Agni, the Adbhuta fire, loves the wives of the seven sages and lives in their homes as the household fire. Svaha, daughter of Daksha, takes the form of six of the wives in turn (Arundhati's she cannot), and each time carries his seed as a bird to a golden lake on the White Mountain. Six-faced Skanda is born there. The wives are wrongly blamed and divorced, later adopted by Skanda as mothers and placed in the sky as Krittika. Indra fights the child, submits and makes him general; Devasena becomes his wife. Svaha asks to live with Agni always, and Skanda rules that every oblation be made with her name. The passage adds that Rudra had entered Agni and Uma Svaha, so Skanda is also called Rudra's son.
Mahabharata, Anushasana Parva 85 (Vasishtha to Rama Jamadagnya)
Pan-IndiaAll traditions
Taraka oppresses the gods, whom Uma has cursed to be childless. They find Agni in a sami tree and ask him for a son. Agni unites with Ganga; she cannot bear the burning embryo and lays it on Mount Meru, where it shines like gold. It grows in a reed thicket and the goddess of the Krittika constellation nurses it. Hence the names Kartikeya, Skanda and Guha, and gold is Agni's offspring.
What is different here:
No Svaha, no sages' wives; the mother is Ganga, the enemy is Taraka, one Krittika goddess nurses the child, and the story explains gold. Agni is called identical with Rudra.
The gods ask Agni, with Vayu, to receive Shiva's energy; Agni passes it to Ganga, who lays the embryo at the foot of the Himalaya. It falls among reeds and the six Krittikas suckle the child. Gold, silver, copper and iron arise from it.
What is different here:
The seed is Shiva's and Agni only carries it; six Krittikas nurse. Read 2026-10-04 for the first Agni note, not reopened.
Agni takes the form of a dove and swallows Shiva's seed; Parvati curses him; it passes to six of the sages' wives warming themselves at a fire in the month of Magha, then to Himavat, Ganga and the reed forest.
What is different here:
Agni is a dove and a carrier; Arundhati again abstains. Read only through a summarising fetch on 2026-10-04; verse numbers unchecked.
Sources: The Mahabharata, tr. K. M. Ganguli (1883-96), sections read for the Vedic layer; Valmiki Ramayana, Bala Kanda 36-37 and Yuddha Kanda 118 (valmikiramayan.net); Shiva Purana, Rudra Samhita, Kumara Khanda ch. 2, tr. J. L. Shastri (wisdomlib.org)