Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/247

Rh CHAP II. love only when they meet again upon the shoie of Ortygia, the dawn- land The Greek river is but the Teutonic Elbe, the running stream, and in the huntsman of Mainalos we see only an image of the sun as he rests on the waters in the morning or the evening, in other words, the Frog-prince of the German legend.^ In the Sanskrit story Bheki, the frog, is a maiden who consents to marry a king on con- dition that he never shows her a drop of water. " One day being tired, she asked the king for water ; the king forgot his promise, brought water, and Bheki disappeared."^ As in the story of Urvasi the husband is the actual delinquent, but he is hurried into the fatal act by the words of his wife. If instead of the promise not to show her water we substitute a pledge that the lover shall not look upon

Bheki, or the frog-sun, is represented by the fish-sun, who, as Berosus says, rose up from the sea each morning, and plunged into it eveiy evening. Mr. Gould remarks (Cjii-ious Myths, second series, 231) that "his semipiscine form was an expression of the idea, that half his time was spent above ground, and half below the waves." This fish-god is, like the Aiyan Proteus, or Helios, the possessor of a mysterious wisdom of which, under certain conditions, he will make human beings partakers. As Cannes, or Dag-on, the fish On, he is the great teacher of the Babylonians, and his name is seen in the Hebrew Bethaon (Bethaven), which is translated by Bethshemesh, the hou>ie of the Sun. He is horned, as Mr Gould remarks, like all other sun and moon deities, the moon goddess of the Syrians being Derketo, Atergatis, the mother of Semiramis, in whose story again we have the elements of many Arj'an myths. Like Cyrus and Romulus, Semiramis IS brought up by a shepherd, and her beauty attracts the attention of a general, whose name is, of course, Onnes. But she is wooed also by Niiios, and thereupon Onnes slays him- self. After a life full of marvels she wings her way to heaven in the form of a dove, as Romulus vanishes in the storm-cloud, and Aineias disappears in the waters of the Numician stream. is the germ of the beautiful story of Undine, as told by Kouque. .She, like Daphne, is the daughter of the stream ; and the condition imposed upon her husband is, that he is never to speak angrily to her when on or near any water. " If you should, my kinsfolk would regain their right over me. They would tear me from you in their fur)', because they would conceive that one of their race was injured ; and I should be compelled, as long as I lived, to dwell below in the ciystal palaces and ncTcr dare ascend to you again, or should they send me up to you, that would be far worse still." If he is false to her, she can reappear only to kiss him to death. Selene can look upon Endymion only when he is just plunging into his dreamless sleep. The tale so exquisitely told by Fouque was derived by him from the Treatise of Elemental Spirits by Theophrastus Paracelsus. The leadirg feature of his storj' is the acquisition of a human soul by Undine on her marriage with the knight Huldbrand. Mr. Gould cites a Canadian story of an Ottawa chief, who, whilst sitting by the water- side, sees arising from the flood a beauti- ful woman, who prays him to suffer her to live on earth, as she sought to win a human soul, and could do this only by marriage wit.h a mortal. "He consented and look her to his own house, where she was to him as a daughter. .Seven years after, an Andirondak youth be- held and loved her. He took her to wife, and she obtained that which she had desired, a human soul." — Curious Myths, second series, 238. It is possible that this story may be an importation from Europe, but we may ask for some conclusive evidence of the fact, when we find the legend of Pandora's box among the Indians of Labrador. Jesuit mis- sionaries may have imparted much to their converts, but it is not likely that they instructed their hearers in the mythical fancies of pagan Greeks. — Hinds, Explorations in Labrador, i. 61.
 * In the mythology of Assyria,
 * Ma.x Miiller, Chips, ii. 24S. This