Hindoo marriages, the bride was required to look towards the sun or to be exposed to its rays so that she might become fruitful, and bear her husband stout boys.[21] In parts of Siberia it was the custom for a young couple to be led forth with some ceremony and rejoicing on the morning after the nuptials to greet the sun and bask in his rays. This is still observed in Iran and Central Asia where it is believed that the clear beams of the sun will impregnate the bride.[22]
There is an old myth amongst the Indians of Guacheta that the daughter of a certain chief having climbed a hill top when she was touched by the first rays of the sun conceived and gave birth to an emerald, which in a day or two became a child who grew to be a mighty hero, Garanchacha, the Son of the Sun.[23] In Samoan legend a damsel named Mangamangai finds herself pregnant through gazing at the Sun at dawn, and bears a male baby, the Child of the Sun.[24]
The Phrygians thought of the Moon as a Man,[25] and the same idea prevails or formerly prevailed among the Greenlanders who imagined that the Moon was a brisk youth and he “now and then comes down to give their wives a visit and caress them; for which reason no woman dare sleep lying upon her back without she first spits upon her fingers and rubs her belly with it. For the same reason the young maids are afraid to stare long at the moon, imagining they may get a child by the bargain.”[26] It is said that in some parts of Brittany it was once supposed by the peasants that a girl who exposed herself naked in the moonlight might find herself pregnant by it and give birth to a monster.[27] In England the same belief existed, and the old term “moon-calf,” partus lunaris, signified a false conception—mola carnea, or foetus imperfectly formed, being supposed to be occasioned by the influence of the moon.[28]
In appearance the Chinese monster is very like the European vampire, for he has red staring eyes, huge sharp talons or crooked nails, but he is also often represented as having his body covered with white or greenish white hair. In his standard work on The Religious System of China, Dr. de Groot suggests that this last characteristic may be due to the fungi which grow so profusely on the cotton grave-clothes used by the Chinese. In some cases, if he be particularly potent for ill, the Vampire is able to fly with speed through the air, which
