§ 7. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in Folk-tales

[Traces of the seclusion of girls at puberty in folk-tales. Danish story of the girl who might not see the sun.]

A superstition so widely diffused as this might be expected to leave traces in legends and folk-tales. And it has done so. In a Danish story we read of a princess who was fated to be carried off by a warlock if ever the sun shone on her before she had passed her thirtieth year; so the king her father kept her shut up in the palace, and had all the windows on the east, south, and west sides blocked up, lest a sunbeam should fall on his darling child, and he should thus lose her for ever. Only at evening, when the sun was down, might she walk for a little in the beautiful garden of the castle. In time a prince came a-wooing, followed by a train of gorgeous knights and squires on horses all ablaze with gold and silver. The king said the prince might have his daughter to wife on condition that he would not carry her away to his home till she was thirty years old but would live with her in the castle, where the windows looked out only to the north. The prince agreed, so married they were. The bride was only fifteen, and fifteen more long weary years must pass before she might step out of the gloomy donjon, breathe the fresh air, and see the sun. But she and her gallant young bridegroom loved each other and they were happy. Often they sat hand in hand at the window looking out to the north and talked of what they would do when they were free. Still it was a little dull to look out always at the same window and to see nothing but the castle woods, and the distant hills, and the clouds drifting silently over them. Well, one day it happened that all the people in the castle had gone away to a neighbouring castle to witness a tournament and other gaieties, and the two young folks were left as usual all alone at the window looking out to the north. They sat silent for a time gazing away to the hills. It was a grey sad day, the sky was overcast, and the weather seemed to draw to rain. At last the prince said, "There will be no sunshine to-day. What if we were to drive over and join the rest at the tournament?" His young wife gladly consented, for she longed to see more of the world than those eternal green woods and those eternal blue hills, which were all she ever saw from the window. So the horses were put into the coach, and it rattled up to the door, and in they got and away they drove. At first all went well. The clouds hung low over the woods, the wind sighed in the trees, a drearier day you could hardly imagine. So they joined the rest at the other castle and took their seats to watch the jousting in the lists. So intent were they in watching the gay spectacle of the prancing steeds, the fluttering pennons, and the glittering armour of the knights, that they failed to mark the change, the fatal change, in the weather. For the wind was rising and had begun to disperse the clouds, and suddenly the sun broke through, and the glory of it fell like an aureole on the young wife, and at once she vanished away. No sooner did her husband miss her from his side than he, too, mysteriously disappeared. The tournament broke up in confusion, the bereft father hastened home, and shut himself up in the dark castle from which the light of life had departed. The green woods and the blue hills could still be seen from the window that looked to the north, but the young faces that had gazed out of it so wistfully were gone, as it seemed, for ever. 166

[Tyrolese story of the girl who might not see the sun.]

A Tyrolese story tells how it was the doom of a lovely maiden with golden hair to be transported into the belly of a whale if ever a sunbeam fell on her. Hearing of the fame of her beauty the king of the country sent for her to be his bride, and her brother drove the fair damsel to the palace in a carefully closed coach, himself sitting on the box and handling the reins. On the way they overtook two hideous witches, who pretended they were weary and begged for a lift in the coach. At first the brother refused to take them in, but his tender-hearted sister entreated him to have compassion on the two poor footsore women; for you may easily imagine that she was not acquainted with their true character. So down he got rather surlily from the box, opened the coach door, and in the two witches stepped, laughing in their sleeves. But no sooner had the brother mounted the box and whipped up the horses, than one of the two wicked witches bored a hole in the closed coach. A sunbeam at once shot through the hole and fell on the fair damsel. So she vanished from the coach and was spirited away into the belly of a whale in the neighbouring sea. You can imagine the consternation of the king, when the coach door opened and instead of his blooming bride out bounced two hideous hags! 167

[Modern Greek stories of the maid who might not see the sun.]

