e is content, but, avowing herself a Vila, forbids him to utter
that name, for if he should do so she must quit him at once. Keats has
glorified one of these stories by his touch; and it was a true instinct
that guided him to make Lamia's disappearance follow, not on Apollonius'
denunciation of her real character, but on the echo of the words "A
serpent!" by her astounded husband, Lycius. What matter that the
philosopher should make a charge against her? It was only when her lover
repeated the foul word that she forsook him. The nightmare-wife in one
of the stories mentioned in the last chapter vanishes, it will be
remembered, on being reproached with her origin, and in another on being
asked how she became a nightmare; and the lady in the Esthonian tale
warns her husband against calling her Mermaid. In this connection it is
obvious to refer to the euphemistic title Eumenides, bestowed by the
Greeks on the Furies, and to the parallel names, Good People and Fair
Family, for fays in this country. In all these cases the thought is
distinguishable from that of the Carnarvonshire sagas; for the offence
is not given by the utterance of a personal name, but by incautious use
of a generic appellation which conveys reproach, if not scorn.[223]

The heroine of a saga of the Gold Coast was really a fish, but was in
the form of a woman. Her husband had sworn to her that he would not
allude in any way to her home or her relatives; and, relying on this
promise, his wife had disclosed her true nature to him and taken him
down to her home. He was kindly received there, but was speared by some
fishermen, and only with difficulty rescued by his new relatives, who
enjoined him when he returned to earth with his wife to keep the
spearhead carefully concealed. It was, however, found and claimed by its
owner; and to escape the charge of theft the husband reluctantly
narrated the whole adventure. No evil consequences immediately ensued
from this breach of his vow. But he had lately taken a second wife; and
she one day quarrelled with the first wife and taunted her with being a
fish. Upbraiding her husband for having revealed the secret, the latter
plunged into the sea and resumed her former shape. So in the Pawnee
story of The Ghost Wife, a wife who had died is persuaded by her husband
to come back from the Spirit Land to dwell again with himself and her
child. All goes well until he takes a second wife, who turns out
ill-tempered and jealous