Herodotus (I, 107-122) tells us the interesting birth-legend of Cyrus, King of the Achaemenian empire. As is well known, this legend is one of the tales of an exposed child spreading widely throughout the Eurasian Continent, to be compared with the famous legend of Romulus-Remus in the Roman mythology. Its fundamental structure is summarized as follows;
1) Birth of a divine hero.
2) Exposure in the sacred place, e. g. a mountain or a riverside, etc.
3) Exposed living there, or nursing by sacred animals.
4) Finding and bringing-up by a sacred man.
5) Return to the profane world.
Also, from the point of his situation in the tale, we can find that it is constructed from the space structure, the profane place→the sacred place→the profane place, which corresponds to the essential structure of the initiation rite, death→exercise in the sacred space→resurrection. Therefore, the tale structure may be shown as a functional relation;
F(fable)=P1(profane)+S(sacred)+P2(profane), S=S1+S2
In the tale of an exposed child, the most important problem would be why, in the spite of a baby, a hero has to be abandoned. Concernig to it, we should notice that a hero to be exposed is a baby being destined to become a king or a sage, and, on the other, his mother remains more or less the sacred character which is enough to make clear that she was a divine female such as a priestess, or a goddess in nature. From these facts, it is easy to recognize the reflection of the worship of the mother goddess and the young god, which bases on the structure, death of the young god→divine experience in the nether regions→resurrection. Needless to say, this is the same as the structure of the tale of an exposed child.
In conclusion, we may safely say that this tale has its roots in the worship of the mother goddess and the young god.
