After the birth the four genii of the East, West, South and North come to render service as bearers of the palanquin. (The coming of the wise men at Christ’s birth.) We also find here a distinct reference to the “four winds.” For the completion of the symbolism there is to be found in the Buddha myth, as well as in the birth legend of Christ, besides the impregnation by star and wind, also the fertilization by an animal, here an elephant, which with its phallic trunk fulfilled in Maya the Christian method of fructification through the ear or the head. It is well known that, in addition to the dove, the unicorn is also a procreative symbol of the Logos. Here arises the question why the birth of a hero always had to take place under such strange symbolic circumstances? It might also be imagined that a hero arose from ordinary surroundings and gradually grew out of his inferior environment, perhaps with a thousand troubles and dangers. (And, indeed, this motive is by no means strange in the hero myth.) It might be said that superstition demands strange conditions of birth and generation; but why does it demand them? The answer to this question is: that the birth of the hero, as a rule, is not that of an ordinary mortal, but is a rebirth from the mother-spouse; hence it occurs under mysterious ceremonies. Therefore, in the very beginning, lies the motive of the two mothers of the hero. As Rank[639] has shown us through many examples, the hero is often obliged to experience exposure, and upbringing by foster parents, and in this manner he acquires the two mothers. A striking example is the relation of Hercules to Hera. In the Hiawatha epic Wenonah dies after the birth and Nokomis takes her place. Maya dies after the birth[640] and Buddha is given a stepmother. The stepmother is sometimes an animal (the she-wolf of Romulus and Remus, etc.). The twofold mother may be replaced by the motive of twofold birth, which has attained a lofty significance in the Christian mythology; namely, through baptism, which, as we have seen, represents rebirth. Thus man is born not merely in a commonplace manner, but also born again in a mysterious manner, by means of which he becomes a participator of the kingdom of God, of immortality. Any one may become a hero in this way who is generated anew through his own mother, because only through her does he share in immortality. Therefore, it happened that the death of Christ on the cross, which creates universal salvation, was understood as “baptism”; that is to say, as rebirth through the second mother, the mysterious tree of death. Christ says: “But I have a baptism to be baptized with: and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!”—_Luke_ xii: 50. He interprets his death agony symbolically as birth agony.