unterpart in the legend which the
Kirghiz of Siberia tell of their ancestry. A certain Khan had a fair
daughter, whom he kept in a dark iron house, that no man might see her.
An old woman tended her; and when the girl was grown to maidenhood she
asked the old woman, "Where do you go so often?" "My child," said the
old dame, "there is a bright world. In that bright world your father and
mother live, and all sorts of people live there. That is where I go."
The maiden said, "Good mother, I will tell nobody, but shew me that
bright world." So the old woman took the girl out of the iron house. But
when she saw the bright world, the girl tottered and fainted; and the
eye of God fell upon her, and she conceived. Her angry father put her in
a golden chest and sent her floating away (fairy gold can float in
fairyland) over the wide sea.[172] The shower of gold in the Greek
story, and the eye of God in the Kirghiz legend, probably stand for
sunlight and the sun.

[Impregnation of women by the sun in legends.]

The idea that women may be impregnated by the sun is not uncommon in
legends. Thus, for example, among the Indians of Guacheta in Colombia,
it is said, a report once ran that the sun would impregnate one of their
maidens, who should bear a child and yet remain a virgin. The chief had
two daughters, and was very desirous that one of them should conceive in
this miraculous manner. So every day he made them climb a hill to the
east of his house in order to be touched by the first beams of the
rising sun. His wishes were fulfilled, for one of the damsels conceived
and after nine months gave birth to an emerald. So she wrapped it in
cotton and placed it in her bosom, and in a few days it turned into a
child, who received the name of Garanchacha and was universally
recognized as a son of the sun.[173] Again, the Samoans tell of a woman
named Mangamangai, who became pregnant by looking at the rising sun. Her
son grew up and was named "Child of the Sun." At his marriage he applied
to his mother for a dowry, but she bade him apply to his father, the
sun, and told him how to go to him. So one morning he took a long vine
and made a noose in it; then climbing up a tree he threw the noose over
the sun and caught him fast. Thus arrested in his progress, the luminary
asked him what he wanted, and being told by the young man that he wanted
a present for his bride, the sun obligingly packed up a store of
blessings in a basket, with which t