Whistling Maids and Crowing Hens-Hermaphroditism in Folklore and Biology

WHISTLING MAIDS AND CROWING HENS^IERMAPHRODITISM IN FOLKLORE AND BIOLOGY URSULA MITTWOCH* "A whistling maid and a crowing hen / Are neither fit for God nor men." This saying must be regarded as an example of Anglo-Saxon understatement. The German version runs, "Den Mädchen die da pfeifen und den Hühnern, die da krähen / Denen muss man bei Zeiten den Hals umdrehen" (whistling maids and crowing hens should have their necks wrung without delay); and the French, "Poule qui chante, Prêtre qui danse / Et femme qui parle Latin / N'arriventjamais à belle fin" (a crowing hen, a dancing priest, and a woman who speaks Latin always come to a bad end). A whistling maid was regarded as a witch who whistles to the devil, while a crowing hen was thought to forebode death [1, p. 598]. Such ideas were abroad from ancient until recent times. A crowing hen was one of the bad omens enumerated by the Latin playwright Terence in his comedy Phormio, written in 161 b.c. [2]; and in nineteenth-century Bohemia a white crowing hen was thought to forebode death in the family, whereas if she were red, there would be a fire; if a black hen crowed, thieves would break in [3, p. 164]. A remedy current in Slovakia was to break the hen's feet and to throw her live into the water. Adam Was Hermaphrodite Side by side with the irrational fear of seemingly inappropriate sexual This article is based on a public lecture given at University College London on February 12, 1980. The author thanks Shantha Mahadevaiah for information on hermaphrodite gods; Tess Gower, ofdie Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum, for providing die photograph and description of Siva (fig. 1); and Robert Kirby for help with translation from Historiae animalium. ?Department of Genetícs and Biometry, The Galton Laboratory, University College London, 4 Stephenson Way, London NWl 2HE, England.© 1981 by The University of Chicago. 0031-5982/81/2404-0248$01.00 Perspectives inBiology and Mediane · Summer 1981 \ 595 manifestations, there has always been an opposite idea which regards hermaphroditism as the original state of man as well as an ideal to be achieved by mystical or other means. According to an ancient rabbinical tradition, Adam was originally hermaphrodite. The story of his creation is told twice. In Gen. 1:27, we read: "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He them, male and female created He them"; whereas in Gen. 2:7, we read "God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man . . . and He took one of his ribs and made the woman thereof." How can these apparently contradictory versions be reconciled? The rabbinical answer [4, p. 57] is that the Hebrew word zela, which is usually translated by "rib," really means "side," as indeed it does when referring to the side of a mountain, a tent, an altar, and so on [5, p. 312]. Similarly, the Latin word costa has given rise to the French côte ("rib") and côté ("side"). We may conclude that, in order to create Eve, not only a rib was taken from Adam but a whole side. Adam originally had two faces. There is some difference of opinion among commentators as to whether Adam and Eve were at first formed back to back or whether the original Adam was male on his right and female on his left side. But whatever their exact original disposition, God separated the two halves. And a major separation of this nature would seem to be confirmed by the verse in Gen. 2:24 which follows closely on the second account of Eve's creation: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife; that they shall be one flesh." This drastic step is hardly intelligible on the supposition of Eve's creation from one of Adam's ribs, but it is a logical conclusion of his bisection. According to Krappe [5], this interpretation must have been known to Jesus of Nazareth as well as to those whom he addressed. We read, in Matt. 19:4-6, "And he answered and said...