerbeer is based upon the avowal that the prophetic hero is allowed, in favor of his mission, to abandon and repudiate even his tenderly beloved mother.

A number of difficulties arise, however, as we proceed to a deeper enquiry into the motives which oblige the hero to sever his family relations. Numerous investigators have emphasized that the understanding of myth formation requires our going back to their ultimate source, namely the individual faculty of imagination. The fact has also been pointed out that this imaginative faculty is found in its active and unchecked exuberance only in childhood. Therefore, the imaginative life of the child should first be studied, in order to facilitate the understanding of the far more complex and also more handicapped mythical and artistic imagination in general.

Meanwhile the investigation of the juvenile faculty of imagination has hardly commenced, instead of being sufficiently advanced to permit the utilization of the findings for the explanation of the more complicated psychic activities. The reason for this imperfect understanding of the psychic life of the child is referable to the lack of a suitable instrument, as well as of a reliable avenue, leading into the intricacies of this very delicate and rather inaccessible domain. These juvenile emotions can by no means be studied in the normal human adult, and it may actually be charged, in view of certain psychic disturbances, that the normal psychic integrity of normal subjects consists precisely in their having overcome and forgotten their childish vagaries and imaginations: so that the way has become blocked. In children, on the other hand, empirical observation (which as a rule must remain merely superficial) fails in the investigation of psychic processes, because we are not as yet enabled to trace all manifestations correctly to their motive forces: so that we are lacking the instrument. There is a certain class of persons, the so-called psychoneurotics, shown by the teachings of Freud to have remained children, in a sense, although otherwise appearing grown up. These psychoneurotics may be said not to have given up their juvenile psychic life, which on the contrary, in the course of maturity, has become strengthened and fixed, instead of modified. In psychoneurotics, the emotions of the child are preserved and exaggerated, thus becoming capable of pathological effects, in which these humble emotions appear broadened and enormously magnified. The fancies of neurotics are, as it were, the uniformly exaggerated reproductions of the childish imaginings. This would point the way to a solution of the problem. Unfortunately, however, the access is still much more difficult to establish in these cases than to the child mind. There is only one known instrument which makes this road practicable, namely the psychoanalytic method, which has been developed through the work of Freud. Constant handling of this instrument will clear the observer’s vision to such a degree that he will be enabled to discover the identical motive forces, only in delicately shaded manifestations, also in the psychic life of those who do not become neurotics later on.

Professor Freud had the amiability to place at the author’s disposal his highly appreciated experience with the psychology of the neuroses; and on this material are based the following comments, on the imaginative faculty of the child as well as the neurotic.

The detachment of the growing individual from the authority of the parents is one of the most necessary, but also one of the most painful achievements of evolution. It is absolutely necessary for this detachment to take place, and it may be assumed that all normal grown individuals have accomplished it to a certain extent. Social progress is essentially based upon this opposition between the two generations. On the other hand, there exists a class of neurotics whose condition indicates that they have failed to solve this very problem. For the young child, the parents are in the first place the sole authority, and the source of all faith. To resemble them, i.e., the progenitor of the same sex; to grow up like father or mother, this is the most intense and portentous wish of the child’s early years. Progressive intellectual development naturally brings it about that the child gradually becomes acquainted with the category to which the parents belong. Other parents become known to the child, who compares these with his own, and thereby becomes justified in doubting the incomparability and uniqueness with which he had invested them. Trifling occurrences in the life of the child, which induce a mood of dissatisfaction, lead up to a criticism of the parents, and the gathering conviction that other parents are preferable in certain ways, is utilized for this attitude of the child towards the parents. From the psychology of the neuroses, we have learned that very intense emotions of sexual rivalry are also involved in this connection. The causative factor evidently is the feeling of being neglected. Opportunities arise only too frequently when the child is neglected, or at least feels himself neglected, when he misses the entire love of the parents, or at least regrets having to share the same with the other children of the family. The feeling that one’s own inclinations are not entirely reciprocated seeks its relief in the idea,—often consciously remembered from very early years,—of being a step-child, or an adopted child. Many persons who have not become neurotics, very frequently remember occasions of this kind, when the hostile behavior of the parents was interpreted and reciprocated by them in this fashion, usually under the influence of story books. The influence of sex is already evident, in so far as the boy shows a far greater tendency to harbor hostile feelings against his father than his mother, with a much stronger inclination to emancipate himself from the father than from the mother. The imaginative faculty of girls is possibly much less active in this respect. These consciously remembered psychic emotions of the years of childhood supply the factor which permits the interpretation of the myth. What is not often consciously remembered, but can almost invariably be demonstrated through psychoanalysis, is the next stage in the development of this incipient alienation from the parents, which may be designated by the term Family Romance of Neurotics. The essence of neurosis, and of all higher mental qualifications, comprises a special activity of the imagination which is primarily manifested in the play of the child, and which from about the period preceding puberty takes hold of the theme of the family relations. A characteristic example of this special imaginative faculty is represented by the familiar day dreams, which are continued until long after puberty. Accurate observation of these day dreams shows that they serve for the fulfilment of wishes, for the righting of life, and that they have two essential objects, one erotic, the other of an ambitious nature (usually with the erotic factor concealed therein). About the time in question the child’s imagination is engaged upon the task of getting rid of the parents, who are now despised and are as a rule to be supplanted by others of a higher social rank. The child utilizes an accidental coincidence of actual happenings (meetings with the lord of the manor, or the proprietor of the estate, in the country; with the reigning prince, in the city. In the United States with some great statesman, millionaire). Accidental occurrences of this kind arouse the child’s envy, and this finds its expression in fancy fabrics which replace the two parents by others of a higher rank. The technical elaboration of these two imaginings, which of course by this time have become conscious, depends upon the child’s adroitness, and also upon the material at his disposal. It likewise enters into consideration, if these fancies are elaborated with more or less claim to plausibility. This stage is reached at a time when the child is still lacking all knowledge of the sexual conditions of descent. With the added knowledge of the manifold sexual relations of father and mother; with the child’s realization of the fact that the father is always uncertain, whereas the mother is very certain—the family romance undergoes a peculiar restriction; it is satisfied with ennobling the father, while the descent from the mother is no longer questioned, but accepted as an unalterable fact. This second (or sexual) stage of the family romance is moreover supported by another motive, which did not exist in the first (or asexual) stage. Knowledge of sexual matters gives rise to the tendency of picturing erotic situations and relations, impelled by the pleasurable emotion of placing the mother, or the subject of the greatest sexual curiosity, in the situation of secret unfaithfulness and clandestine love affairs. In this way the primary or asexual fantasies are raised to the standard of the improved later understanding.

