Gods and Mpreg: Ancient Mpreg Myths

One question that comes up quite a lot with regard to mpreg is when was mpreg invented? On the surface, it definitely seems like a relatively recent invention. After all, it’s only been recently that we have the scientific and medical technology to do things like organ transplants. Our understanding of things like DNA and chromosomes and hormones is incredibly modern. For most of human history, we had no idea.

Mpreg, or male pregnancy, might seem like a kind of modern invention then. After all, it’s only within the modern era that we could even dream something like that might be possible.

Right?

Guess Again: Mpreg Is Ancient History

If you thought mpreg was a modern invention, you’d be dead wrong, actually.

I mentioned a lot of scientific and medical knowledge and understanding previously. I would say that the sort of “sci-fi” version of mpreg is a more recent invention. The idea of aliens that have different mating systems goes hand in hand with a better understanding of the world. Medical advances, like organ transplants, lead us to think about things like womb transplants. Experiments with stem cells suggest we could grow whole new organs. We have machines that essentially mimic the function of human organs. All of this suggests a world where medical science could eventually make something like mpreg possible.

Our understanding of hormones and DNA—as well as “disorders” around these components of the human body—also shows a possible path to getting to something like mpreg.

Given how scientific the subject can be, it’s little wonder that most people think of it as something that must be a modern invention. Whether it’s played for laughs or played straight, mpreg can’t be any older than the science fiction genre, can it?

As I said, you’d actually be dead wrong about that. Even ancient humans had mpreg myths. The difference is that they explained the how quite a bit differently. Instead of relying on science, ancient and pre-modern human cultures relied on magic as an explanation.

Loki: The Mpreg God

One excellent example of this is the Norse god Loki. Loki is a trickster god. Trickster gods are quite interesting, in that they tend to break the rules of what is and isn’t possible. They delineate norms and boundaries by crossing them.

Loki does this quite handily in a number of ways, usually causing mischief wherever he goes. One notable point is that he is a shapeshifter.

Loki the Mare

This ability leads to perhaps the most famous mpreg story about Loki: the one in which he transforms into a horse. In this tale, the gods bet a giant that he cannot complete a task within a certain timeframe. When it becomes clear the boastful giant will actually win the bet, the gods enlist Loki’s help. Loki transforms himself into a mare and distracts the giant’s stallion—which means the giant can’t get any work done. Loki, as a mare, is impregnated by the stallion and later gives birth to Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged horse.

People debate whether or not this story really counts as “mpreg,” since Loki is in the shape of a mare—a female horse. Some people (myself included) would argue it does. Loki’s identity as male does not change; it remains stable during the time that he is a horse. This would be similar to a pregnancy for a trans man then: completely possible biologically, socially kind of a scratch-your-head-moment.

We can see this story as explaining trans, intersex, and genderfluid experiences to some degree. That said, people will still debate if it “counts.” There’s another story featuring Loki, however, which is almost undeniably mpreg. In it, Loki engages with the giantess Angrboda and begets three infamous children: Jorgumandr, the World Serpent; Fafnir, the wolf; and Hel.

Loki and Angrboda

Depending on the variant of the story, the conception and birth of these children happens in a few different ways. In the most common version of the story, Loki and Angrboda have sex and Angrboda bears the children. There is another variant, less common, but far more interesting for those of us researching the history of mpreg. In this version, Loki consumes Angrboda’s heart. It’s this act of cannibalism that impregnates Loki.

Notable here is that Loki does not shapeshift for this to occur. Instead, he is occupying a male body the entire time. Given that, there can be no doubt that this is an mpreg story.

The story doesn’t go into detail about how Loki became pregnant, carried the pregnancy, or even gave birth. We can largely assume that, since Loki is a god, this is all possible through godly powers or magic. For those of us who are science-minded, that’s a bit of a frustrating answer. It’s similar to the contemporary worldbuilding framework of “a wizard did it.”

Mpreg Myths Go Back Even Further

Viking culture was at its height around 800-900 CE. The story about Loki as a mare and the story of Loki bearing Angrboda’s children might be somewhat older than that, but they are firmly part of the early medieval period.

So, where am I getting information to make the assertion that mpreg has existed almost as long as humans have been telling stories? We can look back to the Ancient Greeks to find some more evidence to back that up.

The Birth of Athena

I’ve discussed a few examples from Greek mythology before. One of them is the birth of Athena. In this story, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, is borne by Zeus, her father. The story goes that Zeus had a terrible headache, and then one day Athena sprang from his forehead, fully formed.

Okay, mpreg fans might want to discount that one—it’s not what most readers would expect from an mpreg narrative. Nonetheless, it counts as mpreg. Zeus “gives birth” to Athena, even if it doesn’t look like what we would think of as a human pregnancy and birth. We’re dealing with gods here, so it’s to be expected that strange and magical things happen.

Much like the Loki mpreg story of Angrboda’s children, this story explains mpreg largely via godly powers and magic. Zeus and Loki become pregnant, in some sense, and give birth to other mythological figures.

