her in her bath with her lower
extremities changed into a serpent's tail. The lady appears to be
unconscious of her husband's discovery; and nothing happens until, in a
paroxysm of anger and grief, arising from the murder of one of his
children by another, he cries out upon her as an odious serpent, the
contaminator of his race. It will be remembered that in the Esthonian
tale cited in Chapter VIII the youth is forbidden to call his mistress
mermaid; and all goes well until he peeps into the locked chamber, where
she passes her Thursdays, and finds her in mermaid form. Far away in
Japan we learn that the hero Hohodemi wedded Toyotamahime, a daughter of
the Sea-god, and built a house for her on the strand where she might
give birth to her child. She strictly forbade him to come near until the
happy event was over: he was to remain in his own dwelling, and on no
account to attempt to see her until she sent for him. His curiosity,
however, was too much for his happiness. He peeped, and saw his wife
writhing to and fro on the floor in the shape of a dragon. He started
back, shocked; and when, later on, Toyotamahime called him to her, she
saw by his countenance that he had discovered the secret she had thought
to hide from all mankind. In spite of his entreaties she plunged into
the sea, never more to see her lord. Her boy, notwithstanding, was still
the object of her care. She sent her sister to watch over him, and he
grew up to become the father of the first Emperor of Japan. In a Maori
tale the hero loses his wife through prematurely tearing down a screen
he had erected for her convenience on a similar occasion. A Moravian
tale speaks of a bride who shuts herself up every eighth day, and when
her husband looks through the keyhole, he beholds her thighs clad with
hair and her feet those of goats. This is a _maerchen_; and in the end,
having paid the penalty of his rashness by undergoing adventures like
those of Hasan, the hero regains his love. A Tirolese _maerchen_ tells us
of a witch who, in the shape of a beautiful girl, took service with a
rich man and made a conquest of his son. She wedded him on condition
that he would never look upon her by candlelight. The youth, like a
masculine Psyche, breaks the taboo; and a drop of the wax, falling on
her cheek, awakens her. It was in vain that he blew out the taper and
lay down. When he awoke in the morning she was gone; but a pair of shoes
with iron soles stood by the bed, with