An Encyclopedia without Footnotes
An Encyclopedia without Footnotes
This chapter suggests that the choice of the weasel as the Rescuer in Alcmene's story was not made by chance, but was the result of a sense of the weasel's identity that emerged from the stories that were told about it. The complex of beliefs about the weasel permitted the creation of many possible figures, including an animal that could help the Woman in Labor. The weasel was an animal good for thinking about childbirth because it offered a complex of symbolic elements that already had a privileged relationship with birth.
Keywords: weasel, Alcmene, childbirth
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