Compare the following stories:
the asiatic story. In Hindoo mythology Urvasi came down from heaven and became the wife of the son of Buddha only on condition that two pet rams should never be taken from her bedside, and that she should never behold her lord undressed. The immortals, however, wishing Urvasi back in heaven, contrived to steal the rams; and, as the king pursued the robbers with his sword in the dark, the lightning revealed his person, the compact was broken, and Urvasi disappeared. This same story is found in different forms among many people of Aryan and Turanian descent, the central idea being that of a man marrying some one of an aerial or aquatic origin, and living happily with her till he breaks the condition on which her residence with him depends; stories exactly parallel to that of Raymond of Toulouse, who chances in the hunt upon the beautiful Melusina at a fountain, and lives with her happily until he discovers her fish-nature and she vanishes. |
the american story. Wampee, a great hunter, once came to a strange prairie, where he heard faint sounds of music, and looking up saw a speck in the sky, which proved itself to be a basket containing twelve most beautiful maidens, who, on reaching the earth, forthwith set themselves to dance. He tried to catch the youngest, but in vain; ultimately he succeeded by assuming the disguise of a mouse. He was very attentive to his new wife, who was really a daughter of one of the stars, but she wished to return home, so she made a wicker basket secretly, and, by help of a charm she remembered, ascended to her father. |
If the legend of Cadmus recovering Europa, after she has been carried away by the white bull, the spotless cloud, means that "the sun must journey westward until he sees again the beautiful tints which greeted his eyes in the morning," it is curious to find a story current in North America to the effect that a man once had a beautiful daughter, whom he forbade to leave the lodge lest she should be carried off by the king of the buffaloes; and that as she sat, notwithstanding, outside the house combing her hair, "all of a sudden the king of the buffaloes came dashing on, with his herd of followers, and, taking her between his horns, away he cantered over plains, plunged into a river which bounded his land, and carried her safely to his lodge on the other side," whence she was finally recovered by her father.
Games.—The same games and sports extended from India to the shores of Lake Superior. The game of the Hindoos,
