ABSTRACT
"Monstrous births" is a large cross-cultural heading that includes all deformed babies, such as those born as formless lumps of flesh, with two heads, or without mouths. Seeing monstrous births as portents of divine will was a belief commonly shared in ancient, medieval, and early modem periods in Europe, and Americas. Alleged appearances of the Devil Baby in the New World occurred in 1637 and 1638. The Jersey Devil, or Leeds Devil, is a Devil Baby legend associated with the southern New Jersey pine barrens. Although Robert the Devil and other demonic children in American films live to be adults, most monstrous babies either die or are killed in infancy or early childhood, as indicated in the story of "Mundig." In macabre variations of widespread Japanese legends about a ghostly mother feeding her living child, children are made monstrous because they are born posthumously in their mothers' coffins.
