Similar birth legends to those of Jesus have also been transmitted of other “founders of religions”; such as Zoroaster, who is said to have lived about the year 1000 before Christ. His mother Dughda dreams, in the sixth month of her pregnancy, that the wicked and the good spirits are fighting for the embryonic Zoroaster; a monster tears the future Zoroaster from the mother’s womb, but a light god fights the monster with his horn of light, re-encloses the embryo in the mother’s womb, blows upon Dughda, and she became pregnant. On awakening, she hurries in her fear to a wise dream interpreter, who is unable to explain the wonderful dream before the end of three days: The child, which she is carrying, is destined to become a man of great importance; the dark cloud and the mountain of light signify, that she and her son will at first have to undergo numerous trials, through tyrants and other enemies, but at last they will overcome all perils. Dughda at once returns to her home, and informs Pourushacpa, her husband, of everything that has happened. Immediately after his birth, the boy was seen to laugh: this was the first miracle through which he drew attention to himself. The magicians announce the birth of the child as a portent of disaster to the prince of the realm, Durânsarûn, who betakes himself without delay to the dwelling of Pourushacpa, in order to stab the child. But his hand falls paralyzed, and he must leave with his errand undone. This was the second miracle. Soon after, the wicked demons steal the child from his mother and carry him into the desert, in order to kill him; but Dughda finds the unharmed child, calmly sleeping. This is the third miracle. Later on, Zoroaster was to be trampled upon, in a narrow passage way, by a herd of oxen, by command of the king. [67] But the largest of the cattle took the child between his feet, and preserved it from harm. This was the fourth miracle. The fifth is merely a repetition of the preceding. What the cattle had refused to do, was to be accomplished by horses. But again the child was protected by a horse from the hoofs of the other horses. Durânsurûn thereupon had the cubs in a wolf’s den killed during the absence of the old wolves, and Zoroaster was laid down in their place. But a god closed the jaws of the furious wolves, so that they could not harm the child. Two divine cows arrived instead and presented their udders to the child, giving it to drink. This was the sixth miracle, through which Zoroaster’s life was preserved. (Compare Spiegel’s Eranische Altertumskunde, I, pp. 688 et seq., also Brodbeck, Zoroaster, Leipzig, 1893.)
Related traits are also encountered in the history of Buddha, whose life is referred to the sixth century before Christ; such as the long sterility of the parents, the dream, the birth of the boy under the open sky, the death of the mother and her substitution by a foster-mother, the announcing of the birth to the ruler of the realm; later on the losing of the boy in the temple (as in the history of Jesus; compare Luke 2, 40-52).
Siegfried
The old Norse Thidreksaga, as registered about the year 1250 by an Icelander, according to oral traditions and ancient songs, relates the history of the birth and youth of Siegfried, as follows: [68] King Sigmund of Tarlungaland, on his return from an expedition, banishes his wife Sisibe, the daughter of King Nidung of Hispania, who is accused by Count Hartvin, whose advances she has spurned, of having had illicit relations with a menial. The king’s counsellors advise him to mutilate instead of kill the innocent queen, and Hartvin is ordered to cut out her tongue in the forest, so as to bring it to the king as a pledge. His companion, Count Hermann, opposes the execution of the cruel command, and proposes to present the tongue of a dog to the king. While the two men are engaged in a violent quarrel, Sisibe gives birth to a remarkably beautiful boy; she then took a glass vessel, and after having wrapped the boy in linens, she placed him in the glass vessel, which she carefully closed again and placed beside her (Rassmann). Count Hartvin was conquered in the fight, and in falling kicked the glass vessel, so that it fell into the river. When the queen saw this she swooned, and died soon afterwards. Hermann went home, told the king everything, and was banished from the country. The glass vessel meantime drifted down stream to the sea, and it was not long before the tide turned. Then the vessel floated on to a rocky cliff, and the water ran off so that the place where the vessel was perfectly dry. The boy inside had grown somewhat, and when the vessel struck the rock, it broke, and the child began to cry. [Rassmann] The boy’s wailing was heard by a doe, which seized him with her lips, and carried him to her litter, where she nursed him together with her young. After the child had lived twelve months in the den of the doe, he had grown to the height and strength of other boys four years of age. One day he ran into the forest, where dwelt the wise and skilfull smith, Mimir who had lived for nine years in childless wedlock. He saw the boy, who was followed by the faithful doe, took him to his home, and resolved to bring him up as his own son. He gave him the name of Siegfried. In Mimir’s home, Siegfried soon attained an enormous stature and strength, but his wilfulness caused Mimir to get rid of him. He sent the youth into the forest, where it had been arranged that the dragon Regin, Mimir’s brother, was to kill him. But Siegfried conquers the dragon, and kills Mimir. He then proceeds to Brynhild, who names his parents to him.
