by such words as rufus, that crying colours are red, and therefore appropriate names of the red sun.  The connection between Pururavas and Agni, fire, is what appeals to Kuhn—­and, in short, where Mr. Muller sees a myth of sun and dawn, Kuhn recognises a fire-myth.  Roth, again (whose own name means red), far from thinking that Urvasi is ‘the chaste dawn,’ interprets her name as die geile, that is, ‘lecherous, lascivious, lewd, wanton, obscene’; while Pururavas, as ‘the Roarer,’ suggests ‘the Bull in rut.’  In accordance with these views Roth explains the myth in a fashion of his own. {70a}

Here, then, as Kuhn says, ’we have three essentially different modes of interpreting the myth,’ {70b} all three founded on philological analysis of the names in the story.  No better example could be given to illustrate the weakness of the philological method.  In the first place, that method relies on names as the primitive relics and germs of the tale, although the tale may occur where the names have never been heard, and though the names are, presumably, late additions to a story in which the characters were originally anonymous.  Again, the most illustrious etymologists differ absolutely about the true sense of the names.  Kuhn sees fire everywhere, and fire-myths; Mr. Muller sees dawn and dawn-myths; Schwartz sees storm and storm-myths, and so on.  As the orthodox teachers are thus at variance, so that there is no safety in orthodoxy, we may attempt to use our heterodox method.

None of the three scholars whose views we have glanced at—­neither Roth, Kuhn, nor Mr. Muller—­lays stress on the saying of Urvasi, ’never let me see you without your royal garments, for this is the custom of women.’ {71} To our mind, these words contain the gist of the myth.  There must have been, at some time, a custom which forbade women to see their husbands without their garments, or the words have no meaning.  If any custom of this kind existed, a story might well be evolved to give a sanction to the law.  ’You must never see your husband naked:  think what happened to Urvasi—­she vanished clean away!’ This is the kind of warning which might be given.  If the customary prohibition had grown obsolete, the punishment might well be assigned to a being of another, a spiritual, race, in which old human ideas lingered, as the neolithic dread of iron lingers in the Welsh fairies.

Our method will be, to prove the existence of singular rules of etiquette, corresponding to the etiquette accidentally infringed by Pururavas.  We shall then investigate stories of the same character as that of Urvasi and Pururavas, in which the infringement of the etiquette is chastised.  It will be seen that, in most cases, the bride is of a peculiar and perhaps supernatural race.  Finally, the tale of Urvasi will be taken up again, will be shown to conform in character to the other stories examined, and will be explained as a myth told to illustrate, or sanction, a nuptial etiquette.