In a modern Greek folk-tale the Fates predict that in her fifteenth year a princess must be careful not to let the sun shine on her, for if this were to happen she would be turned into a lizard. 168 In another modern Greek tale the Sun bestows a daughter upon a childless woman on condition of taking the child back to himself when she is twelve years old. So, when the child was twelve, the mother closed the doors and windows, and stopped up all the chinks and crannies, to prevent the Sun from coming to fetch away her daughter. But she forgot to stop up the key-hole, and a sunbeam streamed through it and carried off the girl. 169 In a Sicilian story a seer foretells that a king will have a daughter who, in her fourteenth year, will conceive a child by the Sun. So, when the child was born, the king shut her up in a lonely tower which had no window, lest a sunbeam should fall on her. When she was nearly fourteen years old, it happened that her parents sent her a piece of roasted kid, in which she found a sharp bone. With this bone she scraped a hole in the wall, and a sunbeam shot through the hole and got her with child. 170

[The story of Danae and its parallel in a Kirghiz legend.]

The old Greek story of Danae, who was confined by her father in a subterranean chamber or a brazen tower, but impregnated by Zeus, who reached her in the shape of a shower of gold, 171 perhaps belongs to the same class of tales. It has its counterpart in the legend which the Kirghiz of Siberia tell of their ancestry. A certain Khan had a fair daughter, whom he kept in a dark iron house, that no man might see her. An old woman tended her; and when the girl was grown to maidenhood she asked the old woman, "Where do you go so often?" "My child," said the old dame, "there is a bright world. In that bright world your father and mother live, and all sorts of people live there. That is where I go." The maiden said, "Good mother, I will tell nobody, but shew me that bright world." So the old woman took the girl out of the iron house. But when she saw the bright world, the girl tottered and fainted; and the eye of God fell upon her, and she conceived. Her angry father put her in a golden chest and sent her floating away (fairy gold can float in fairyland) over the wide sea. 172 The shower of gold in the Greek story, and the eye of God in the Kirghiz legend, probably stand for sunlight and the sun.

[Impregnation of women by the sun in legends.]

The idea that women may be impregnated by the sun is not uncommon in legends. Thus, for example, among the Indians of Guacheta in Colombia, it is said, a report once ran that the sun would impregnate one of their maidens, who should bear a child and yet remain a virgin. The chief had two daughters, and was very desirous that one of them should conceive in this miraculous manner. So every day he made them climb a hill to the east of his house in order to be touched by the first beams of the rising sun. His wishes were fulfilled, for one of the damsels conceived and after nine months gave birth to an emerald. So she wrapped it in cotton and placed it in her bosom, and in a few days it turned into a child, who received the name of Garanchacha and was universally recognized as a son of the sun. 173 Again, the Samoans tell of a woman named Mangamangai, who became pregnant by looking at the rising sun. Her son grew up and was named "Child of the Sun." At his marriage he applied to his mother for a dowry, but she bade him apply to his father, the sun, and told him how to go to him. So one morning he took a long vine and made a noose in it; then climbing up a tree he threw the noose over the sun and caught him fast. Thus arrested in his progress, the luminary asked him what he wanted, and being told by the young man that he wanted a present for his bride, the sun obligingly packed up a store of blessings in a basket, with which the youth descended to the earth. 174

[Traces in marriage customs of the belief that women can be impregnated by the sun.]

Even in the marriage customs of various races we may perhaps detect traces of this belief that women can be impregnated by the sun. Thus amongst the Chaco Indians of South America a newly married couple used to sleep the first night on a mare's or bullock's skin with their heads towards the west, "for the marriage is not considered ratified till the rising sun shines on their feet the succeeding morning." 175 At old Hindoo marriages the first ceremony was the "Impregnation-rite" (Garbh[=a]dh[=a]na); during the previous day the bride was made to look towards the sun or to be in some way exposed to its rays. 176 Amongst the Turks of Siberia it was formerly the custom on the morning after the marriage to lead the young couple out of the hut to greet the rising sun. The same custom is said to be still practised in Iran and Central Asia under a belief that the beams of the rising sun are the surest means of impregnating the new bride. 177

[Belief in the impregnation of women by the moon.]

And as some people think that women may be gotten with child by the sun, so others imagine that they can conceive by the moon. According to the Greenlanders the moon is a young man, and he "now and then comes down to give their wives a visit and caress them; for which reason no woman dare sleep lying upon her back, without she first spits upon her fingers and rubs her belly with it. For the same reason the young maids are afraid to stare long at the moon, imagining they may get a child by the bargain." 178 Similarly Breton peasants are reported to believe that women or girls who expose their persons to the moonlight may be impregnated by it and give birth to monsters. 179