evolved by persons also in the savage intellectual condition. The
survival we explain as, in a previous essay, we explained the survival of
the bull-roarer by the conservatism of the religious instinct.




CUPID, PSYCHE, AND THE 'SUN-FROG.'


'Once upon a time there lived a king and a queen,' says the old woman in
Apuleius, beginning the tale of Cupid and Psyche with that ancient
formula which has been dear to so many generations of children. In one
shape or other the tale of Cupid and Psyche, of the woman who is
forbidden to see or to name her husband, of the man with the vanished
fairy bride, is known in most lands, 'even among barbarians.' According
to the story the mystic prohibition is always broken: the hidden face is
beheld; light is brought into the darkness; the forbidden name is
uttered; the bride is touched with the tabooed metal, iron, and the union
is ended. Sometimes the pair are re-united, after long searchings and
wanderings; sometimes they are severed for ever. Such are the central
situations in tales like that of Cupid and Psyche.

In the attempt to discover how the ideas on which this myth is based came
into existence, we may choose one of two methods. We may confine our
investigations to the Aryan peoples, among whom the story occurs both in
the form of myth and of household tale. Again, we may look for the
shapes of the legend which hide, like Peau d'Ane in disguise, among the
rude kraals and wigwams, and in the strange and scanty garb of savages.
If among savages we find both narratives like Cupid and Psyche, and also