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| The Asiatic story.                 | The American story.              |
|                                    |                                  |
| In Hindoo mythology Urvasi came    | Wampee, a great hunter, once     |
| down from heaven and became the    | came to a strange prairie,       |
| wife of the son of Buddha only on  | where he heard faint sounds of   |
| condition that two pet rams        | music, and looking up saw a      |
| should never be taken from her     | speck in the sky, which proved   |
| bedside, and that she should       | itself to be a basket            |
| never behold her lord undressed.   | containing twelve most           |
| The immortals, however, wishing    | beautiful maidens, who, on       |
| Urvasi back in heaven, contrived   | reaching the earth, forthwith    |
| to steal the rams; and, as the     | set themselves to dance.  He      |
| king pursued the robbers with his  | tried to catch the youngest,     |
| sword in the dark, the lightning   | but in vain; ultimately he       |
| revealed his person, the compact   | succeeded by assuming the        |
| was broken, and Urvasi             | disguise of a mouse.  He was      |
| disappeared.  This same story is    | very attentive to his new wife,  |
| found in different forms among     | who was really a daughter of     |
| many people of Aryan and Turanian  | one of the stars, but she        |
| descent, the central idea being    | wished to return home, so she    |
| that of a man marrying some one    | made a wicker basket secretly,   |
| of an aerial or aquatic origin,    | and, by help of a charm she      |
| and living happily with her till   | remembered, ascended to her      |
| he breaks the condition on which   | father.                          |
| 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.                      |                                  |
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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 be 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.