, and appears to be based upon altogether different
ideas. As to the metamorphoses of classical literature, they are of a
nature quite alien to that of the voluntary eclipse, under a degrading
form, of a Frog Princess or a Pig Prince. It may be said with
confidence that European "husk-myths" do not explain themselves; the
peasants among whom they are current, cannot explain them; and the
knowledge we have of ancient European paganism throws no light on
their meaning. But in India, where countless variants of such tales
exist--many of them preserved in ancient as well as in modern
literature, but by far the greater part still current among the
common people--the transformations in question are frequently, if not
generally, explained in the stories themselves, and explained in a
manner perfectly in accordance with the Indian thought of the present
as well as of the past. To Indian minds there is nothing monstrous in
the belief that a celestial being may have been condemned, in
consequence of the wrath of a superior divinity, or even of the magic
words pronounced by an offended sage, to assume for a time the
inferior form of a mere man or woman, or even to wear the shape of an
inferior animal--a monkey or a frog; and that this transformation is
to continue chronic, though not constant, until the destruction of the
disguising skin or husk, by the donning of which it is from time to
time brought about, deprives the curse of its power, and enables
earth's celestial visitor to return to heaven. The whole story is
closely connected with Indian religious beliefs, and may fairly be
looked upon, when found in India, as an expansion of a Hindu myth. Its
existence in other parts of Asia may, at least frequently, be
attributed to the natural spread of Hindu tales among the various
tribes and nations which accepted Buddhism from India.

If all this be true, and the "husk-myth" stories which are current all
over Europe may justly be supposed to have drifted westwards from
India, then all Indian variants of these tales naturally become
invested with special importance. The specimen in the present volume,
the "Monkey Prince" (No. 10), belongs to a remarkably interesting
class--that in which the story-teller gives an explanation of the
hero's transformation. A childless king is told by a fakir to give
some mangoes to his seven wives. Six of them eat up the fruit, and
each of the six gives birth to a prince of the usual kind. But the
seve