the frog, and said he would die at the sight of water. They ceased to
call the sun the frog, or Bheki, but kept the saying, 'Bheki will die at
sight of water.' Not knowing who or what Bheki might be, they took her
for a frog, who also was a pretty wench. Lastly, they made the story of
Bheki's distinguished wedding and mysterious disappearance. For this
interpretation, historical and linguistic evidence is not offered. When
did a Sanskrit-speaking race live beside a great sea? How do we know
that 'frog' was used as a name for 'sun'?

* * * * *

We have already given our explanation. To the savage intellect, man and
beast are on a level, and all savage myth makes men descended from
beasts; while stories of the loves of gods in bestial shape, or the
unions of men and animals, incessantly occur. 'Unnatural' as these
notions seem to us, no ideas are more familiar to savages, and none recur
more frequently in Indo-Aryan, Scandinavian, and Greek mythology. An
extant tribe in North-West America still claims descent from a frog. The
wedding of Bheki and the king is a survival, in Sanskrit, of a tale of
this kind. Lastly, Bheki disappears, when her associations with her old
amphibious life are revived in the manner she had expressly forbidden.

* * * * *

Our interpretation may be supported by an Ojibway parallel. A hunter
named Otter-heart, camping near a beaver lodge, found a pretty girl
loitering round his fire. She keeps his wigwam in order, and 'lays his
blanket near the deerskin she had laid for herself. "Good," he muttered,
"this is my wife."' She refuses to eat the beavers he has shot, but at
night he hears a noise, 'krch, krch, as if beavers were gnawing wood.' He