μῦθοι Mythoi
Motif

Origin of disease.

Mythological motifs. · Creation and ordering of human life. · Ordering of human life. · Beginnings of trouble for man. · view the constellation · filed as A1337

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On our shelf — the index’s citations, resolved to served chapters
  • generalThe Kalevala, Rune XLVThompson cites: *Dh I 98ff. – Finnish Kalevala rune 45
The motif on our shelf — written from the served texts; every claim cited  receipt

The Finnish witness gives disease a mother, a midwife, and a distribution plan. Louhi prays Ukko to destroy Wainola — "Or from sickness let them perish" [The Kalevala, Rune XLV]. The sickness arrives by genealogy: blind Lowyatar, "Worst of all the Death-land women", conceives "Through the east-wind’s impregnation" and cannot be delivered until Louhi plays midwife in her bath-chambers [ibid.]. The birth-register is a nosology: nine sons named "Colic, Pleurisy, and Fever, / Ulcer, Plague, and dread Consumption, / Gout, Sterility, and Cancer" [ibid.]. Malice then does the epidemiology: Louhi "Banished all the other children" southward, "Gave these wicked sons of evil / To the people of Wainola", and the tribe sickens "With diseases new and nameless" [ibid.]. The cure keeps the same personal grammar — sauna heat, balsams, prayer upon prayer to Ukko — until the healer "Thus expelled the nine diseases" [ibid.]. Origin of disease here means parentage, not process: illness is begotten by wind on Death's blind daughter, weaponized by an enemy, and evicted by a stronger friend. Thompson's row leads with Dähnhardt's comparative files, unserved; of eight parsed rows this rune is the single wired witness.

Witnesses: The Kalevala, Rune XLV

Scholars’ trail — 8references

The index’s own references — the collections where scholars sighted this story-shape, tradition by tradition. Titles on our shelf are live links; the rest is the frontier, not yet shelved.

  • GreekGrote I 72 (Pandora's Box)
  • Buddhist mythMalalasekera I 461
  • India*Thompson-Balys
  • ChineseEberhard FFC CXX 187. – Africa (Ekoi): Talbot 278, 282
  • HawaiiBeckwith Myth 113, 502
  • general *Dh I 98ff. – Finnish Kalevala rune 45 → on our shelf: The Kalevala, Rune XLV
  • general Shasta: Frachtenberg JAFL XXVIII 227
  • general S. Am. Indian (Cubeo): Goldman BBAE CXLIII (3) 798.
Within the index

Filed under Beginnings of trouble for man.

15 finer motifs beneath it
Disease caused by the godsDisease caused by ghostsDisease caused by witchcraftDisease caused by menstrual blood. (Cf. D1003.)Disease as punishmentDisease to prevent man enjoying himself too muchOrigin of sickness and misfortune: monstrous births from brother-sister incestuous unionOrigin of ulcersOrigin of choleraOrigin of epilepsyOrigin of feverOrigin of itchOrigin of leprosyOrigin of smallpoxOrigin of illness from fire and cold
Filed beside it
Paradise lost. Original happy state forfeited because of one sinConfusion of tongues. Originally all men speak same language. Because of a sin they come to speak different languagesOrigin of deathOrigin of murderOrigin of physical defects. Wicked people entering heaven on rope fall to earth and are injured. St. Peter misunderstands what God says and lets them fallOrigin of blindnessOrigin of war among menOrigin of quarrellingOrigin of lyingOrigin of tears and sighsOrigin of hungerMan to earn bread by sweat of his brow. (Cf. A1331.1.)Mankind's escape from trouble

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