Note on the Story of Ghaṭa and Karpara.

The portion of the story of “the Shifty lad,” which so nearly resembles the story of Ghaṭa and Karpara, runs as follows: The shifty lad remarks to his master the wright, that he might get plenty from the king’s store-house which was near at hand, if only he would break into it. The two eventually rob it together. “But the king’s people missed the butter and cheese and the other things that had been taken out of the store-house, and they told the king how it had happened. The king took the advice of the Seanagal about the best way of catching the thieves, and the counsel that he gave them was, that they should set a hogshead of soft pitch under the hole where they were coming in. That was done, and the next day the shifty lad and his master went to break into the king’s store-house.”

The consequence was that the wright was caught in the pitch. Thereupon the shifty lad cut off his head, which he carried home and buried in the garden. When the king’s people came into the store-house, they found a body, without a head and they could not make out whose it was. By the advice of the Seanagal the king had the trunk carried about from town to town by the soldiers on the points of spears. They were directed to observe if any one cried out on seeing it. When they were going past the house of the wright, the wright’s wife made a tortured scream, and swift the shifty lad cut himself with an adze, and he kept saying to the wright’s wife, “It is not as bad as thou thinkest.” He then tells the soldier that she is afraid of blood, and therefore the soldier supposed that he was the wright and she his wife. The king had the body hung up in an open place, and set soldiers to watch if any should attempt to take it away, or show pity or grief for it. The shifty lad drives a horse past with a keg of whisky on each side, and pretends to be hiding it from the soldiers. They pursue him, capture the whisky, get dead drunk, and the shifty lad carries off and buries the wright’s body. The king now lets loose a pig to dig up the body. The soldiers follow the pig, but the wright’s widow entertains them. Meanwhile the shifty lad kills the pig and buries it. The soldiers are then ordered to live at free quarters among the people, and wherever they get pig’s flesh, unless the people could explain how they came by it, to make a report to the king. But the shifty lad kills the soldiers who visit the widow, and persuades the people to kill all the others in their sleep. The Seanagal next advises the king to give a feast to all the people. Whoever dared to dance with the king’s daughter would be the culprit. The shifty lad asks her to dance, she makes a black mark on him, but he puts a similar black mark on twenty others. The king now proclaims that, if the author of these clever tricks will reveal himself, he shall marry his daughter. All the men with marks on them contend for the honour. It is agreed that to whomsoever a child shall give an apple, the king is to give his daughter. The shifty lad goes into the room where they are all assembled, with a shaving and a drone, and the child gives him the apple. He marries the princess, but is killed by accident. Köhler (Orient und Occident, Vol. II, p. 303 and ff.) compares the story of Dolopathos quoted in Loiseleur II, 123, ed. Brunet, p. 183, a story of the Florentine Ser Giovanni, (Pecorone, IX, 1,) an old Netherland story in Haupt’s Zeitschrift für Deutsches Alterthum 5, 385–404, called “The thief of Bruges,” and a Tyrolese story in Zingerle, Kinder- und Hausmärchen aus Süd-Deutschland, p. 300; also a French Romance of chivalry entitled, “The knight Berinus and his son Aigres of the Magnet mountain.” There is also a story in the Seven Wise Masters (Ellis, specimens of early English metrical romances new ed. by Halliwell, London, 1848, p. 423) of a father and his son breaking into the treasure-house of the emperor Octavianus. Köhler also compares the story of Trophonius and his brother or father Agamedes (Scholiast to Aristophanes, Nubes, 508; Pausanias, IX, 37, 3.) This story will also be found in Simrock’s Deutsche Volksbücher, Vol. XII, p. 148. The story appears in Melusine, 1878 p. 17 under the title of “Le Voleur Avisé, Conte Breton.” See also Ralston’s Tibetan Tales, Introduction, pp. xlvii and ff.

[1] Benfey does not appear to have been aware that this story was to be found in Somadeva’s work. It is found in his Panchatantra, Vol. II, p. 326. He refers to Wolff, II, 1; Knatchbull, 268; Symeon Seth, 76; John of Capua, k., 4; German translation, (Ulm, 1483) R., 2; Spanish translation, XLV. a; Doni, 66; Anvár-i-Suhaili, 404; Cabinet des Fées, XVIII, 22; Baldo fab. XVI, (in Edéléstand du Méril p. 240). Hitopadeśa, IV, 13, (Johnson’s translation, page 116.) In Sandabar and Syntipas the animal is a dog. It appears that the word dog was also used in the Hebrew translation. John of Capua has canis for ichneumon in another passage, so perhaps he has it here. Benfey traces the story in Calumnia Novercalis C., 1; Historia Septem Sapientum, Bl. n.; Romans des Sept Sages, 1139; Dyocletian, Einleitung, 1212; Grässe, Gesta Romanorum II, 176; Keller, Romans, CLXXVIII; Le Grand d’ Aussy, 1779, II, 303; Grimm’s Märchen, 48. (Benfey, Vol. I, pp. 479–483.) To Englishmen the story suggests Llewellyn’s faithful hound Gelert, from which the parish of Bethgelert in North Wales is named. This legend has been versified by the Hon’ble William Robert Spencer. It is found in the English Gesta, (see Bohn’s Gesta Romanorum, introduction, page xliii. It is No. XXVI, in Herrtage’s Edition.) The story (as found in the Seven Wise Masters) is admirably told in Simrock’s Deutsche Volksbücher, Vol. XII, p. 135. See also Baring Gould’s Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, 1st Series, p. 126.

[2] Here, as Wilson remarked, (Collected Works, Vol. IV, p. 149) we have the story of Rhampsinitus, Herodotus, II, 121. Dr. Rost compares Keller, Dyocletianus Leben, p. 55, Keller Li Romans des Sept Sages, p. cxciii, Liebrecht’s translation of Dunlop’s History of Fiction, pp. 197 and 264. Cp. also Sagas from the Far East, Tale XII; see also Dr. R. Köhler in Orient und Occident, Vol. II, p. 303. He gives many parallels to Campbell’s Gaelic Story of “the Shifty lad,” No. XVIII, d., Vol. I, p. 331, but is apparently not aware of the striking resemblance between the Gaelic story and that in the text. Whisky does in the Highland story the work of Dhattúra. See also Cox’s Mythology of the Aryan Nations, I, p. 111 and ff. and Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 34. A similar stratagem is described in Grössler’s Sagen aus der Grafschaft Mansfeld, p. 219.

[3] Of course Karpara is the Sanskrit for pot. In fact the two friends’ names might be represented in English by Pitcher and Pott. In modern Hindu funerals boiled rice is given to the dead. So I am informed by my friend Pandit Śyámá Charaṇ Mukhopádhyáya, to whom I am indebted for many kind hints.

[4] I read áhṛitendhanaḥ. The Sanskrit College MS. seems to me to give hṛitendhana.

[5] So Frau Claradis in “Die Heimonskinder” advises her husband not to trust her father (Simrock’s Deutsche Volksbücher, Vol. II, p. 131.)

[6] The Sanskrit College MS. has mama for the mayá of Dr. Brockhaus.

[7] Mr. Gough has kindly pointed out to me a passage in the Sarvadarśana Sangraha which explains this. The following is Mr. Gough’s translation of the passage; “We must consider this teaching as regards the four points of view. These are that