The Survival of Indo-European Mythology in Germanic Legendry

FOLKLORISTS, MYTHOLOGISTS, AND ANTHROPOLOGISTS have generally thought of themselves as belonging to related disciplines, dealing with more or less same fields of study and differing mainly in aspect and emphasis. While such a notion may be basically true in theory, it is by no means valid in every instance. A folklorist and an anthropologist might examine same evidence yet reach conclusions that are at odds with each other. A case in point is analysis of couvade, a custom of worldwide and cross-cultural distribution in which husband lies next to his wife during labor and does not arise until child is born. In Europe, dominant interpretation of this custom reflects belief that it is actually husband who, as source of life, gives birth to child (Leach 1949:I, 256; Hoffmann-Krayer et al. 1933:V, 1573-1576; Beitl 1955). This aspect of belief is attested by 19th-century Swiss pastor and author, Albert Bitzius, who wrote under pen name, Jeremias Gotthelf. In his novella, Die schwarze Spinne, he calls new father Kindbettimann, that is, the man who has lain in childbed

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · German · Germanic languages · Linguistics · Literature · Mythology · Nexus (standard) · Classics · Engineering · Historical and Archaeological Studies · Historical, Literary, and Cultural Studies · History · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy

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