Myths are over-determined, and for purposes of interpretation can be reduced to a few ideas. The various myths of the fairy birth all include the following. A mortal midwife is rapidly transported to fairyland to deliver a fairy. She is taken into the earth, and there finds a beautiful or shabby dwelling. She is rewarded for her work by apparently worthless trinkets which turn into jewels. She either steals or gets by accident some magic ointment which she rubs into one eye and is thereby enabled to see the fairies. If this becomes known, there is punishment—either blindness or madness. The author shows that this is a myth about infantile curiosity about the primal scene and birth, and contains the threat of punishment for masturbation with incest thoughts and feelings.