The Dexterous Thief and his Son. (Variant.)
In a certain country there was a very dexterous thief, it is said. This thief had a son and two daughters. These two daughters were wealthy, wearing better silver and golden sorts of things than the women-folk of the other important families of the village.
Well then, because this principal thief’s son was a person possessing divine skill (sura-nuwana), ascertaining that they had become wealthy because of the dexterous character of his father’s robbery, he got into his mind [the notion] to earn the very same livelihood as his father, having become a dexterous thief to the same degree.
When this principal thief was going for robbery it was a custom [of his] to go [after] tying two pairs of small bells on both feet. When the thief’s son asked his mother, “What is the motive for going for robbery, tying on the bells?” she said thus: “Why, son? As though they are not hearing the noise of your father’s pair of little bells, he goes [after] tying on the pair of little bells, having put them on the foot by way of ingenuity, for the purpose of remembering to commit [only] theft.”
Well then, one day, when the father had started to go for robbery, the son also asked his mother [for permission] to go with him. At that time his mother said thus: “Son, because of [your not possessing] your father’s dexterity, at no time are you able, indeed, to get a bare subsistence by doing that for a livelihood. Because of that don’t you try to go.”
On the following day, when the father was going for robbery this son also went without concealing himself, just behind his father. [The father] having dug into a house, when he was becoming ready to enter the house, this son went behind quietly, and cutting off the two pairs of little bells that were on his father’s two feet, came home.
The father, also, perceiving, before entering the house, that some one had cut both pairs of little bells off his two feet, having dropped the doing house-robbery, and having gone running home, from that day remained lying down, without eating, without drinking. When this thief’s wife asked, “Why are you doing that?” the thief says, “After he cut off my two pairs of little bells, which, from the day I was born, for so much time were committing robbery more cleverly than all, well, I shall not go for robbery, and shall not eat, and shall not drink,” he said.
Because the thief’s wife had ascertained that his son had cut off his father’s two pairs of little bells, having said to the thief, “Don’t be grieved,” she told him that his own son cut off the two pairs of little bells. Thereupon the thief was extremely satisfied regarding his son.
Again one day, on the day when there was a feast at the King’s house, the principal thief was ready to go to commit robbery in the royal house. His son also said that he was wishful to go. Thereupon the father said, “Because thou also art a dexterous thief of my own quality, come.” They two having gone, and having dug into the royal palace, while the son remained outside the father went into the house, and having brought gold, silver, pearls, gems, various other things, gave them to his son.
From the time when the father, having dug into the house, entered it, the son said, “Father, however sweet the royal food should be, don’t eat even a little, indeed.” But as soon as the father’s nose perceived the sweet odour of the tasty sorts of food, the father began to eat the royal provisions to the possible extent. Having thus eaten, and having finished, taking also a quantity of goods, when, having filled his belly, [he was] coming to give them to his son, his belly having been filled and having become enlarged, he was unable to creep out by the place which he first dug; and he stuck fast.
Thereupon the son, having gone running to the house, taking also the goods, informed his mother about this; and again having gone to the King’s house, taking a sword also, and having seen that the father having been stuck fast was dead, cutting the father’s neck with the sword he brought home only the head.
On the following day, in the morning having perceived that the goods at the royal house have been stolen, and having caused soothsayers to be brought to find the thief, when [the King] asked the sooth the soothsayers said, “The thief has entered on such and such a side of such and such a store-house, having dug a long tunnel. The thief indeed can be found; the things cannot be found.” Thereupon the King, having made inquiry and when he looked having seen that in the end of the tunnel a man without the head part had become stuck fast, for the purpose of finding who are the relatives whom the man has, and his friends, commanded that during the whole of three days [they were] to walk, bringing the corpse, everywhere in the city.
Well then, as this corpse—the above-mentioned corpse—was coming to pass in front of the house of its owners, the above-mentioned son said to his mother and sisters, “They are now taking our father’s corpse [and are about to pass] in front of our house. Having seen it, don’t anyone of you lament.” This word the mother and sisters accepted. But because this son thinks there is uncertainty if they will lament, having ascended a Murun̆gā tree that was in front of the doorway he remained [there].
At the time when he is thus, as they are taking the corpse in front of the said house, that mother and the sisters, unable to go on restraining their grief, cried out, “Anē! O our father!”[3] There and then, the son who was in the Murun̆gā tree, breaking a branch also from the tree jumped down, and was as though dead.
At that time that mother and the sisters, calling out, “Anē! O my son! Anē! O our elder brother!” and having come running, and gone, taking the son, into the house, gave him medicine and began to attend to him. Thereupon the people who were carrying that corpse thought, “They are crying owing to that woman’s son’s having died,” and went away.
By this means the people of the thief’s family, not tasting (lit., eating) death from the King, escaped.
Western Province.
In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 59, Mr. W. Goonetilleke gave the story as it was related in the Supplement to the Ceylon Observer. The thief passed through a small pre-existing tunnel into the King’s palace, and after feasting inside stuck fast in it on his way back, and ordered his son to cut off his head and escape with it. The youth acted accordingly and threw it in a weighted basket into the river. The rest of the story agrees with those given above.
In the story related by Herodotus (Euterpe, 121, 1) of the robbery of the treasury of King Rhampsinitus, the thief entered by removing a loose stone, laid for the purpose by his father when he was building the treasury. He did not feast inside the palace nor stick fast on his way out, but was caught in a trap laid for him in the treasury. His brother entered, and at his own request cut off his head to save the family reputation. The King hung the body from the wall, and stationed sentinels who were commanded to arrest anyone who wept on seeing it. The brother made them drunk and carried off the corpse by his mother’s orders. After vainly making use of his daughter as a bait for the thief, in the end the King forgave him on account of his cleverness and married his daughter to him.
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 93, Karpara, one of two thieves, broke through the wall of the palace and entered the room of the Princess. She fell in love with him, but he remained too long, and was arrested and hanged; while being led away he signalled to his friend to carry off the Princess. The friend, Ghaṭa, at night dug a tunnel into the palace, found the Princess in fetters, and brought her away. The King set guards near Karpara’s body to arrest anyone who came to burn the corpse and perform the funeral rites, but Ghaṭa tricked them, lamented over the body, burned it, and threw the remains of the bones into the Ganges. Although the King offered half his kingdom if the thief would reveal himself, Ghaṭa left the country with the Princess. The translator mentioned European and other parallels (pp. 93 and 100).
In A. von Schiefner’s Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 39, a weaver went with a clever nephew to break into a house. As he was passing feet foremost through the hole they made, the people inside seized his feet and began to drag him through, so the boy cut off his head and decamped with it. The King ordered the trunk to be exposed at the cross-roads in the main street, in order to arrest anyone who wailed over it. The youth, personating various people, wailed over it as a madman, burned it, presented cakes, and threw the bones into the Ganges. The King then set his daughter at the river bank as a bait, and left a guard near. After sending down a number of floating water vessels the thief covered his head with one, and swam to the Princess, who afterwards had a son by means of whom the King identified the thief, to whom he formally gave the Princess and half the kingdom. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 380, the story is similar.
[1] Pāmula peṭṭiya. See vol. i, p. 183, footnote. [↑]
[2] See vol. i, p. 10, on the small size of modern windows in the villages. [↑]
[3] A very common exclamation of grief, surprise, or sometimes annoyance. The relative addressed is always either the father, the mother, or the elder brother, in such cases. [↑]
No. 190
The Story of the Four-Fold Trap[1]
In a certain country there was a Gamarāla. The Gamarāla having tried for seven years caught a White Rat-snake. A Dēvatāwā having come by dream told the Gamarāla that when he had eaten the Rat-snake’s head he would obtain the kingship. Having told the Gamarāla’s wife to cook the White Rat-snake the Gamarāla went to wash his head (to purify himself).[2]
After that, a Tom-tom Beater (Naekatiyek), weaving a cloth, came to the Gamarāla’s house [with it]. The Gama-Mahagē (the Gamarāla’s wife) through stinginess [unwilling] to give meat, gave the Tom-tom Beater rice and that White Rat-snake’s head, not knowing [its property].
The Gamarāla having come [after] washing his head, asked the Gama-Mahagē for the White Rat-snake’s head. Then the woman said, “I gave it to eat, to the Tom-tom Beater (Berawāyā) who came [after] weaving the cloth.” Thereupon the Gamarāla said, “Thou gavest it to thy man! Why? When seven years have gone by from this time he will obtain the sovereignty.”
After the seven years went by, it was commanded to give the kingship to the Tom-tom Beater. But the people of the city said they could not give him the kingship, because he was a Tom-tom Beater. Because, through the act of his eating the White Rat-snake’s head they were unable to avoid giving (nodī) him the kingship, they said, “Let us give him the sovereignty for one paeya (twenty-four minutes). A strong man having shot an arrow aloft, let us give the kingship until it falls to the ground.” Having promised this he shot it.
For thirty years that arrow did not fall to the ground; Śakra held it. After thirty years had gone, the arrow afterwards fell to the ground. The kingship of that King Moṭā-Tissa having been changed that day, again a Prince of the royal line, suitable for the city, obtained the kingship.
After that, on account of the Tom-tom Beaters who were in this Lan̥kāwa (Ceylon) claiming, “We, too, are of the royal line,” the King and the other people, also, having become angry, say, “Can anyone, indeed, construct a Four-fold Trap?” they asked. A smith who knows various expedients (upā-waeḍa), having said, “I can,” constructed a Four-fold Trap.
Inside the Four-fold Trap having placed cakes and milk-rice, the King said, “To the Tom-tom Beaters who are in Ceylon the King will give an eating (feast).” He sent letters to the Tom-tom Beaters to come. They call that one with one mouth (entrance) like the Habaka (a snare-trap) the Four-fold Trap (Hatara-maha Lūla).
Well then, after all the Tom-tom Beaters came, the King says, “All of you go at one time into that house,”[3] he said. After that, all the Tom-tom Beaters at one time entered the house. Afterwards the King struck off (gaesuwāya) the Four-fold Trap. Well then, all the Tom-tom Beaters died.
Because one pregnant woman, only, was at the corner (or end, assē), the woman’s neck having been caught she died. As ten months had fully gone, the infant was brought forth outside. Thereafter, at the time when the Gamarāla, and the King of the city, and the Washerman who washes the clothes are going near the Four-fold Trap, an infant was crying and crying. Afterwards the Gamarāla and the Washerman (Radā minihā) having gone away carrying the infant, reared it.
After not much time, the King having died another Prince obtained the kingship. For the purpose of making [his accession to] the sovereignty public to the world, he told them to beat on the double kettle-drum. Although all the people of the country beat on the double kettle-drum the sound did not spread. The King asked, “Who must beat it for the sound of this to spread?”
Then the people say, “Should a Tom-tom Beater beat, indeed, the sound of this will spread.”
Thereupon the King asks, “Are there not Tom-tom Beaters in this city?”
Then the people say, “In the time of such and such a King, having constructed the Four-fold Trap he killed all the Tom-tom Beaters.”
The King asked, “Because of what circumstance did he kill them in that way?”
Well then, these people [said], “Previously one of them called Moṭā-Tissa was a King. Well then, because of their arrogance, the King who next obtained the sovereignty, having prepared a Four-fold Trap, killed them all.” They told the King all the matters that occurred.
After that, the King made public that he will give gold [amounting] to a tusk elephant’s load to a person who should find and give him a Tom-tom Beater.
Then the Gamarāla [and Washerman] having spoken to the King:—“We will give a Tom-tom Beater,” gave him that youth whom they had reared. Well then, the King having caused the youth to dress well, having decorated a tusk elephant, and placed the youth on the back of the tusk elephant, caused the proclamation tom-tom to be beaten by means of the youth.
The youth does not know anything whatever of beating. The Gamarāla and the Washerman who reared the youth taught him, “Beat thou the tom-tom (berē) thus: ‘Thy mother [was] Tan̥gi, thy father [was] Ton̥gi; Tan̥gi and Ton̥gi.’ ”[4] When the youth beat in that manner the proclamation by beat of tom-toms (aṇḍa-bera) was published in the city.
Well then, because there was not much weaving (bō wīmak) by him (owing to his household work), the King says, “Out of this city, by any method thou wantest, take any woman thou wantest,” he said to the youth.
Subsequently, the Gamarāla and that Washerman said to the youth, “Because the Smiths who constructed the Four-fold Trap killed thy family, on account of it go thou and bring a Smith (caste) woman.” After that, the youth, having brought a Smith (caste) woman, married her.
The King having given many offices to the youth, he lived in happiness at the city.
Washerman. North-western Province.
In A. von Schiefner’s Tibetan Tales derived from Indian Sources (Ralston), p. 129, the widow of a son of the King of Vidēhā, who had a son called Bahvannapāna, was given in marriage by the King of Pañcāla, her father, to his Purōhita or spiritual adviser. The Purōhita one day heard a Brāhmaṇa predict when he heard a cock crow near the house, that the person who ate its flesh would become King. He therefore killed the cock, told his wife to cook it at once, and went to the palace on business. During his absence Bahvannapāna returned hungry from school, saw the bird in the pan, cut off its head, and ate it. When the Purōhita came back he heard of this, and ate up the rest of the fowl. On consulting the Brāhmaṇa about it he was informed that he who ate the head would become King, and that one who killed him and ate his head in turn would also become King, so he determined to kill the boy. His mother perceived this and sent the boy away to Vidēhā, and he lay down to sleep in a park there. The King had just died, apparently without an heir, and the funeral ceremonies could not be performed until a new King was chosen. The Ministers, officials, Brāhmaṇas, etc., went in search of a suitable heir, saw the boy, aroused him, ascertained that he was the true heir to the throne, and proclaimed him King.
Messrs. H. B. Andris and Co., of Kandy, have been good enough to inform me that the Hatara-maha Lūla is a large four-sided trap, made for catching large animals, such as deer and wild pigs. It has four entrances and four nooses. They state that the Habaka mentioned on p. 49 is a similar but smaller trap, with one noose, used for catching hares, mouse-deer, wild cats, etc.
[1] Hatara-maha Lūla. I am doubtful regarding the meaning of maha; it appears to be derived from Skt. mā, to measure or be contained. According to Clough, lūla is a snare or wicker fish-basket, perhaps from the Skt. lū, to cut or destroy. See final note. [↑]
[2] This would include the bathing of the whole body. [↑]
[3] The word gē, house, is used in the villages for “room.” In this case the “house” was the trap. [↑]
[4] Togē ammā tan̥gi, togē appā ton̥gi; tan̥gitton̥git. [↑]
No. 191
The Foolish Prince
At a certain city there were a Prince and a Princess. One day when the two are staying talking and talking, the Princess says, “Lord, please tell a story for me to hear,” she said.
Then the Prince said, “It is good. I know a story that no one knows; I will tell you it,” and beginning it he told the story.
At the time when he was telling it a Brāhmaṇa was listening. The Brāhmaṇa having gone away, said to the Brāhmaṇa’s wife, “I know a story.” Then the woman said, “If so, tell the story, for me to hear it.” The Brāhmaṇa told the story.
The Brāhmaṇa’s wife also learning it, having come on the following day told the story to that Princess. The Princess asked the Brāhmaṇa’s wife, “Who told you this?” Then the woman said falsely, “I learnt it [some time] previously.”
Well then, this Princess having said [to herself], “My Prince is indeed associated with this woman. If not, how does this woman know to-day the story which my Prince told yesterday for me to hear?” and having become angry with the Prince, the Princess also associated with another Prince. This Prince, ascertaining this, killed the Princess.
In no long time after that, the thought having occurred to the Prince, “If my Princess were [here] it would be good for me,” having walked throughout the whole of Lan̥kāwa (Ceylon) he looked where the Princess is now.[1]
One day, this Prince asked another man, “Did you see my Princess?”
At that time the [other] Prince said, “I saw that the Princess was staying yesterday in the daytime in the midst of such and such a forest.”
Well then, this Prince, asking and asking the way, having gone to the midst of the forest, at the time when he was walking in it a bear having bitten the Prince he died.
Washerman. North-western Province.
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 4, it is stated that when the God Śiva was relating a story to his wife Pārvatī, one of his dependants, a Gaṇa named Pushpadanta, entered unseen by his magic power, and listened to it. Afterwards he related it to his wife Jayā, who recited it in the presence of Pārvatī, whereupon the Goddess lost her temper, reproached Śiva for telling her an old story known by others, and when she heard from him the true explanation, cursed Pushpadanta and turned him into a mortal.
[1] Apparently, he thought she would be reborn on the earth again, with her former appearance. [↑]
No. 192
The Jackal and the Gamarāla
In a certain country, while a Gamarāla, being without cattle to plough, was going for the purpose of asking for a yoke of cattle after making a lump of milk-rice, he met two Jackals.
Thereupon the Jackals ask, “Where, Gamarāla, are you going?”
“I am going to borrow (lit., ask for) a yoke of cattle to plough.”
“What things are on your head?”
“A box of milk-rice.”
“Should you give us the box we will plough.”
Having said, “Ijaw! Eat ye it,” he gave it. Thereupon the Jackals ate it.
After that, having come dragging the two Jackals and tied the yoke [on their necks], they tried to draw [the plough]; the Jackals cannot draw it. After that, having beaten and beaten them he threw them into the weeds.
On the following day, while he is going [after] cooking a box [of milk-rice], having met with two Jackals [they said], “Gamarāla, where are you going?”
“I am going to borrow a yoke of cattle to plough.”
“What things are on your head?”
“On my head is a box of milk-rice.”
“Should you give us the box we will plough.”
“Yesterday also, having given milk-rice to a yoke of Jackals I was foolish.”
“They were Jackals of the brinjal (egg-plant) caste; owing to being in full bloom we are Jackals of the tusk elephant caste,” they said.
After that, having said, “Inḍaw,” he gave them it. After they ate it, having come dragging the two Jackals and tied the yoke [on their necks], he tried to plough. Thereupon, when they were unable to draw [the plough] having beaten and beaten them he threw them into the weeds. At that time they saw that those [former] Jackals are groaning and groaning. These Jackals also having gone away, lay down.
A Jackal having gone near the Wild Cat,[1] says, “Preceptor, [tell me] how to eat a little milk-rice from the Gamarāla’s house?”
“If so, having hidden at the place of the firewood bundles remain [there].”
After that, the Jackal having gone, remained hidden at the place of the firewood bundles. Having waited there, at the time when the Gamarāla’s wife is going for water the Cat told the Jackal to come into the house. Thereupon the Jackal having gone into the house got upon the platform (at the level of the top of the side walls). Then the Cat having gone, gave him a little milk-rice in a piece of coconut shell. While he was on the platform with the Cat it became evening.
At that time, in the evening the Jackals having come to the rice field, howled. Thereupon this Jackal said, “Preceptor, I must bring to remembrance my religion.”[2]
Then the Cat said, “Anē! Appā! Having killed thee they will kill me.”
Again the Jackals at midnight having come into the rice field, howled. Thereupon the Jackal [said], “Preceptor, I must bring to remembrance my religion; I cannot endure it.”
When [the Cat] was saying, “The top of thy head will be split,” he howled, “Hokkiyā!”
Then the Gamarāla having awoke, at the time when he looked on the platform he saw that a Jackal was [there]. Thereupon, having beaten the Jackal he killed it outright.
Washerman. North-western Province.
In the Totā Kahānī (Small), p. 221, after an ass and a stag which were friends had feasted one night in a garden, the ass became exhilarated and suggested that they should sing a song together. The stag endeavoured to prevent this, but the ass would not listen to it, and began to bray, on which the gardener came with some men, and caught and crucified both the animals.
In Folk-Tales from Tibet (O’Connor), p. 64, a hare and a fox induced a wolf to leave a dead horse on which it was feeding, and to accompany them to a house where there was a wedding feast, at which they could obtain plenty to eat and drink. They got through a window into the larder, and after feasting abundantly decided, at the hare’s suggestion, to carry away other provisions, the hare some cheese, the fox a fowl, and the wolf a jar of wine through the handle of which he put his head. Then the hare proposed a song before they started, and after some persuasion the wolf began to sing. When the people heard it they rushed to the larder. The hare and fox jumped through the window, but the wolf was stopped by the jar of wine, and was killed by the men.
In A. von Schiefner’s Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 323, an ass joined a bull which was accustomed to break through a fence and feed in the evening in the King’s bean-field. After eating, the ass suggested that it should sing; the bull told it to wait until he had gone and then do as it pleased. When it began to bray it was seized, its ears were cut off, a pestle was fastened to its neck, and it was set free. The same story is given in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 374.
In the former work, p. 337, and in the latter one, vol. ii, p. 417, it is stated with reference to the jackal’s uncontrollable desire to howl, “it is according to the nature of things that jackals, if they hear a jackal howl without howling themselves, lose their hair.”
[1] Wal-bowā, a domestic cat that has become wild, or the descendant of such a cat. [↑]
[2] After the manner of the Muhammadans, who chant prayers in the evening after sunset, and later on in the night. [↑]
STORIES OF THE TOM-TOM BEATERS
No. 193
The Story of Batmasurā[1]
In a certain country there are a God Îswara (Śiva) and a Princess (Umā), it is said. That God Îswara was a good soothsayer.
News of it having reached another country, a man called Batmasurā came to learn soothsaying. Having come and been there a long time he learnt soothsaying. That Batmasurā who was learning it went to his village.
Having gone and been there a long time, he again came near the God Îswara. When he came there the God Îswara was not at home; only the Princess was there. Having soaked the cloth which the Princess wore she had placed it in the veranda [before washing it].
That Batmasurā taking the cloth, and having gone and washed it, as he was holding it out [to dry] this Princess saw him. Having seen him she sat silently. Then Batmasurā having come [after] drying the cloth, gave it into the hand of the Princess.
After that, the Princess gave Batmasurā the rice which had been cooked for the God Îswara. As Batmasurā, having eaten the cooked rice, was finishing, the God Îswara came. After he came that Princess set about making ready food for the God Îswara.
Then the God Îswara asked at the hand of the Princess, “What is the food so late to-day for?”
After that, the Princess said, “That Batmasurā having come, and that one having washed and brought and given my (man̆ge) cloth, on account of it I gave him the food. Did you teach that one all soothsaying?” the Princess asked at the hand of the God Īswara.
The God Īswara said, “I taught him all soothsaying indeed; only the Īswara incantation (daehaena) I did not teach him.”
Then the Princess said, “Teach him that also.”
The God Īswara said, “Should I utter to him the Īswara incantation also, that one will seize me.”
The Princess said, “He will not do so; utter it.”
After that, the God Īswara told the Princess to call Batmasurā near. The Princess called to Batmasurā [to come] near; Batmasurā came near.
Thereupon the God Īswara said to that Batmasurā, “When I have uttered the Īswara incantation to thee, thou wilt seize me, maybe.”
Then Batmasurā said, “I will not seize thee; be good enough to utter it, Sir.”
After that, the God Īswara said, “Hold thou my hand,” to Batmasurā; so Batmasurā held his hand. Thereupon the God Īswara uttered it (maeturuwā).
After that, Batmasurā thought to himself, “Having killed the God Īswara I will go to my village, summoning the Princess [to be my wife].” Thinking it, Batmasurā bounded on the path of the God Īswara.
When the God Īswara was going running, the brother-in-law (Vishṇu) of the God Īswara was rocking and rocking in a golden swing. Having seen that this God Īswara is running, the brother-in-law of the God Īswara asked at the hand of the God Īswara, “Where are you running?”
Then the God Īswara said, “At Batmasurā’s hand I uttered over the hand the Īswara incantation. That one is [now] coming to seize me.”
After that, the brother-in-law of the God Īswara told him to stop [after] having gone running still a little distance further. So the God Īswara having gone running a little distance further, stopped there.
Then while the brother-in-law of the God Īswara, creating for himself the appearance of a woman (Mōhinī, the Deluder), was rocking and rocking in the golden swing, Batmasurā came running [there].
Batmasurā while coming there having seen with delight that woman who was rocking in the golden swing, his mind went to that woman. His mind having gone there, the [other] incantations that he had learnt were forgotten, and the Īswara incantation was forgotten.
Then the woman asked at the hand of Batmasurā, “Where are you going?”
Then Batmasurā said, “I am going to seek the God Īswara.” Having said that, he asked at the hand of the woman, “What are you here for?”
The woman said, “Nothing. I am simply here” (that is, for no special purpose).
After that, Batmasurā asked, “Can you go with me?”
The woman said, “I can indeed go. Is there your wife?” (that is, “Have you a wife?”). Batmasurā said, “There is.”
Then the woman said, “If so, how can I go? I am with child. You go, and having asked at the hand of your wife about it, come back.”
After that, Batmasurā came home and asked at the hand of his wife, “There is a woman at the road, rocking and rocking in a golden swing. The woman is with child. Shall I summon her to come [as my wife]?” The woman told him to summon her to come.
Afterwards, when Batmasurā was coming again to the place where this woman was, the woman having borne a child, that one was in her hand, and again she was with child.
Then Batmasurā having come, said, “Let us go,” to that woman.