Both of these examples can also be examples of heterosexual mpreg myths. The other parent of Loki’s children is Angrboda, a giantess. In the case of Athena, the story sometimes states that her mother was Metis, the goddess of counsel. Zeus swallowed Metis while she was pregnant, and then gave birth to Athena.

In the most common variant of the story, though, Athena actually only has one parent: Zeus. The story gives us an example of parthenogenesis. In biology, this is usually when one (female) organism somehow becomes pregnant in the absence of a partner. The offspring are usually genetic clones of the mother organism. (In that case, it’s little wonder Athena was Zeus’s favorite child, given that she might have just been a “clone” of him.)

Something Closer to Modern Mpreg

Today, many mpreg narratives revolve around same-sex or same-gender couples. The two mpreg myths we’ve seen thus far don’t seem to support same-sex couplings. That lead us to ask if there are any queer stories about mpreg and gods. The answer is actually yes!

In Greek myth, Poseidon is married to Amphitrite, one of the fifty or so Nereids (sea-nymphs). This is where things get interesting: Amphitrite is a daughter of Nereus, who is another sea god. Nereus is an older god than Poseidon, often known as “the old man of the sea.” He and his consort, Doris, have mostly daughters—and one son, Nerites.

Today, we only have a few stories about him. He doesn’t figure in epic poetry that has survived, such as Homer’s works or Hesiod’s.

What we do know is that Nerites was apparently a consort of Aphrodite and also a lover of Poseidon. This tracks, as the myths that do exist generally posit that he was a beautiful youth, in a similar vein to Adonis (who was also a consort of Aphrodite).

One myth has Nerites give up his position as Aphrodite’s consort when she ascends to Olympus. Aphrodite is an interesting goddess in that she predates a lot of classical Greek myth, which means she was likely adopted from another tradition. That’s probably why she’s also associated with the ocean (think of The Birth of Venus). When she was called to Olympus, Aphrodite asked Nerites to ascend with her. He decided against it, opting instead to stay in the ocean with his parents and sisters.

And perhaps with his other lover—Poseidon.

Poseidon and Nerites and Ideas about Love

This isn’t unusual, given how the Greeks viewed love between men. What sets Nerites and Poseidon apart is that, in some versions of their myth, their love gives rise to one of the Erotes.

The Erotes are personifications of love. They’re usually associated with Aphrodite, who is their mother. In most cases, Ares, the god of war and Aphrodite’s most famous lover, is their father. In other versions, they might be the children of Aphrodite and her husband, Hephaestus, the god of the forge. The most famous of them is Eros (aka Cupid), the personification of erotic love.

There were others, one of them being Anteros—the god of mutual love and the avenger of unrequited love. Now, some sources say Anteros resulted from the union of Ares and Aphrodite. Other versions of the myth suggest that Anteros arose from the love that Nerites and Poseidon had for each other.

The myth doesn’t really go into detail about Nerites or Poseidon being pregnant or giving birth to Anteros. In fact, it would be easy to assume that it’s just that these two loved each other so very, very much that their love took physical form.

That said, we’ve also seen that gods—and in particular, Greek gods—can have weird forms of pregnancy. So we could argue that neither Nerites or Poseidon were pregnant, per se, or we could even argue the complete inverse.

The long and short of it is that we clearly have a tale of two male gods engendering a third god—in other words, “birthing” the third god.

Why Does It Matter If There Are Mpreg Myths?

Mpreg myths shows us that the idea is much older than the popular omegaverse world building trope. It also demonstrates that the idea of mpreg predates the modern era, the birth of science fiction, and so much more.

More importantly, I would argue, it demonstrates some understanding of gender and sex as separate, and of transgender and intersex experience. What does it mean to say a “male” god like Zeus can get pregnant and give birth? What does it mean when two “male” gods “give birth” to a third god?

First, it cements the notion of fixed sex (and gender) as something mortal. We can see that in Hesiod’s Theogony as well. Human beings, as we know them, are actually parts of a whole. At some point in the past, human beings were cleaved in half—and that’s why we seek love, to become whole again.

This isn’t actually an unusual idea in mythology. It usually plays into the idea that mortals, like humans, are imperfect creatures. The gods, by contrast, are perfect creatures—which means they’re also whole. In that sense, it would follow that Zeus can absolutely bear children, or that two male gods like Nerites and Poseidon could “give birth” to a third god.

Given that, these mpreg myths might also suggest that the transgender or intersex experience is something closer to divinity than most people can explain. That’s another common thread through human history: the inexplicable, the unusual, the strange is often both sacred and profane.

I’d argue that these are absolutely mpreg myths, even if they don’t look like them on the surface. We have to remember that we’re dealing with gods, myths, and magic. It shouldn’t surprise us if the processes don’t look exactly “mortal” or “human” or even “natural.”

All that said … if someone wants to write some Greek god mpreg that conforms to today’s narrative standards, I’m not going to be the one to stand in their way.