The motive of revenge and retaliation, which was originally to the front, is again evident. These neurotic children are mostly those who were punished by the parents, to break them of bad sexual habits, and they take their revenge upon their parents by their imaginings. The younger children of a family are particularly inclined to deprive their predecessors of their advantage by fables of this kind (exactly as in the intrigues of history). Frequently they do not hesitate in crediting the mother with as many love affairs as there are rivals. An interesting variation of this family romance restores the legitimacy of the plotting hero himself, while the other children are disposed of in this way as illegitimate. The family romance may be governed besides by a special interest, all sorts of inclinations being met by its adaptability and variegated character. The little romancer gets rid in this fashion for example of the kinship of a sister, who may have attracted him sexually.

Those who turn aside with horror from this corruption of the child mind, or perhaps actually contest the possibility of such matters, should note that all these apparently hostile imaginings have not such a very bad significance after all, and that the original affection of the child for his parents is still preserved under their thin disguise. The faithlessness and ingratitude on the part of the child are only apparent, for on investigating in detail the most common of these romantic fancies, namely the substitution of both parents, or of the father alone, by more exalted personages—the discovery will be made that these new and highborn parents are invested throughout with the qualities which are derived from real memories of the true lowly parents, so that the child does not actually remove his father but exalts him. The entire endeavor to replace the real father by a more distinguished one is merely the expression of the child’s longing for the vanished happy time, when his father still appeared to be the strongest and greatest man, and the mother seemed the dearest and most beautiful woman. The child turns away from the father, as he now knows him, to the father in whom he believed in his earlier years, his imagination being in truth only the expression of regret for this happy time having passed away. Thus the overvaluation of the earliest years of childhood again claims its own in these fancies. An interesting contribution to this subject is furnished by the study of the dreams. Dream-interpretation teaches that even in later years, in the dreams of the emperor or the empress, these princely persons stand for the father and the mother. Thus the infantile overvaluation of the parents is still preserved in the dream of the normal adult.

As we proceed to fit the above features into our scheme, we feel justified in analogizing the ego of the child with the hero of the myth, in view of the unanimous tendency of family romances and hero myths; keeping in mind that the myth throughout reveals an endeavor to get rid of the parents, and that the same wish arises in the phantasies of the individual child at the time when it is trying to establish its personal independence. The ego of the child behaves in this respect like the hero of the myth, and as a matter of fact, the hero should always be interpreted merely as a collective ego, which is equipped with all the excellences. In a similar manner, the hero in personal poetic fiction, usually represents the poet himself, or at least one side of his character.

Summarizing the essentials of the hero myth, we find the descent from noble parents, the exposure in a river, and in a box, and the raising by lowly parents; followed in the further evolution of the story by the hero’s return to his first parents, with or without punishment meted out to them. It is very evident that the two parent couples of the myth correspond to the real and the imaginary parent couple of the romantic phantasy. Closer inspection reveals the psychological identity of the humble and the noble parents, precisely as in the infantile and neurotic phantasies.

In conformity with the overvaluation of the parents in early childhood, the myth begins with the noble parents, exactly like the romantic phantasy, whereas in reality adults soon adapt themselves to the actual conditions. Thus the phantasy of the family romance is simply realized in the myth, with a bold reversal to the actual conditions. The hostility of the father, and the resulting exposure, accentuate the motive which has caused the ego to indulge in the entire fiction. The fictitious romance is the excuse, as it were, for the hostile feelings which the child harbors against his father, and which in this fiction are projected against the father. The exposure in the myth, therefore, is equivalent to the repudiation or non-recognition in the romantic phantasy. The child simply gets rid of the father in the neurotic romance, while in the myth the father endeavors to lose the child. Rescue and revenge are the natural terminations, as demanded by the essence of the phantasy.

