In folklore, maternal imprinting, or Versehen (a German noun meaning "inadvertence" or as a verb "to provide") as it is usually called, is the belief that a sudden fear of some object or animal in a pregnant woman can cause her child to bear the mark of it.
In another case, a large red mark on a baby's cheek was caused by the mother seeing a man shot down at her side, when the discharge of the gun threw some of the blood and brains into her face.
It is a matter of common observation that elderly married people become strangely like one another, although probably Science with its measuring instruments would "prove" the exact opposite.
It undoubtedly molded the warrior- and hero-type of a nomad tribe more and definitely on one bodily ideal, so that it would have been quite unambiguous to speak of the race-figure of Romans or Ostrogoths.
[6] Examples of maternal impression in literature can be found in the Aethiopica of Heliodorus of Emesa and in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne.