d she disappears (Melusine
variant; compare Lohengrin). This is the effective and affecting
incident of which Matthew Arnold makes such good use in his _Merman_.
It could obviously be used, as Mr. Hartland points out, in a
quasi-mythological manner to account for supernatural ancestry, as in
the cases of the physicians of Myddvai in Wales, or of the Counts of
Lusignan. But on this simple basis folk tellers have developed
elaborations derived from other formulae. In several cases, notably in
the _Arabian Nights_ (Jamshah and Hasan of Bassora), the capture of
the swan maiden is preceded by the Forbidden Chamber formula. Then
when the bride flies away there is the Bride-Quest, which is often
helped by Thankful Animals and aided by the Magical Weapons. When the
hero reaches the home of the bride he has often to undergo a
Recognition-Test, or even is made to undertake Acquisition Tasks
derived from the Jason formula; and even when he obtains his wishes in
many versions of the story there is the Pursuit with Obstacles also
familiar from the same formula.

Cosquin, ii., 16, has, with his usual analytical grasp, seen the
separable character of these various series of incidents. He, however,
attempts to show that all of them, including the germ of the Swan
Maidens, are to be found in the East, and is successful in affiliating
the Greek of Hahn, No. 15, with the two stories of the _Arabian
Nights_ mentioned above, as well as the Siberian version given by
Radloff, iv., 321, the hero of which has even derived his name from
the Jamshah of the _Thousand and One Nights_.

In my own version I have utilized a few of these incidents but reserve
most of them for their proper story environment. I have introduced,
from the Campbell version, the phrase "seven Bens, and seven Glens,
and seven Mountain Moors," which so attracted Stevenson's Catriona, in
order to point out as a remarkable coincidence that Hasan of Bassora,
in the _Arabian Nights_, flies over "seven Waddys, seven Seas, and
seven Mountains." It is difficult to understand that such a remarkable
phrase should recur accidentally in Bagdad and in the West Highlands.
Without some actual intermediation, oral or literary, the hypothesis
of universal human tendency can scarcely explain such a coincidence.

XIII. ANDROCLES AND THE LION

This well-known story occurs first in the fables of Phaedrus, though
not in the extant form, only being preserved in the mediaeval prose
version kn