Herodotus and what happened to the first rug
The story from Herodotus I referenced in week 1 is chapter 107 of book 1.
“Astyages had a daughter, whom he called Mandane: he dreamed that she urinated so much that she filled his city and flooded all of Asia. He communicated this vision to those of the Magi who interpreted dreams, and when he heard what they told him he was terrified; and presently, when Mandane was of marriageable age, he feared the vision too much to give her to any Mede worthy to marry into his family, but married her to a Persian called Cambyses… But during the first year that Mandane was married to Cambyses, Astyages saw a second vision. He dreamed that a vine grew out of the genitals of this daughter, and that the vine covered the whole of Asia. Having seen this vision, and communicated it to the interpreters of dreams, he sent to the Persians for his daughter, who was about to give birth, and when she arrived kept her guarded, meaning to kill whatever child she bore: for the interpreters declared that the meaning of his dream was that his daughter’s offspring would rule in his place.”
Christopher Pelling has some good commentary here.
“Both Greek and comparative material make it clear that urine, as a warm carrier of bodily life-juices, can suggest many things. It can have positive associations with healing and fertility, especially when, as here, a virgin’s urine is concerned; but urine can also have a magical, apotropaic function, and this can in its turn lead into a gesture of symbolic magic, casting ill fortune on an enemy or simply articulating contempt. This relates to a feature of pollution which several scholars have recently stressed, the way in which dirty, `polluting’ elements can in suitable circumstances cleanse as well as defile, can bring cures and benefits as well as disease and disaster. It is understandable that a whole art of folk-urinomancy could develop, requiring an expert to read the signs and suggestions of a person’s urine.”
Yes, he did say “folk-urinomancy”.