In this story the son of a Boulogne pilot marries the daughter of the King of Naz--wherever that may be. In Naz a man is never allowed to see the face of his wife till she has born him a child--a modification of the Futa rule. The inquisitive French husband unveils his wife, and, like Psyche in Apuleius, drops wax from a candle on her cheek. When the pair return to Naz, the king of that country discovers the offence of the husband, and, by the aid of his magicians, transforms the Frenchman into a monster. Here we have the old formula--the infringement of a 'taboo,' and the magical punishment--adapted to the ideas of Breton peasantry. The essential point of the story, for our purpose, is that the veiling of the bride is 'the custom of women,' in the mysterious land of Naz. 'C'est l'usage du pays: les maris ne voient leurs femmes sans voile que lorsqu'elles sont devenues mères.' Now our theory of the myth of Urvasi is simply this: 'the custom of women,' which Pururavas transgresses, is probably a traditional Aryan law of nuptial etiquette, _l'usage du pays_, once prevalent among the people of India. If our view be correct, then several rules of etiquette, and not one alone, will be illustrated in the stories which we suppose the rules to have suggested. In the case of Urvasi and Pururavas, the rule was, not to see the husband naked. In 'Cupid and Psyche,' the husband was not to be looked upon at all. In the well-known myth of Mélusine, the bride is not to be seen naked. Mélusine tells her lover that she will only abide with him _dum ipsam nudam non viderit_.[77] The same taboo occurs in a Dutch _Märchen_.[78] We have now to examine a singular form of the myth, in which the strange bride is not a fairy, or spiritual being, but an animal. In this class of story the husband is usually forbidden to perform some act which will recall to the bride the associations of her old animal existence. The converse of the tale is the well-known legend of the Forsaken Merman. The king of the sea permits his human wife to go to church. The ancient sacred associations are revived, and the woman returns no more. She will not come though you call all day Come away, come away. Now, in the tales of the animal bride, it is her associations with her former life among the beasts that are not to be revived, and when they are re-awakened by the commission of some act which she has forbidden, or the neglect of some precaution which she has enjoined, she, like Urvasi, disappears. * * * * *