Urvasi is allowed to live with
Pururavas so long as she does not see him undressed. But one night her
kinsmen, the Gandharvas, or cloud-demons, vexed at her long absence from
heaven, resolved to get her away from her mortal companion, They stole
a pet lamb which had been tied at the foot of her couch, whereat she
bitterly upbraided her husband. In rage and mortification, Pururavas
sprang up without throwing on his tunic, and grasping his sword sought
the robber. Then the wicked Gandharvas sent a flash of lightning, and
Urvasi, seeing her naked husband, instantly vanished.

The different versions of this legend, which have been elaborately
analyzed by comparative mythologists, leave no doubt that Urvasi is
one of the dawn-nymphs or bright fleecy clouds of early morning, which
vanish as the splendour of the sun is unveiled. We saw, in the preceding
paper, that the ancient Aryans regarded the sky as a sea or great lake,
and that the clouds were explained variously as Phaiakian ships with
bird-like beaks sailing over this lake, or as bright birds of divers
shapes and hues. The light fleecy cirrhi were regarded as mermaids, or
as swans, or as maidens with swan's plumage. In Sanskrit they are called
Apsaras, or "those who move in the water," and the Elves and Maras of
Teutonic mythology have the same significance. Urvasi appears in one
legend as a bird; and a South German prescription for getting rid of
the Mara asserts that if she be wrapped up in the bedclothes and
firmly held, a white dove will forthwith fly from the room, leaving the
bedclothes empty. [86]

In the story of Melusina the cloud-maiden appears as a kind of mermaid,
but in other respects the legend resembles that of Urvasi. Raymond,
Count de la Foret, of Poitou, having by an accident killed his patron
and benefactor during a hunting excursion, fled in terror and despair
into the deep recesses of the forest. All the afternoon and evening he
wandered through the thick dark woods, until at midnight he came upon
a strange scene. All at once "the boughs of the trees became less
interlaced, and the trunks fewer; next moment his horse, crashing
through the shrubs, brought him out on a pleasant glade, white with
rime, and illumined by the new moon; in the midst bubbled up a limpid
fountain, and flowed away over a pebbly-floor with a soothing murmur.
Near the fountain-head sat three maidens in glimmering white dresses,
with long waving golden hair, and faces of inexpr