looked more beautiful than all other women; and he
pictured to himself the possession of her as more to be longed for than
that of every other in the world. So he rose and stole their plumage,
nor did he restore it until the king's daughter, the fairest of them
all, had plighted her troth to him.[187]

The story is by no means confined to Europe and Asia. The Arawaks, one
of the aboriginal tribes of Guiana, relate that a beautiful royal
vulture was once captured by a hunter. She was the daughter of Anuanima,
sovereign of a race whose country is above the sky, and who lay aside
there the appearance of birds for that of humanity. Smitten with love
for the hunter, the captive divested herself of her feathers and
exhibited her true form--that of a beautiful girl. "She becomes his
wife, bears him above the clouds, and, after much trouble, persuades her
father and family to receive him. All then goes well, until he expresses
a wish to visit his aged mother, when they discard him, and set him on
the top of a very high tree, the trunk of which is covered with
formidable prickles. He appeals pathetically to all the living creatures
around. Then spiders spin cords to help him, and fluttering birds ease
his descent, so that at last he reaches the ground in safety. Then
follow his efforts, extending over several years, to regain his wife,
whom he tenderly loves. Her family seek to destroy him; but by his
strength and sagacity he is victorious in every encounter. The birds at
length espouse his cause, assemble their forces, and bear him as their
commander above the sky. He is at last slain by a valiant young warrior,
resembling himself in person and features. It is his own son, born after
his expulsion from the upper regions, and brought up there in ignorance
of his own father. The legend ends with the conflagration of the house
of the royal vultures, who, hemmed in by crowds of hostile birds, are
unable to use their wings, and forced to fight and die in their human
forms."[188] This tale, so primitive in form, can hardly have travelled
round half the globe to the remote American Indians among whom it was
discovered. And yet in many of its features it presents the most
striking likeness to several of the versions current in the Old World.

Sometimes, however, as in the tale of Hasan, the species is left
undescribed. Among the Eskimo the heroine is vaguely referred to as a
sea-fowl. The Kurds have a strange tale of a bird they call