Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/596

 248 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

if you have two or more, they also must die ; only when you have borne a son, shall the daughters who may afterwards be born be allowed to live." Some time afterwards, the woman became with child. It was born when the chief was absent fishing, and was a girl. From her surpassing beauty, the mother thought that the chief might change his mind and allow it to live; so she had it wrapped in the clothes usual for infants and waited his return. But when he came, he gave it into the hands of the executioner to dispose of. Afterwards, she bore several children, all girls, and beautiful ; but they, according to the relentless will of the chief, were all put to death. When she found herself with child for the fifth time, she went to the priest, and said to him : " Look at this body of mine, for exhausted am I from bearing children only for death from the exceeding sternness of my husband ; four children have we had, four children only for death. Look, then on me, and tell me how it is, for if I am to bring forth a female, it is better for me to destroy it while yet in embryo than to allow it to come to the full time. But if I am to have a male child, its fate will be different."

The priest replied : " Return, and when you are near your time, come back to me, and I will then see about this birth of yours." Accordingly, when she was near her time, once more she came to the priest and said : " I have come as you commanded. I am near the birth ; tell me now about the child I am to have." The priest said : " I must have a sign from you ; give me what I ask, give me your hand." In reply, she stretched out her left hand, and as it happened, with the palm upward. Then he said : " You have given me your left hand with the palm turned up ; you are to have a female child."

Hearing this speech, she was exceedingly grieved, for she lamented the former children whom her husband had caused to be put to death. Therefore she begged of the priest to reflect, and devise some plan by which this fresh misfortune might be averted, and the child might live. He replied : "Attend to what I tell you : return to the house, and when your pains come on say to the chief that you have a great desire for the fish called ohua, and further tell him that it is only caught by himself that will satisfy your longing ; for your husband is skilled in the taking of that fish, so he will go fishing, and will not know when the birth is ; and when the child is born, it shall be mine to take charge of it, so that when he returns it will be under my

would be dispossessed. In the Middle Age, the protection of damsels who might chance to be " uncounselled " (whence by misconception our modern epithet "disconsolate ") was a duty of the true knight, a duty which implies the existence of the same state of things. The situation may probably imply a primitive cus- tom of exposing the daughters.

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