The theme of “failed birth and rebirth” was first described by Stephanie Jamison (1991) and later
characterized as a narrative pattern of Indo-European origin by Angelique Gulermovich Epstein (1994).
In this study I present further evidence for the pattern in Celtic and Greek sources, discuss some non-
Indo-European comparanda, and evaluate Gulermovich Epstein’s claim that the basic pattern is Indo-
European.