Thus the gypsies say of an unmarried woman who becomes pregnant, "She has smelt the moon-flower"—a flower believed to grow on the so-called moon-mountain and to possess the property of impregnating by its smell. Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib, bd. I, Chapter XXVII.
This was a sound instinct, for it is now recognized as an extremely important part of puericulture that a woman should rest at all events during the latter part of pregnancy; see, e.g., Pinard, Gazette des Hôpitaux, November 28, 1895, and Annales de Gynécologie, August, 1898.
Ploss and Bartels, op. cit., Chapter XXIX; Κρυπτάδια, vol. viii, p. 143.