Ancient Wisdom Atlas

Motif

Returning dead mother nurses infant

returning_dead_mother_nurses_infant

A motif of the Restless Dead, Haunting, and Vengeance family, within the sub-family Returning Kin and Continuing Domestic Bonds. Every row below is a tagged passage; each rests on a quote in its source text.

1 occurrences

1 traditions


slavic

  • Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore LI. THE HASTY WORD 370 / RUSSIAN FOLK-TALES. / CHAPTER I. / INTRODUCTORY.; lines 1027-1165 confidence: high

    The narrator turns to death and burial themes in Skazkas and begins The Dead Mother: a happy wife dies directly after giving birth to a son; the father hires an old woman to care for the baby, who cries and refuses food by day but sleeps peacefully for much of the night.

    A mother who died after childbirth returns at midnight in burial clothes and suckles her infant at the cradle.

    read in the book