In order to establish the full value of this parallelization, as just sketched in its general outlines, it must enable us to interpret certain constantly recurring details of the myth which seem to require a special explanation. This demand would seem to acquire special importance in view of the fact that no satisfactory explanation of these details is forthcoming in the writings of even the most enthusiastic astral mythologists, or natural philosophers. Such details are represented by the regular occurrence of dreams (or oracles), and by the mode of exposure in a box and in the water. These motives do not at first glance seem to permit a psychologic derivation. Fortunately the study of dream-symbolisms permits the elucidation of these elements of the hero-myth. The utilization of the same material in the dreams of healthy persons and neurotics indicates that the exposure in the water signifies no more and no less than the symbolic expression of birth. The children come out of the “water.” The basket, box or receptacle simply means the container, the womb; so that the exposure directly signifies the process of birth, although it is represented by its opposite.

Those who object to this representation by opposites should remember how often the dream works with the same mechanism (compare “Traumdeutung,” II edition, p. 238). A confirmation of this interpretation of the exposure, as taken from the common human symbolism, is furnished by the material itself, in the dream dreamt by the grandfather (or still more convincingly by the mother herself) in the Ktesian version of Kyros before his birth; in this dream, so much water flows from the lap of the expectant mother as to inundate all Asia, like an enormous ocean. It is remarkable that in both cases the Chaldeans correctly interpreted these water dreams as birth-dreams. In all probability, these dreams themselves are constructed out of the knowledge of a very ancient and universally understood symbolism, with a dim foresight of the relations and connections which are appreciated and presented in Freud’s teachings. There he says (“Traumdeutung,” 2d edition, p. 199) in referring to a dream in which the dreamer hurls herself in the dark water of a lake: Dreams of this sort are birth-dreams, and their interpretation is accomplished by reversing the fact as communicated in the manifest dream; namely, instead of hurling oneself into the water, it means emerging from the water, i.e., to be born. The justice of this interpretation, which renders the water-dream equivalent to the exposure, is again confirmed by the fact that precisely in the Kyros saga, which contains the water-dream, the motive of the exposure in the water is lacking, while only the basket, which does not occur in the dream, plays a part in the exposure.

In this interpretation of the exposure as the birth, we must not let ourselves be disturbed by the discrepancy in the succession of the individual elements of the symbolized materialization, with the real birth process. This chronological rearrangement or even reversal has been explained by Freud as due to the general manner in which recollections are elaborated into phantasies; the same material reappears in the phantasies, but in an entirely novel arrangement, and no attention whatsoever is paid to the natural sequence of the acts.

Besides this chronological reversal, the reversal of the contents requires special explanation. The first reason for the representation of the birth by its opposite,—the life threatening exposure in the water, is the accentuation of the parental hostility towards the future hero. The creative influence of this tendency to represent the parents as the first and most powerful opponents of the hero will be appreciated, when it is kept in mind that the entire family-romance in general owes its origin to the feeling of being neglected, namely the assumed hostility of the parents. In the myth, this hostility goes so far that the parents refuse to let the child be born, which is precisely the reason of the hero’s lament, moreover, the myth plainly reveals the desire to enforce his materialization even against the will of the parents. The vital peril which is thus concealed in the representation of birth through exposure, actually exists in the process of birth itself. The overcoming of all these obstacles also expresses the idea that the future hero has actually overcome the greatest difficulties by virtue of his birth, for he has victoriously thwarted all attempts to prevent it. Or another interpretation may be admitted, according to which the youthful hero, foreseeing his destiny to taste more than his share of the bitterness of life, deplores in pessimistic mood the inimical act which has called him to earth. He accuses the parents, as it were, for having exposed him to the struggle of life, for having allowed him to be born. The refusal to let the son be born, which belongs especially to the father, is frequently concealed by the contrast motive, the wish for a child (as in Œdipus, Perseus and others), while the hostile attitude towards the future successor on the throne and in the kingdom is projected to the outside, namely it is attributed to an oracular verdict, which is thereby revealed as the substitute of the ominous dream, or better, as the equivalent of its interpretation.

From another point of view, however, the family romance shows that the phantasies of the child, although apparently estranging the parents, have nought else to say concerning them besides their confirmation as the real parents. The exposure myth, translated with the assistance of symbolism, likewise contains nothing but the assurance: this is my mother, who has borne me at the command of the father. But on account of the tendency of the myth, and the resulting transference of the hostile attitude, from the child to the parents, this assurance of the real parentage can only be expressed as the repudiation of such parentage.

On closer inspection, it is noteworthy in the first place that the hostile attitude of the hero towards his parents concerns especially the father. Usually, as in the myth of Œdipus, Paris, and others, the royal father receives a prophecy of some disaster, threatening him through the expected son; then it is the father who causes the exposure of the boy and who pursues and menaces him in all sorts of ways after his unlooked-for rescue, but finally succumbs to his son, according to the prophecy. In order to understand this trait, which at first may appear somewhat startling, it is not necessary to explore the heavens for some process into which this trait might be laboriously fitted. Looking with open eyes and unprejudiced minds at the relations between parents and children, or between brothers such as these exist in reality—a certain tension is frequently, if not regularly revealed between father and son, or still more distinctly a competition between brothers; although this tension may not be obvious and permanent, it is lurking in the sphere of the unconscious, as it were, with periodical eruptions. Erotic factors are especially apt to be involved, and as a rule the deepest, generally unconscious root of the dislike of the son for the father, or of two brothers for each other, is referable to the competition for the tender devotion and love of the mother. The Œdipus myth shows plainly, only in grosser dimensions, the accuracy of this interpretation, for the parricide is here followed by the incest with the mother. This erotic relation with the mother, which predominates in other mythic cycles, is relegated to the background in the myths of the birth of the hero, while the opposition against the father is more strongly accentuated.

