The biblical tale of the fall has been looked upon for a long time as an impregnation symbolism. We find here also a condensation: The serpent is the betrayer and through it first comes the transposition through the eating of the fruit. After this Adam and Eve see that they are naked and are ashamed, and it is prophesied that Eve will bear and bring forth in pain. Following this the Bible tells us besides of the wish-formed enchanted gift of which we have earlier noted a series from mythology and fairy tales. It deals with the fruit of the tree of life. "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become one of us, to know good and evil: and now lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man: and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life[1] (Moses I, 3 Chap., 22-24).
Many representations of the Annunciation show the same accumulation of symbols to represent the same things as above (serpent, fruit, eat). A master of the Life of Mary in the old Pinakothek in Munich shows us Mary, who is surprised in her contemplations by an angel with a message. He bears a lily stalk (compare the example mentioned previously where the angel appears to be an impregnation symbol); the Holy Ghost, by whom Mary shall conceive, descends in the form of a dove (compare the bird symbolism in fairy tales). Above is God the Father, from whom a bundle of rays descend down which an extremely small male child with the cross flies as a sign to Mary. Still one may doubt my explanation! Besides this old master liked to remember an elegant bed in the background of Mary's bedchamber in his representations of the Annunciation.
The examples from fairy tales in which the "upward transposition" plays a rôle are proofs for infantile sexual theories; for which reason the view has developed that this masking of sexual processes took its origin in the telling of fairy stories by women.
- ↑ I refer to the work of Aug. Wünsche, "Die Sagen vom Lebensbaum und Lebenswasser." Altorientalische Mythen, from the collection "Ex oriente lux," edited by H. Winckler, Bd. I, Heft 2/3, Leipzig, E. Pfeiffer, 1905.
