breaks love between the Welshman and his fairy
mistress, the representative of the stone age.

In many tales of fairy-brides, they are won by a kind of force. The
lover in the familiar Welsh and German _Maerchen_ sees the swan-maidens
throw off their swan plumage and dance naked. He steals the
feather-garb of one of them, and so compels her to his love. Finally,
she leaves him, in anger, or because he has broken some taboo. Far
from being peculiar to Aryan mythology, this legend occurs, as Mr.
Farrer has shown,[86] in Algonquin and Bornoese tradition. The Red
Indian story told by Schoolcraft in his _Algic Researches_ is most
like the Aryan version, but has some native peculiarities. Wampee was
a great hunter, who, on the lonely prairie, once heard strains of
music. Looking up he saw a speck in the sky: the speck drew nearer and
nearer, and proved to be a basket containing twelve heavenly maidens.
They reached the earth and began to dance, inflaming the heart of
Wampee with love. But Wampee could not draw near the fairy girls in
his proper form without alarming them. Like Zeus in his love
adventures, Wampee exercised the medicine-man's power of
metamorphosing himself. He assumed the form of a mouse, approached
unobserved, and caught one of the dancing maidens. After living with
Wampee for some time she wearied of earth, and, by virtue of a 'mystic
chain of verse,' she ascended again to her heavenly home.

Now is there any reason to believe that this incident was once part of
the myth of Pururavas and Urvasi? Was the fairy-love, Urvasi,
originally caught and held by Pururavas among her naked and struggling
companions? Though this does not appear to have been much noticed, it
seems to follow from a speech of Pururavas in the Vedic dialogue[87]
(x. 95, 8, 9). Mr. Max Mueller translates thus: 'When I, the mortal,
threw my arms round those flighty immortals, they trembled away from
me like a trembling doe, like horses that kick against the cart.'[88]
Ludwig's rendering suits our view--that Pururavas is telling how he
first caught Urvasi--still better: 'When I, the mortal, held converse
with the immortals who had laid aside their raiment, like slippery
serpents they glided from me, like horses yoked to the car.' These
words would well express the adventure of a lover among the naked
flying swan-maidens, an adventure familiar to the Red Men as to
Persian legends of the Peris.

To end our comparison of myths like the tale of