The fact that this infantile rebellion against the father is apparently provoked in the birth myths by the hostile behavior of the father is due to a reversal of the relation, known as projection, which is brought about by very peculiar characteristics of the myth forming psychic activity. The projection mechanism, which also bore its part in the re-interpretation of the birth act, as well as certain other characteristics of myth formation, to be discussed presently,—necessitates the uniform characterisation of the myth as a paranoid structure, in view of its resemblance to peculiar processes in the mechanism of certain psychic disturbances. Intimately connected with the paranoid character is the property of separating or dissociating what is fused in the imagination. This process, as illustrated by the two parents couples, provides the foundation for the myth formation, and together with the projection mechanism supplies the key to the understanding of an entire series of otherwise inexplicable configurations of the myth. As the motor power for this projection of the hero’s hostile attitude on to the father stands revealed the wish for its justification, arising from the troublesome realization of these feelings against the father. The displacement process which begins with the projection of the troublesome sensation is still further continued, however, and with the assistance of the mechanism of separation or dissociation, it has found a different expression of its gradual progress in very characteristic forms of the hero myth. In the original psychologic setting, the father is still identical with the king, the tyrannical persecutor. The first attenuation of this relation is manifested in those myths in which the separation of the tyrannical persecutor from the real father is already attempted, but not yet entirely accomplished, the former being still related to the hero, usually as his grandfather, for example in the Kyros-myth with all its versions, and in the majority of all hero myths in general. In the separation of the father’s part from that of the king, this type signifies the first return step of the descent fantasy toward the actual conditions, and accordingly the hero’s father appears in this type mostly as a lowly man: See Kyros, Gilgamos and others. The hero thus arrives again at an approach toward his parents, the establishment of a certain kinship, which finds its expression in the fact that not only the hero himself, but also his father and his mother represent objects of the tyrant’s persecution. The hero in this way acquires a more intimate connection with the mother (they are often exposed together: Perseus, Telephos, Feridun), who is nearer to him on account of the erotic relation; while the renouncement of his hatred against the father here attains the expression of its most forcible reaction, for the hero henceforth appears, as in the Hamlet saga, not as the persecutor of his father (or grandfather, respectively) but as the avenger of the persecuted father. This involves a deeper relation of the Hamlet saga with the Iranese story of Kaikhosrav, where the hero likewise appears as the avenger of his murdered father (compare Feridun and others).

The person of the grandfather himself, who in certain sagas appears replaced by other relatives (the uncle, in the Hamlet saga), also possesses a deeper meaning. The myth complex of the incest with the mother—and the related revolt against the father—is here combined with the second great complex, which has for its contents the erotic relations between father and daughter. Under this heading belongs besides other widely ramified groups of sagas (quoted in the author’s “Incest Book,” Chapter XI), the story which is told in countless versions of a newborn boy, of whom it is prophesied that he is to become the son-in-law and heir of a certain ruler or potentate, and who finally does so in spite of all persecutions (exposure and so forth) on the part of the latter. Detailed literary references concerning the wide distribution of this story are found in R. Köhler, “Kleine Schriften,” II, 357. The father who refuses to give his daughter to any of her suitors, or who attaches certain conditions difficult of fulfillment to the winning of the daughter, does this because he really begrudges her to all others, for when all is told he wishes to possess her himself. He locks her up in some inaccessible spot, so as to safeguard her virginity (Perseus, Gilgamos, Telephos, Romulus), and when his command is disobeyed he pursues the daughter and her offspring with insatiable hatred. However, the unconscious sexual motives of his hostile attitude, which is later on avenged by his grandson, render it evident that again the hero kills in him simply the man who is trying to rob him of the love of his mother: namely the father.

Another attempt at a reversal to a more original type consists in the following trait: The return to the lowly father, which has been brought about through the separation of the father’s rôle from that of the king, is again nullified through the lowly father’s secondary elevation to the rank of a god, as in Perseus and the other sons of virgin mothers; Karna, Ion, Romulus, Jesus. The secondary character of this godly paternity is especially evident in those myths where the virgin who has been impregnated by divine conception, later on marries a mortal (Jesus, Karna, Ion) who then appears as the real father, while the god as the father represents merely the most exalted childish idea of the magnitude, power and perfection of the father. At the same time, these myths strictly insist upon the motive of the virginity of the mother, which elsewhere is merely hinted at. The first impetus is perhaps supplied by the transcendental tendency, necessitated through the introduction of the god. At the same time, the birth from the virgin is the most abrupt repudiation of the father, the consummation of the entire myth, as illustrated by the Sargon legend, which does not admit any father, besides the vestal mother.

