taken form; and on these were built up the Gods and Heroes, and all wonder-working creatures and things, and the poetical fables and fancies which have come down to us, and which still linger in our customs and our Fairy Tales bright and sunny and many coloured in the warm regions of the south; sterner and wilder and rougher in the north; more homelike in the middle and western countries; but always alike in their main features, and always having the same meaning when we come to dig it out; and these forms and this meaning being the same in the lands of the Western Aryans as in those still peopled by the Aryans of the East. It would take a very great book to give many examples of the myths and stories which are alike in all the Aryan countries; but we may see by one instance what the likeness is; and it shall be a story which all will know when they read it. Once upon a time there was a Hindu Rajah, who had an only daughter, who was born with a golden necklace. In this necklace was her soul; and if the necklace were taken off and worn by some one else, the Princess would die. On one of her birthdays the Rajah gave his daughter a pair of slippers with ornaments of gold and gems upon them. The Princess went out upon a mountain to pluck the flowers that grew there, and while she was stooping to pluck them one of her slippers came off and fell down into a forest below. A Prince, who was hunting in the forest, picked up the lost slipper, and was so charmed with it that he desired to make its owner his wife. So he made his wish known everywhere, but nobody came to claim the slipper, and the poor Prince grew very sad. At last some people from the Rajah's country heard of it, and told the Prince where to find the Rajah's daughter; and he went there, and asked for her as his wife, and they were married. Sometime after, another wife of the Prince, being jealous of the Rajah's daughter, stole her necklace, and put it on her own neck, and then the Rajah's daughter died. But her body did not decay, nor did her face lose its bloom; and the Prince went every day to see her, for he loved her very much although she was dead. Then he found out the secret of the necklace, and got it back again, and put it on his dead wife's neck, and her soul was born again in her, and she came back to life, and they lived happy ever after.