Similarly to the early history of Siegfried, an Austrasiatic saga tells of the birth and youth of Wolfdietrich. [69] His mother is likewise accused of unfaithfulness, and intercourse with the devil, by a vassal whom she has repulsed, and who speaks evil of her to the returning king, Hugdietrich of Constantinople. [70]
The king surrenders the child to the faithful Berchtung, who is to kill it, but exposes it instead, in the forest, near the water, in the hope that it will fall in of its own accord and thus find its death. But the frolicking child remains unhurt, and even the wild animals, lions, bears, wolves, which come at night to the water, do not harm it. The astonished Berchtung resolves to save the boy, and he surrenders him to a game keeper who, together with his wife, raises him and names him Wolfdietrich. [71]
The following later hero epics may still be quoted in this connection. In the thirteenth century, the saga of Horn, the son of Aluf, who after having been exposed on the sea, finally reaches the court of King Hunlaf, and after numerous adventures wins the king’s daughter, Rimhilt, for his wife. Furthermore, a detail suggestive of Siegfried, from the saga of the skilfull smith Wieland, who, after avenging his foully murdered father, floats down the river Weser, artfully enclosed in the trunk of a tree, and loaded with the tools and treasures of his teachers. Finally the Arthur legend contains the commingling of divine and human paternity, the exposure and the early life with a lowly man.
Lohengrin
The widely distributed group of sagas which have been woven around the mythic knight with the swan (the old French Chevalier au cigne) can be traced back to very ancient Keltic traditions. The following is the version which has been made familiar by Wagner’s dramatisation of this theme. The story of Lohengrin, the knight with the swan, as transmitted by the medieval German epic [modernized by Junghaus, Reclam] and briefly rendered by the Grimm brothers, in their “German Sagas” (Part II, Berlin, 1818, p. 306) under the title: Lohengrin in Brabant.
The Duke of Brabant and Limburg died, without leaving other heirs than a young daughter, Els, or Elsam by name; her he recommended on his death bed to one of his retainers, Friedrich von Telramund. Friedrich, the intrepid warrior, became emboldened to demand the youthful duchess’ hand and lands, under the false claim that she had promised to marry him. She steadfastly refused to do so. Friedrich complained to Emperor Heinrich, surnamed the Vogler, and the verdict was that she must defend herself against him, through some hero, in a so called divine judgment, in which God would accord the victory to the innocent, and defeat the guilty. As none were ready to take her part, the young duchess prayed ardently to God, to save her; and far away in distant Montsalvatsch, in the Council of the Grail, the sound of the bell was heard, showing that there was some one in urgent need of help. The Grail therefore resolved to despatch as a rescuer, Lohengrin the son of Parsifal. Just as he was about to place his foot in the stirrup a swan came floating down the water drawing a skiff behind him. As soon as Lohengrin set eyes upon the swan, he exclaimed: “Take the steed back to the manger, I shall follow this bird wherever he may lead me.” Having faith in God’s omnipotence he took no food with him in the skiff. After they had been afloat on the sea five days, the swan dipped his bill in the water, caught a fish, ate one half of it, and gave the other half to the prince to eat. Thus the knight was fed by the swan.