The last stage of this progressive attenuation of the hostile relation to the father is represented by that form of the myth in which the person of the royal persecutor not only appears entirely detached from that of the father, but has even lost the remotest kinship with the hero’s family, which he opposes in the most hostile manner, as its enemy (in Feridun, Abraham, King Herod against Jesus, and others). Although of his original threefold character as the father, the king, and the persecutor, he retains only the part of the royal persecutor or the tyrant, the entire plan of the myth conveys the impression as if nothing had been changed, but as if the designation as “father” had been simply replaced by the term of “tyrant.” This interpretation of the father as a “tyrant” which is typical of the infantile ideation, will be found later on to possess the greatest importance for the interpretation of certain abnormal constellations of this complex.

The prototype of this identification of the king with the father, which regularly recurs also in the dreams of adults, presumably is the origin of royalty from the patriarchate in the family, which is still attested by the use of identical words for king and father, in the Hindoo-Germanic languages (compare the German “Landesvater,” father of his country, = king). The reversal of the family romance to actual conditions is almost entirety accomplished in this type of myth. The lowly parents are acknowledged with a frankness which seems to be directly contradictory to the tendency of the entire myth.

Precisely this revelation of the real conditions, which hitherto had to be left to the interpretation, enables us to prove the accuracy of the latter from the material itself. The biblical Moses-legend has been selected, as especially well adapted to this purpose.

Briefly summarizing the outcome of the previous interpretation-mechanism, to make matters plainer, we find the two parent-couples to be identical, after their splitting into the personalities of the father and the tyrannical persecutor has been connected; the high born parents being the echo, as it were, of the exaggerated notions which the child originally harbored concerning its parents. The Moses-legend actually shows the parents of the hero divested of all prominent attributes; they are simple people, devotedly attached to the child, and incapable of harming it. Meanwhile, the assertion of tender feelings for the child is a confirmation, here as well as everywhere, of the bodily parentage (compare Akki, the gardener, in the Gilgamos-legend; the teamster, in the story of Karna; the fisher, in the Perseus myth, etc.). The amicable utilization of the exposure motive, which occurs in this type of myth, is referable to such a relationship. The child is surrendered in a basket to the water, but not with the object of killing it (as for example the hostile exposure of Œdipus and many other heroes), but for the purpose of saving it (compare also Abraham’s early history, p. 15). The danger fraught warning to the exalted father becomes a hopeful prophecy for the lowly father (compare, in the birth story of Jesus, the oracle for Herod and Joseph’s dream), entirely corresponding to the expectations placed by most parents in the career of their offspring.

Retaining from the original tendency of the romance, the fact that Bitiah, Pharaoh’s daughter, drew the child from the water, i.e., gave it birth, the outcome is the familiar theme (grandfather type) of the king, whose daughter is to bear a son, but who on being warned by the ill-omened interpretation of a dream, resolves to kill his forthcoming grandson. The handmaiden of his daughter (who in the biblical story draws the box from the water, at the behest of the princess), is charged by the king with the exposure of the newborn child in a box, in the waters of the river Nile, that it may perish (the exposure motive, from the viewpoint of the highborn parents, here appearing in its original disastrous significance). The box with the child is then found by lowly people, and the poor woman raises the child (as his wet nurse), and when he is grown up he is recognized by the princess as her son (just as in the prototype the phantasy concludes with the recognition by the highborn parents).

If the Moses-legend were placed before us in this more original form, as we have reconstructed it from the existing material, the sum of this interpretation-mechanism would be approximately what is told in the myth as it is actually transmitted; namely that his true mother was not a princess, but the poor woman who was introduced as his nurse, her husband being his father.

This interpretation is offered as the tradition, in the re-converted myth; and the fact that this tracing of the progressive mutation furnishes the familiar type of hero myth, is the proof for the correctness of our interpretation.

It has thus been our good fortune to show the full accuracy of our interpretative technique upon the material itself, and it is now time to demonstrate the tenability of the general viewpoint upon which this entire technique is founded. Hitherto, the results of our interpretation have created the appearance of the entire myth formation as starting from the hero himself, namely from the youthful hero. At the start we took this attitude in analogizing the hero of the myth with the ego of the child. Now we find ourselves confronted with the obligation to harmonize these assumptions and conclusions with the other conceptions of myth formation, which they seem to directly contradict.

The myths are certainly not constructed by the hero, least of all by the child hero, but they have long been known to be the product of a people of adults. The impetus is evidently supplied by the popular amazement at the apparition of the hero, whose extraordinary life history the people can only imagine as ushered in by a wonderful infancy. This extraordinary childhood of the hero, however, is constructed by the individual myth-makers—to whom the indefinite idea of the folk-mind must be ultimately traced—from the consciousness of their own infancy. In investing the hero with their own infantile history, they identify themselves with him, as it were, claiming to have been similar heroes in their own personality. The true hero of the romance is, therefore, the ego, which finds itself in the hero, by reverting to the time when the ego was itself a hero, through its first heroic act, i.e., the revolt against the father. The ego can only find its own heroism in the days of infancy, and it is therefore obliged to invest the hero with its own revolt, crediting him with the features which made the ego a hero. This object is achieved with infantile motives and materials, in reverting to the infantile romance and transferring it to the hero. Myths are, therefore, created by adults, by means of retrograde childhood fantasies, the hero being credited with the myth-maker’s personal infantile history. Meanwhile the tendency of this entire process is the excuse of the individual units of the people for their own infantile revolt against the father.

