An ancient popular belief, especially strong in Persia, holds that a wise magus must be incestuously begotten...
...wherever soothsaying and magical powers have broken the spell of present and future, the rigid law of individuation, the magic circle of nature, extreme unnaturalness—in this case incest—is the necessary antecedent;
(F.Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 9)
Males' instinctual drive for incest,
and its close association with aggressiveness toward fathers, is
the main
thread in mythology and religion, and it is pivotal to the
understanding
of history. Without the counter - trend
need of self inhibition from acting out these basic instincts, there
would be
no society, and therefore no history.
Bernardino Luini: The Birth of Adonis Milan (Brera).
Links:
Little Red Riding Hood
Rapunzel and Other Stories of Beautiful Hair
Cinderella and "The Puss with the Boots"
The Three Little Pigs and Bruno Bettelheim. How not to make an interpretation
Truth Is a Woman: Bernini - Giorgione - Manet
Three Women: the Penis