lustrated in the stories which we suppose the rules
to have suggested. In the case of Urvasi and Pururavas, the rule was,
not to see the husband naked. In 'Cupid and Psyche,' the husband was
not to be looked upon at all. In the well-known myth of Melusine, the
bride is not to be seen naked. Melusine tells her lover that she will
only abide with him _dum ipsam nudam non viderit_.[77] The same taboo
occurs in a Dutch _Maerchen_.[78]

We have now to examine a singular form of the myth, in which the
strange bride is not a fairy, or spiritual being, but an animal. In
this class of story the husband is usually forbidden to perform some
act which will recall to the bride the associations of her old animal
existence. The converse of the tale is the well-known legend of the
Forsaken Merman. The king of the sea permits his human wife to go to
church. The ancient sacred associations are revived, and the woman
returns no more.

She will not come though you call all day
Come away, come away.

Now, in the tales of the animal bride, it is her associations with her
former life among the beasts that are not to be revived, and when they
are re-awakened by the commission of some act which she has
forbidden, or the neglect of some precaution which she has enjoined,
she, like Urvasi, disappears.

* * * * *

The best known example of this variant of the tale is the story of
Bheki, in Sanskrit. Mr. Max Mueller has interpreted the myth in
accordance with his own method.[79] His difficulty is to account for
the belief that a king might marry a frog. Our ancestors, he remarks,
'were not idiots,' how then could they tell such a story? We might
reply that our ancestors, if we go far enough back, were savages, and
that such stories are the staple of savage myth. Mr. Mueller, however,
holds that an accidental corruption of language reduced Aryan fancy to
the savage level. He explains the corruption thus: 'We find, in
Sanskrit, that Bheki, the frog, was a beautiful girl, and that one
day, when sitting near a well, she was discovered by a king, who asked
her to be his wife. She consented, _on condition that he should never
show her a drop of water_. One day, being tired, she asked the king
for water; the king forgot his promise, brought water, and Bheki
disappeared.' This myth, Mr. Mueller holds, 'began with a short saying,
such as that "Bheki, the sun, will die at the sight of water," as we
should say tha