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(Continued from page 105)
Once she dreamt she was in the fields. The hay had been raked up into small piles—shocks. Suddenly a serpent appeared looking out from each hay shock. One especially large one slipped into her mouth and bit her palate. The hay shocks are the hairy portion of the genitals out of which the serpent, the penis, looks out, and so become a counterpart of the nymphæ forest cited by Freud,4 which represented the female genitals. In the fairy tales (and mythology) there is a whole series of similar transpositions. Their value lies, not only in offering a surprising confirmation of the Freudian views, but in that they are a serviceable result in comparative psychology.
In fairy tales it is for the most part barren women who become pregnant by eating (symbol of coitus with a symbolic object or animal). The child that results from this wonderful fertilization is usually a great hero.
In “Ivan Cow Son of the Storm Knight” in the Russian fairy stories (A fanassiew, Nr. 27) the fish is the male sexual symbol. (Perhaps the fish spawn and the great fruitfulness of fish, besides those qualities mentioned of the serpent, are new determining moments.)
A royal pair were still, after ten years, without children. Then the king sent to all rulers in all cities and to all peasants to find if any one knew how the queen could be cured so that she