ABSTRACT
Hermaphroditism and androgyny are terms that designate the female's birth-giving capacity within a male or—less frequently—the male's inseminating capability within a female. In folklore studies, hermaphroditism per se was not identified nor assigned a specific motif in the Motif-Index nor does it constitute a tale type. In ancient mythologies, hermaphroditism plays a major role in accounting for the emergence of life in the act of creation by a creator. In ancient Egypt, bisexuality is associated with the earliest phases of creation: Nun is chaos—or the primordial waste of waters in which all creation is immanent—and is guarded by four bisexual frog- and serpent-headed. The Egyptian Nut and Geb as brother and sister separated by Shu seek to be reunited into their former entity as one. In Greek mythology, well-known versions of the creation also represent an androgynous, or hermaphroditic, deity in the union of Mother Earth and Father Sky—a union responsible for all the duality and multiplicity in the universe.