Besides the excuse of the hero for his rebellious revolt, the myth therefore contains also the excuse of the individual for his revolt against the father. This revolt had burdened him since his childhood, as he had failed to become a hero. He is now enabled to excuse himself by emphasizing that the father has given him grounds for his hostility. The affectionate feeling for the father is also manifested in the same fiction, as has been shown above. These myths have therefore sprung from two opposite motives, both of which are subordinate to the motive of vindication of the individual through the hero: on the one hand the motive of affection and gratitude towards the parents; and on the other hand, the motive of the revolt against the father. It is not stated outright in these myths, however, that the conflict with the father arises from the sexual rivalry for the mother, but is apparently suggested that this conflict dates back primarily to the concealment of the sexual processes (at childbirth), which in this way became an enigma for the child. This enigma finds its temporary and symbolical solution in the infantile sexual theory of the basket and the water. 

The profound participation of the incest motive in myth formation is discussed in the author’s special investigation of the Lohengrin saga, which belongs to the myth of the birth of the hero. The cyclic character of the Lohengrin saga is referred by him to the fantasy of being one’s own son, as revealed by Freud (p. 131; compare also pp. 96 and 990). This accounts for the identity of father and son, in certain myths, the repetition of their careers; the fact that the hero is sometimes not exposed until he has reached maturity, also the intimate connection between birth and death, in the exposure-motive. (Concerning the water as the water of death, compare especially chapter IV of the Lohengrin saga.) Jung, who regards the typical fate of the hero as the portrayal of the human libido and its typical vicissitudes, has made this theme the pivot of his interpretation, as the fantasy of being born again, to which the incest motive is subordinated. Not only the birth of the hero, which takes place under peculiar symbolic circumstances, but also the motive of the two mothers of the hero, are explained by Jung through the birth of the hero taking place under the mysterious ceremonials of a re-birth from the mother consort (l. c., p. 356).

Having thus outlined the contents of the birth myth of the hero it still remains for us to point out certain complications within the birth myth itself, which have been explained on the basis of its paranoid character, as “splits” of the personality of the royal father and persecutor. In some myths, however, and especially in the fairy tales which belong to this group, the multiplication of mythical personages, and with them, of course, the multiplication of motives, or even of entire stories, are carried so far that sometimes the original features are altogether overgrown by these addenda. The multiplication is so variegated and so exuberantly developed, that the mechanism of the analysis no longer does it justice. Moreover, the new personalities here do not show the same independence, as it were, as the new personalities created by splitting, but they rather present the characteristics of a copy, a duplicate, or a “double,” which is the proper mythological term. An apparently very complicated example, namely, Herodotus’ version of the Kyros saga, illustrates that these doubles are not inserted purely for ornamentation, or to give a semblance of historical veracity, but that they are insolubly connected with the myth-formation and its tendency. Also, in the Kyros-myth, as in the other myths, the royal grandfather, Astyages, and his daughter, with her husband, are confronted by the cattle-herder and his wife. A checkered gathering of other personalities which move around them, are readily grouped at sight: Between the high born parent couple and their child stand the administrator Harpagos with his wife and his son, and the noble Artembares with his legitimate offspring. Our trained sense for the peculiarities of myth-structure recognizes at once the doubles of the parents in the intermediate parent-couples and all the participants are seen to be identical personalities of the parents and their child; this interpretation being suggested by certain features of the myth itself. Harpagos receives the child from the king, to expose it; he therefore acts precisely like the royal father and remains true to his fictitious paternal part in his reluctance to kill the child himself—because it is related to him—but he delivers it instead to the herder Mithradates, who is thus again identified with Harpagos. The noble Artembares, whose son Kyros causes to be whipped, is also identified with Harpagos; for when Artembares with his whipped boy stands before the king, to demand retribution, Harpagos at once is likewise seen standing before the king, to defend himself, and he also is obliged to present his son to the king. Thus Artembares himself plays an episodal part as the hero’s father, and this is fully confirmed by the Ktesian version, which tells us that the nobleman who adopted the herder’s son, Kyros, as his own son, was named Artembares.

Even more distinct than the identity of the different fathers is that of their children, which of course serves to confirm the identity of the fathers. In the first place, and this would seem to be conclusive, the children are all of the same age. Not only the son of the princess, and the child of the herder, who are born at the same time; but Herodotus specially emphasizes that Kyros played the game at kings, in which he caused the son of Artembares to be whipped, with boys of the same age. He also points out, perhaps intentionally, that the son of Harpagos, destined to become the playmate of Kyros, whom the king had recognized, was likewise apparently of the same age as Kyros. Furthermore, the remains of this boy are placed before his father, Harpagos, in a basket, it was also a basket in which the newborn Kyros was to have been exposed, and this actually happened to his substitute, the herder’s son, whose identity with Kyros is obvious and tangible in the report of Iustin, p. 34. In this report, Kyros is actually exchanged with the living child of the herders;, but this paradoxical parental feeling is reconciled by the consciousness that in reality nothing at all has been altered by this exchange. It appears more intelligible, of course, that the herder’s wife should wish to raise the living child of the king, instead of her own stillborn boy, as in the Herodotus version; but here the identity of the boys is again evident, for just as the herder’s son suffered death instead of Kyros in the past, twelve years later the son of Harpagos (also in the basket) is killed directly for Kyros, whom Harpagos had allowed to live.

