Page:The Kiss and its History.djvu/95

81 'Go out into the world now, my child; I have done all for you. Now take this kiss as a seal upon your lips; 'tis a seal the sanctuary preserves; no one can break it against your own will, but when the right man comes, you shall understand him.' And she presses a kiss on her lips—a kiss which, not like a human kiss, takes aught, but a divine kiss that gives all." The chaste purity, which is Cordelia's halo and protection, is, as it were, the reflection of a mother's kiss.

It is for this reason also that in the sagas a quite irresistible power is attributed to the parent's kiss. When Vildering, the king's son, quits Maid Miseri and journeys alone to his parents to tell them what has befallen him, she implores him to be especially careful not to let his parents kiss him, "for should that happen, you will forget me utterly." In spite of his caution his mother kisses him, and oblivion covers the past; he forgets his betrothed, who is sitting and waiting for him in the depths of the forest.

Kisses of affection are exchanged not only between parents and children, but between all the members of the same family; we find them even outside the more narrow