tly in Indo-Aryan, Scandinavian, and Greek
mythology. An extant tribe in North-West America still claims descent
from a frog. The wedding of Bheki and the king is a survival, in
Sanskrit, of a tale of this kind. Lastly, Bheki disappears, when her
associations with her old amphibious life are revived in the manner
she had expressly forbidden.

* * * * *

Our interpretation may be supported by an Ojibway parallel. A hunter
named Otter-heart, camping near a beaver lodge, found a pretty girl
loitering round his fire. She keeps his wigwam in order, and 'lays his
blanket near the deerskin she had laid for herself. "Good," he
muttered, "this is my wife."' She refuses to eat the beavers he has
shot, but at night he hears a noise, '_krch, krch_, as if beavers were
gnawing wood.' He sees, by the glimmer of the fire, his wife nibbling
birch twigs. In fact, the good little wife is a beaver, as the pretty
Indian girl was a frog. The pair lived happily till spring came and
the snow melted and the streams ran full. Then his wife implored the
hunter to build her a bridge over every stream and river, that she
might cross dry-footed. 'For,' she said, 'if my feet touch water, this
would at once cause thee great sorrow.' The hunter did as she bade
him, but left unbridged one tidy runnel. The wife stumbled into the
water, and, as soon as her foot was wet, she immediately resumed her
old shape as a beaver, her son became a beaverling, and the brooklet,
changing to a roaring river, bore them to the lake. Once the hunter
saw his wife again among her beast kin. 'To thee I sacrificed all,'
she said, 'and I only asked thee to help me dry-footed over the
waters. Thou didst cruelly neglect this. Now I must remain for ever
with my people.'

* * * * *

This tale was told to Kohl by 'an old insignificant squaw among the
Ojibways.'[80] Here we have a precise parallel to the tale of Bheki,
the frog-bride, and here the reason of the prohibition to touch water
is made perfectly unmistakable. The touch magically revived the
bride's old animal life with the beavers. Or was the Indian name for
beaver (_temakse_) once a name for the sun?

A curious variant of this widely distributed _Maerchen_ of the animal
bride is found in the mythical genealogy of the Raja of Chutia Nagpur,
a chief of the Naga, or snake race. It is said that Raja Janameja
prepared a _yajnya_, or great malevolently magical