The impression is thereby conveyed that all the multiplications of Kyros, after having been created for a certain purpose, are again removed, as disturbing elements, once this purpose has been fulfilled. This purpose is undoubtedly the exalting tendency which is inherent to the family romance. The hero in the various duplications of himself and his parents, ascends the social scale from the herder Mithradates, by way of the noble Artembares, who is high in the king’s favor, and of the first administrator, Harpagos, who is personally related to the king—until he has himself become a prince; so his career is exposed in the Ktesian version, where Kyros advances from the herder’s son to the king’s administrator. In this way, he constantly removes, as it were, the last traces of his ascent, the lower Kyros being discarded after absolving the different stages of his career.

This complicated myth with its promiscuous array of personages is thus simplified and reduced to three actors, namely the hero and his parents. Entirely similar conditions prevail in regard to the “cast” of many other myths. For example, the duplication may concern the daughter, as in the Moses myth, in which the princess mother (in order to establish the identity of the two families) appears among the poor people as the daughter Miriam, who is merely a split of the mother, the latter appearing divided into the princess and the poor woman. In case the duplication concerns the father, his doubles appear as a rule in the part of relatives, more particularly as his brothers, as for example in the Hamlet saga, in distinction from the foreign personages created by the analysis. In a similar way, the grandfather, who is taking the place of the father, may also appear complemented by a brother, who is the hero’s grand uncle, and as such his opponent, as in the myths of Romulus, Perseus and others. Other duplications, in apparently complicated mythical structures, as for example in Kaikhosrav, Feridun, and others, are easily recognized when envisaged from this angle.

The duplication of the fathers, or the grandfathers, respectively, by a brother may be continued in the next generation, and concern the hero himself, thus leading to the brother myths, which can only be hinted at in connection with the present theme. The prototypes of the boy, who in the Kyros saga vanish into thin air after they have served their purpose, namely the exaltation of the hero’s descent, if they were to assume a vitality of their own, would come to confront the hero as competitors with equal rights, namely as his brothers. The original sequence is probably better preserved through the interpretation of the hero’s strange doubles as shadowy brothers, who like the twin brother, must die for the hero’s sake. Not only the father, who is in the way of the maturing son, but also the interfering competitor, or the brother, are removed, in a naïve realization of the childish fantasies, for the simple reason that the hero does not want a family.

The complications of the hero myth with other myth cycles include, besides the myth of the hostile brothers, which has already been disposed of, also the actual incest myth, such as forms the nucleus of the Œdipus myth. The mother, and her relation to the hero, appear relegated to the background in the myth of the birth of the hero. But there is another conspicuous motive, meaning that the lowly mother is so often represented by an animal. This motive of the helpful animals belongs in part to a series of foreign elements, the explanation of which would far exceed the scope of this essay.

The animal motive may be fitted into the sequence of our interpretation, on the basis of the following reflections. In a similar way as the projection on to the father justifies the hostile attitude on the part of the son, so the lowering of the mother into an animal is likewise meant to vindicate the ingratitude of the son, who denies her. In a similar way as the detachment of the persecuting king from the father, the exclusive rôle of a wet nurse, alloted to the mother, in this substitution by an animal, goes back to the separation of the mother into the parts of the child bearer and the suckler. This cleavage is again subservient to the exalting tendency, in so far as the child bearing part is reserved for the high born mother, whereas the lowly woman, who cannot be eradicated from the early history, must content herself with the function of a nurse. Animals are especially appropriate substitutes, because the sexual processes are here plainly evident also to the child, while the concealment of these processes is presumably the root of the childish revolt against the parents. The exposure in the box and in the water asexualizes the birth process, as it were, in a childlike fashion; the children are fished out of the water by the stork, who takes them to the parents in a basket. The animal fable improves upon this idea, by emphasizing the similarity between human birth and animal birth.

This introduction of the motive may possibly be interpreted from the parodistic point of view, if we assume that the child accepts the story of the stork from the parents, feigning ignorance, but adding superciliously: If an animal has brought me, it may also have nursed me.

When all is said and done, however, and when the cleavage is followed back, this separation of the child bearer from the suckler—which really endeavors to remove the bodily mother entirely, by means of her substitution through an animal or a strange nurse—does not express anything beyond the fact: The woman who has suckled me is my mother. This statement is found directly symbolized in the Moses legend, the retrogressive character of which we have already studied; for precisely the woman who is his own mother is chosen to be his nurse [similarly also in the myth of Herakles, and in the Egyptian-Phenician Osiris-Adonis myth, where Osiris, encased in a chest, floats down the river to Phenicia, and is finally found under the name Adonis, by Isis, who is installed by Queen Astarte as the nurse of her own son]. 

