golden harp, and, as the
raptured fisherman steered close, with eyes filled by her beauty and
ears by her music, he had a moment's consciousness of a skull leering
at him and harsh laughter clattering in echoes along the shore; then
his boat struck and filled, and the dark flood curtained off the
sky. Wagner has made familiar the legend of the Rhine daughters,
singing impossibly under the river as they swim about the reef
of gold,--the treasure stolen by the gnome, Alberich, who in that
act brought envy, strife, greed, and injustice into the world, and
accomplished the destruction of the gods themselves. The wild tales
of Britain and Brittany, of thefts and revenges by the sea-creatures,
are among the oldest of their myths, and when we cross to our side
of the sea, the ocean people are close in our wake and they follow
us through the fresh waters and far out in the Pacific.

Among the Antilles, as in the South Seas, the tritons blow their
conchs and shake their shaggy heads, while the daughters of the deep
gather, at certain seasons, on the water, or about some favorite
rock, and sing. Always, in Eastern versions of the myth, there is
music, save in the case of Melusina, who became a half fish only
on Saturdays, when her husband was supposed not to be watching,
and this music follows the myth around the world. Among the vague
traditions of certain Alaskan Indians is one of an immigration from
Asia, under lead of "a creature resembling a man, with long, green
hair and beard, whose lower part was a fish; or, rather, each leg a
fish." He charmed them so with his singing that they followed him,
unconsciously, and reached America. We find in Canada the tale of a
dusky Undine, a soulless water sprite, who, through love of a mortal,
became human. Some of the beings of the sea were of more than human
power and authority,--gods, in fact; barbarian Neptunes. Such was
the Pacific god, Rau Raku, who, being entangled in a fishing-net, was
lugged to the surface, sputtering tremendously. Yet he had no grudge
against the fisherman. That trembling unfortunate was too small for
his revenge. He would devastate the whole earth to which he had been
thus unceremoniously dragged, and, bidding his captor take himself
away while he made trouble, he deluged the globe until all upon it
had perished, except the fish, the fisherman, and a few land animals
that the sole human survivor had taken to a lofty island with him.

The mermaid of story wa