[91] Some myths convey the impression as if the love relation with the mother had been removed, as being too objectionable to the consciousness of certain periods or peoples. Traces of this suppression are still evident in a comparison of different myths or different versions of the same myth. For example, in the version of Herodotus, Kyros is a son of the daughter of Astyages, but according to the report of Ktesias, he makes the daughter of Astyages, whom he conquers, his wife, and kills her husband, who in the rendering of Herodotus is his father. Compare Hüsing, “Contributions to the Kyros Legend,” XI. Also a comparison of the saga of Darab, with the very similar legend of St. Gregory, serves to show that in the Darab story the incest with the mother is simply omitted, which otherwise precedes the recognition of the son; here, on the contrary, the recognition prevents the incest. This attenuation may be studied in the nascent state, as it were, in the myth of Telephos, where the hero is married to his mother, but recognizes her before the consummation of the incest. The fairy-tale-like setting of the Tristan legend, which makes Isolde draw the little Tristan from the water (i.e., give him birth), thereby suggests the fundamental incest theme, which is likewise manifested in the adultery with the wife of the uncle.
The reader is referred to Rank’s paper, “Das Inzest Motiv in Dichtung und Sage” (“The incest motive in fiction and legend”), in which the incest theme, which is here merely mentioned, is discussed in detail, picking up the many threads which lead to this theme, but which have been dropped at the present time.
[92] The mechanism of this defense is discussed in Freud’s “Hamlet Analysis” (“Traumdeutung,” p. 183, annotation); also by Jones, Am. Jl. of Psychology, 1911.
[93] In regard to further meanings of the grandfather, compare Freud, “Analysis of the Phobia of a 5-year-old Boy” (Jahrbuch f. Psychoanalyse, I, 1909, p. 7378); also the contributions by Jones, Abraham and Ferenzi (Internat. Zeitschrift f. ärzt. Psychoanalyse, Vol. I, 1913, March number).
[94] A similar identification of the father with God (heavenly father, etc.) occurs, according to Freud, with the same regularity in the fantasies of normal and pathological psychic activity as the identification of the emperor with the father. It is also noteworthy in this connection that almost all peoples derive their origin from their god (Abraham, “Dream and Myth,” Monograph Series, No. 15).
[95] An amusing example of unconscious humor in children recently ran through the daily press: A politician had explained to his little son that a tyrant is a man who forces others to do what he commands, without heeding their wishes in the matter. “Well,” said the child, “then you and mamma are also tyrants!”
[96] See Max Müller, “Essais,” Vol. II (Leipzig, 1869), p. 20 et seq. Concerning the various psychological contingencies of this setting, compare p. 83 et al. of the author’s “Incest Book.”
[97] Compare E. Meyer (Bericht d. Kgl. preuss. Akad. d. Wiss., XXXI, 1905, p. 640). The Moses legends and the Levites: “Presumably Moses was originally the son of the tyrant’s daughter (who is now his foster mother), and probably of divine origin.” The subsequent elaboration into the present form is probably referable to national motives.
[98] This idea which is derived from the knowledge of the neurotic fantasy and symptom construction, was applied by Professor Freud to the interpretation of the romantic and mythical work of poetic imagination, in a lecture entitled: “Der Dichter und das Phantasieren” (Poets and Imaginings) (Reprint, 2d series of Collected Short Articles), p. 1970.
[99] For ethno-psychologic parallels and other infantile sexual theories which throw some light upon the supplementary myth of the hero’s procreation compare the author’s treatise in Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, II, 1911, pp. 392-425.