Only a brief reference can here be made to other motives which seem to be more loosely related to the entire myth. Such motives include that of playing the fool, which is suggested in animal fables as the universal childish attitude towards the grown ups; furthermore, the physical defects of certain heroes [Zal, Œdipus, Hephaistos], which are perhaps meant to serve for the vindication of individual imperfections, in such a way that the reproaches of the father for possible defects or shortcomings are incorporated in the myth, with the appropriate accentuation, the hero being endowed with the same weakness which burdens the self-respect of the individual.

This explanation of the psychological significance of the myth of the birth of the hero would not be complete without emphasizing its relations to certain mental diseases. Also readers without psychiatric training—or these perhaps more than any others, must have been struck with these relations. As a matter of fact, the hero myths are equivalent in many essential features to the delusional ideas of certain psychotic individuals, who suffer from delusions of persecution and grandeur,—the so called paranoiacs. Their system of delusions is constructed very much like the hero myth, and therefore indicates the same psychogenic motives as the neurotic family romance, which is analysable, whereas the system of delusions is inaccessible even for psychoanalytical approaches. For example, the paranoiac is apt to claim that the people whose name he bears are not his real parents, but that he is actually the son of a princely personage; he was to be removed for some mysterious reason, and was therefore surrendered to his “parents” as a foster child. His enemies, however, wish to maintain the fiction that he is of lowly descent, in order to suppress his legitimate pretensions to the crown or to enormous riches. Cases of this kind often occupy alienists or tribunals.

This intimate relationship between the hero myth and the delusional structure of paranoiacs has already been definitely established through the characterization of the myth as a paranoid structure, which is here confirmed by its contents. The remarkable fact that paranoiacs will frankly reveal their entire romance has ceased to be puzzling, since the profound investigations of Freud have shown that the contents of hysterical fantasies, which can often be made conscious through analysis, are identical up to the minutest details with the complaints of persecuted paranoiacs; moreover, the identical contents are also encountered as a reality, in the arrangements of perverts for the gratification of their desires.

The egotistical character of the entire system is distinctly revealed by the paranoiac, for whom the exaltation of the parents, as brought about by him, is merely the means for his own exaltation. As a rule the pivot for his entire system is simply the culmination of the family romance, in the apoditic statement: I am the emperor (or god). Reasoning in the symbolism of dreams and myths, which is also the symbolism of all fancies, including the “morbid” power of imagination—all he accomplishes thereby is to put himself in the place of the father, just as the hero terminates his revolt against the father. This can be done in both instances, because the conflict with the father—which dates back to the concealment of the sexual processes, as suggested by the latest discoveries—is nullified at the instant when the grown boy himself becomes a father. The persistence with which the paranoiac puts himself in the father’s place, i.e., becomes a father himself, appears like an illustration to the common[Pg 93] answer of little boys to a scolding or a putting off of their inquisitive curiosity: You just wait until I am a papa myself, and I’ll know all about it!

Besides the paranoiac, his equally a-social counterpart must also be emphasized. In the expression of the identical fantasy contents, the hysterical individual who has suppressed them, is offset by the pervert, who realizes them, and even so the diseased and passive paranoiac—who needs his delusion for the correction of the actuality, which to him is intolerable—is offset by the active criminal, who endeavors to change the actuality according to his mind. In this special sense, this type is represented by the anarchist. The hero himself, as shown by his detachment from the parents, begins his career in opposition to the older generation; he is at once a rebel, a renovator, and a revolutionary. However, every revolutionary is originally a disobedient son, a rebel against the father. (Compare the suggestion of Freud, in connection with the interpretation of a “revolutionary dream.” Traumdeutung, II edition, p. 153. See English translation by Brill. Macmillan. Annotation.)

But whereas the paranoiac, in conformity with his passive character, has to suffer persecutions and wrongs which ultimately proceed from the father, and which he endeavors to escape by putting himself in the place of the father or the emperor—the anarchist complies more faithfully with the heroic character, by promptly himself becoming the persecutor of kings, and finally killing the king, precisely like the hero. The remarkable similarity between the career of certain anarchistic criminals and the family romance of hero and child has been illustrated by the author, through special instances (Belege zur Rettungsphantasie, Zentralblatt f. Psychoanalyse, I, 1911, p. 331, and Die Rolle des Familienromans in der Psychologie des Attentäters, Internationale Zeitschrift für aerztliche Psychoanalyse, I, 1913). The truly heroic element then consists only in the real justice or even necessity of the act, which is therefore generally endorsed and admired; while the morbid trait, also in criminal cases, is the pathologic transference of the hatred from the father to the real king, or several kings, when more general and still more distorted.

As the hero is commended for the same deed, without asking for its psychic motivation, so the anarchist might claim indulgence from the severest penalties, for the reason that he has killed an entirely different person from the one he really intended to destroy, in spite of an apparently excellent perhaps political motivation of his act.

For the present let us stop at the narrow boundary line where the contents of innocent infantile imaginings, suppressed and unconscious neurotic fantasies, poetical myth structures, and certain forms of mental disease and crime lie close together, although far apart as to their causes and dynamic forces. We resist the temptation to follow one of these divergent paths which lead to altogether different realms, but which are as yet unblazed trails in the wilderness.

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