The woman said, “There is After that, Batmasurā went home again and asked at the hand of the woman, “She is carrying one in the arms, and is again with child. Shall I summon her to come?” The woman said, “Summon her and come.” Afterwards as Batmasurā was coming again to the place where the woman was, the woman was carrying two in the arms, and was again with child. Then Batmasurā came, and said to the woman, “Let us go.” The woman said, “How shall I go carrying two in the arms, and again with child? Go and ask about it, and come back.” Afterwards Batmasurā, having gone home, asked at the hand of his wife, “She is carrying two in the arms, and is again with child.” Then the woman told him to summon her and come. After that Batmasurā having come to the place where this woman stayed, when he looked there was neither woman nor children. Thereupon that one went away home. After that, the God Îswara went away to the house of the God Îswara. Having gone there, when a long time had passed Batmasurā died, and having come was [re]-born inside the God Îswara. Afterwards the God Îswara went near another deity and asked, “What is this? My belly is enlarging!” That deity said, “Another living being (parāna-kārayek) has been caused to come inside your body. On account of it, you must split open your body, and throw it away.” The God Îswara could not split open his body. Having said, “I shall die,” he came home. Having come there, he ate medicine from another doctor; that also was no good. Again he went near that very deity. Having gone there, the God Îswara asked at the hand of that deity, “What, now then, shall I do for this?” Then the deity said, “There is nothing else to do; you must split your body.” Then the God Îswara said, “When I have split my body shall I not be destroyed?” The deity said, “You will not be destroyed; your life will remain over.” Afterwards, the God Îswara told him to split open his body. Having split the body, when he looked there was a lump of flesh. He seized it and threw it away. After that, the God Îswara having become well, went home. When a Lord (Buddhist monk) was coming with the begging-bowl, that lump of flesh was on the path. Having gathered it together with his walking-stick it fell into a hole (wala).[2] Next day, as he was coming with the begging-bowl, that lump of flesh sprang at the body of the Lord. Then the Lord having said, “Cī! Wala, hā!”[3] gathered it together [again] with his walking-stick. Thence, indeed, was the Bear (walahā). Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. With reference to the last paragraphs, it is strange that a somewhat similar notion regarding the fœtal form of newly born bears was long current in Europe. In the thirteenth century Encyclopedia of Bartholomew Anglicus (ed. 1535), cap. cxii, it is stated that “Avicenna saith that the bear bringeth forth a piece of flesh imperfect and evil shapen, and the mother licketh the lump, and shapeth the members with licking.… For the whelp is a piece of flesh little more than a mouse, having neither eyes nor ears, and having claws some-deal bourgeoning [sprouting], and so this lump she licketh, and shapeth a whelp with licking” (Medieval Lore, Steele, p. 137). This is taken from Pliny, who wrote of bears: “At the first they seeme to be a lumpe of white flesh without all forme, little bigger than rattons, without eyes, and wanting hair; onely there is some shew and appearance of clawes that put forth. This rude lumpe, with licking they fashion by little and little into some shape” (Nat. Hist., P. Holland’s translation, 1601, p. 215.) [1] More correctly spelt Bhasmāsura. See another legend of him in Ancient Ceylon, p. 156. [↑] [3] Cī, an exclamation of disgust. “Hole, don’t,” appears to be the meaning. [↑] In a certain city there are an elder brother and a younger sister, two persons, it is said. Of them, the elder brother is a very rich person; the younger sister has nothing (mokut na͞e). The younger sister is a widow woman; there is one boy. The boy himself lodges at his uncle’s watch-huts and the like; the youngster’s name is Ayiwandā. The uncle having scraped a little rice from the bottom of the cooking-pot, and given him it, says, “Aḍē! Ayiwandā, be off to the watch-hut [at the cattle-fold].” The youngster came to the watch-hut. The uncle having gone and looked, [saw that] one or two calves were dead in the cattle-fold. Then the uncle having come home scolds Ayiwandā, “Ayiwandā, at the time when thou wert going to the watch-hut thou drankest a little milk, and there being no milk for the calves they are dying.” Afterwards Ayiwandā having gone that day to the watch-hut, and having said that he must catch the thieves, without sleeping stayed awake until the time when it became dawn. Then Gōpalu Dēvatāwā, having opened the entrance (kaḍulla), came into the cattle-fold. Having come there and placed on the path his cord and club,[1] he began to drink milk. Afterwards Ayiwandā, having descended from the watch-hut, very quietly got both the cord and the club. Taking them he went again to the watch-hut. Well then, Gōpalu Dēvatāwā having drunk milk and the like, when he looked for both the cord and the club in order to go, they were not [there]. Afterwards, Gōpalu Dēvatāwā having gone near the watch-hut asked for the cord and club. Ayiwandā taking the two descended from the watch-hut to the ground. Then Gōpalu Dēvatāwā asked for the rope and cudgel, both, at the hand of Ayiwandā. Then Ayiwandā said, “I have heard scoldings for so much time, that as I drank the milk the calves are dying. To-day I stayed awake and caught the thief. Except that if you will give me an authority on that account I will give you the rope and cudgel, I will not otherwise give them.” Then Gōpalu Dēvatāwā said to Ayiwandā, “Think in your mind, ‘If there be an authority which Gōpalu Dēvatāwā gave, may that hill and this hill, both, become united into one.’ ” Afterwards Ayiwandā thought in that way. Then the two hills became united into one. Then Gōpalu Dēvatāwā said to Ayiwandā, “Think in your mind, ‘If there be an authority which Gōpalu Dēvatāwā gave, these hills are again to become separated.’ ” Afterwards Ayiwandā thought in that manner. The two hills again became separated. Gōpalu Dēvatāwā said to Ayiwandā, “Think in your mind, ‘If there be an authority which Gōpalu Dēvatāwā gave, that tree and this tree are both to become one.’ ” Afterwards Ayiwandā thought in that manner. The two trees became united into one. Gōpalu Dēvatāwā said again to Ayiwandā, “Think in your mind, ‘If there be an authority which Gōpalu Dēvatāwā gave, the two trees are again to become separate.’ ” Ayiwandā thought in that manner. Then the two trees became separate. Now then, Gōpalu Dēvatāwā said, “The authority that Gōpalu Dēvatāwā gave [you] is true.” Having said that, and told him that having gone he was to keep it in mind, he assured him of the fact (satta dunnā). After that, to Gōpalu Dēvatāwā Ayiwandā gave both the cord and the cudgel. Well then, Gōpalu Dēvatāwā taking them went away. Ayiwandā having been [there] until the time when it became light, came home and said at the hand of Ayiwandā’s mother, “Mother, ask for uncle’s girl and come back.” Then Ayiwandā’s mother says, “Anē! Son, who will give [marriage] feasts to us? [We have] not a house to be in; we are in the hollow of a Tamarind. I will not. You go and ask, and come back,” she said. Afterwards Ayiwandā went and asked. Then Ayiwandā’s uncle said, “Who will give girls to thee?” Having said, “Be off!”[2] he scolded him. After that, Ayiwandā having come back is silent. Having come from an outside village, [people] asked for Ayiwandā’s uncle’s girl [in marriage]. Then he promised to give her there. He appointed it to be on such and such a day. The men went away. Then Ayiwandā’s uncle gave betel to shooters who were in the neighbourhood, [so that they should shoot animals for the wedding-feast]. Ayiwandā thought in his mind, “Let those shooters not meet with anything, if there be an authority which Gōpalu Dēvatāwā gave.” Afterwards the shooters walked about at the time when they are saying that the [wedding] feast is to-morrow. They did not meet with even a thing. After that, Ayiwandā went to his uncle’s house. When he said that the [wedding] feast would be to-morrow, to-day in the evening he asked, “Uncle, give me that bow and arrow.” Thereupon his uncle said, “Ansca![3] Bola, because there is no hunting-meat have you come to rebuke me? So many shooters were unable [to do it], and [yet] you will seek hunting-meat!” Having said [this], he scolded Ayiwandā. “Through being without hunting-meat, my girl, leaving the house and the like, will not stay, [you think]!”[4] Afterwards Ayiwandā came home. Then his mother told Ayiwandā to eat the rice scraped from the cooking-pot which had been brought from his uncle’s house. Ayiwandā having eaten a little of the scraped rice, gave the other little to Ayiwandā’s mother, and thought in his mind, “Preparing the bow from the rice-pestle and preparing the arrow from love-grass, I having gone to the watch-hut and ascended into the watch-hut, if there be an authority which Gōpalu Dēvatāwā gave, may a Sambhar deer with horns come there and remain sleeping as I arise in the morning.” Having said [this] Ayiwandā went to sleep. Having awoke in the morning, when he looked a Sambhar deer with horns having come was sleeping in the middle of the cattle-fold. Ayiwandā having descended from the watch-hut, taking the bow made from the rice pestle and the arrow made from love-grass, came near the Sambhar deer, and thought in his mind, “If there be an authority which Gōpalu Dēvatāwā gave, that which is shot at this Sambhar deer from this side is to be passed out from the other side.” Having thought it he shot. In that very manner the Sambhar deer died. Ayiwandā having gone to his uncle’s house, said, “Uncle, there! I have shot down a Sambhar deer with horns at the cattle-fold; it is [there]. Go and cut it up, and come back.” Then his uncle said, “Ansca dukkan̥! There is no hunting-meat of thine. I shall not make the feast desolate; somehow or other I shall indeed give it. Hast thou come to rebuke me?” After that, Ayiwandā, calling men and having gone, having come back [after] cutting up the Sambhar deer, put down the meat at his uncle’s house. Thereafter, just before the feasters came having cooked the meat and cooked rice, he placed for Ayiwandā a little of the rice scrapings and two bones from the meat; and having given them to Ayiwandā, he said, “Eat those, and go thou to the watch-hut.” Ayiwandā having eaten them and gone to the watch-hut, thought, “Now, at daybreak, may those who take hold of the cloth at the place where [the bridegroom] gives it to wear,[5] remain in that very way, if there be an authority which Gōpalu Dēvatāwā gave.” In that very way, at daybreak, when he was giving [her] the cloth to put on they remain in the very position in which the bridegroom held an end and the bride an end. Then the palm-sugar maker and the washerman[6] having gone and said, “What are you doing? Be good enough to take that cloth,” those two also remained in the position in which they took hold at the two ends. Then the girl’s father having gone and said, “What is this, Bola, that thou hast not yet taken that cloth?” that man also remained in the very position in which he got hold of an end. The bride, the bridegroom, the palm-sugar maker, the washerman, the girl’s father, in the position in which they took hold of the cloth, in that very manner had become [like] stone. Having seen it, the girl’s mother went running in the village, and having summoned two men made them go on a journey for medicine. The two men having gone to the Vedarāla’s house are coming calling the Vedarāla, by the middle of a large grass field. Then Ayiwandā came after being in the watch-hut, and while he is at the place where his aunt is, saw the Vedarāla and the two men going. Ayiwandā thought, “If there be an authority which Gōpalu Dēvatāwā gave, may the Vedarāla think of sitting down on the bullock’s skull which is in that grass field.” Then the Vedarāla sat down on the bullock’s skull. From morning until the time when it became night he pressed on it. Those two men are calling and calling to the Vedarāla to come. The bullock’s skull will not get free. Thus, in that manner until it became night he pressed against it. Afterwards Ayiwandā thought, “If there be an authority which Gōpalu Dēvatāwā gave, the bullock’s skull having become free, may the Vedarāla succeed in going back again.” After that, the Vedarāla’s bullock’s skull having become free he went back home. Having said, “Never mind that medical treatment,” the two men who went to summon the Vedarāla to come, came to the bride’s house. Then the bride’s mother asked, “Where is the Vedarāla?” The two persons say, “Andō! How well the Vedarāla came! There was a bullock’s skull in that grass field. From morning the Vedarāla sat on it, and got up and tried to release the bullock’s skull [from himself]. He could not release it, being pressed [against it]. Hardly releasing himself now he went back home. He has not come; he said he wouldn’t.” Afterwards near Ayiwandā came the bride’s mother. Having come there she said, “Father has consented in this way [you wish]. Now then, let the girl be for you. If you know [how], do something for this.” Having said [this], the woman came away. Ayiwandā thought in his mind, “If there be an authority which Gōpalu Dēvatāwā gave, as soon as each one is released may each one go away.” Thereupon the persons who were holding the cloth having been freed, went away. They did not go summoning the bride; they did not [even] eat the cooked rice. Having been holding the cloth from morning, in the evening they went to their villages. Afterwards the aunt and uncle having gone, came back [after] summoning Ayiwandā, and gave the bride to Ayiwandā. Ayiwandā sleeps on the mat on which the girl wipes her feet and places them. Then he eats what has been left over on the girl’s leaf [plate]. The girl says, “Aḍē![7] Ayiwandā, eat thou this little.” When she has told him he eats. The girl sleeps on the bed, Ayiwandā sleeps under the bed. Well then, they remained in that way, without the girl’s being good to Ayiwandā. When they had been in that very way for seven or eight days, a fine young man of the village having died, they buried him. Ayiwandā having waited until the time when the girl was sleeping, opened the door and went out; and having brought the corpse, and cut and cut off a great deal of flesh, he put only the bones under the bed under which Ayiwandā sleeps; and he shut the door and went away. On the morning of the following day, Ayiwandā’s mother stayed looking out [for him], having said, “Ayiwandā will come out.” He did not come out. The woman came into the house, and when she looked [for him] there is a heap of bones under the bed. After that, the woman says, “Anē! This one ate my son.” Having said this she wept; having wept she went away. Ayiwandā having gone, joined a Moormen’s tavalama[8] and drove cattle for hire. At the time when he was driving the cattle for three or four days he said, “Ansca, Bola! Whence is this tavalama for thee? It is mine, isn’t it?” Then the men said, “Ansca, Bola! Whence is it for thee, for a man called up for hire?” Ayiwandā said, “If it be your tavalama, throw up five hundred dried areka-nuts, and catch them without even one’s falling on the ground.” The men tried to catch them; all the dried areka-nuts fell on the ground. Then Ayiwandā, after throwing up five hundred dried areka-nuts, thought, “If there be an authority which Gōpalu Dēvatāwā gave, may I be able to catch the whole of these five hundred dried areka-nuts without even one’s falling on the ground.” Having thrown up the five hundred dried areka-nuts, Ayiwandā caught them without even one’s falling on the ground. After that, the tavalama became secured (hayi-wunā)[9] to Ayiwandā himself. The Moormen left it and went away. Afterwards, getting ready hired labourers for Ayiwandā, he went to Puttalam. Having gone there, loading [sundried] salt fish,[10] now then, Ayiwandā, having become a very great wealthy person, set off to come to Ayiwandā’s village, taking the tavalama, together with the hired labourers. Having come, he caused the sacks to be put down under a Kōn tree[11] in the field near the house of his aunt and uncle. Ayiwandā’s mother came to the tank to pluck the leaves of a plant[12] [to cook as a vegetable]. Having come, through hearing the wooden cattle-bells of the herd of cattle she came near the tavalama. Having come [there] she says, “Anē! A son of mine was like the Heṭṭirāla. That son having gone [to be married], at the place where he was made to stay the woman killed and ate my son.” Having said [this] repeatedly at the very hand of Ayiwandā, she wept. Then Ayiwandā says, “Don’t cry. There is salt fish [here]; take [some] and cooking it eat. What are you plucking vegetables for [but to eat in curry]?” Having said [this], he gave rice and salt fish to Ayiwandā’s mother. Thus, in that way he gave them for seven or eight days. After that, his aunt and uncle came near Ayiwandā for salt fish. Then Ayiwandā said, “I am not the Heṭṭirāla. It is I myself they call Ayiwandā. Take ye these things, so as to go.” Afterwards he dragged the tavalama and the salt fish to the house. Summoning that very bride,[13] Ayiwandā having eaten, when a little [food] is left over on the leaf [plate] he gives it to her. Ayiwandā [now] sleeps on the bed; Ayiwandā’s wife sleeps on the mat on which Ayiwandā wipes his feet, under the bed on which Ayiwandā sleeps. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In a Tamil story taken from the New Year Supplement to the Ceylon Observer, 1885, and reproduced in The Orientalist, vol. ii, p. 22, Katirkāman, a poet who had acquired magical powers, awoke one night to find that some burglars had broken into the house and were removing the goods in it. He scratched a spell on a piece of palm-leaf, placed it under his pillow, and went to sleep again. When he awoke he found all the robbers silent and motionless in the positions they occupied when the spell affected them, some with the goods on their heads or shoulders, others with their hands on keys or door handles. When he spoke to them they apologised humbly, stated that they had mistaken the place and person they were to encounter, and promised never to attempt to rob the house again. He made them put back the goods, gave them a bath and a good meal, and stated that in future they should always have the right to eat and drink there. [3] The text has Ansca, evidently intended for Anicca. This is part of a Buddhist exclamation in Pāli, Aniccan̥ dukkhan̥, “transient is sorrow,” often used colloquially to express astonishment. A Buddhist monk of my acquaintance invariably used it to express even slight surprise at anything, strongly accenting the last syllable of the first word; in fact, all is usually pronounced as though it formed only one word. See also p. 71 below. [↑] [4] This appears to be the meaning. [↑] [5] As a preliminary proceeding, the bridegroom gives the bride a new cloth to put on. [↑] [6] Kandeyayi hēnayayi. Kandeyā, he of the hill = hakurā. [↑] [7] This is a very disrespectful exclamation when addressed by a woman to a man, or an inferior to a superior. A Tamil head-mason once complained to me of the manner in which one of his men, a person of lower caste, had addressed him, and concluded by remarking, “He will say ‘Aḍē!’ to me next.” [↑] [8] A drove of pack-oxen, driven in this instance by “Moormen” (Marakkala men). This method of transporting goods is still practised in districts deficient in cart roads. [↑] [10] Karōla, for karawala. [↑] [11] An Oak-like tree, Schleichera trijuga. [↑] [12] Mukunu-waella kola, apparently Alternanthera sp., termed by Clough Mukuṇu-waenna or Mīkan-palā. [↑] [13] In the text the expression is man̆gula, feast; this word is sometimes used to denote the bride, as well as the wedding feast or the wedding itself. In a story not published we have, haya denekuṭa man̆gul genat innawā, for six persons brides have been brought. [↑] At a city there is a Gamarāla. There are two daughters of the Gamarāla’s; one is given in dīga [marriage] two gawwas (eight miles) distant, the other is not given. He said he would give her to him who comes to ask for her. From [the time] when he said it he did not give her. Having brought [1] Having ploughed the rice field in just one day, and sown paddy there, and chopped the earthen ridges in it, and on that very day blocked up the gaps [in the fence], and come back, and given to the twelve dogs twelve haunches of Sambhar deer, and given leaves to the twelve calves, and poured water on the twelve betel creepers, and come back [after] cutting the Milla stump, and warmed water, can you bathe me?” he asks. Then the son-in-law says, “Aniccan̥ dukkhan̥! Who can do these things?” he says. Then saying, “I shall cut off [your] nose,” he cuts off his nose. In that country they cannot say, “Aniccan̥ dukkhan̥”; should they say it he cuts off the nose. Well then, giving [his daughter] in this fraudulent way, in the aforesaid manner having told two or three persons [these works], in the same way he cut off [their] noses, too. During the time which is going by in that way, there are an elder brother and a younger brother, two persons. The elder brother’s wife having died, he came in the said manner. When he asked for [the girl], the Gamarāla said he will give her. Then in the aforesaid manner he cut off his nose. Having gone away, through shame at going home he remained hidden near the well. The above-mentioned younger brother’s wife having gone [there], when she looked saw that he was hidden, and having come running back, on seeing her husband told him. He went, and when he looked saw that his brother is there. Having seen him, when he asked, “What is it?” he says, “He cut off my nose.” When he asked, “Why so?” he told him in the aforesaid manner. After that, that man says, “Elder brother, you stay [here]; I will go.” Having said [this], and given charge of his wife to the elder brother, he went. Having gone, he asked for the above-mentioned marriage. When he asked, [the Gamarāla] said he will give her. Then he asked if he can work[2] in the above-mentioned manner. He said, “I can.” “If so, go to the rice field,” he said. Having said this, and loaded the paddy [to be sown], he gave it. The man, taking a plough, a yoke pole, a digging hoe, a water gourd, the articles for eating betel, and driving the cattle, went to the rice field. Having gone [there], and tied the yoke on the unoccupied pair of bulls, and tied them exactly in the middle [of the field], and tied at both sides [of the field] the bulls which draw the load, he tore open the corners of the sacks. Having torn [them open] and allowed the paddy to fall, he began to plough. While he was turning two or three times there and here along the rice field, all the paddy fell down. After it fell he unfastened the bulls, and taking the digging hoe, put two or three sods on the earthen ridges (niyara); and having come, and brought away the plough and the yoke pole, and set the yoke pole as a stake in the gap [in the fence], and fixed the plough across it and tied it, and gone away to the house driving the above-mentioned bulls, and cut up the six bulls, and given [their] twelve haunches to the twelve dogs, and drawn out two or three betel-creeper plants, and given them to the twelve calves, and come after cutting the Milla stump, he began to warm the water. When it was becoming hot, he took water and poured it on the betel creepers. Having left the remaining water to thoroughly boil, he called to his father-in-law, “[Be pleased] to bathe with the water,” and having cooled a little water, he poured it first on his body. Secondly, taking [some] of that boiling water he sprinkled it on his body. Thereupon his body was burnt. The Gamarāla, crying out, began to run about; having checked and checked him he began to sprinkle [him again]. Thereafter, both of them came home and stayed there. While they are there the Gamarāla, talking to his wife, says, “This son-in-law is not a good sort of son-in-law. I must kill this one.” Having sought [in vain] for a contrivance to kill him, he says, “We cannot kill this one. Let us send him near our elder daughter.” Having cooked a kuruniya (one-fortieth of an amuṇa) of cakes, and written a letter, and put it in the middle of the cakes, and given it into the hand of his boy (son), he says to the son-in-law, “Child, go near my elder (lit., big) daughter [and give her this box of cakes], and come back.” Having said [this] he sent him near the above-mentioned elder daughter. These two persons (the little son and the son-in-law) having set off, while they were going away, when the boy went into the jungle the son-in-law went [with the box of cakes] to the travellers’ shed that was there; and having unfastened the cake box he began to eat. While he was going on eating he met with the above-mentioned letter. Taking it, and when he looked in it having seen that there was said in it that [the daughter] is to kill him, he tore it up. Then having thought of the name of the boy who goes with him and written that she is to kill the boy, he put it in the box, and as soon as he put it in tied up [the box] and placed [it aside]. The boy having come and taken the box, and said, “Let us go,” they set off. Having gone to the house, while he is [there] the above-mentioned elder daughter having cooked and given him to eat, and unfastened the box, while going on eating the cakes met with this letter. Taking it, and when she looked having seen that there was said [that she was] to kill her brother, quite without inquiry she quickly killed him outright. There was a Bali (evil planetary influence) sending away[3] at the house in which she was. When the woman was wishing and wishing long life (that is, responding loudly, Āyibō! Āyibō!) the boy (her son) said that he wanted to go out. Thereupon, speaking to her sister’s husband, she says, “Conduct this boy to the door.” When she said it, the man, calling the boy, went to the door. There the man with his knife pricks him. Thereupon the boy in fear comes running near his mother. After a little time, when he again said he wanted to go out, his mother says, “Anē! Bolan, split this one’s belly.”[4] When she said it, having gone taking the boy he split his belly. Having come back he asked for a little water to wash the knife. The boy’s mother having come crying, when she looked the boy was killed. This one bounded off, and came running to the very house of the above-mentioned Gamarāla. The Gamarāla having sent a letter to the elder daughter and told her to come, after she came says, “Daughter, when you have gone off to sleep we will put a rope into the house. Put that rope on that one’s neck and fasten it tightly,” he said. Having put the Gamarāla’s younger son-in-law, and younger daughter and elder daughter, these very three persons, in one house, and shut the door, and left them to sleep, he extended a rope from the cat-window (the space between the top of the outer wall and the roof). The elder daughter who had been taught the above-mentioned method [of killing the son-in-law], went to sleep, and stayed so. While this man was looking about, he saw that the rope is coming [over the wall into the room]. Taking the rope, he put it on the elder daughter’s neck and made it tight. The Gamarāla, who stayed outside, having tied the [other end of the] rope to the necks of a yoke of buffalo bulls, made them agitated. When the yoke of cattle had drawn the rope [tight], the Gamarāla, springing and springing upward while clapping his hands, says, “On other days, indeed, he escaped. To-day, indeed, he is caught,” he said. Thereupon the son-in-law, having stayed in the house, came outside and said, “It is not [done] to me; it is your elder daughter herself,” he said. Thereupon the Gamarāla in a perplexity says, “Aniccan̥ dukkhan̥! It is the thing which this one has done!” Just as he was saying it the son-in-law cut off his nose. Having cut it off he went to his own country. Because the word which cannot be said was said [by the Gamarāla] he cut off his nose. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 131, Mr. W. Goonetilleke gave a story about a Gamarāla who cut off the nose of any servant who used the words Aniccan̥ dukkhan̥. A young man took service under him in order to avenge his brother who had been thus mutilated; but the incidents differ from those related in the story given by me. The Gamarāla was surprised into saying the forbidden words when the man poured scalding water over him. The servant immediately cut off his nose, ran home with it, and kicked his brother, who was squatting at the hearth, so that he fell with his face against the hearth stone. This reopened the wound; and when the Gamarāla’s nose was fitted on and bandaged there after application of the juice of a plant which heals cuts, it became firmly attached, and as serviceable as the original nose. In Indian Nights’ Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 106, there is a story of a Moghul who engaged servants on the condition that if he or the servant became angry the other should pull out his eye. A man who had accepted these terms was ordered to plough six acres daily, fence it, bring game for the table, grass for the mare, and firewood, and cook the master’s food. He lost his temper when scolded, and his eye was plucked out. His clever brother determined to avenge him, was engaged by the Moghul, and given the same tasks. He ploughed once round the six acres and twelve furrows across the middle, set up a bundle of brushwood at each corner, tied the bullocks to a tree, and went to sleep. He played various other tricks on his master, including the cooking of his favourite dog for his food. When the master was going for a new wife, the servant, who was sent to notify his coming, said his master was ill and by his doctor’s orders took only common soap made into a porridge with asafœtida and spices. He was sick in the night after taking it, and next morning the man refused to remove the vessel he had used. As the Moghul was carrying it out covered up with a sheet, the friends being told by the man that he was leaving through anger at the food they gave him, ran out and seized his arms to draw him back, and caused him to drop and break the vessel. On their way home they had a quarrel and a scuffle, the Moghul admitted he was angry at last, and the man got him down and plucked out his eye. Some of the incidents are found in the stories numbered 241 and 242 in this volume. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 98, there is an account of a merchant who cut off the nose of any servant who was angry or abusive. In order to be revenged on him, the brother of a man who had been thus mutilated took service under the merchant, irritated him in various ways, was struck in the face, and thereupon cut off his master’s nose. In Folktales of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 124, a Prince and a merchant’s son ran away, and were engaged as labourers on the condition that if they threw up their work they should lose one hand and one ear, the master to be similarly mutilated if he dismissed them while they were willing to work. When the Prince was ordered to hoe sugar-cane he dug it up, when told to scrape and spin hemp he cut it into pieces, when sent to wash his master’s child he beat it on a stone as a washerman beats cloths until it was dead. To get rid of him the master sent him to his father-in-law with a letter in which it was requested that he should be killed. The Prince read it, wrote a fresh one requesting that he should be married to the father-in-law’s daughter, and was married accordingly. He killed his master when about to be killed by him. Some of the incidents are given in the story numbered 242 in this volume. In the same work, p. 258, a Prince who had wasted his money, took service with a farmer on the terms that if he gave it up his little finger was to be cut off, and if dismissed while working well the master was to suffer the same penalty. His friend took his place and over-reached the farmer, who ran away to save himself. In the Kolhān tales (Bompas) appended to the same volume, p. 497, there is also a story of a Prince who was accompanied by a barber when he was exiled. To get a living the Prince took service on the mutilation terms, the penalty being the loss of a piece of skin a span long. He worked badly and was mutilated. The barber to avenge him took his place, and irritated his master until he got an opportunity of mutilating him in the same way. [1] The yāla being twenty amuṇas, the total area was the extent that would be sown with 1,212 amuṇas, each being six bushels (or 5·7 bushels in the district where the story was related). At two and a half bushels per acre this would be about 2,900 acres. [↑] [2] Lit., Can he work. The same form of expression is used by the Irish. [↑] [3] Bali aerumak, conducted by a person termed Bali-tiyannā. The patient and a friend sitting on each side of him or her, respond in a loud voice, “Āyibō, Āyibō!” (Long life!) at each pause in the invocations. The wish of long life is addressed to the deity of the planet. [↑] In a certain country there is a Gamarāla; the Gamarāla had no wives. While he was thus, at one time (eka pārama) he brought seven wives; all the seven had no children. Again he brought yet a woman; that woman also had no children. After that, when the man was going in order to escort the woman [on returning her to her parents], they met with a Sannyāsi. The Sannyāsi asked, “What is it? Where are you going?” The man said, “I brought seven wives; all seven had no children. After that, I brought this woman. Because the woman also had no children I am going in order to escort her [to her parents again].” Then the Sannyāsi says, “I will perform a protective spell (ārakshāwa) for children to be born, if you will give me the lad who is born first of all.” The Gamarāla promised, “I will give him.” Afterwards the Gamarāla having come back, when a little time had gone she bore a boy. After the boy became somewhat big he planted a flower tree. The Gamarāla having told the Sannyāsi to come gave him the boy; the Sannyāsi having taken him went away. The lad says to the Gamarāla, “Should I die the flowers on the flower tree will fade.” Younger than this lad [the Gamarāla’s wife] bore yet a boy. When the Sannyāsi was taking the lad he met with a man. This man said to the lad, “Lad, the Sannyāsi will give you a thread. Tie it to a tree, and having got out of the way remain [there].” The Sannyāsi having gone with the lad near a hidden treasure, gave a thread into the boy’s hand, saying, “Remain holding this.” The lad tied the thread to a tree; having hidden himself he remained [there]. The Sannyāsi put “life” into it.[1] Then the Yakā [who guarded the treasure] having come, asked from the Sannyāsi, “Where is the demon offering (billa)?” Thereupon the Sannyāsi said, “There (ān̥) he is, [at the end of the thread].” Then when the Yakā looked there was no one. Well then, the Yakā broke the Sannyāsi’s neck and drank his blood. After the Yakā went away the hidden treasure burst open. That lad having come and taken the things of the hidden treasure (nin̆dānē kaḷamanā), again went to a Gamarāla’s[2] house. Having gone, and taken lodgings at the house, while he is there they are preparing (tānawā) to give that Gamarāla’s girl in dīga (marriage). They will give her for the manner in which the Cinnamon-peeler’s cloth is worn, and to a person who wore the cloth [most correctly]. Well, anyone of those who were there was unable to do it. This youth wore it. After that, the Gamarāla gave the girl to the lad. When the lad was bathing one day the girl saw the beauty of the lad’s figure. After that, the girl having said, “This man’s figure is too beautiful![3] I don’t want him,” prepared a contrivance to kill him. Having got a false illness she lay down. Afterwards the lad said, “What is the difficulty for you?” Then the girl [said], “You must bring and give me the milk of the wild Elephant that is in the jungle; if not, I shall die.” After that, the lad having taken the coconut water-vessel,[4] and having gone into the jungle, went near the Elephant calves. Then the Elephant calves [asked], “What have you come for?” This lad said, “Anē! I came to take a little milk from the Elephant for medicine for me.” The Elephant calves said, “If so, you remain hidden there; we will take and give it to you.” The Elephant calves having gone near the female Elephant, one Elephant calf stayed near the Elephant’s trunk; the other one drinks a little milk, and puts a little into the coconut water-vessel. Having done thus, and collected milk for that coconut water-vessel, it brought and gave it to this lad. The lad having brought it,[5] gave it to the woman, and told her to drink it. Afterwards the woman drank it. In still a little time, again having said that she had an illness, she lay down. That lad asked, “What are you again lying down for?” The girl says, “Bring the milk of the female Bear (walasdena) in the jungle. Should I drink it this illness of mine will be cured.” Afterwards, this lad, having taken the coconut water-vessel, and gone to the jungle and gone near a Bear cub, said, “Anē! You must take and give to me a little Bear’s milk for medicine.” Afterwards, the Bear cub having said, “If so, you remain hidden there until the time when I bring it,” took the coconut water-vessel, and having gone near the female Bear, drinks a little milk, and again pours a little into the coconut water-vessel. In that way having collected it, it brought and gave it to that lad. The lad brought the Bear’s milk home, and gave it to the woman to drink. The girl having drunk it, in still a few days again lay down. The lad asked, “What are you again lying down for (budi)?” Then the girl [said], “Having brought for me the milk of the Giju-lihinī[6] which is in the jungle, should I drink it this illness will be cured.” Afterwards the lad, having taken the coconut water-vessel and gone, went near the young ones of the Giju-lihinī, and said, “Anē! I must take a little milk of the Giju-lihinī for medicine.” Afterwards, those Giju-lihinī young ones having told the lad to remain hidden, in the very same manner as before brought and gave the milk. The lad brought and gave it to the girl to drink. The girl having drunk it said that the illness was cured. Well then, these two persons have a boy (son). Still having said that she had illness, this girl lay down. The lad asked her [about it] in the same manner as before. The girl said, “Having wrestled[7] with the Yaksanī who is in the jungle, should you come back after conquering, indeed, my illness will be cured.” After the lad went into the jungle he met with the Yaksanī. Having met with her, the Yaksanī said, “We two must wrestle to-day; having wrestled, the fallen person (waeṭicci kenā) will lose.” This lad said, “It is good,” and having wrestled the lad fell, and the Yaksanī killed the lad. Then at that place [where he planted it] the flower also faded. Well then, the Gamarāla sent the other younger youth on horseback to look [for him]. When the youth was coming he met with the Yaksanī who killed that lad. Having met with her the youth said, “Give me (dila) my elder brother,” he asked. The Yaksanī said, “I don’t know [about that].” Then the youth [said], “Don’t say ‘No’; you must give him, quickly.” The Yaksanī said, “Let you and me wrestle. Having wrestled, should you fall I shall not give him; should I fall I will give you your elder brother.” Both having agreed to it, they wrestled. Having wrestled, the Yaksanī lost. After that, the Yaksanī having caused that killed lad to come to life,[8] gave him to that youth. Well then, the elder brother and younger brother, both of them, having mounted on the back of the horse went to the very city where the elder brother stayed. The younger brother again came [home], having caused the elder brother to remain at that very place. Well then, that elder brother’s boy having said, “Father, there is no stopping here for us; let us go to another country,” the two started, and at the time when they were going they met with a tank. The boy asked, “Father, how far (koccara taen) can you swim in this tank?” The boy’s father said “Let us see,” and having swum a little space (ṭikak taen) being unable [to swim further] came back. The boy said, “Father, if you cannot swim, clasping my hand let us go,” he said. The man was held by the boy’s hand. While swimming, the boy when he was going to the far bank caught a shark also. Having taken it also and gone to the far bank, he cut up the shark and divided it into three. Having divided it, and eaten two heaps of it, and taken the other heap,[9] they go away to another country. Having gone there they arrived (eli-baessā) at the palace (vimānē) of a Rākshasa. When they went two Rākshasa lads were [there]. The Rākshasa and Rākshasī went to eat human flesh. The two Rākshasa lads said, “Anē! What have you come to this place for? Should our mother and father come they will eat you up (kālā damayi).” Then these two having said, “Anē! Don’t say so; to-day you must somehow or other (kohomawat) save us and send us away,” those two Rākshasa lads hid them. The Rākshasa and Rākshasī came. Having come there, “What is this smell of dead bodies?” they asked. The Rākshasa lads [said], “Having come after eating men’s flesh, what do you say ‘smell of dead bodies’ for?” Well then, the Rākshasī and Rākshasa swore, “We will not eat; son, tell us.” At that place these two Rākshasa lads showed those two, father and son, to these two. Although this Rākshasī and Rākshasa could not bear not to eat those two, because they had sworn that day they were forbearing. On the next day the two persons went away to another country. Having gone there they arrived near a tank. Both having descended at the bank, swam. When they were going to the middle of the tank both of them being soaked with the water died. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. [1] Jīvan keruwā, made magical “life” or power in it, by means of spells. [↑] [2] Gamarāla kenekunnē; this plural form is often used for the singular. A few lines further on we have, redda aendapu kenekunḍayi. [↑] [3] Probably said sarcastically; he may have had a bad figure. This kind of sarcastic talk is very common in the villages. [↑] [4] A coconut shell slung from cords, for use as a water-vessel (mungawē). [↑] [5] Lit., “them,” kiri, milk, being a plural noun. [↑] [6] Compare the similar account on p. 296, vol. i. In Clough’s Dictionary, Giju-lihiṇiyā (lit., Vulture-glider or hawk) is termed Golden Eagle, a bird which is not found in India or Ceylon. Apparently the word is a synonym of Rukh (the Æt-kanda Lihiṇiyā), which in the second note, p. 300, vol. i, is said to be “of the nature of vultures.” In Man, vol. xiii, p. 73, Captain W. E. H. Barrett published an A’Kikuyu (East African) story in which when a man took refuge inside a dead elephant the animal was carried off by a huge vulture to a tree in the midst of a great lake. The man escaped by grasping one of the bird’s tail feathers when it flew away, and being thus carried by it to land, without its knowledge. [↑] [7] Oṭṭu-welā, having pushed against. [↑] [8] Lit., to be (re-)born. [↑] [9] The narrator, belonging to a village in the far interior, evidently thought a shark is a small fish, little larger than those caught in the tanks. Compare also No. 214, in which a Queen carries a shark home to eat. [↑] In a certain country there are a Gamarāla and a Gama-Mahagē (his wife), it is said. When they were there not much time (nom̆bō kālayak), for the Mahagē [there was] pregnancy longing; well then, she is not eating food. The Gamarāla asked, “What is it, Bolan? You are not eating food,” he asked. The woman said, “I have pregnancy longing.” The man asked, “What can you eat?” The woman said, “Seven days (haddawasak) having warmed water (paen) give it to me.” The Gamarāla having warmed water gave it [on] seven days; the Gama-Mahagē bathed seven days [with] the water. The Gamarāla asked, “Now then, is it well, the pregnancy longing?” The woman said, “It is well.” Well, ten months having been fulfilled she bore a boy. Until the time the boy becomes able to talk they reared him. [Then] the Gamarāla said, “To look what this boy says, having taken him let us bury him.”[1] The Gama-Mahagē also having said “Hā,” they took him to bury. Having cut the grave (lit., hole) and placed him in the grave, they covered [him with] earth (pas waehaewwā). Then the boy said, “Anē! What did mother and father[2] bury me for? If I remained with [them]—the smith does not beat the piece of iron [after] having placed it on the anvil—many will I beat (hammer) for them both.”[3] The Gamarāla and the Mahagē having said, “That one to us [is] a smith’s boy,” and having well trampled still [more] earth [on him] came home. When they were thus for no long time, for the Mahagē again [there was] pregnancy longing; well then, she is not eating food. The Gamarāla asked, “What is it, Bolan? You are not eating food.” The woman said, “I have pregnancy longing.” The Gamarāla said, “What can you eat for the pregnancy longing?” The woman said, “[On] seven days from the Blue-lotus-flower pool having brought water, seven days having warmed it give me it (dilan) to drink.” The Gamarāla having brought the water, [on] seven days having warmed it gave it; the woman on the very seven days drank. The Gamarāla asked, “Now then, is it well, the pregnancy longing?” The woman said, “It is well.” Well then, ten months having been fulfilled (lit., filled) she bore a son. Until the time he became able to talk they reared him. [Then] the Gamarāla said, “To look what this one says, let us bury him.” The woman having said “Hā,” they took him, and having cut the grave and placed him in the grave, they covered [him with] earth. The boy said and said, “Anē! What did they bury me for? If I remained [with them]—the potter does not beat [the clay for] the pots—[for] many will I beat it.” The two persons having said, “That one is not ours[4]—a potter’s boy,” and having put still [more] earth [on him] and trampled it, came home. Having come there, when they were [there] no long time, for the woman [there was] pregnancy longing; she is without food. The Gamarāla asked, “What is it, Bolan? You are not eating food.” The woman said, “I have pregnancy longing.” The Gamarāla asked, “What can you eat?” The woman said, “Having cut a hollow well (puhu lin̆dak) and brought the water (diya), seven days having warmed it give me it for me to bathe.” The Gamarāla having cut a hollow well, [on] seven days having warmed the water gave it. The woman seven days bathed [with] the water. The Gamarāla said, “Now then even, is the pregnancy longing well?” The woman said, “It is well.” When she was [there] not much time she bore a boy. Having reared him until the time when the boy became able to talk, the Gamarāla said, “Having taken this one let us bury him, to look what he says.” The Gama-Mahagē having said “Hā,” they took him, and having cut the grave and placed him in the grave, covered [him with] earth. The boy said, “Anē! If I remained [with them]—the washerman does not wash cloth for them—many will I wash.” The two persons having said, “That one [is] not ours—a washerman’s boy,” put still [more] earth [on him] and having trampled it came home. (On the next occasion the woman stated, in reply to her husband’s inquiry as to what food she wanted, that she required nothing. When the son was buried he said, “What [did they bury] me for? For them[5] I—the tom-tom beater does not beat the tom-tom—will beat many.”[6] They said, “That one [is] not ours—a tom-tom beater’s boy,” and they finished the burial and returned home. On the fifth occasion, when asked what she could eat, the woman said, “There is the mind to eat (sic) buffalo milk.” When the boy was placed in the grave he said, “Anē! What did our mother and father bury me for? If I remained [with them], having arrived near a King, [after I am] exercising the sovereignty won’t our mother and father, both of them, get subsistence for themselves?”[7] The story continues:—) Well then, the two persons having said, “This one himself [is] our child,” getting him to the surface[8] they brought him home. (On the sixth occasion the woman required cow’s milk. After she had “eaten” it (lit., them, the word for milk being a plural noun) the longing was allayed. Like the others, the boy who was born was buried when he could talk. He said, “Anē! What did our mother and father bury me for? If I remained [with them] won’t the two persons get a subsistence, I having even done cultivation and trading?”) The rest of the story is as follows:—The two persons having said, “This one himself [is] our child,” getting him to the surface they brought him home. When they were rearing him not much time, the Gamarāla’s two eyes became blind. This boy having become big is continuing to give assistance to the two persons. Then the Gamarāla died. The elder (lit., big) boy has taken the sovereignty. The elder brother and younger brother, both, [assisting her]—one having done cultivation (goyitan) and trading, one having exercised the sovereignty—that woman is obtaining a subsistence. The woman having become old, one day (dawasakdā) that younger brother went to see that elder brother and return to the city. Having gone, as he was coming back Śakra having come, taking an old appearance, took away the Gama-Mahagē. The boy having come and looked [for her], at his mother’s absence is weeping and weeping. Śakra, creating an old appearance, having come asked at the boy’s hand, “What are you weeping for?” The boy said, “On account of our mother’s absence I am weeping.” Śakra said, “Why? While your mother has become old you weep! Whatever time it should be, life goes.” The boy said, “I must go to see our mother’s life.” Śakra having taken him to the Śakra residence (bawana) showed him the boy’s mother. Having shown her, Śakra asked, “Can you stay here?” Then the boy said, “I having asked at elder brother’s hand must come,” and came [back to earth]. Having gone to the elder brother’s city and said, “Elder brother, our mother having gone is in the Śakra residence; I also will go,” the elder brother replied, “If you can, go.” He having said it, he came away to go, [but] the boy not knowing the path simply stayed [at home]. Finished. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. I have inserted this pointless tale on account of the evidence it affords of a belief that infanticide was practised in former times; I may add that I have adhered as closely as possible to the text. It agrees with the story numbered 243 in this volume (a tale from Ratmalāna, about eight miles south of Colombo), that children who were not likely to prove useful were sometimes buried alive. For other instances of infanticide see the Index to vol. i. I am unable to refer to Indian instances in which Śakra occupies the position of Yama as the God of Death; but in Ceylon he is sometimes represented as being a Dharma-raja, a god of righteousness or justice, and this is a function of Yama. See the verse at the end of the story numbered 179 in vol. ii; in No. 107, vol. ii, it is Śakra who kills the wicked Princess. The reason for cutting a special well with the water of which the women wished to bathe, was that they would thus obtain undefiled water. [1] Their idea apparently was that when at the point of death he would speak the truth, and they would thus learn if he were likely to be useful to them. [↑] [3] Nē owun dennāṭa talannē. [↑] [6] Berē taḍi-gahan[nē] naehae, newē talannē. [↑] [7] Raksā kara-gannawā nāē. [↑] In a certain country there are a Carpenter and a Heṭṭirāla, it is said. There are also the wives of the two persons; there are also the two sons of the two persons. The Carpenter and the Heṭṭirāla spoke together: “Let us send our two children to school.” Having spoken thus, they sent the Carpenter’s son and the Heṭṭirāla’s son to school. At the time when the two had been going to school no long period, the Heṭṭirāla took and gave a cart and a bull to the Heṭṭirāla’s son. Well then, the Heṭṭirāla’s son goes to school in the cart; the Carpenter’s son goes on the ground. A day or two having gone by he does not go again. Afterwards the Carpenter asked, “Why, Aḍē! dost thou not go to school?” Then said the youngster, “The Heṭṭirāla’s son goes in the cart; I cannot go on the ground.” After that, the Carpenter also took and gave (anna dunnā) a cart and a yoke of bulls to the Carpenter’s son. Now then, the Carpenter’s son also, tying [the bulls to] the cart, goes to school. Then the Heṭṭirāla’s son, having sold the cart and bull, got a horse and horse carriage. The Heṭṭirāla’s son began to go in the horse carriage. Then the Carpenter’s son does not go to school. Then the Carpenter asked, “What dost thou not go to school for?” The Carpenter’s son said, “The Heṭṭirāla’s son goes in the horse carriage; I cannot go in an ordinary (nikan) cart.” Afterwards, the Carpenter having said, “If the Heṭṭirāla’s son goes in the horse carriage, am I not a Carpenter? Having made a better one than that I will give you it,” constructed a wooden Peacock (dan̆ḍu mon̆ḍarā) and gave it to the Carpenter’s son. Afterwards the Carpenter’s son, rowing on the wooden Peacock [through the air], goes to school. When they were thus for not a long time, the Carpenter died; the Carpenter’s wife also died. Afterwards this Carpenter’s son thought to himself that he must seek for a marriage for himself. Having thought it he went rowing the wooden Peacock to a city. There is a Princess of that city. The Princess alone was at the palace when the Carpenter’s son was going. Afterwards the Carpenter’s son asked at the hand of the Princess, “Can you (puḷuhanida) go with me to our country?” Then the Princess said, “I will not go; if you be here I can [marry you].” After that, the Carpenter’s son marrying[1] the Princess, stays [there]. While he was there two Princes were born. After that, the Carpenter’s son said to the Princess, “Taking these two Princes also, let us go to our country.” The Princess said “Hā.” Well then, while the Princess and the Carpenter’s son, and the two Princes of these two, were going [through the air] on the back of that wooden Peacock, that younger Prince said, “I am thirsty.”[2] The Carpenter’s son having split his [own] palm gave him blood. The Prince said, “I cannot drink blood; I must drink water.” Afterwards, having lowered the wooden Peacock to the ground, [the Carpenter’s son] went to seek water. [While he was absent] the younger Prince cut the cord of the wooden Peacock. The Carpenter’s son having gone thus, [after] finding water came back and gave it to the Prince. Afterwards, after the Prince drank the water he tried to make the wooden Peacock row aloft; he could not, because [the young Prince] cut the wooden Peacock’s cord. Afterwards, having left (damalā) the wooden Peacock there, [the Carpenter’s son] came to the river with the Princess and the two Princes; having come [there] they told the boatman to put them across (ekan-karawanḍa). Afterwards, the boatman firstly having placed the Carpenter’s son on the high ground on the other bank (egoḍa goḍē), and having come back to this bank, placing the Princess in the boat took her below along the river, and handed over the Princess to the King of the boatman’s city. The Carpenter’s son having stayed on the high ground on the other bank, became a beggar, and went away.[3] Those two Princes having been weeping and weeping on this bank, jumped into the river. The two Princes went upwards and upwards in the river—there is a crocodile-house (burrow)—along the crocodile-house they went upward [and came to the surface of the ground]. Having gone there, while they were there weeping and weeping a widow woman having come for water (watura pārē) asked, “What are you weeping and weeping there for?” at the hand of the two Princes. Then the two Princes say, “Anē! Being without our mother and father we are weeping and weeping.” Then the widow woman said, “Come, if so, and go with me.” Afterwards, having said “Hā,” the two Princes went with the widow woman. Having thus gone, the widow woman gave food to the two Princes. While they were growing big and large the King said at the hand of that Princess, “Now then, let us marry.” Then the Princess said, “In our country, when a Princess has either been sent away (divorced, aericcahamawat) or has made mistakes (pāḍāwāri weccahamawat), she does not marry until the time when three years[4] go by. When the three years have gone (gihāma) let us marry.” Afterwards the King, having placed a guard for the Princess, waited until the time when the three years go by. These two Princes who jumped into the river one day went to be on guard. The Princess asked at the hand of the Princes, “Whence are you?” Then the Princes said, “While we were young at a very distant city our mother and father were lost near the river. A widow woman having brought us away is now rearing us.” Then the Princess said, “It is your (um̆balē) mother indeed who is I; your father is now walking about, continuing to beg and eat. I will perform a meritorious deed (pinkomak) and bring him; you, also, join yourselves to the beggars’ party.” Having said this, and given the two Princes silver and gold things, she sent them away. That Princess at the hand of the King said, “I must perform a meritorious deed, to give money to those with crippled arms, lame persons, and beggars.” Afterwards the King by the notification tom-toms gave public notice to those with crippled arms, and lame persons, and beggars, to come [for the alms-giving]. Afterwards they came; that Carpenter’s son, the beggar, also came. To the whole of them[5] she gave money; to that Carpenter’s son she gave much,—silver and gold. Having given it, the Princess said, “Having taken these and gone, not losing them, construct a city for us to stay in when we have come together again,” she said. “Our two Princes also are near such and such a widow woman; [after] joining them, go.” Afterwards that Carpenter’s son, joining the two Princes also, went and built a city. Afterwards this Princess—having placed a guard over whom, the King had stopped—having bounded off, unknown to the King[6] went to the city which the Carpenter’s son and the two Princes built. Well then, the Princess, and the Carpenter’s son, and the two Princes stayed at the city. Finished. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In the Jātaka story No. 193 (vol. ii, p. 82), a Prince who was travelling alone with his wife is described as cutting his right knee with his sword when she was overcome with thirst, in order to give her blood to drink. In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 142, a Prince married a carpenter’s daughter, and afterwards became poor, and a drum-beater for conjurers and dancers, a fate from which his second wife and her son rescued him. In a story of the Western Province numbered 240 in this volume, a Princess recovered her husband by giving a dāna, or feast for poor people, and observing those who came to eat it. See also No. 247. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton’s ed., vol. iii, p. 84), in the story of “Āli Shār and Zumurrud,” the lady, who while disguised as a man had been chosen as King, recovered her husband by giving a free feast to all comers at the new moon of each month, and watching the persons who came, her husband Āli Shār, then a poor man, being present at the fifth full moon. At each of the earlier feasts she found and punished men who had been responsible for her own and her husband’s misfortunes. In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 101, a merchant’s son who was travelling through a waterless desert for seven days, kept his wife alive by giving her his own flesh and blood. See vol. ii, Nos. 80 and 81, and the appended notes. [1] Lit., “tying the hand”; the little fingers of the bride and bridegroom are tied together by a thread in the marriage ceremony. [↑] [3] In the text this sentence follows the next one. [↑] [4] Lit., a tri-ennium, a three-year, tun-awuruddak. This is an invention of the woman’s; there is no custom of the kind in Ceylon. [↑] At a certain city there are a King and a Queen. There are also two Princes. During the time while they were living thus, while the Queen was lying down at noon, a hen-sparrow had built a house (nest) on the ridge-pole. The Queen remained looking at it. When the Queen was there on the following day [the bird] hatched young ones. When they had been there many days, a young sparrow, having fallen to the ground, died. The Queen, taking the young sparrow in her hand, looked at it. Having opened its mouth, when she looked in it there was a fish spine in the mouth. The Queen threw the young one away. After that, the hen-sparrow was not at the nest; another hen having come, stayed there. Afterwards, two young sparrows having fallen to the ground again and died, when the Queen taking them in her hand looked at them, two fish spines were in their mouths. The Queen threw them both away, too. On account of what she saw the Queen thought, “[This] is not the hen which hatched these young ones. [The cock-sparrow] having called in another one [as his mate], she has been making them eat these spines to kill them.” Then from this the Queen got in her mind, “When I am not [here] it will indeed be like this for my children.” Well then, through that grief the Queen died. After she died the King brought another Queen. This Queen beats and scolds the two Princes. Afterwards the Princes said to their father the King, “We must go even to our uncle’s[1] house.” “Why must you go?” asked the King. The Princes said, “Our step-mother beats and scolds us.” Afterwards the King said, “Go there, you.” When the two Princes went to their uncle’s house, “What, Princes, have you come for?” the uncle asked. “Our step-mother beats and scolds us; on that account we came.” “If so, stay,” the uncle said. Afterwards, when they had been there in that way not much time, as they were going playing and playing with oranges through the midst of the city, an orange fruit fell in the King’s palace. Then the Princes asked for it at the hand of the Queen: “Step-mother, give us that orange fruit.” The Queen said, “Am I a slave to drag about anybody’s orange?” After that, the big Prince having gone to the palace, taking the orange fruit came away. Afterwards, tearing the cloth that was on the Queen’s waist, and stabbing herself with a knife [the Queen] awaited the time when the King, who went to war, came back. The King having come asked, “What is it?” “Your two Princes having come and done [this] work went away.” On account of it the King appointed to kill the two Princes. Having given information of it to the King’s younger brother also, the younger brother asked, “What is that for?” The King said, “After I went to the war these two Princes went to the palace, and tore the Queen’s cloth also, and having stabbed and cut her with their knives, the blood was flowing down when I came.” After that, the King’s younger brother asked at the hand of those Princes, “Why did you come and beat the Queen, and stab and cut her with the knife, and go away?” The Princes said, “We did not do even one thing in that way. As we were coming playing and playing with oranges, our orange fruit having fallen in the palace, when we asked our step-mother for it she did not give it. ‘Am I a slave to drag about oranges?’ she said. Afterwards we went into the palace, and taking the orange fruit went away. We did not do a thing of that kind,” they said. The King, however, did not take that to be true. “I must kill the two Princes,” he said. Their uncle took the word of the two Princes for the truth. Afterwards the Princes’ uncle said, “Go to the river, and [after] washing your heads come back.” As they were setting off the Princes took a bow and arrow; and having gone to the river, while they were there, when they were becoming ready to wash their heads, two hares, bounding and bounding along, came in front of the two Princes. Having seen the hares, the younger son said, “Elder brother, shoot those two hares.” He shot at them; at the stroke the two hares died. The two Princes, washing their heads, took away the two hares also. Having gone to the city, and given them into the uncle’s hand, the uncle plucked out the four eye-balls of the hares, and gave them into the Queen’s hands:—“Here; they are the four eye-balls of the Princes,” he said. Afterwards, having looked and looked at the eyes, she brought an In̆di (wild Date) spike, and saying and saying, “Having looked and looked with these eyes, did you torment me so much?” she went to the palace where the King was, and pierced [with the spike] the very four [eyes]. After that, having cooked the hares’ flesh, and cooked and given them a bundle of rice, the uncle told the two Princes to go where they wanted, and both of them went away. (Apparently the story is incomplete, but the narrator knew of no continuation, and I did not meet with it elsewhere.) Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In The Jātaka, No. 120 (vol. i, p. 265), a Queen of the King of Benares is described as scratching herself, rubbing oil on her limbs, and putting on dirty clothes in order to support the charge she brought against the Chaplain, of assaulting her during the King’s absence on a warlike expedition. In No. 472 (vol. iv, p. 118) a Queen scratched herself and put on soiled clothes in order to induce the King to believe that her son-in-law, Prince Paduma, had assaulted her. Paduma was accordingly sentenced to be thrown down a precipice. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 27, a Queen who was a Prince’s step-mother behaved in the same way until the King promised to kill the boy. He smeared the blood of a dog on his sword, and abandoned the boy in the forest. In Indian Nights’ Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 273, a King observed that two swallows had a nest in a veranda at the palace. The hen disappeared, having been caught by a falconer. The cock constantly attended to the young ones, but when it brought a fresh mate the two came only once on the second day, and the cock then disappeared. The King then examined the nest, and found in it four dead young ones, each with a thorn in its throat. He concluded that if his wife died and he married again the new Queen might ill-treat his two sons. After a while the Queen died and the King was persuaded by the Ministers to marry again. One day when the two Princes were amusing themselves with pigeons one of the birds alighted near the new Queen, who hid it under a basket and denied that she had seen it, but guided by signs made by an old nurse the younger Prince found and took it. On another occasion the elder Prince recovered one in the same way, though forcibly opposed by the Queen. The Queen then charged them with insulting her, the King banished them, and they went away. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 166, a King and Queen while in the veranda of the palace watched a pair of birds at a nest. One day a strange hen was seen to go with the cock to the nest, carrying thorns in her bill. When the nest was examined it was discovered that the thorns had been given to the young ones, and that they were dead. The King and Queen discussed it, and the King promised not to marry again if the Queen died. When she died, by the Ministers’ advice and after many refusals he married a Minister’s daughter who became jealous of the two Princes, complained of their disobedience and abusive language, and induced the King to order them to be killed in the jungle. There the soldiers’ swords being turned into wood they allowed the boys to escape. The rest of the story is given in the last note, vol. i, p. 91. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton’s ed., vol. iv, p. 71), in the Sindibad-nāmeh, the favourite concubine of the King of China fell in love with his only son and offered to poison his father, but on his rejection of her offers she tore her robes and hair, and charged him with assaulting her. The seven Wazīrs told the King tales of the perfidy of women, and persuaded him to countermand the death penalty to which the Prince was sentenced, the Prince explained the affair, and the woman was sent away. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 107, the favourite concubine of a King being repulsed by the Crown Prince, charged him with improper conduct towards her, and induced the King to send him to govern the frontier districts. She and a Counsellor then forged an order that he must pluck out and send his eyes. When she received them she hung them before her bed and addressed opprobrious language to them. The Prince became a flute player, and while earning a living thus, accompanied by his wife, was recognised by his father, who scourged the two plotters with thorns, poured boiling oil on their wounds, and buried them alive. In Santal Folk Tales (Campbell), p. 33, a raja and his wife observed the attention paid by a hen-sparrow to her young ones, and that after she died another mate who was brought let them die of hunger. The queen pointed this out, and told the raja to take care of her children in case she died. When he was persuaded by his subjects to marry afresh after her death, the new wife took a dislike to the elder son, and by an assumed illness induced the raja to exile him. The other brother accompanied him, and they had various adventures. [1] Bāppā, the father’s younger brother. [↑] At a certain village there is a woman, it is said; the woman went in a dīga [marriage]. Having gone in the dīga, when she is there a great many days she began to eat by stealth (horā-kanḍa). Afterwards the man having said, “I don’t want the woman who eats by stealth,” and having gone [with her] to her village, put her back [there]. Afterwards, after many days went by, yet [another] man having come, went back, calling her [in marriage]. [When living] near (i.e., with) that man also she began to eat by stealth. Afterwards that man also having said, “I don’t want this woman who eats by stealth,” and having gone [with her] to her village, put her back [there]. Thus, in that way she went in ten or twelve dīga [marriages], it is said. Because she eats by stealth, they bring her back and place her [at home again]. Afterwards, still a man came and asked [for her in marriage]. The woman’s father said, “Child, I gave her in ten or twelve dīga [marriages]. Because she eats by stealth, having brought and brought her, they put her [back here]. Because of it, should I give her to you it will not be successful,” he said. Then the man said, “Father-in-law, no matter that she ate by stealth. If you will give her give her to me,” he said. Afterwards the woman’s father said, “If you are willing in that way, even now call her and go,” he said. Thereupon the man, calling her, went away.[1] Having investigated for a great many days, when he looked [he saw that] she eats by stealth. Afterwards the man said to the woman, “Bolan, it has become necessary for me to eat a [special] food. How about it?” he said. “What is it?” the woman asked. “It is in my mind to eat milk-cake,”[2] he said. Then the woman said, “Is that a very wonderful work? Let us cook it on any day you want it,” she said. Afterwards the man said, “If so, when you cook it I cannot look and look on, eyeing it, and [then] eat it. To-day I am going on a journey; you cook.” Having said [this], the man dressed himself well, and having left the house behind, and gone a considerable distance [returned and got hid]. When he was hidden, the woman, taking the large water-pot, went for water. Having seen it, the man went running, and having got on the platform in the room (at the level of the top of the side walls), remained looking out. The woman, taking rice and having put it to soak and pounded it into flour, began to cook. After having [cooked some cakes and eaten part of them, she] cooked a fresh package of cakes, and finished; and having put the fresh package of cakes into syrup, and laid the packet of cakes over the others which remained, and covered them, she took the water-pot and went to the well, and having taken water after bathing, set off to come back. The man quickly descended from the platform, and having gone to the path, got hid. The woman came to the house, taking the water, and having placed the water-pot [there], when she was taking betel the man came out from the place where he was hidden, and came to the house. Afterwards, the woman having apportioned the milk-cake on the plate, and said, “In̆dā! Eat,” gave him it. Thereupon the man, looking in the direction of the plate, says, “What are ye saying? Get out of the way. Should she eat it secretly in that way, it is for her stomach, and should she eat it openly it is for her stomach,” he said. In that way he says it two or three times. The woman heard. Afterwards the woman asked, “Without eating the milk-cake, what do you say that for?” she asked. Thereupon the man says, “These flies are saying to me that after you were cooking, you cooked a fresh package of cakes, and having finished, and put the package of cakes into syrup, you ate the package. Afterwards I said, ‘Should she eat it secretly (hemin̥) it is for her (un̥daege) stomach; should she eat it openly it is for her stomach,’ ” he said. Beginning from that day, the woman, having said, “Do you tell tales in that way?” began to kill the flies. She also stopped eating by stealth. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. [1] The consent of the parent or legal guardian was the only essential for a legal marriage, according to the ancient customs. [↑] [2] Kī-roṭi. I do not know the cake, nor the meaning of the first syllable unless it be derived from kshīra, milk. [↑] In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. The woman has a pregnancy longing to eat Kaṭuwala [yams]. There is a Bitch, also; she also has a pregnancy longing; that also is to eat Kaṭuwala [yams]. After that, the man and the woman and the Bitch, the three, went to uproot Kaṭuwala [yams]. Having gone there, and the man having said, “This is for her of ours” (his wife),[1] when he uprooted it on it there was no yam. Having said, “This is for the Bitch,” when he uprooted it on it there were yams such that the hands could not lift them. Uprooting them, and having come home and boiled them, when they were eating the Bitch stayed at the doorway. Without giving [any] to the Bitch the man and woman ate them. Afterwards the Bitch thought, “For their not giving the Kaṭuwala [yams] to me may the children born in my body be born in the woman’s body, and the children born in the woman’s body be born in my body.” The Bitch went to the forest jungle (himāle); having gone, and entered a rock cave, she bore two Princesses. Having borne them the Bitch went to eat food. [The Princesses grew up there.] Then a Vaeddā having come shooting, when he looked there are two Princesses. Having seen them, the Vaeddā, breaking and breaking branches [to mark the way to the cave], came to the city. Having come there he told at the hand of the King, “In the chena jungle, at such and such a place, in a rock cave there are two Princesses. It is to say this I have come here.” Afterwards the King sent the King’s two Princes to go with the Vaeddā to summon the Princesses and come. While going there the Vaeddā said on the road, to the Princes, “When I have gone and am begging for a little fire at the hand of the two Princesses, they will open the door in order to give the fire. Then you two must spring into the house.” Having gone near the rock cave, the Vaeddā asked for fire. Then the Princesses having opened the door a very little, when they were preparing to give the fire the two Princes sprang into the house. Then the two Princesses fainted, having become afraid. Afterwards, causing them to become conscious, summoning the two Princesses they went to the city [and married them]. The Bitch having come, when she looked the two Princesses were not [there]. After that, having gone along the path on which they had gone breaking branches she went to the city in which the Princesses are. Having gone there, when she went to the place where the elder Princess is, the Princess said, “Cī, Cī,[2] bitch!” and having beaten her, drove her away. Having gone from there, when she went to the place where the younger Princess is, she bathed her in water scented with sandal wood and placed her upon the bed. Then the Bitch became a golden ash-pumpkin. Then the Prince having come, asked at the hand of the Princess, “Whence the golden ash-pumpkin upon the bed?” The Princess said, “Our mother brought and gave it.” Then the Prince thought, “When she brought so much to the house, after we have gone to her house how much will she not give!” Having said to the Princess, “Let us go,” they take a cart also. On the road on which they are going there is a spired ant-hill (kot hum̆baha). Having gone near the ant-hill the Princess said, “Anē, Nāga King! Whence has our mother silver and golden things? Let a thunderbolt strike me!” Then the Cobra [came out, and] not having raised his hood, said, “Look there. There are silver and golden things as much as you want [in the cave].” After that, the Prince and the Princess having taken the cart, and gone near the rock cave, when they looked silver and golden things had been created. Afterwards, loading them in the cart they brought them away. The elder Princess’s Prince having seen that they are bringing silver and golden things, [and having heard their account of their journey for them], said at the hand of the Princess, “Younger brother having gone in that way, brought from your village silver and golden goods. Let us also go to bring [some].” When the elder Prince and Princess, having taken a cart, were going near the spired ant-hill that was on the road, the Princess said, “Anē, Nāga King! Whence has our mother silver and golden goods? Please give me a thunderbolt.” Then the Cobra having come and having raised his hood, bit the crown of the Princess’s head, and went back into the ant-hill. The Prince, taking the cart, came to the city. The Princess died there. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In Tales of the Punjab (Mrs. F. A. Steel), p. 284, a poverty-stricken girl who was driven from home by her mother, married a Prince. When the mother came to her to claim a share of her good fortune, the girl prayed to the Sun for help; and on her husband’s entering the room her mother had become a golden stool, which the girl declared had come from her home. The Prince determined to visit it, and again the girl appealed to the Sun for assistance. When they reached the hut they found it transformed into a golden palace, full of golden articles. When the Prince looked back after a three days’ visit and saw only the hut, he charged his wife with being a witch, so she told him the whole story, and he became a Sun worshipper. In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 18, a Raja’s wife bore two puppies, and their pet dog bore two girls which she deposited in a cave. A Raja and his brother while hunting discovered the girls, whom they carried away and married. When the bitch went in search of them, the elder one treated it kindly, but the other ordered her servants to throw stones at it and drive it away. One stone wounded it on the head, and it died at the elder daughter’s house. The Raja tripped over the basket under which the body was placed, and found under it the life-size figure of a dog made of precious stones set in gold, which his wife said was a present from her parents. As her husband determined to visit them she decided to commit suicide, and put her finger in the open mouth of a cobra that was on an ant-hill; by doing so she relieved it of a thorn which had stuck in the snake’s mouth. The grateful cobra agreed to assist her, and when she returned with her husband they found a great palace built of precious stones and gold, with a Raja and his wife inside to represent her parents. After a visit of six months, when they looked back on their way home they saw the whole place in flames which totally destroyed it. On seeing the valuable presents they took back, and hearing her sister’s story, the younger sister went in the same manner, put her finger in the cobra’s mouth, was bitten by it, and died. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 125, in a Kalmuk tale, after the girl who had been taken out of a box found on the steppe[3] had three children, the people began to complain of her want of respectable relatives, and she went home with her sons. Instead of her former poor dwelling she found there palaces, many labourers at work, and a youth who claimed to be her brother. Her parents entertained her well, and the Khan and Ministers came, and returned quite satisfied. On the following morning the palaces and all had vanished, and she returned to the Khan’s palace, perceiving that the Dēvas had created the illusion on her behalf. (As she had claimed to be the daughter of the Serpent God, it would appear to have been the Nāgas who had exerted their powers and done this for her. In the story numbered 252 in this volume, Māra, the god of death, assisted the son of a woman who had stated that he was her husband.) [1] Apē ewundaeṭa, a pl. hon. form. Husbands and wives do not usually mention each other’s names; the wife is commonly termed apē gedara ēkī, “she of our house” (as in No. 125), or the mother of the youngest child if there be one, or “she of ours,” or merely “she.” [↑] [2] C is pronounced as ch in English. [↑] [3] See notes of variants appended to No. 139, vol. ii. [↑] In a certain country there are a woman and a man; there are a boy and a girl of those two. During the time when these four were [there], they heard the notification tom-tom at another city. Then the man said, “I am going to look what this notification tom-tom is that we hear.” After the man went to the city the King said, “Canst thou guard my elephants?” The man said, “What will you give me?” The King said, “I will give a thousand masuran, and expenses[1] for eating.” Thereupon the man says, “It is too little for me and my wife, and my boy and girl, for us four persons.” After that the King said, “I will give two thousand masuran, and expenses for eating for you four persons.” Thereupon the man said, “Having returned to my village I will go and call my wife and children to come.” As he was going, a jewelled ring of a Maharaja had fallen [on the path]. This man, taking the jewelled ring in his hand, thought, “It is bad for me to destroy this jewelled ring; this I must give to the King.” Thinking thus he went home, and summoning his wife and children came to the city. After he presented[2] that jewelled ring to the King, the King asked, “Whence [came] this jewelled ring to thee?” This man said, “This jewelled ring as I was going to the village had fallen on the path. It is that [ring] indeed which I placed [before you] as this present.” After that the King [said], “A ring of a greater King than I! Because it is so it is bad to destroy this ring. What dost thou say about [thy reward for] it?” “I say nothing. The thing that is given to me I will take.” Thereupon the King said, “Are you quite satisfied [for me] to give a district from the kingdom, and goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant’s load?” This man said “Hā.” After he said it the King gave them. Thereupon this man took charge of the guarding of the elephants. One day when he was guarding the elephants the Rākshasa came. This man asked, “What came you for?” The Rākshasa said, “It is to eat thee that I came.” This man said, “What will you eat me for? Eat our King,” he said. After that, the Rākshasa having come into the city, when he went near the King the King asked, “What hast thou come for?” The Rākshasa said, “I came to eat you, Sir.” “Who, Bola, told thee?” the King said. Thereupon the Rākshasa said, “The man who guards the elephants told me.” Then the King said, “What will you eat me for? Go thou and eat the man who guards the elephants.” Afterwards the Rākshasa went near the man who guards the elephants. Thereupon the man asked, “What have you come here again for?” The Rākshasa said, “The King told me to eat you,” he said. After that, the man said, “[First] bring the few silver and gold articles that there are of yours,” he said. The Rākshasa having gone home, after he brought the few silver and gold things this man said to the Rākshasa, “Having come [after] drawing out a creeper, tie a turn on the elephant’s neck and on your neck tie a turn.” The Rākshasa having come after drawing out a creeper, tied a turn on the elephant’s neck and tied a turn on the Rākshasa’s neck. Afterwards this man said, “Hā; now then, come and eat me.” When the Rākshasa tried to go dragging the elephant, the elephant struck the Rākshasa; then the Rākshasa died. Afterwards, while this man, taking those few silver and gold things, is guarding the elephants, one day having been soaked owing to the rain when is he squatting at the bottom of a tree, a snake appeared. This man thinking, “Anē! I must go to warm myself with a little fire,” having gone away, when he looked about there were two Princesses in a rock-house (cave). Having seen them he went near [and said], “Anē! Will you give me a little fire?” Afterwards the eldest Princess said, “Come here; having warmed yourself a little at the fire go away.” After that, the man went into the rock-house and warmed himself at the fire, and taking the elephants came to the city, and told the King, “Having seen that in this manner there are two Princesses in a rock-house I came to tell you,” he said. The King said, “Our elder brother and I and you, we three, let us go to-morrow to fetch the two Princesses.” The man said “Hā.” On the following day the three persons having gone near the rock-house, that man went near that rock-house and asked for fire. At that time, when the eldest Princess is preparing to give the fire these three persons sprang in, and having drawn the two Princesses outside, when they were seizing them the two Princesses lost their senses. Afterwards restoring them to consciousness they came to the King’s city. When the mother of these two Princesses [after] seeking food came to the rock-house, these two Princesses were not [there]. After that, when this widow woman is going weeping and weeping along a path, having seen that a great tusk elephant King is on the path this woman said, “Did you meet with my two Princesses?” The tusk elephant King said, “Two royal thieves and a man who guards the elephants, placing the two Princesses on the back of an elephant went away.” Afterwards, when this widow woman was going to the city along the path on which they took the tusk elephant she saw that the elder Princess is near the well. This widow woman having become thirsty asked for a little water. The Princess said, “Go away, widow woman, there is not any water to give thee.” Afterwards, when this widow woman met with the younger sister’s house, the Princess having been in the house came out, and said, “Our mother!” Quickly having bathed her with coconut milk scented with sandal wood and placed her on the bed, as she is going aside that woman said, “Daughter (putē), go for a little silver and gold for yourself. As you are going along the path on which you came there will be a tusk-elephant King. The tusk-elephant King will give it.” Afterwards, [when she had got the silver and gold] the Princess and the widow woman went away. They went away with another King. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. [1] That is, the food materials. [↑] There is a man’s elephant. Yet [another] man having gone [to him], said, “Friend, give (that is, lend) me your elephant; there is a work for me to do for myself,” and asked for it. Then the man who owned the elephant says, “Take it and go.” Afterwards the man having taken it, while it was doing his work the elephant died. Afterwards this man having come, says, “Friend, while your elephant was with me it died. On that account am I to take an elephant and give it to you; or if not am I to give the money it is worth?” he asked. Thereupon the man who owned the elephant says, “I don’t want another elephant; I don’t want the money, too. Give me my elephant itself,” he says. Then this man says, “I cannot give the elephant that died. Do the thing that thou canst,” he said. Thereupon the man who owned the elephant says, “I will kill thee.” One day, having seen this man who owned the elephant coming, this man’s wife says to the man, “Placing a large water-pot near the door, shut the door.” This one having said, “It is good,” placed a large water-pot near the door, and shut the door. Thereupon the man who owned the elephant having come to the house, asked the woman, “Where is thy husband?” Then the woman said, “There. He is in the house.” Having said, “Open the door, courtesan’s son,” when he struck his hand on the door the door opened, and the water-pot was broken. Then this woman asks for it, saying, “After thou hast broken my water-pot, give it to me immediately.” The man said, “I will bring a water-pot and give you it.” “I don’t want another; give me my very water-pot,” she says. Thereupon, being unable to escape from this woman, having said, “For the debt of the elephant let the water-pot be substituted,” the man who owned the elephant went away. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. A variant related by a Potter is nearly similar, except that both persons instituted lawsuits for the recovery of the elephant and the waterpot. The judge who tried the cases was the celebrated Mariyada Rāman, termed by the narrator “Mariyaddurāme,” a word which suggests the name Amīr Abd ur-Rahman. There is also a Chinese variant, given in Chinese Nights’ Entertainments (A. M. Fielde), p. 111, in which a dishonest old woman lent a newly-married girl her cat, in order to kill the mice. The cat ran home, and the woman then applied for its return, praised its excellence, and estimated its value at two hundred ounces of silver. The girl discovered that her father-in-law had once lent the woman an old wooden ladle, and when the old woman called again about the cat she reminded her of it, and demanded its return. The cases were taken before a magistrate. The girl claimed that the ladle was made from a branch which fell down from the moon, and never diminished the food, oil, or money from which anything was taken by means of it; and she asserted that her father-in-law had refused an offer of three thousand ounces of silver for it. The magistrate decided that the two claims balanced each other. In a certain country there are a girl and the girl’s father, it is said. While they were there, one day the man went to plough, saying to the girl, “Bring gruel to the rice field.” They spring across a stream as they go to the rice field. The girl, cooking gruel, pouring it into a wide-mouthed cooking-pot and placing the pot on her head, goes away to the field. While going there she met a Prince near the river. The girl asked at the Prince’s hand, “Where are you going?” Having told him to sit down and given to him from the gruel, she said, “Go to our house and wait until the time when I come after giving the gruel to father;” and placing the gruel pot on her head she went to the far bank of the river. Then the Prince asked, “Are you coming immediately?” The Princess said, “Should [it] come [I] shall not come; should [it] not come, I shall come.”[1] The Prince got into his mind, “This meant indeed (lit., said), ‘Should water come in the river I cannot come; should water not come I will come.’ ” Again the Prince asked, “On which road go you to your house?” Then the girl unfastened her hair knot; having unloosed it she went to the rice field. Afterwards the Prince thought to himself, “Because of the girl’s unloosing her hair knot she goes near the Kitul palm tree indeed.”[2] The Prince having gone near the Kitul tree to the girl’s home, remained lying down in the veranda until the girl came. The girl having given the gruel came home. Having come there and cooked for the Prince she gave him to eat. Then the girl’s father came. After that, the girl and the Prince having married remained there. While they were [there], one day the Prince said, “I must go to our city.” Then the girl also having said that she must go, as the girl and the girl’s father and the Prince, the three persons, were going along there was a rice field. The girl’s father asked at the hand of the Prince, “Son-in-law, is this rice field a cultivated rice field, or an unworked rice field?” Then the Prince said, “What of its being cultivated! If its corners and angles are not cut this field is an unworked one.” When they were going still a little distance there was a heap of fence sticks. Concerning it the Prince asked, “Father-in-law, are these cut fence-sticks, or uncut fence-sticks?” Then the father-in-law says, “What of their being cut! If they are not sharpened these are uncut sticks.” Well then, having gone in that manner, and gone to the Prince’s city, he made the girl and the girl’s father stay in a calf house near the palace, saying, “This indeed is our house.” The Prince having gone to the palace said at the hand of the Prince’s mother, “Mother, I have come, calling After that, the Queen having gone near the calf house, when she looked a light had fallen throughout the whole of the calf house. The girl was in the house. After that the Queen, calling the girl and the girl’s father, came to the palace. Well then, the girl, and the girl’s father, and the Prince remained at the palace. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. The questions and answers remind one of those asked and given by Mahōsadha and Amarā, the girl whom he married, in the Jātaka story No. 546 (vol. vi, p. 182), and one remark is the same,—that regarding the river water. Heroines are sometimes described as emitting a brilliant light, as in No. 145, vol. ii. In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 158, there is a Princess who “comes and sits on her roof, and she shines so that she lights up all the country and our houses, and we can see to do our work as if it were day.” In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 133, a heavenly maiden illuminated a wood, though it was night. In the same volume, p. 145, a girl “gleamed as if she were the light of the sun.” In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., pp. 484 ff., the son of a Wazīr asked a farmer whom he accompanied a number of cryptic questions which were understood by the farmer’s daughter, whom he afterwards married. They have a general resemblance to those in the Sinhalese story, but differ from them. In one he asked if a field of ripe corn was eaten or not, meaning that if the owner were in debt it was as good as eaten already. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (Rev. Dr. Bodding) there are several instances of enigmatical replies of this kind. See pp. 269, 349, 368. In a Kolhān tale appended to the vol. by Mr. Bompas, p. 462, a Princess who was in a Bēl fruit had such brilliancy that the youth who split it open fell dead when he saw her. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), a brilliant Prince is described in vol. i, p. 301, and a heroine in vol. ii, p. 17. In vol. iii, p. 172, a Prince’s face shone like the moon among the stars. Buddha is usually described as possessing great brilliancy. In No. [237] below, there is a Prince whose brilliance dazzled a Princess so much that she swooned. [1] Āwot ennē nāe; nāwot eññan. [↑] [2] Because Kitul fibre is like hair which is hanging loose. [↑] In a certain country a boy was sent by his two parents near a teacher for learning the arts and sciences. Then the boy, [after] learning for a long time the sixty-four mechanical arts,[1] came back to his home. The boy’s parents asked the boy, “Did you learn all the sciences?” The boy told his parents that he learnt the whole of the sciences. At that time his father asked, “Did you learn the subtlety (māyama) of women?” Thereupon the boy said he did not. Having said, “[After] learning that very science come back,” he was sent away again by his two parents. The boy having set off from there, at the time when he was going along, in the King’s garden were the King and Queen. The King was walking and walking in the garden. The Queen, sewing and sewing a shawl,[2] was [sitting] in the shade under a tree. Having seen that this very boy is going, the Queen, calling the boy, asked, “Where are you going?” Thereupon the boy says, “When I came home [after] learning the arts and sciences, and the sixty-four mechanical arts, my parents asked, ‘Did you learn the arts?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ Then they asked, ‘Did you learn the subtlety of women?’ When I myself said I did not, because they said, ‘[After] learning that very science come back,’ I am going away to learn that very science,” he said to the Queen. Thereupon that very Queen said, “I will teach you the subtlety,” and calling the boy near, placed the boy’s head on the Queen’s thigh, and having told him to lie [still], and taken the shawl that the Queen was sewing and sewing, and covered the boy [with it], the Queen remained sewing and sewing. At that time the King was not there. After that, the King came there. Then the Queen, having called the King [and said], “I wish to tell you a story,” told the King to listen to the story. The King was pleased regarding it. The Queen, leaving the thigh on which was the head of the above-mentioned boy, having placed the head of the King on the other thigh, and told him to lie [there], told the story. The story indeed was:—“Like we are here, a King and Queen of the fore-going time, like we came here went for garden-sport, it is said. At that time the King went to walk in the garden, it is said. While that very Queen was staying [there] sewing a shawl, a boy came there. Then the Queen asked the boy, ‘Where are you going?’ Thereupon the boy says, ‘Because my parents said I am to learn the subtlety of women, I am going away to learn that very subtlety,’ he said. Then the Queen having said, ‘I will teach you,’ called the boy, and having placed his head on her thigh, and told him to lie [still], sewed the shawl. At that time the King came, like you now have come here. Then, having told the King to place his head on the other thigh and having told him this story, with the shawl that covered the boy she covered the King.” [As she said this, she covered the King with the shawl.] Thereupon the boy quickly jumped up and went away. When his parents afterwards asked the boy, “Did you learn the subtlety of women?” he said that he had learnt it. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In The Jātaka, No. 61 (vol. i, p. 148), there is an account of a Brāhmaṇa youth who, on completing the usual education, was asked by his mother if he had learnt the Dolour Texts, and on his replying in the negative was sent back to learn them. There were no such texts, but his mother intended him to learn the wickedness of women. This he did, but not in the manner related in the Sinhalese story. [1] Siwsaeṭa kalā śilpaya. [↑] In a certain country there is a Prince, it is said. After the Prince became big, for the purpose of marrying him they began to visit all cities to seek an unpolluted Princess. Because they did not meet with one according to the Prince’s thought, he began to look at many sooth books. While looking, from a book he got to know one circumstance. The matter indeed [was this]:—There was [written] in the book that when the Prince remains no long time inside the hollow of a large tree, a Princess will be born from the Prince’s very blood. Thereupon having considered it, according to the manner in which it was mentioned he stayed inside the tree. When he was there not much time he met with a Princess, also, in that before-mentioned manner. The Prince thereupon took the Princess in marriage. After he took her in marriage, having constructed a palace in the midst of that forest both of them stayed in it. While they are [there], the Prince having come every day [after] shooting animals, skinned them, and taking the skins and having fixed them on the wall, asks the Princess, “What animals’ skins are these?” He asks the names from the Princess. Then the Princess says, “I don’t know.” On the day after that, after the Prince went for hunting a Vaeddā came near the palace. The Princess having seen the Vaeddā called him. Then the Vaeddā went to the palace. After he went the Princess asked the Vaeddā, “What animals’ skins are these?” The Vaeddā informed (lit., told and gave) the Princess of the names of the animals. Then the Princess asks the Vaeddā, “Where do you live?” The Vaeddā says, “I, also, live very near this palace, in the midst of the forest.” The Princess says, “Vaeddā, advise me how to cause you to be brought to me at the time when I want you.” Then the Vaeddā said, “I will tie a hawk’s-bell in my house, and having tied a cord to it, and tied it on a tree near the palace, and pointed it out, at the time when the Princess wants me shake the cord. Then I shall come,” he said. The Vaeddā having informed the Princess about this matter, after the Vaeddā went away the Prince having come back [after] doing hunting, just as on other days asked the Princess the names of these animals. That day the Princess told him the names of the animals. After that, she was unable to inform him of the name of the animal he brought. The Prince having reflected, walked round the palace. When he looked about, having seen that a cord was tied to a tree he shook it. Then having seen that the Vaeddā comes to the palace the Prince remained hidden. The Vaeddā having come and spoken to the Princess, after the Vaeddā went away the Prince having gone to the palace went for hunting. Walking in the midst of the forest he went near a river, and when he was looking about having heard the talk of men the Prince went into a tree. Having gone [there], while he was looking three men (minis) came, and having slipped off their clothes and finished, after they descended to bathe from the three betel boxes of the three persons three women came out. They having opened the mouths of the three betel boxes of the three women, when he was looking the Prince saw that three men are inside their three betel boxes. After that, the Prince descended from the tree to the ground, and asked the three men [when they had bathed], “Who are you?” Then the men say, “We all three are ascetics,” they said. After that the Prince, calling the three persons, went to the palace. Having gone [there] the Prince told the Princess to cook rice for twelve. After she cooked he said, “Having set twelve plates of cooked rice, place them on the table.” After she put them [there] the Prince told the ascetics to sit down to eat cooked rice. After they sat down he said, “Tell the three wives of you three persons to sit down.” [They came out and sat down.] Then when he told the three men (minis) who are in the three betel boxes of the three women to sit down, all were astonished. Then he told the Princess to call that Vaeddā, and return. “I don’t know [anything about him],” the Princess said untruthfully. Then the Prince pulled that cord; the Vaeddā came running. Afterwards the whole twelve sitting down ate cooked rice. Afterwards, those said three ascetics and the Prince having talked, abandoned this party, and the whole four went again to practise austerities (tapas rakinḍa). Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In The Jātaka, No. 145 (vol. i, p. 310), the Bōdhisatta is represented as remarking, “You might carry a woman about in your arms and yet she would not be safe.” In No. 436 (vol. iii, p. 314), an Asura demon who had seized a woman kept her in a box, which he swallowed. When he ejected it and allowed her liberty while he bathed, she managed to hide a magician with her in the box, which the unsuspecting demon again swallowed. An ascetic knew by his power of insight what had occurred, and informed the demon, who at once ejected the box. On his opening it the magician uttered a spell and escaped. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton’s ed., vol. i, p. 9), two Kings whose wives had been unfaithful, saw a Jinni (or Rākshasa) take a lady out of a casket fastened with seven steel padlocks and placed in a crystal box; he went to sleep with his head on her lap under the tree in which they were hidden. Noticing the men in the tree, she put the Jinni’s head softly on the ground, and by threatening to rouse her husband made them descend. In her purse she had a knotted string on which were strung five hundred and seventy seal rings of the persons she had met in this way though kept at the bottom of the sea, and adding their rings to her collection she sent them away. In vol. iv, p. 130, the story is told of a Prince, and the woman had more than eighty rings. In the Totā Kahānī (Small), p. 41, a Yōgī took the form of an elephant, and to insure his wife’s chastity carried her in a haudā or litter on his back. A man climbed up a tree for safety from the elephant, which halted under the tree, put down the litter, and went off to feed. The man descended and joined the woman, who took out a knotted cord and added another knot on it, making a hundred and one, which represented the number of men she had met in that way. In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 80, two young Brāhmaṇas, hiding at night in a tree close to a lake, saw a number of men appear out of the water and prepare a place and food which a handsome person, who came out of the water also, came to eat. He ejected from his mouth two ladies who were his wives; they ate the meal and he went to sleep. The Brāhmaṇas descended from the tree to inquire about it. When the elder youth declined the advances of one of the women she showed him a hundred rings taken from the lovers she had had. She then awoke her husband and charged the youth with attempted violence, but the other told the truth and saved him. The being whose wives the women were is termed a water-genius and later on a Yaksha, who was subject to a curse. He told the youths that he kept his wives in his heart, out of jealousy. There is a nearly similar story in the same work, vol. ii, p. 98, in which the being who came out of the water was a snake-god who ejected a couch and his wife. When he went to sleep a traveller who was lying under the tree became her hundredth lover. When the snake-god awoke and saw them he reduced them to ashes by fire discharged from his mouth. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 378, a Prince who had climbed up a tree saw a Brāhmaṇa, who first bathed there, eject from his mouth a pot, out of which came a woman. While the Brāhmaṇa was asleep she also ejected a pot out of which came a young man, her lover; when he afterwards re-entered the pot she swallowed it again. Then the Brāhmaṇa awoke, swallowed her in the same way, and went off. The Prince told the King to invite the Brāhmaṇa to a feast, at which food for three was set near him. On his saying he was alone the Prince invited him to produce the woman, and when he had done so, she was made to bring out her lover, and all three ate the meal together. The Prince thus proved to his father, who had kept his wives in seclusion, that it was useless to shut women up. At a certain city two noblemen[2] stay in two houses. When they are there, for the two noblemen there are two Queens. One Queen bore seven female children; the other Queen bore six male children and a Turtle. Then the same two noblemen spoke: “Cousin, not contracting the marriages of your children and my children outside, let us ourselves do giving and taking,” they said. Having said, “If so, let us marry the eldest children,” they married them. The second two children they also married. The third two children they also married. The fourth two children they also married. The fifth two children they also married. The sixth two children they also married. There was no way to marry the seventh two children. The matter of their not [marrying] indeed [was this:—the father of the girls] said, “Cousin, my daughter is a daughter possessing much beauty. Because of it, your young child indeed is not good. Should you say, ‘What of the matter of his not being good, indeed!’ Your child is the Turtle; because it is so I cannot [marry my daughter to him],” he said. Then the other cousin says, “Cousin, you cannot say so. The Turtle who is my young child says, ‘I, father, if there be not that marriage for me, I will jump into the well, and make various quarrels,’ the Turtle says. Because it is so you must marry your very child [to him], he says. If you cannot [do] so, let us cancel the marriages of the whole of the several persons,” says the Turtle’s father. Then he says, “If so, cousin, no matter about cancelling the marriages; I will give my daughter to the Turtle,” he said. Having thus given her, they contracted the marriage. Having married them, when they were [there] there was notified by the King of the same city, “Can anyone, having brought it, give me the Fire Cock[3] that is at the house of the Rākshasa?”[4] he notified. The same King published by beat of tom-toms that to the persons who brought and gave it he will give many offices. Secondly, “I will give my kingdom also,” he notified. That word the Turtle having ascertained, he said, “Mother, you go, and seeing the King, ‘The Turtle who is my son is able,’ say, ‘to bring and give the Fire Cock.’ ” [She went accordingly.] Then the King said, “Tell your son to come to-morrow morning,” he said. The following day morning the same Turtle having gone says, “I can bring and give the Fire Cock in seven days.” Then the King said, “Not to mention[5] the Turtle, should anyone [whatever] bring and give it, I will give him offices and my kingdom also.” The Turtle having come home said to the Turtle’s wife, “Bolan, having cooked for me a packet[6] of rice, bring it,” he said. Then the Turtle’s wife asked, “What is the packet of cooked rice for you for?” she asked. “It is arranged by the King for me to bring and give him the Fire Cock that is at the Rākshasa’s house. Because it is so, cook the lump of rice,” he said. “Having cooked the lump of rice I can give it, indeed. How will you take it and go?” she said. Then the Turtle said, “Having put the cooked rice in a bag, place it on my back and tie it. I am able to take it and go,” he said. After having placed it on his back and tied it, the same Turtle, having gone on the journey, while on the road went to a screen formed by Mahamidi [trees].[7] Having gone there and unfastened the packet of cooked rice, and removed and put aside the turtle jacket, he ate the lump of cooked rice. Having eaten and finished, he hid the turtle jacket, and went on the journey [in the form of a Prince]. When he was going on the journey, it having become night while he was on the road he went to the house of a widow-mother. Having gone [there], “Mother, you must give me a resting-place,” he said. Then the widow-mother said, “A resting-place indeed I can give,” she said; “to give to eat [there is] not a thing.” “If so, no matter for the food; should you give me only the resting-place it will do,” he said. Then the widow-mother asked, “Where are you, son, going?” she asked. Then he said, “I am going for the Jewelled Cock at the Rākshasa’s house,” he said. The widow-mother then said, “Son, go you to [your] village without speaking [about it]. People, many multitudes in number, having stayed in the resting-place here, went for the Fire Cock. Except that they went, they did not bring the Fire Cock. Because it is so don’t you go.” Then he said, “However much you, mother, should say it, I indeed must really go.” “Since you are going, not paying heed to my saying, eat this little rice dust that I cooked, and go.” Then he said, “Except that to-day you cooked rice dust [for me], I shall not be able to cook [even] rice dust again for you,” he said. [“Raw-rice, be created.”] With the same speed [as his saying it] raw-rice[8] was created, [and he gave her power to do the same]. “Son, like the power which you gave, I will give you a power. You having gone to the Rākshasa’s house, at the time when you are coming back the Rākshasa will come [for the purpose of] stopping you. Then on account of it having taken this piece of stone and said, ‘Cī! Mountain, be created,’ cast it down; the mountain will be created. The Rākshasa having gone up the mountain, while he is descending below you will be able then to go a considerable distance.” Taking that [stone and] power from there when he was going away, while he was on the road it became night. After it became night, again he went to the house of a widow woman. The widow woman asked, “Where, son, are you going in this way when it has become night?” Then he said, “I am going for the Fire Cock at the Rākshasa’s house,” he said. “Don’t you go on that journey; the people who go for that Fire Cock, except that they go, do not return.” “Don’t at any rate tell that fact to me indeed; I indeed must really go for the Fire Cock. I came here at the time when I wanted a resting-place.” “A resting-place indeed I can give. To give to eat [there is] not a thing,” the widow-mother said. “No matter for the food; should you give me a resting-place it will do,” he said. While the person of the resting-place was staying looking on, because he could not eat, from what she had cooked of rice dust she gave him a little to eat. “Mother, being unable to cook again for you, although to-day you cooked rice dust, I will give you a power,” he said. “Raw-rice, be created,” [and he gave her power to do the same]. “If so, son, I will give you a power. Here (Men̥na). Having taken away this bamboo stick, for the Rākshasa’s stopping you on the path when you are coming away, say, ‘Cī! Bamboo, be created,’ and throw down the bamboo stick. Then the bamboo fence will be created. The Rākshasa having gone up it, while he is coming down [on the other side] you will be able to come a considerable distance.” When he was going away from there on the following day, while he was on the road it became night. It having become night, again he went to the house of a widow woman. Having gone there he asked for a resting-place. “In this way when night has come, where are you going?” she asked. Then he said, “I am going to bring the Fire Cock at the Rākshasa’s house,” he said. “Except that thousands of robbers, thousands of archers[9] go, except that the persons who went there went, they did not come back. Because it is so don’t you go.” “I indeed must really go for the Fire Cock. For me to stay here [to-night] you must give the resting-place.” Then she said, “I can indeed give it. To give you to eat [there is] not a thing to give.” “No matter for food for me; should you give me a resting-place it will do.” The widow-mother having cooked a little rice dust gave him to eat. “Mother, I shall not again be able to cook [even] rice dust for you. I will give you a good power.” He gave her a power to create raw-rice. “Better than the power you gave me I will give you a power. Having gone to the Rākshasa’s house, when you are coming, taking the Fire Cock also, the Rākshasa will come running to eat you. When he is thus coming, here, having taken away this piece of charcoal and said, ‘Cī! Fire, be created,’ throw it down; the fire fence will be created. Then the Rākshasa having come will jump into the fire. Without speaking, slowly come home.” [The Prince went, stole the Fire Cock, and escaped from the pursuit of the Rākshasa by means of the three gifts.[10] The Rākshasa was burnt at the fire fence.] [The Prince] having come there [again], and gone to the place where the turtle jacket is, putting on his body the turtle jacket [and resuming his turtle shape], came to his village. Having come there he handed over the Fire Cock to the King. When he was giving it the King said, “From to-day my country, together with the goods, is in charge for thee.” “There are goods [belonging] to me which are better than that; I don’t want it,” he said. The same King, in order to make a [religious] offering of those goods, commanded a Bana (recitation of the Buddhist scriptures). When the Turtle’s wife and yet [other] women are going to hear the Bana, the other women who are coming to hear the Bana, say, “O Turtle’s wife, come, to go to hear the Bana.” Having gone there, while they are hearing the Bana the Turtle, having taken off the turtle jacket [and become a Prince again], went to hear the Bana. Then the Turtle’s wife thought, “It is my very husband,[11] this.” Having thought it and come home, at the time when she looked she saw that the turtle jacket was there, and taking out the goods that were in it she put the same jacket on the [fire on the] hearth, and went [back] to hear the Bana. The Turtle’s wife’s husband having come home, when he looked the turtle jacket was not [there]. Having got into the house he remained silent. The Turtle’s wife came home gaily. Other women asked, “What is [the reason of] so much sportiveness of the Turtle’s wife which there is to-day?” “You will perceive [the reason of] my playfulness when you have gone to the house.” The other women, to look at [the meaning of] those words, came to the house of the Turtle’s wife with the Turtle’s wife. Having come, when they looked the husband of the Turtle’s wife is like a King. This story is the two noblemen’s. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. [1] The text of this story is given at the end of this volume. [↑] [3] Gini kukulā, the fire [coloured] Cock. [↑] [5] Tiyā, putting [out of consideration]. [↑] [6] Geḍiyak, a round lump, made into a package. [↑] [8] Kaekuḷu hāl, rice from which the skin has been removed without first softening it in hot or boiling water. It is used for making milk-rice (kiri-bat), but not usually for rice used with curries, as the grains are apt to coalesce when cooked. [↑] [11] Lit., “man,” the word translated “wife” in this story being also literally “woman.” These words are commonly employed with these meanings by the villagers. [↑] In a certain country there are a King and a Queen, it is said; there are seven Princes of these two persons. Out of the seven, the youngest Prince from the day on which he was born is lying down; only those six perform service, go on journeys after journeys (gaman sagaman). Well then, at the time when this Prince is living thus, the King said at the hand of the Queen, “Should this Prince remain there is no advantage to us; I must behead him.” The Queen said, “There is no need to behead him. Drive away the Prince whom we do not want to a quarter he likes.” The King said, “It is good.” The Queen having come near the Prince, said, “Son, he must behead you, says the King. Because of it go to a place you like, to seek a livelihood.” Then the Prince said, “For me to go for trading give me (dilan) a thousand masuran, and a packet of cooked rice.” After that, the Queen gave him a packet of cooked rice and a thousand masuran. The Prince having taken the packet of cooked rice and the thousand masuran, arrived (eli-baessā) at a travellers’ shed. At the time when he is sitting in the travellers’ shed a man came, bringing a Cobra. Then the Prince asked, “For how much will you sell the Cobra?” The man said, “It is a thousand masuran.” Afterwards the Prince said, “There are a thousand masuran of mine. Here (in̆dā), take them.” Having given the thousand masuran he got the Cobra. Taking it, and having unfastened the packet of cooked rice, the Cobra and the Prince ate, and the Prince, taking the Cobra, came back to the Prince’s city. Then the Queen asked, “Son, what is the merchandise you have brought?” The Prince said, “Mother, having given those thousand masuran that I took, I brought a Cobra.” Afterwards the Queen said, “Appā! Son, should that one remain it will bite us. Take it to a forest, and having conducted it a short distance come back.” The Prince having taken it and put it in a rock house (cave) in the forest, shut the door, and came back. At the time when he was there the Queen said, “Son, should the King come to know that you are [here] he will behead you. Because of it go to any place you like.” Afterwards the Prince said, “Give me a thousand masuran, and a packet of cooked rice.” The Queen gave them. After that, the Prince taking them and having gone, while he was in that travellers’ shed a man taking a Parrot came to the travellers’ shed. The Prince asked, “Will you sell that Parrot?” The man said he would sell it. The Prince asked, “For how much?” The man said, “It is a thousand masuran.” The Prince gave the thousand masuran and got the Parrot. The Prince and the Parrot having eaten the packet of cooked rice, the two came to the Prince’s city. The Queen asked, “Son, what is the merchandise you have brought to-day?” The Prince says, “Mother, having given those thousand masuran that I took I have brought a Parrot.” Afterwards the Queen said, “We don’t want the Parrot. Take it and put it in the forest, and come back.” The Prince having taken the Parrot and put the Parrot also in the rock house in which is the Cobra, shut the door, and came back. While he was there the Queen said, “Son, should the King see that you are [here] he will behead you. Because of it go to any place you like.” The Prince said, “Mother, give me a thousand masuran, and a packet of cooked rice.” The Queen gave him a packet of cooked rice and a thousand masuran. Afterwards, the Prince having taken them, while he was at that travellers’ shed again a man is taking a Cat which eats by stealth, in order to put it into the river. This Prince asked, “Will you sell that?” The man said he would sell it. The Prince asked, “For how much?” The man [said], “I will sell it for a thousand masuran.” Afterwards the Prince gave the thousand masuran that were in his hand, and taking the Cat, and the Prince and the Cat having eaten the packet of cooked rice, the two came to the Prince’s city. Then the Queen asked, “Son, on this journey what have you brought?” The Prince says, “Mother, having given the thousand masuran that I took I brought a Cat.” Then the Queen said, “Don’t thou come again. Go to any place thou wantest.” The Prince said, “Mother, give me a thousand masuran, and a packet of cooked rice.” After that, the Queen gave him a packet of cooked rice and a thousand masuran. The Prince, taking them and taking also the Cat, came to the rock house; and the whole four having eaten the packet of cooked rice started to go away. Having gone away, and having gone near a large Nā tree,[1] while they were there the Cobra said, “You stay[2] here until I come back [after] seeking the Nāga King.” The Cobra having gone, and having returned near the large Nā tree [after] seeking [and bringing] the Nāga King, the Cobra said to the Nāga King, “This Prince has been of very great assistance to me. Because of it you must set me free [by giving a suitable ransom].” Afterwards the Nāga King gave the Prince a gem-set ring (pēraes-munda), and said, “With this ring you can create anything you want.”[3] The Nāga King, taking that Cobra, went away. As this Prince and the Parrot and the Cat were going away the Prince thought, “Let a palace and a Princess be created here for me.” Putting the gem-set ring on his hand he thought it. Then a palace and a Princess were created. At the time when they were there, the Princess and Prince went to the sea to bathe. Having gone there, while bathing a lock of hair (isakeyā raelak) from the head of the Princess fell into the sea. Having gone it became fastened in the net of net fishermen. They, taking it, gave it to the King. The King being unable to guess whether it was a hair or a golden thread, sent out the notification tom-toms. A widow stopped the tom-toms. Having stopped them the woman went near the King and said, “This is not a golden thread (kenda), it is indeed hair of the head (isakeyā gahamayi).” After that the King said, “Can you find the Princess who owns this hair?” The woman having said, “I can,” came to the very city where the Princess is. When she came there, there was not any work place there. She asked at the hand of the Princess, “How, daughter (putē), do you eat?” Then the Princess says, “We eat by the power of the gem-set ring.” Afterwards, the woman that day night having stayed there, after the Prince went to sleep taking the gem-set ring and taking also the Princess [by means of it], gave them to the King. The Prince having awoke, when he looked there were no Princess and no gem-set ring. The Parrot indeed knows the place where they are. He cannot summon the Princess and come [with her], he cannot get the gem-set ring. Owing to it he told the Cat to be [lying as though] sleeping at the corn-stack threshing-floor (kola-kamatē):—“While you are there the rats will put their paws into your mouth. Do not seize them. When the King has put his paws in it seize him; do not let him go.” After that, the Cat having gone [there], while he was [lying as though] sleeping at the corn-stack threshing-floor, the rats put their paws in his mouth. He did not seize them. The Rat King having come, and said, “One with cooking pot’s mouth (appallā-katā), are you asleep?” put his paw there. Then the Cat seized him. [He explained to the Rat King that he wanted a rat to assist him, as the condition on which he would release him.] The Rat King said, “Seize thou any rat thou wantest.” Having said, “Take this rat chief,” he gave him. Afterwards the Cat let go [the Rat King]. The Parrot, calling that rat [who had been appointed to assist him], went to the palace in which was the Princess. After the rat had cut [his way into] seven boxes, there was a gem-set ring [in the last one]. Taking it, when he gave it to the Parrot, the Parrot said, “This ring is not ours (apaṭa nāe).” Afterwards the Parrot and the rat having come near the Prince, [the rat] said, “I cut into seven boxes; there was one ring. When I gave it to the Parrot youngster (girā-pōṭakayāṭa) the Parrot said, ‘It is not ours,’ ” he said. Then the Prince said, “Are there not other boxes?” The rat said, “There is one more.” The Prince said, “If so, cut thou The Parrot and the rat having gone [there], the rat cut into that box. Then the gem-set ring was there. [The rat took it to the Parrot, who handed it over to the Prince. By means of it he recovered the Princess.] Taking the ring, and having brought back the Princess, they all remained at the palace. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In The Jātaka, No. 73 (vol. i, p. 178), a snake, a parrot, and a rat assisted a Brāhmaṇa who had saved their lives. In The Story of Madana Kāma Rāja (Naṭēśa Sāstrī), p. 20, a Prince whose uncle had usurped the throne received a hundred pagodas from his mother in order that he might trade. He first bought a kitten for the money, and subsequently, when she gave him another hundred, a snake; with these he went about begging for twelve years. The snake took him to visit its father, Ādiśēsha, the Snake King, who in return for it gave him his ring which supplied everything wanted while it was worn. By means of the ring the Prince got a palace and kingdom and a capital; he married a Princess also. While she was bathing in the sea one of the hairs from her head came off and was cast on the shore. The King of Cochin found it, ascertained that it was twenty yards long, and promised rewards for the discovery of its owner. An old woman who was received into the Prince’s palace learnt about the powers of the magic ring, and borrowing it to cure a headache returned to Cochin; by its power the Princess was brought there. She demanded a delay of eight days before marrying the King, in order to fast and make a religious donation to the poor. On the seventh day the Prince and his cat joined those who were fed. When rats came to eat the remnants the cat seized the largest one, who proved to be the Rat King, and offered him his liberty in return for the magic ring. His subjects found it in a box, and brought it to the cat, who gave it to the Prince. By means of it he recovered the Princess and his kingdom, and caused the Cochin kingdom to be destroyed and its King to become insane. In Folklore of the Santal Pargana (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 24, a youth set afloat in a leaf some hairs that came out while he was bathing. Two Princesses who were bathing lower down got the packet, found that the hairs were twelve cubits long, and the younger one refused food until their owner was discovered. A parrot met with him in the forest, and a crow enticed him to come by flying off with his flute. He married the Princess and became a Raja. See p. 75 ff., and Campbell’s Santal Folk Tales, pp. 16 and 113. In a variant, p. 88, a youth bought a cat, an otter, a rat, and a snake that were about to be killed. The snake took him to its parents, from whom he received a magic ring which provided everything required if it were placed in a quart of milk. After he got married his wife stole the ring, and eloped with a former lover. The youth was imprisoned on a charge of murdering her, but the animals recovered the ring after the rat made the Prince’s wife sneeze it up by tickling her nose with his tail. By means of it he brought up the absconders and was released. On p. 129 there is an account of the four animals and the ring given by the snake, by the aid of which a palace was made. On p. 228 ff., a boy who had a caterpillar’s shape took off the skin when bathing in his own form. He set two hairs afloat in a leaf which a Princess bathing lower down the river recovered. She found that the hairs were twelve fathoms long, and refused to eat until their owner was brought. When he came she married him, saw him remove his skin covering at night, burnt it, and he remained in his own form afterwards. In the Kolhān tales (Bompas) appended to the same volume, p. 458, a man whose hair reached to his knees, while bathing set a hair afloat inside a split fruit. A Princess who found it determined to marry the owner, her father sent men who fetched him, and they were united. There is a similar story on p. 460. In Indian Fairy Tales (Thornhill), p. 67, a merchant’s son who had saved the brother of the Snake King received from the latter a copper ring which converted into gold everything on which it was rubbed. By means of it he turned a palace into gold and married a Princess, whose hair touched the ring and became golden. A single hair fell into a stream, and was found by a Prince a thousand leagues lower down. A woman who was a magician went in search of the owner in a magic ebony boat smeared with the blood and fat of a tiger, which sailed upstream as she sang. She was engaged by the Princess, induced her to enter the boat to see the fishes, and carried her off. Before saving the snake, her husband had obtained a sea parrot and a white cat which divers brought up out of the sea, and he had left these at home on going away. When these two came in search of him and heard of the loss of the Princess they looked for her, the parrot carrying a letter tied on its leg. They delivered the letter and got a reply from her, the cat stole the ring from the old woman, and they returned and informed the Prince, who took an army and rescued his wife. In Tales of the Punjab (Mrs. F. A. Steel), p. 185, a Prince bought a cat, a dog, a parrot, and a snake, which he reared. The snake took him to its father, who in return for it gave him a ring which granted everything wished for. By means of it he obtained a Princess in marriage, after making a palace of gold in the sea; he also made her golden. One day she set afloat in a leaf cup two hairs which came out as she was washing. In another country a fisherman found them and gave them to the King, who sent a wise woman in search of their owner in a golden boat. She met with the Princess, stayed at the palace, learnt about the ring, induced the Princess to enter the boat, and took her away. The Princess refused to look at the King’s son for six months. The parrot gave her husband the news, went in search of her with the cat, and learnt that the wise woman kept the ring in her mouth. The cat seized the longest-tailed rat that came to eat rice which the Princess scattered; it thrust its tail up the nose of the sleeping woman, and the sneeze she gave caused the ring to fly out of her mouth. The parrot took it to its master, who recovered the Princess by its aid. The ring was only effective when placed in the centre of a clean square place purified by being smeared with cow-dung, and there sprinkled with butter-milk.[4] In Folk-Tales of Bengal (L. Behari Day), p. 86, a Brāhmaṇa’s son married a Princess whom he rescued from Rākshasas. She tied to a floating shell a hair that came off while she bathed; it was found by her husband’s half-brother, who ascertained that it was seven cubits long. The Queen-Mother sent her servant, a Rākshasī, in search of the owner, in a magic boat which flew along the water wherever required when she uttered a spell and thrice snapped her fingers. She went to the palace, one day persuaded the Princess to enter the boat, and carried her away in it. The Princess said she had vowed not to look at a strange man’s face for six months, her husband found her, was recognised by the King, and all ended happily; but the Rākshasī was buried alive, surrounded by thorns. A golden-haired Princess is often described in folk-tales. See No. 240 in this volume, and Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), pp. 62 and 98. In one of the Santal variants a grateful snake made a man’s hair like gold by breathing on it (op. cit., p. 75). In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 20, a merchant’s son bought a dog, cat, and snake that were likely to be killed. By means of a ring which the snake’s father gave him he got a mansion and a wife with golden hair. She set afloat some hairs inside a reed; a Prince found them lower down the river, and his father sent his aunt, an ogress, to bring their possessor. She flew to the place in the form of a bee, became an old hag, was received as the girl’s aunt, borrowed the ring, flew off with it, and by its means the Princess was brought away. She demanded a month’s delay before marrying, the cat and dog found her, and secured the ring (which the ogress kept in her stomach) by seizing the Rat King’s eldest son and getting it as his ransom, a rat having made the ogress cough it up by inserting its tail in her throat while she slept. They returned with it, and the Prince recovered his wife by it. At p. 132, a crow carried off the comb of a Princess whom a Prince had rescued from a Rākshasa and married, and it was discovered at a palace, inside a fish that had swallowed it when it was dropped in the sea. A woman sent to find the owner poisoned the Prince; the King carried off the widow, but she refused to marry him for six months. The Prince’s two friends, a Brāhmaṇa and a Carpenter, found her, and by means of a magic horse of sandal wood which the latter made, that flew where required, they returned with her. By a touch the Brāhmaṇa restored to life the Prince’s corpse which his wife had enclosed in a box. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 108, in a Kalmuk story, a Khan carried off a youth’s wife who dropped in a stream, while bathing, a gem-set ring, which the Khan got. Her husband was killed and buried by his emissaries. When his life-index tree withered, his five comrades found and revived him, and made a flying bird by means of which he regained his wife. At p. 222, in a Kalmuk story, a maidservant gave a Khan some wonderful hairs which clung to her water jar, and which a wife whom the Snake King gave to a man had lost when bathing. The Khan’s men captured her; after a year she made her husband dance, dressed in feathers, before her and the Khan. When the Khan to please her exchanged dresses with him, she ordered the Khan to be driven out, the dogs overtook and killed him, and her husband became King. Compare the ending of No. 18, vol. i. At p. 135, in a Kalmuk tale, a Brāhmaṇa’s son bought and set free a mouse, a young ape and a young bear; when he was afterwards enclosed in a chest and thrown into the river the animals rescued him. He found a talisman as large as a pigeon’s egg, made by its aid a city, palace, etc., exchanged the talisman for a caravan-load of goods, and all vanished. The animals recovered it, the palace was reconstructed, and he got a divine wife. In Korean Tales (Dr. Allen), p. 43, a man lost an amber talisman that a supernatural caller gave him. His dog and cat found it, and regained it by the aid of the rat-chief, who made a mouse creep into the soap-stone box in which it was hidden, after the rats gnawed a hole through the side. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, p. 258, a King sent a youth for a Nāga girl whose hairs, one hundred feet long, were found in a swallow’s nest. By means of a cap of invisibility and shoes for walking on water, which he stole from two persons who were quarrelling about them, the youth fetched her; but seeing that the King was ugly she threw at him a cake of gold she had brought, the blow killed him, and the youth became King and married her. [1] Nān̆ga rūssayak, Ironwood tree. [↑] [3] The magical power lay in the Nāga gem that was set in the ring. See notes, vol. i, p. 269, regarding the stone. [↑] [4] Compare the story of Prince Lionheart in Tales of the Punjab, p. 42 ff. [↑] In a city a Brāhmaṇa has a small piece of ground; only that belongs to him. He sold that place for three masuran. “Now then, I shall go and earn a living. You remain [at home], getting a livelihood to the extent you can,” he said to his wife. When the Brāhmaṇa was going along a path, yet [another] Brāhmaṇa was going in front. From the Brāhmaṇa who is going in front this Brāhmaṇa asks, “Embā! Brāhmaṇa, will you say a word [of advice] to me?” “If you will give me a masurama I will say it,” he said. This one said, “I will give it.” After he gave it, he says, “When you have gone to a country don’t require honour.” Having said it, the two persons go away [together]. When they had been going a considerable distance, this Brāhmaṇa asked, “Will you still say a word [of advice] to me?” “If you will give me yet a masurama I will say it,” he said. “I will give it,” he said. After he gave it, he said, “Don’t do anything without investigation.” He goes on in silence. When they had gone still a considerable distance, this one spoke, “Embā! Brāhmaṇa.” “What is it?” he asked. “Will you say yet a word [of advice] to me?” he asked. “Then will you give me still a masurama?” he said. Having said, “I will give it,” he gave him one masurama. “To one’s own wife don’t tell a secret.” The Brāhmaṇa [whom he had met], turning to go along a different path, asked at the hand of this one, “Are there still masuran in your hand?” Then this one said, “I sold a plot of ground, and brought three masuran. For even my expenses there is no other in my hand.” Having said, “If so, I will say a word without payment (nikan); don’t tell lies to Kings,” he went away. Thereupon this one being weakened by hunger, at the time when he was going on, a nobleman (siṭānan kenek) of a city near there having died and there being no one to bury him, they gave notice by beat of tom-toms that they will give five hundred masuran to a person who can [do it]. This destitute Brāhmaṇa asked the tom-tom beater, “What is that tom-tom beating for?” The tom-tom beater says, “A man of this country has died and there is no one to bury him. Because of it I am beating the notice tom-tom,” he said. This Brāhmaṇa thought, “ ‘When one has gone to a country do not require honours,’ he said.” Having thought, “Because it is so I must bury this nobleman,” this one said, “I can,” and went. Thereupon this dead nobleman’s son says to the Brāhmaṇa, “Thou having quite alone buried this dead body, come [to me]; I will give thy wages.” This one having said, “It is good,” and taken away the corpse, and cut the grave, thinks, “A sooth-saying Brāhmaṇa said to-day, ‘Without investigation don’t do a thing.’ ” Having said this he unfastened the cloth round the waist of this dead nobleman, and looked at the body. There was a belt. He unfastened it and looked [at it]; the belt was full of masuran. Having taken them he buried the corpse and came to the nobleman’s house. Well then, the nobleman’s son gave the Brāhmaṇa five hundred masuran. This one having taken them, came near a goldsmith, and causing him to make for his wife the things that she needed, he went to the Brāhmaṇa’s village. Having gone he spoke to his wife and gave her these articles. After he gave them this woman asks the Brāhmaṇa, “Whence did you bring these?” in order that he should say the manner in which he brought them. This one thought, “Yet [another] Brāhmaṇa having taken one masurama from me said, ‘To one’s own wife don’t tell a secret,’ didn’t he?” Thinking this, not telling her the way in which he brought them, he said, “Having become thirsty when I was coming home, when I looked about there was not a place to drink at. Having drunk a great quantity of Euphorbia milk[1] because the thirst was excessive, I was lying down upon a rock. Then the rock having split, masuran were thrown out. Collecting as many as I could, I got these things made,” he said to his wife. As soon as he said it (kīwā wahama), this woman having gone running told it in this manner to a great number of women besides. Thereupon the women having come running to their houses said it to their husbands. Those persons, about twenty-five, taking cooking pots, went to drink Euphorbia milk. Out of the persons who drank it a portion died; the other persons [after] vomiting came back. Having said to this Brāhmaṇa and his wife, “You told our men to drink Euphorbia milk, and caused them to die,” those women instituted a law-suit before a King. Thereupon the King caused both parties to be brought. The King asks the Brāhmaṇa, “How did this occur?” The Brāhmaṇa says, “Your Majesty (Dēvayan wahansē), having given three masuran, I asked for and got three words [of advice] from a Brāhmaṇa. ‘Having gone to a country don’t require honours,’ he said; ‘Without investigation don’t do a thing,’ he said; ‘To one’s own wife don’t tell a secret,’ he said; thereupon, the masuran being finished, he said without masuran, ‘Don’t tell lies to Kings.’ ” He then repeated to the King the true story (already given) of his adventures and actions, which I omit; and he ended by saying “On account of [the other Brāhmaṇa’s] saying, ‘Don’t tell lies to Kings,’ I told you the fact.” The King having investigated the law-suit, set free the Brāhmaṇa and the Brāhmaṇa’s wife. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. With this may be compared the advice given to the Prince in the story No. 250 in this volume. In Indian Nights’ Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 213 ff., a poor weaver who went away to improve his fortunes after borrowing forty rupees, met with a man who was silent until paid twenty rupees, when he said, “Friend, when four men give you [the same] advice, take it.” When he gave the man his remaining twenty rupees, and said, “Speak again,” the man warned him not to tell his wife what happened to him. After this, the weaver met with four men sitting round a corpse, and consented to carry it to the adjoining river for them, and throw it in. He found diamonds tied round its waist, appropriated them, returned home, repaid his loan, and lived in luxury. The village headmen wished to know how the weaver became rich, and the man’s wife pestered him about it until he stated that while on his travels he was told to drink half a pint of mustard oil early in the morning, and he would then see hidden treasure. The headman’s wife being told this by her, gave her husband and six children the dose at night, and in the morning they were all dead. When the King held an inquiry she charged the weaver’s wife with advising her to do it; but the latter totally denied it, and the headman’s wife was hanged. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 32, a Brāhmaṇa’s wife sold to a Prince for a lakh of rupees four pieces of advice written by her husband, and the King banished the Prince for his foolishness in wasting the money thus. The advice was that a person when travelling must be careful at a strange place, and keep awake, (2) a man in need must test his friends, (3) a man who visits a married sister in good style will be well received, but if poor will be disowned, (4) a man must do his own work well. The Prince was saved from murder by keeping awake at night in his lodgings; was nearly executed when he visited his brother-in-law as a poor Yōgī; rid a Princess of two snakes which issued from her nostrils, and was appointed her father’s successor; was then received with humility by his brother-in-law, and cured his father’s blindness by laying his hands on his eyes. At p. 332, four exiled Princes agreed to keep watch at night over the corpse of a great merchant; the reward was to be four thousand rupees. They had adventures with the corpse and demons. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 53, a Prince paid a man his only three gold coins for three pieces of advice, and the man gave him a fourth free of charge. The first was not to sit without moving the stool or mat offered; the second, not to bathe where others bathed; the third, to act according to the opinion of the majority; and, lastly, to restrain his anger, hear an explanation, and weigh it well before acting. The first saved him from being dropped into a well; the second saved his purse when left behind on bathing; the third obtained for him a roll of coin out of the waist cloth of a corpse which he threw into a ravine; and on returning home at night, when he found a pair of slippers and a sword outside his wife’s door, inquiry showed that only her sister was with her. [1] The milky sap which exudes from cuts in the bark or leaves. It is acrid, and blisters the skin if left on it. [↑] In a certain country a Lord (monk) having been a monk is without clothes [to put on, in order] to abandon his monk’s robes (siwru). Asking at the hand of a novice for a cloth and a handkerchief, he abandoned his robes (thus becoming a layman again). Having thus come away, when he was bathing in a river an elder sister and a younger sister were bathing lower down the river. Then, having seen that man who, having abandoned his robes and come [there], is bathing, the elder sister said, “That heap of wood which is coming is for me.” Then the younger sister said, “The things that are in that heap of wood are for me.” Then the elder sister went home for a cloth, to give to the man to wear. Afterwards the younger sister, having torn a piece from the cloth she was wearing, and having given it, goes away to her house with the man. Then the elder sister brings the cloth, too; having seen that these two are going the elder sister went back home. The younger sister and the Siwrāla went home [and he remained there as her husband]. The man, continuing to eat without doing work, is quite unemployed. Afterwards the younger sister’s mother, having told the younger sister and the Siwrāla to eat separately, gave her a gill of rice, a small water-pot (koraha), a small cooking-pot (muṭṭiya), a large cooking-pot (appallē), a rice-cleaning bowl (nāem̆biliya), and a spoon. The man having gone into the village[2] and been [there], when he is coming the younger sister is weeping and weeping. So the man asked, “What are you crying for?” Then the woman says, “Having said that you do not work, mother told us to eat separately.” Having said, “The things she gave (dīpuwā), there they are,” she showed him them. Afterwards the man having gone asked the Gamarāla (his wife’s father), “How [are we to do], then? There is not a thing for us to eat. I came here to ask to cut even a pāela (quarter of an amuṇa) of your paddy on shares.” The Gamarāla said, “Andō! Thou indeed wilt not cut the paddy, having been sitting doing nothing.” Then the man said, “No. I will cut a pāela or two of paddy and come back.” Having gone to the rice field, and that very day having cut the paddy [plants] for two pāelas of paddy (when threshed), and collected them, and heaped them at the corners of the encircling [ridges], and carried them to the threshing floor, and trampled them [by means of buffaloes] that very day, he went to the Gamarāla and said, “The paddy equal to two pāelas has been cut and trampled (threshed). Let us go at once to measure it.” Afterwards the Gamarāla having gone there, [said], “I don’t want this paddy; thou take it.” The man having brought the paddy home, said [to his wife], “You present this as a religious act.”[3] The woman having pounded the paddy and cooked it, gave away [the cooked rice] as a religious act. The man went [to a river near] the sea, to help men to cross to the other side.[4] When he helped them to cross, the man does not take the money which the men [offer to] give. When he was helping men to cross in that way, one day an old man came. He helped the man to cross. The man’s betel bag, and walking stick, and oil bottle were forgotten[5] on that bank. Afterwards the old man says, “Anē! My betel bag was forgotten.” That Siwrāla, having gone to that bank, brought and gave him the betel bag. Then that old man said, “Anē! My walking-stick was forgotten.” The Siwrāla brought and gave that also. Then that old man said, “Anē! My oil bottle was forgotten.” The Siwrāla brought and gave that also. Well then, that old man tried to give money to this man; the Siwrāla did not take it. The old man went away. This Siwrāla came home. Having gone there, the Siwrāla, having got fever, lay down. Well then, the Siwrāla says, “I shall be still a little delayed.” The woman asked, “What are you saying? Am I not becoming afraid [when you talk in that way]?” Then the man says, “Nay, I will say nothing. They are telling me to mount on that carriage, and telling me to mount on this carriage.” The woman said, “That is false you are saying.” Then the man said, “To look if it is false, string a flower garland and give me it.” Afterwards the woman having strung a flower garland, gave it. The man, taking the flower garland, threw it on the [celestial] carriage [in the air]. Then the flower garland was arranged on the carriage. Having seen it, that woman, covering her face, died. Having died there, the woman having been [re]-born in the divine world, when she was coming again to the house the man had not yet died. On account of it the woman said, “Why have you not died yet? I, having died, and gone, and been [re]-born in the divine world,—is it not so?—came here. Come, and go with me,” she said. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. The account of the dying man’s words and the flower garland which hung on the celestial carriage is borrowed from Mah. I., p. 226 (Dr. Geiger’s translation). When six gods invited the dying King Duṭṭha-Gāmaṇi to join them on their celestial cars and proceed to their heavenly world, he motioned to them to wait while sacred verses were being chanted, and explained to the monks what his gesture signified. As it was thought that his mind was affected, he ordered flower garlands to be thrown into the air, and these arranged themselves on the cars, which were invisible to all but the King. [3] Um̆ba mewwā damma-dīpan. [↑] [5] Baeri-wunā, were unable (to be remembered), or omitted. [↑] In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. During the time while they are there, there is an infant [son] of the two persons. After the infant became big they were stricken by a very great scarcity of food. Having given all and eaten, being without anything, at the time when, doing work at cities and having brought rice dust, they were continuing to eat, a King came, and calling that boy went away [with him]. The King having come again to this boy’s house, said at the hand of the boy’s mother and father, “How is the manner in which you get a living now?” The two persons said, “Having worked in these cities and brought rice dust [we cook and eat it].” The King said, “Can you go with me to my city?” The two persons having said “Hā,” the two went with the King to the King’s city. The King built and gave the two persons a house also (gēkut), to be in, and the two, doing work at the city, [after] cooking continue to eat. All the city spoke of giving a dānaya (religious feast) to the Gods and the host who come with the Gods. These two also spoke, “Let us also give (demu) a dānaya.” Having been there without eating for two or three days, they got together the things for the dāna. When they will give the dāna on the morrow, to seek a fish for the dāna this man went to the sea quarter. As he is going, the sea fishermen, having drawn their nets ashore, are stringing the fishes together. Then the fishermen asked, “Where are you going?” This man said, “I am to give a dānaya to the Gods to-morrow. For it I am going to seek a fish.” The fishermen said, “We will give it. String these fishes.” The man having said “Hā,” until it became evening strung the fishes. Afterwards the fishermen gave that man a fish. Taking it, as he was coming a considerable distance he met a widow woman. The woman said, “Where did you go?” Then the man said, “I went to this sea quarter. I am giving a dānaya to the Gods; I went to seek a fish for it.” The woman said, “I also will go,” and came with the man. At dawn the widow woman, asking [permission] from those two, cooked the dānē for the Gods. One cannot stay in the city on account of the sweet [smell] of that fish having entered it. Those Gods and their host having come at the time of the dāna, all at the city apportioned the whole of the food.[1] Near these three persons there was no one. So Śakra, [observing it], creating an old man’s appearance, came. This man called to Śakra, “Come here, you; there is not a person here for the dānē.” Having spread a single-fold (tani-poṭa) mat, he gave the dānē to Śakra. Śakra having eaten the dānē went away. Those Gods and their host then also went.[2] As this man was folding the mat which he gave to that Śakra to sit upon, under it silver and golden things had been heaped up. The man with that silver and gold caused a city to be well built. That King’s sovereignty having been changed, this man’s son obtained the sovereignty. When he had been [there] not much time a very great scarcity of food struck the [former] King of the city, and the people. Doing work at the city of this [formerly] poor man, and having eaten, they remained there. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. [1] The food was to be eaten by any poor people who came for it. Of course the deities required only the essence. [↑] [2] Ara deviyoyi sēnāwayi ēt giyā. [↑] At a certain city there is a person, Mādampē-rāla. For that Mādampē-rāla he brought a [bride in] marriage, it is said. That bride (man̆gula) was sent away (aerunā). Still he brought a bride, it is said; that bride also was sent away. In that manner, he brought seven persons. The youngest one of the whole seven having prospered, remained. The whole of those very seven persons were sisters. Those six persons were sent away, having said they would not grind millet. While the above-mentioned youngest woman is prospering, one day the man says, “Bolan, cook for me to-morrow morning while it is still night, and give me it. It is [necessary] to go to cut jungle (wal),” he said. The woman during the night itself cooked seven [millet] cakes, and cooked the flesh of a deer, and packed them in a box; and having cooked still seven cakes and the flesh of a deer, and given [these last to him] to eat, he finished. That Mādampē-rāla ate the seven cakes and the flesh of the deer, and went to cut jungle, taking the other seven cakes and the flesh of the deer. Having gone, and having placed the things he took at the bottom of a tree, he began to cut jungle. Having cut three and a half chenas,[1] and come [to the tree] and eaten the seven cakes and the flesh of the deer which he took, and drunk a gourd (labbak) of water, he cut another three and a half chenas, and went home. A little time having halted and been at home, he came back to the chena, and having set fire to it he began to work [again]. Having sown it and finished, bringing his wife and bags after the millet (kurahan) ripened they went to the chena, and she began to cut the millet. In the whole seven chenas she cut the millet in just one day. Having cut it and collected it at one place, together with the man she dragged[2] (carried) it home. That she cut the millet in the whole seven chenas the man was much pleased. Having finished with the millet work, there having been a little paddy of his he cut that little, and collected it together. Having said that he must go to his father-in-law’s village, while he is going away [after] tying five pingo (carrying-stick) loads, when going along through the middle of the King’s rice field the men who are in the field seized him. Thereupon he says, “Don’t seize me. There being no paddy for me to cut, a little paddy of my father-in-law’s has ripened; to cut that little and return, I am going [after] tying also five pingo loads [of presents for my father-in-law]. I am unable[3] to stay to cut paddy [for you],” he said. Thereupon, the men while giving answer asked, “Bola, any person who goes through the middle of this field goes [after] having cut paddy.[4] If thou cut [some] and went, would it be bad?” Thereupon, the man began to cut the paddy. Having cut the seven amuṇas (about sixteen acres), and finished, he descended to the unripe paddy[5] and began to cut it. Having cut the unripe paddy and finished, he began to cut the young paddy.[6] That he cuts with an elephant’s-rib pin. When he is cutting the young paddy, the men having gone running to the royal palace, say, “We called and got a man who was going on the path. That man having cut down all the [ripe] paddy is cutting the young paddy,” they said. Thereupon the King having come to the rice field and called the man, when he asked, “What are you cutting the unripe paddy for?” the man says, “When I was going to father-in-law’s village [after] tying five pingo-loads, they told me to cut paddy,” he said. The King calling the man and having gone with him [to the palace], tied ten pingo-loads more, and sent him away with men [carrying them], it is said. Having gone to his father-in-law’s house, while he is there, when the man is preparing to go to the watch hut [in the rice field] his father-in-law says, “Son-in-law, you cannot go. A malignant (wasa) boar comes to the rice field. It has eaten three or four men,” he said. Having said, “No matter to me for that; I am not afraid of it,” he went off, taking a large rice pestle. Having gone, when he was [there] the boar came; it having come there he shouted. Through fear at that it descended to rip open the man. When it was coming, the boar came and sprang to eat him. The man having given it blows with the rice pestle, killed it; having killed it he began to cut the paddy. In that paddy field he cut all the paddy before light falls. Having cut it and come away, he entered the watch hut and went to sleep. After light fell, his father-in-law who stayed at home was expecting that he would come; because [he did] not, with much grief he went to the rice field to look if the boar had eaten him. Having gone [there], when he looked he had gone to sleep. When his father-in-law spoke to him he turned and got up. When he said, “Boy, we were afraid that the boar would have eaten you,” he replied, “The boar indeed came; I beat it. Look there; it is dead, look.” Having looked at it, both of them went home, taking it. Thereafter he was much pleased with the son-in-law. Afterwards [the man] came home. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. [1] That is, three and a half times the extent usually cleared by one man for the season’s crop. [↑] [2] Æddēya. See note, vol. i, p. 193. [↑] [3] Lit., it is not for me to stay. [↑] [4] A common custom in the royal fields, I believe. Villagers employed on my works sometimes impressed wayfarers in this manner, as a joke. [↑] The first part of this story is a repetition, with little variation, of the incidents in No. 58, vol. i, and the first part of No. 10. After eating the fruit in the plantain garden the youth was set afloat in the river, and had a similar experience at a Kaekiri garden, where he said his name was Ena-ena-gaeṭa Kannā, Wael Peralannā,—Eater of the young fruits which keep coming, Turner-over of creepers. The present story continues:— Then the ship (raft) went to the place where the washerman-uncle was washing clothes. “Anē! Washerman-uncle, take me out,” the boy said. He got him ashore, and after taking him asked, “What is your name?” “Hūkiyannā” (He who calls “Hū”), he said. Well then, calling him they went home. The woman who was in the house asked, “What is your name?” “Āsiyā,”[1] he said. After that, the boy went with the washerman-uncle to a house, to tie cloths for decoration [on the walls and ceiling].[2] While tying them the cloths became insufficient, so the washerman-uncle said, “Go home; take cloths from the box at the foot of the bed,[3] and bring them.” The boy having gone home and opened the box, took cloths from it, and as he was coming back decorated with the cloths a Jambu tree[4] that was near the path. Having decorated it (that is, hung them from the branches), while he was there Heṭṭirālas who were going trading in cloth [came up and] asked the boy, “What is that?” “This Jambu tree produces cloth as fruit,” he said. When he said this, the Heṭṭirālas said, “Give the cloth tree to us for money.” Afterwards the boy having given them the cloth tree for money, said, “I have no cloth to wear. Give me those two cloths; the tree will bear other cloths for you.” The men gave him the two cloths. After that, while he was taking the cloths he met with a Banyan tree, and decorated that tree also with the two cloths. While he was there [after] decorating it, a man was taking an elephant [along the path]. When he came near the tree he asked, “What is that?” “This Banyan tree produces cloth as fruit,” the boy replied. After he said this [the man] said, “Taking this elephant give me that cloth tree.” Then the boy, having given that man the cloth tree, took the elephant to a house. After he went there, having tied up the elephant he made the elephant eat (swallow) the gold [coins] which he had [got from the cloth traders]. Next morning it had voided them. Afterwards, taking [the elephant’s dung], while he was washing it [and picking out the gold coins] the house man, [learning from him that the elephant always dropped gold coins in that way], said, “Give that elephant to me for money.” He gave the elephant. After that, the boy, taking the money, went to his father’s house. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. The last incident is given in The Indian Antiquary, vol. xviii, p. 120, in a Tamil story by Pandit Naṭēśa Sāstrī. A Brāhmaṇa’s son who was sent away by his father, stayed at a courtesan’s house. At dawn he put two gold coins in each of the droppings of his horse, and when the sweeper came he refused to let him remove the horse dung until he took out his money. After the courtesan bought the horse, and learnt the spell which he said was necessary, he went away to Madura. In the same Journal, vol. iii, p. 11, in a Bengal story by Mr. G. H. Damant, a farmer made his cow swallow one hundred rupees. Six men who saw him afterwards collecting the rupees from the cow-dung, bought the animal for five thousand rupees. When they returned after discovering the trickery the stick incident followed, in which the wife was beaten in order to change her into a girl. In Indian Nights’ Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 109, a man made his servant insert rupees into his mule’s dung overnight, and in the morning break it up and remove them. He then sold the mule for four thousand rupees to some people who had robbed his brother. In a Khassonka story of the interior of West Africa, given in Contes Soudanais (C. Monteil), p. 66, a boy received from a credulous King a thousand slaves in exchange for a hen which he averred changed all the herbs it ate into nuggets of gold. He explained that he did not know what to do with it because gold was nothing to him. The King kept the hen in confinement for a month, caused the dung to be washed, and of course found no gold. [1] Apparently “The Ace,” with a personal suffix; but his real meaning was, “He who goes about cheating” (ā + śṛi + yā). [↑] [2] Wiyan. This work is always done by the local washerman, who supplies the cloth for it. [↑] [3] Pamula peṭṭiya. See note, vol. i, p. 183. [↑] [4] This is an old notion. In A Catena of Buddhist Scriptures (Beal), p. 74, it is stated, “Again, there are different kinds of kalpa trees which produce garments, from which they can select every sort of robe to wear.” [↑] In a certain country there are seven Queens, it is said. For the whole seven Queens there are no children. In the King’s garden one Jak fruit grew[1]; after the Jak fruit ripened he cut it; in it there was one section containing a seed (madula). Afterwards the King said, “Can a Queen eat this Jak section and bear a child?” Six Queens said they cannot; one Queen ate it. She having eaten it, ten months were fulfilled (lit., filled) for bearing a child. Then the King happened to go for a war. Afterwards pains seized that Queen; she bore a Chank shell. Then when the six Queens made an Asura figure,[2] having taken that Chank shell they buried it in the dunghill. Well then, having waited until the time when the King came, the six persons showed him the Asura figure. Afterwards the King having struck blows at the Queen who was confined, drove her away. A bull having come to the place where that Chank shell was buried, and dug it with its horns, saw the Chank shell and swallowed it. The bull having gone to the sea evacuated the Chank shell; there also the shark having seen it swallowed it. From there, having killed the shark, fishermen (kewulō) took it to the city; when taking it along the street to sell, the Queen who bore that Chank shell met with them. Having seen the shark the Queen asked, “For how much are you selling this shark?” The fishermen said, “We are selling it for four tuṭṭu (three half-pence).” Afterwards the Queen having given four tuṭṭu, took the shark. Having brought it to her lodgings and cut it, when she looked there was a Chank shell in its stomach. Having put the Chank shell away, [after] cooking the shark meat she ate. When she was [there after] putting away the Chank shell, one day she looked at it. Then having seen that inside the Chank shell a Prince is drinking milk that is in his hand,[3] she took the Prince out. At that time (ē pāra) the Queen got to know that it was the Chank shell that she bore. She gave the Prince a jacket. At the time when she put it on[4] there was a cutaneous eruption (hori) on his body. Afterwards the Queen said he was Horikaḍayā (the one with the bit of hori). After the Prince became big he went to the smithy; having gone and brought a bow, and an arrow-stem, and an arrow-head,[5] he went to shoot animals, and shot a deer. Having come [after] shooting it, he gave it to his nearest uncle.[6] Thus, in that manner, shooting and shooting deer he eats. When he was thus, one day when going to shoot he met with an Egret (kokkā); when he caught it alive (amuwen), taking it [home] he reared it. [After] rearing it, the Egret and Horikaḍayā every day go to the chena jungle for hunting-meat,[7] to shoot deer for themselves. One day when they were going thus they saw that there were a horse, and a Prince, and a Minister; afterwards the two went there. Having gone, at that Prince’s hand, “What [are you doing here]?” Horikaḍayā asked. “Because our father the King tried to kill us, on account of it we came and sprang into the chena jungle,” the Prince said. Afterwards the five live in one place. While there, Horikaḍayā said to the Prince, “Let us go to seek a marriage.” Afterwards the whole five having gone very near a city to seek the marriage, the Prince and the Minister having gone inside the city, and having tied the horse in the open space (midula) of the city, Horikaḍayā and the Egret remained among the branches [in the jungle]. The Prince asked the city Princess [in marriage]. The Princess said, “To the Prince I cannot go; I will go indeed to Horikaḍayā.” Afterwards Horikaḍayā and the Princess contracted (lit., tied) the marriage. When the whole six having collected together are coming to the village, the horse and the Prince and the Minister say, “We can’t give that Princess to that Horikaḍayā; owing to it let us kill Horikaḍayā.” Afterwards, when the three, summoning Horikaḍayā, were going to the forest they met with a well. They made Horikaḍayā descend into the well; having made him descend and thrown down stones, they trampled [them down]. There Horikaḍayā died. Afterwards the three, calling the Princess, came away (enḍa āwā) to the village. The Egret being without Horikaḍayā went away (giyā yanḍa). Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 82, a girl who was married to a King bore one hundred eggs, out of which eventually issued one hundred Princes. The Queen and concubines, being jealous of her, showed the King a piece of plantain fruit trimmed so as to represent a demon, and stated that she had given birth to it. They placed the eggs in a pot (cruche) and set it afloat in a river, whence a King of a country lower down obtained it. In the same work, vol. i, p. 305, Śakra gave a Queen of Pañcāla a fruit, telling her that after eating it she would have a son. [3] Atē kiri bonawā, usually meaning sucking the thumb. [↑] [5] Dunnakuyi, īgahakuyi, ītalayakuyi. [↑] [6] Ewaessa māmā, mother’s brother. [↑] In a certain city a woman had become dexterous at dancing. It became public everywhere that there was not a single person in the whole of Great Dam̆badiva (India) to dance with (i.e., equal to) the woman. At the same time, there was also a boy called Bahu-Bhūtayā, a boy of a widow woman. While he is [there], one day the aforesaid woman went for dancing to the village called Balaellāewa.[1] Having danced that day, she obtained a thousand masuran. Thereafter, she went to dance at the house of the Dippiṭiyās[2], at the village called Koṭikāpola, which was near the same village. On the same day the aforesaid Bahu-Bhūtayā also went in order to look at the woman’s dances. Bahu-Bhūtayā before this had learnt dances from the Danḍapola Kōrāla (headman). While Bahu-Bhūtayā, having gone, and looked and looked, was there, she began to dance, having sung and sung poetical songs, and beaten and beaten cymbals. The woman says, “The savages that are to Lan̥kā bound! Alas! the savages upon my Lan̥kā bound!”[3] When, in singing it, she had made it about Lan̥kāwa (Ceylon), when she [thought she] had made no opportunity (iḍak) for any other dancing person who might be present [to surpass her], having sung the poetical song she danced. At that time Bahu-Bhūtayā, after having decorated himself with [dancer’s] dress, taking the uḍakkiya (the small hand tom-tom), and asking permission from all (according to the usual custom), sang a song (a parody of the other). The very song indeed [was]:— “Alas! Alas! Daub oil my head around; Or, if you won’t, Athwart my chest observe how hairs abound.”[5] (Anē! Anē! Mage isa waṭa tel gāpan̥ Baeri nan̥ bada[6] waṭa kehuru balan̥.) Having sung the song, Bahu-Bhūtayā descended to dance. Because the Danḍapola Kōrāla previously taught Bahu-Bhūtayā that same song, and because the same teacher had given his sworn word [not to teach it to another person], the woman was unable to dance the same song. After having made obeisance to Bahu-Bhūtayā, she says, “You, Sir, must give me teaching,” the woman said to Bahu-Bhūtayā. After that, Bahu-Bhūtayā, marrying that very woman, began to teach her. After he had taught her, one day the woman thinks, “I must kill this Bahu-Bhūtayā,” she thought. “What of my being married to this Bahu-Bhūtayā! From dancing I have no advantage; he himself receives the things. Because of it I will kill him,” she thought. One day, lying down in the house, saying, “I have a very severe (lit., difficult) illness,” the woman remained lying down. Bahu-Bhūtayā having gone for a work, when he came back saw that she is lying down. Having seen it, he says, “What is it? What illness have you?” he asked. The woman, in order to kill the man, says, “Now then, I shall not recover; I have much illness,” she said. Thereupon Bahu-Bhūtayā, because the woman was good-[looking], thinks, “What medical treatment shall I give for this?” he thought. After that, the woman says, “If you are to cure my illness, having brought a little water which is at the bottom of the Great Sea beyond the Seventh Ocean, should I drink it (bunnot) my illness will be cured,” she said. After that, Bahu-Bhūtayā began to go. Having gone on and on he went on the Great Ocean. Through affection for his wife, because she was very handsome, he jumped [into it] to get the water from the bottom of the ocean. After he jumped [into it], the fishes having bitten him and the water having soaked him, he died. Beginning from that time, this woman, having associated with another husband also, when dancing brought back presents. After a long time, that very woman also, through the crime committed respecting her first husband, fell into the water and died. From that time, the persons who saw these [things said] they are in the form of a folk-tale. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. [1] This may be the modern Balalli-waewa, on the Pādeniya-Anurādhapura road. [↑] Laka waṭa baedi[4] sawaran̥! Anē! Mage Laka waṭa baedi sawaran̥! [4] There is a play on this word, baedi meaning jungle, while bae[n̆]di, which is sometimes written baedi, means tied, bound. A meaning might be, “The savages of the jungle around Lan̥kā (Ceylon).” [↑] [5] A line of hairs from the throat to the navel is said to be considered a thing of beauty. [↑] In a country there was, it is said, a man called Gōnaka-Bokkā. There were ten younger brothers of that Gōna-Bokkā, it is said. The ten younger brothers spoke: “From elder brother Gōna-Bokkā there is not any advantage for us [because he idles and does no work]. It is difficult for us, doing [house] work for ourselves. On account of it, we will bring one [woman in] marriage for us ten persons.” After having said it, having said, “Let us go to the village called Oṭannāpahuwa,” the young younger brother went to the village, it is said. He went to that Oṭannāpahuwa to ask about the marriage. After that, the other nine persons speak, it is said: “When we say to our elder brother, ‘Gōna-Bokkā,’ the woman they are bringing for us will say, Bola, that the name called Gōna-Bokkā is not good caste [enough] for her. The woman they are bringing for us will come [now]. On account of it, let us call him Goḷu-Bayiyā. Let us give her to our Goḷu-Bayi elder brother also to neutralise[2] our [inferior] names,” they are talking together, it is said. Then, several days wearing down the road, the youngest brother of all having come, said, it is said, “Elder brothers, I went to ask at Oṭannāpahuwa. The woman indeed is of good lineage (wan̥śe). They sent word, ‘Who gives in marriage to a young youngster?[3] Tell the elder brothers, one of them, to come.’ ” After that, the ten persons speak [together], it is said, “Let us send elder brother Goḷu-Bayiyā, older than we ten, to ask about the marriage,” they talk. Well, the person they call Goḷu-Bayiyā is a great fool, it is said. After that, those ten spoke: “Elder brother, if you also agree (lit., come) to the things we say, you also come [after] calling After that, Goḷu-Bayiyā said, “It is good; I will go.” Causing them to cook a lump of rice, he set off and went. He goes and he goes. Because he does not know the path, having gone [part of the way], sitting down on a rock in the midst of the forest he ate the lump of cooked rice. Having eaten it, while he is there a woman of another country, having become poor, is coming away, it is said, along the path. Having come, she sat down near the rock on which is that Goḷu-Bayiyā. After that, the woman asks, it is said, “Of what country are you? Of what village?” the woman asked the man. The man said, “I am going to Oṭannāpahuwa to ask about a marriage,” he said. [He told her of his brother’s visit.] After that, the woman says, “Aniccan̥ dukkhan̥! The woman of that village who was asked is I. My two parents, having made a mistake, drove me away. Because of it I am going to a place where they give to eat and to drink,” she said. After that, Goḷu-Bayiyā having thought, “Because the woman is good-looking, and because she has been asked before, not having gone at all to Oṭannāpahuwa I must go [back] calling her [in marriage],” summoning the woman whom he met with while on the path he came to the village. Having come, he says to his younger brothers, “I went to Oṭannāpahuwa.” Having said, “The bride,—there, [that is] the woman; for the whole of us let us call her [to be our wife],” he said. After that, the other ten persons, because they had not seen her [before], from that day marrying the woman stayed [there with her]. Marrying her, while they were there several days the younger ten persons speak: “Elder brother quite alone, without anyone whatever [to assist him], came back calling our [bride in] marriage. It was good cleverness that our elder brother showed (lit., did). Because of it let us all do work. Having handed over our wife to our elder brother Goḷu-Bayiyā to guard her continually, let us do work. Elder brother, guard the woman,” they said. Having said, “It is good; I will guard her,” to the places where the woman goes and comes, and to all other places if the woman goes, that Goḷu-Bayiyā also goes. While [matters were] thus, one day a man came to the village for trading. The man’s name was Gaeṭapadayā. That Gaeṭapadayā for several days having continued to do trading at the same house, stayed in the maḍuwa (open shed) at the same house [at which the brothers lived]. While staying there, Goḷu-Bayiyā’s wife associated with the same man they call Gaeṭapadayā. While they are thus, on a day when the first-mentioned ten persons went to work, Gaeṭapadayā says to the aforesaid Goḷu-Bayiyā, “I saw a dream to-day. What was it? At such and such a place on the path I saw that a Sambhar deer is dead.” Gaeṭapadayā told Goḷu-Bayiyā to look at it and come back. While Goḷu-Bayiyā went to look at the Sambhar deer, Gaeṭapadayā taking the woman, taking also the goods that were at the house, both of them absconded. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. [1] The text is given at the end of this volume. [↑] [2] Makanṭa, to obliterate, but the meaning of the narrator appears to be more nearly expressed by the word I have inserted. [↑] [3] When a woman has more than one husband (brothers always), she goes through the marriage ceremony with the eldest, and is formally given to him only. [↑] In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. The man has worked in a rice field; in it he also built a watch-hut. The man is in the watch-hut every day. At the time when he is thus, a beggar came to the man’s house. Afterwards the man having heaped up a great many coconut husks in the watch-hut [for making fires at night], told the beggar to go to the watch-hut. The beggar went to the watch-hut. Afterwards this man having gone to the watch-hut and set fire to the watch-hut, came back, and said at the hand of his wife, “You say, ‘Our man, having been burnt at the watch-hut, died.’ ”[1] Furthermore he said, “Every day when I say ‘Hū,’ near the stile of the rice field, put a leaf-cup of cooked rice for me”; having said it the man went into the jungle. After it became night, the man having come to the rice field cried “Hū” near the stile. Then the woman brought the cooked rice and placed it there; having placed it there the woman went home. The man ate the cooked rice, and went again into the jungle. On the following day, also, the man, after it became night, came to the rice field and cried “Hū.” Then the woman brought cooked rice and placed it there. While she was there, the man having come said, “Don’t you bring cooked rice again; I am going to the Akaraganē jungle.” Afterwards the woman came home. That man, having eaten the cooked rice, went to the Akaraganē jungle, and having rolled himself in a mud hole,[2] came to the path and remained [there]. Then, when a man was coming bringing cakes and plantains along the path, this man, breaking a bundle of branches, sprang in front of that man who was coming. Thereupon, the man having thrown down the cakes and plantains at that very spot, bounded off and went away. When this man, [after] taking and putting away the pingo (carrying-stick) load, was there, a potter comes along bringing a pingo load of pots. Then this man, again breaking a bundle of branches, sprang in front of that man who was coming. Thereupon the potter, having thrown down the pingo load of pots at that very spot, bounded off and went away. After that, the man, taking and putting away the pingo load of pots, remains [there]. (He frightened other men in the same manner, and secured pingo loads of coconuts, turmeric, chillies, salt, onions, rice, vegetables, and a bundle of clothes. Thus he had the materials that he required for making curries. The narrator gave the account of each capture in the same words as before.) Afterwards, this man having taken and put away there the pingo load of rice and vegetables,—near that forest there is a city,—having gone to the city and brought fire, [after] cooking ate. While he was [there], when a man who had gone to a devil-dance (kankāriyakaṭa) was coming, this man, breaking a bundle of branches, sprang in front of that man who was coming. Then that tom-tom beater, having thrown down there the box of decorations, and jingling bangles, and all, bounded off and went away. Afterwards, when this man was there [after] tying them on, while certain men who had gone to a [wedding] feast were coming calling the bride, again this man, breaking a bundle of branches, sprang in front of those men who were coming; and taking the bride and placing her in the chena jungle he sprang into a rock house (cave). Those men through fear bounded off and went away. Afterwards the King of the city said, “Who can seize that Yakā?” Then a man said, “I can.” The King said, “What do you want?” “Having built a house in the chena jungle (landē) and tied white cloths [inside, on the walls and ceiling],[3] and put a bed [in it], you must give me it.” Afterwards the King having caused a house to be built, and caused white cloths to be tied, and caused a bed to be placed [in it], gave it. Afterwards this man having caused the bride to stay in the rock house, and having gone much beforehand (kalimma), crept under the end of the bed in the house and remained [there] silently. The man who said he could seize the Yakā, after it became night having eaten and drunk, taking also a thread, came onto the bed in the house; having come he utters spells (maturanawā). Then the man who is under the bed shakes the jingling bangle a little. The man who is uttering spells, after saying, “Hā, are you getting caught?” utters spells loudly, loudly.[4] Then the man who was under the bed having arisen, taking the man together with the bed also, went to the rock house. Having gone there, when he was placing the bed in the rock house, the man who was on the bed, crying out and having got up, went to the city. Then the King asked, “What is it? Didst thou seize the Yakā?” The man having said, “Anē! O Lord, I indeed cannot seize him,” went to the man’s village. Afterwards the King having said that he can seize him, and the King having mounted on his horse, came with the army to the Akaraganē jungle. Then this man, breaking a bundle of branches, sprang in front [of him]. Having sprung in front of the King who was coming, seizing the horse this man came to the rock house. The King and the army went to the city through fear. After they returned a Lord[5] came. The King asked if the Lord could seize the Yakā who is in the Akaraganē jungle. Then the Lord asked, “When I have seized the Yakā what will you give me?” The King said, “I will give a district from the kingdom, and goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant’s load, and the Akaraganē jungle.” The King said, “For seizing the Yakā what do you want?” The Lord said, “Having built a house, and tied cloths at it, and placed a bed [in it], please give me it.” Afterwards the King having put a bed in that house which was built [already], gave him it. This man, just as on that day, crept beforehand under the bed in the house, and remained [there]. Afterwards the Lord having gone, taking also a thread, utters spells while sitting on the bed. Then the man who is under the bed shakes the jingling bangle a little. Then the Lord while uttering spells says, “Hā, being caught, come.” Saying and saying it, he utters spells very loudly. Then the man who was under the bed, having shaken the jingling bangles loudly, lifting up [and carrying] the bed also, went to the rock house. Having gone there, when he was placing it [there], the Lord, crying out, bounded off and went away. Having thus gone, when he was [at the palace] the King asked, “What is it? Did you seize the Yakā?” Then the Lord having said, “Anē! I indeed cannot seize him,” the Lord went to his pansala. Having caused the bride of the man who is in the rock house to remain in the rock house, and having taken off the man’s jingling bangles and placed them in the rock house, [the man] came near the King. Then the King asked, “Can you seize the Yakā of the Akaraganē jungle?” The man having said, “I can,” said, “What will you give me?” The King said, “I will give a district from the kingdom, and goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant’s load. I will also give the Akaraganē jungle as a Nindema.”[6] The King said, “For seizing the Yakā what do you want?” Then the man said, “I don’t want anything.” Having gone to the Akaraganē jungle, and having come on the following day taking the jingling bangle and box of tom-tom beater’s decorations, he showed them to the King, and said he seized the Yakā. Afterwards the King, having given the man the articles which the man took [to him], gave the man a district from the kingdom, and goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant’s load, and the Akaraganē jungle. The man having taken them, and come to the rock house, that woman and five children were [there]. The five children having gone to the man’s village, in the man’s village were his first wife and five children of the woman’s. The children having sold the house at that village, and the two women and the ten children having come again to the Akaraganē jungle, building a house in that jungle all remained in that very place. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. [1] Apparently the fire originated accidentally, and the man was afraid of being charged with murdering the beggar. Compare story No. 21, vol. i, of which the Western Province has a variant. [↑] [2] Man̆ḍa walaka. In village talk and writing, the semi-consonants n̆, ṇ̆, and n̐ are often inserted in words in which they do not occur in ordinary Sinhalese; on the other hand, these letters, and m̆ as a semi-consonant, are often omitted in writing words in which they are always pronounced. [↑] [5] Hāmun̆duru namak, a Buddhist monk. [↑] [6] Tract “assigned for the exclusive use of the grantee,” and his descendants. See Wickremasinghe (Epigraphia Zeylanica, vol. i, p. 244). [↑] At a certain village there are five Gamarālas; for those five there are five wives. While the five persons are [there], five traders came to the house. To those women say the five traders, “Go with us.” Having said, “Let us go,” they went. Then when the five Gamarālas came home, having seen that the five women were not [there] they went to seek them. When going, they went into the forest jungle (himālē) in which are four Rākshasas. The Rākshasas seized the men. Well then, the four Rākshasas having shared four men ate them; one person remained over. One Rākshasa said to another Rākshasa, “Take him for yourself.” Then the other Rākshasa says, “I don’t want him; you take him.” This Rākshasa says, “I don’t want him.” Then that Rākshasa said, “Give him to me, if so.” The other Rākshasa said, “I will not give him now, because previously when I was giving him you did not take him.” Owing to it there having been a quarrel, the two [fought each other, and] died. Still two Rākshasas remained over. One Rākshasa having handed over the man to the other Rākshasa, says to the other Rākshasa, “You take charge of this man. Stay in this jungle; I am going to another jungle.” After he said it the Rākshasa goes away. When going, he met with yet [another] man. Seizing the man he says, “What is in your box?” “In my box, cakes,” he said. Then the Rākshasa says, “I don’t want cakes; I must eat you.” The man says, “It is I alone you eat now. [Spare me, and] I will give you cakes to eat,” he said. The Rākshasa said, “I indeed don’t eat these.” The man says, “O Rākshasa (Rāksayeni), it is for the name of thy Goddess, Mīdum Ammā,[1] [that thou must spare me].” He having said this name, the Rākshasa, taking a cake, went to the river; he let the man go. Then the Rākshasa, having broken the cake into bits, says, “Under the protection (saranē) of Mīdum Ammā, this cake is sprouting.” Then it sprouted. Then the Rākshasa says, “On this tree four branches are being distributed, under the protection of Mīdum Ammā.” They were distributed. After they were distributed, he said, “On this tree four flowers are becoming full-grown, under the protection of Mīdum Ammā.” Then four flowers were full-grown. After that, he said, “Four cakes are becoming fruit on this tree, under the protection of Mīdum Ammā.” Then four cakes became fruit. After they became fruit the Rākshasa climbed the tree. While he was ascending, a Rākshasī came. Having come, she says, “O Rākshasa, please give me also cakes.” The Rākshasa says, “Because I asked and got them from Mīdum Ammā I cannot give them.” The Rākshasī says, “Anē! O Rākshasa, you cannot say so. Please give me cakes.” Then the Rākshasa gave her a [cake]-fruit. The Rākshasī said falsely, “The cake fell into the heap of cow-dung.” Then the Rākshasa says, “To give cakes to thee, I shall not give again.” The Rākshasī says, “O Rākshasa, [for me] to take [thee] to my house, place two cakes in thy two armpits, and taking one in [each] hand, do thou please jump into my sack.” The Rākshasa says, “O Rākshasī, what happened to thy Rākshasa?” The Rākshasī says, “There is no Rākshasa of ours. O Rākshasa, I must take thee away.” Then the Rākshasa says, “It is good.” The Rākshasī says, “Having been in that cake tree, please jump into my sack.” Then she held the sack. The Rākshasa jumped. He having jumped [into it], the Rākshasī tied the mouth of the sack, and placing it on her head goes on the path to the jungle.[2] When going, she met with a Moorman (Marakkek). The Rākshasī, having become afraid at seeing the man, bounded off. After she sprang off, the Moorman, having gone near the sack, placed the sack on his head; he took the sack away. Having gone again to the jungle he stays [there]. Then the Rākshasa came out and seized the Moorman. The man says, “What didst thou seize me for?” “Because there is not any food for me I seized thee to eat.” The Moorman says, “Thou wilt eat me, only, now. There are five hundred children [of mine]. In the month I will give thee the children.” Afterwards the Rākshasa let him go. The Moorman went home. The whole of the five hundred children of the Moorman go to school. When they came home from school the Moorman says, “Sons, come, to go on a journey.” The five hundred and the Moorman having gone to the jungle, went to the place where the Rākshasa is. Having gone there, he called the Rākshasa; the Rākshasa came. Seeing the Rākshasa, this Moorman says, “O Rākshasa, they are in thy charge, these five hundred.” Then the Rākshasa again seized the Moorman. The Moorman says, “What didst thou seize me for?” The Rākshasa says, “To eat thee I seized thee.” Then the Moorman says, “My five hundred cattle are [there]; I will give them to thee.” The Rākshasa says, “If so, wilt thou bring and give them?” The Moorman says, “I will bring and give them.” Then the Moorman went to his house. Having gone [there], he came back, taking the five hundred cattle. He gave him them. Then the Rākshasa again seized the Moorman. The Moorman says, “What didst thou seize me for?” The Rākshasa says, “To eat thee.” The Moorman says, “Five hundred goats are [there]. I will give them to thee; let me go.” Then he let go the Moorman. The Moorman, having gone home, brought those five hundred goats and gave them. After he gave them the Rākshasa again seized the Moorman. When he was seizing him, he said to the Rākshasa, “I have brought and given thee so many things; thou didst not eat them.” The Rākshasa says, “That is the truth. Take thy five hundred children; take thy five hundred cattle.” When he said thus, the Rākshasa, taking the five hundred goats, ate. After that, the Moorman was sent home by the hand of the Rākshasa. After he sent him, this Rākshasa, having come to the Rākshasa’s boundary, called the Moorman, and said, “Please take charge of this jungle; I am going away.” The Moorman says, “O Rākshasa, where are you going?” The Rākshasa says, “I cannot live in this jungle!” The Moorman says, “If so, I will take over this chena jungle.” He took it, the Moorman. The Rākshasa afterwards having gone from the jungle, a Yakā went into the jungle. In that jungle there is a very excellent[3] tree. In the excellent [tree] in that jungle the Yakā lives. When he was [there] he saw that the Rākshasa is going, the Yakā. The Yakā having become afraid began to run off, having descended. Then the Rākshasa came near the tree. Having come, when he looked he perceived that the Yakā had been [there]. The Rākshasa thought, “I must create for myself a man’s disguise”; he created it. [After] creating it he ascended that tree; having ascended the tree he stayed [there] seven days. He saw two men taking a hidden treasure. The Rākshasa thought, “I must eat these two persons.” Afterwards these two men came to that very tree. After they came the Rākshasa slowly descended. After having descended (baehaelā hiṭan), having come near those men he says, “Where went ye?” Then the men say, “We came for no special purpose (nikan).” “What is this meat in your hand?” he asks. The men say, “This meat is indeed human.”[4] Then the Rākshasa says, “Why didst thou tell me lies?” Having said it he seized them. Having finished seizing them, to those men says the Rākshasa, “I must eat you.” The men say, “Shouldst thou eat us thy head will split into seven pieces.” Then the Rākshasa says, “Art thou a greater person than I, Bola?” Thereupon the Rākshasa created and took the Rākshasa appearance. After he took it he asks, “Now then, art thou afraid of me now?” Then he ate a man. Seeing the other man, he seized his two hands.[5] After he seized them that man says, “O Rākshasa, what didst thou hold me for?” The Rākshasa says, “I hold thee for me to eat.” “I have the tiger, greater than thee. Having employed the tiger I will kill thee,” [the man said]. Then the Rākshasa, having abandoned the Rākshasa appearance, created the tiger appearance. After creating it, when he seized that man he says, “Is there a child of thine?” The man says, “There are two children of mine.” The tiger says, “Am I to eat thee, or wilt thou give me thy two children?” he says. Then he says, “Don’t eat me; I will give my two children.” The tiger says, “Thou art telling lies.” The man says, “In three days I will bring and give them to thee.” Both the boys went to the jungle to break firewood. Afterwards, this man having come home, when he looked [they were] not at home. The man asked at the hand of his wife, “Where are the two youths?” The woman says, “The two boys went to break firewood.” Then the man beat that woman. “Why didst thou send them to the chena jungle?” he said. The two youths came home. After they came they saw that their mother is weeping and weeping. “What, mother, are you weeping for?” they asked. Then said that woman, “Sons, your father beat me.” Then the two youths say, “It is good, mother; if so, let him beat.”[6] Thereupon the father called those two youths: “Having gone quite along this path, let one go on the rock that is on the path,—one,” he said. He told the other youth to stay below the rock. Then he said to the youth who was going on the rock, “Having gone to the rock call your younger brother.” Those boys having gone to that rock, the youth who went onto it called the other youth. The tiger heard that word. Having heard it he abandoned the tiger appearance; again he created the Rākshasa appearance. [After] creating it, he came running near the rock, the Rākshasa. Then after that youth who stayed on the ground had seen that Rākshasa, he seized the youth. After seizing him he says, “Who sent thee?” That youth said, “Father sent me into this chena jungle.” The Rākshasa says, “Didst thou come alone?”[7] The youth says, “I came with my elder brother.” Then the Rākshasa ate him. After that, that youth who is on the top of the rock says to his younger brother, “Younger brother, hold out your hands; I will jump.” Having said, “Hā, jump,” this Rākshasa opened his mouth. Then the youth jumped into his mouth. He having jumped into his mouth the Rākshasa ate him. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. This rambling story was related by a boy who supplied me with several other better ones. I have inserted it because it is the only one which mentions the deity of the Rākshasas, Mīdum Ammā, the Mist Mother. The rest of the story gives a fair representation of some of the notions of the villagers regarding the Rākshasas. Their own statements to me regarding them are that the Rākshasas were found chiefly or only in the jungle called himālē, the wild and little-frequented mixture of high forest and undergrowth. There are none in Ceylon now, they say; but in former times they are believed to have lived in the forest about some hills near this village of Tom-tom Beaters, at the north-western end of the Doḷukanda hills, in the Kuruna͞egala district. Those at each place have a boundary (kaḍa-ima), beyond which they cannot pass without invitation; this is referred to in the story No. 135. Ordinarily, they can only seize people who go within their boundary, unless they have been invited to enter houses or persons have been specially placed in their power. They are much larger than men, but can take any shape. Their teeth are very long, and are curved like bangles; they are as thick as a boy’s arm. Their tangled hair hangs down over their bodies. They build good houses, and have an abundance of things in them, as well as silver and gold. They commonly rear only horses and parrots. They live on the men and animals they catch. Men are very much afraid when they see them; they seize anyone they can catch, and eat him,—or any animals whatever. Yakās (Yaksayō) do not usually eat men; they only frighten them. Rākshasas are much worse and more powerful than Yakās. Other notions of the villagers regarding these two classes of supernatural beings may be gathered from their folk-tales. In Tales of the Punjab (Mrs. F. A. Steel), p. 135, a Rākshasa is represented as living partly on goats. In the notes, p. 310, Sir R. Temple remarked that this was curious. It is in accordance with Sinhalese belief. In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 602, a Rākshasa who had seized a man and was about to eat him, allowed him to go on his taking an oath that he would return, after doing a service for a Brāhmaṇa that he had promised. He got married in the place of the Brāhmaṇa’s son, stole off in the night to redeem his promise, and was followed by his wife, who offered herself to the Rākshasa in his place. When the Rākshasa said that she could live by alms, and stated that if anyone refused her alms his head should split into a hundred pieces, the woman asked him for her husband by way of alms, and on his refusing to give him the Rākshasa’s head split up, and he died. See also vol. i, p. 141, of these Sinhalese stories. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 405, a demon released a King on his promising to return to be eaten. [1] Mist Mother. In the Ṛig Veda, v, 32, 4, Śushṇa, the Dānava, is termed Child of the Mist. [↑] [2] This episode is given in No. 138, vol. ii. [↑] [4] Required as an offering to the demon in charge of the hidden treasure. Compare No. 196. [↑] [5] At deka gāwin allāgattā. [↑] [6] This reply is intended to show that the boys do not deserve sympathy. [↑] In a certain country three youths, brothers, go to school. When not much time is going by, the youths’ father called them in order to look at their lessons. The youngest one can say the lessons, the other two cannot say the lessons. After that their father drove them from the house. Well then, the two, setting off, went away from the house. Thereupon this young younger brother began to go with them both. Both those elder brothers having said, “Don’t come,” beat that youth. Taking no notice of it[1] he went behind them, weeping and weeping. Having gone thus, and entered a forest wilderness, while they were going they met with the Rākshasa’s house. The youngest youth says, “Anē! Elder brother, having gone into the house place me in the middle, and sit down.” At that time the Rākshasa brought and gave them food for all three to eat. These three said, “We cannot eat.” After that, for the three persons to sleep the Rākshasa gave three mats. The Rākshasa sent the Rākshasa’s two boys, also, to sleep. Those three wore red cloths; that Rākshasa’s two boys wore white cloths. After that, the Rākshasa, having opened the door, came to eat those three persons. At that time the youngest youth was awake; owing to it the Rākshasa was unable to eat those boys.[2] He went back and lay down. Then that youngest youth taking the white cloths which the Rākshasa youths had put on, these three put them on. They put on those two the red cloths which these three had put on. When the Rākshasa came still [another] time, the three were lying down. That time, taking those two youths of the Rākshasa’s who wore red cloths he ate them. When it was becoming light the three persons went to another village. After that, the two eldest contracted two marriages; that youngest youth remained to watch goats. To the owner of the goats those two who got married said, “At the Rākshasa’s house there is a good parrot.” The owner of the goats asked, “Who can bring it?” That youth who watched the goats said, “I can bring it.” After that, the youth went at night to that Rākshasa’s house, and having cut the parrot’s cage brought the parrot, and gave it. Then those two said, “There is a good horse at that Rākshasa’s house.” Then, “Who can bring it?” he asked. The youth who watches the goats said, “I can bring it.” After that, he went at night, and having unfastened the horse he brought it. Having brought it, he gave that also to the man who owned the goats. Then those two said, “At the Rākshasa’s house there is a golden pillow.” The man who owned the goats asked, “Who can bring the golden pillow?” The third boy said, “I can bring it.” After that, having gone to the Rākshasa’s house at night, opening the doors he went into the house. Having gone in, he took hold of the golden pillow in order to get it. On that occasion (ē pāra) the Rākshasa awoke; after he awoke he seized that youth. He lit the lamp. Then he prepared to eat that youth, the Rākshasa. That youth said, “You cannot eat me in this way; having roasted me you must eat me.” After that, that Rākshasa having given that youth into the hand of the Rākshasī, went to cut firewood. Then the youth calling the Rākshasī [to accompany him] came back, taking the Rākshasī and the pillow. Having brought them, he gave the pillow to the man who owned the goats. Thereupon the man who owned the goats told the boy to marry his girl (daughter). That youth said, “I cannot. When the woman who saved my life is here, I will marry that woman.” After that, he married the Rākshasa’s wife. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. [1] Ē tiyaddin, “placing it” [aside or out of consideration]. [↑] [2] See footnote, vol. ii, p. 369. [↑] In a certain village a man and a Rākshasa, having become friends, dwell. While they are there this friend went to the Rākshasa jungle. When going, the Rākshasa seized him to eat. Then the man says, “Don’t eat me; I will give thee demon offerings.” The Rākshasa, having said, “It is good,” allowed him to go home. After that, that man having brought a youth gave him to the Rākshasa to eat. In that manner every day he brought and gave a youth until the time when the youths of the village were finished. All the youths having been finished there was not a youth for this man to give. While he was thus the man died. After he died, the Hūniyan Yakā[1] began to come to the house [visiting the widow in the disguise of a man]. When he was coming, the woman’s father having seen him went into the house to seize him. Having gone [there], when he looked there was not a Yakā. After that, the man having gone away went to sleep. Then the Hūniyan Yakā having gone to that man’s village, said, “Don’t come to look at me.” The man said afterwards to his daughter, “Daughter, ask for wealth at the hand of that man.” After that, the woman says to the Yakā, “Bring and give me wealth.” Thereupon the Yakā says, “I will bring and give it.” Having gone to the place where that man is sleeping, says the Yakā, “Come thou, to go [with me] for me to give thee wealth.” He went with the man near the hidden treasure. Having gone, he opened the door of the hidden treasure. “Take for thyself the treasure thou wantest,” he said. Then the man took a golden necklace, two cloths, four gem-lamps, four cat’s-eye stones (wayirōḍiya gal), and twelve pearls. Taking those, the man came home. When he was coming home, [four] other men having seen that he brought the wealth, the men went to break [into] the hidden treasure. After they went there, the four men having uttered spells, and put “life”[2] (i.e., magical life or power) into four stones, buried them at the four corners, in such a manner that no one could come [within the square formed by them]. After that, half the men break into the hidden treasure. (The others were repeating protective spells to keep away evil spirits.) The Hūniyan Yakā ascertained about the breaking. Having ascertained it he came near the hidden treasure, but as the four stones are there he cannot seize the men. Having come, he created for himself the Cobra appearance; those four persons gave fowls’ eggs to the Cobra. Again, he created the Elephant appearance; to the Elephant they gave a plantain stump. Again, a Hen with Chickens began to come near the hidden treasure; to the Chickens and to the Hen the men gave millet (kurahan). After having eaten they went away.[3] The Hūniyan Yakā, [being unable to approach the place on account of the charmed stones, and the feeding of the animals], went to that woman’s house. He went to the place where the woman’s father is sleeping. The Yakā says, “Quickly go near the hidden treasure.” Without hearing it the man slept. Then having come yet [another] time he struck the man. The man having arisen began to run naked near that hidden treasure. Those men who are breaking [into it], having seen the man [and thought he was a demon], uttered spells still more and more; they uttered spells to the extent they learnt. Notwithstanding, this man comes on. After having seen this man who is coming, those men began to run off through fear; they ran away. This man ran behind them. Those men, looking and looking back, run; this man runs behind. Then this man says, “Don’t run; I am not a Yakā.” The men say, “That is false which he says; that is indeed a Yakā.” While running, one man stumbled and fell. Then that man who was coming behind went to the place where the man fell. After that, that man says, “Where are you going?” That man who had fallen says, “We having come to break [into] a hidden treasure, a Yakā came as we were running on the path. Then, indeed, I fell here.” Those other men bounded off and went away. After that, these two men lament, “What is it that has happened to us? In this forest wilderness what are we to do?” they said. Having heard that lamenting, that Rākshasa came and said, “What are ye lamenting for?” Having come, he seized both of them. After he seized them he did not let either of them go. The men said, “Don’t eat us. We two have two sons; we will give them to thee.” Afterwards he let both of them go, and the men came to the village. After that, taking a youth they gave him to the Rākshasa. After that, they went and gave the other youth. Then that Rākshasa says to that man, “I must eat thee also; for to-morrow there is no corpse for me.” Then the man says, “I must go home and come back,” he said. The Rākshasa said, “Thou wilt not come.” “I will come back,” he said. Then the Rākshasa allowed him to go home. When he went home, the man having amply cooked, ate. After he ate, the man charmed his body (by repeating spells, etc.). Thereafter having gone to the jungle he called out to the Rākshasa. When the Rākshasa came, after he seized the man he ate him. After that, the Rākshasa remains there. A sleepiness came. After he went to sleep, the Rākshasa, having split in two, died. By the power of the [charmed] oil which that man rubbed [on his body], the Rākshasa having been split, died. The Rākshasa having gone, was [re]-born in the body of a Yaksanī. The Yaksanī says to the Yakā, “I am thirsty.” Then the Yakā (her husband) having gone, brought and gave her water. The Yaksanī again says to the Yakā, “I must sleep.” The Yakā told her to go into the house and sleep. Then [while she was asleep], the Yaksanī’s bosom having been split, she died. That Rākshasa who was in her body at that time, splitting the bosom came outside. Having come he says to the Yakā (his apparent father), “You cannot remain in this jungle.” Then the Yakā says, “Are thou a greater one than I?” The Yakā youngster (the former Rākshasa) says, “These beings called Yakās are much afraid of Rākshasas. Let us two go into the Rākshasa forest, the jungle (himālē) where they are.” Then that Yakā says, “Is that also an impossible thing [for me]?” The Yakā youngster became angry; then the two go to the Rākshasa forest. A parrot having been at the side of the road at the time when they are going away, says, “Don’t ye go into the midst of this forest.” Then that big Yakā through fear says he cannot go. That Rākshasa youngster says, “Where are you going?” “I am going to the new grave,” that Yakā said. Well then, having gone to the burial place, he remains there. A man, catching a thief, is coming [with him] to the burial place. Having come [there], that man tied the thief to the corpse that was at the burial place, back to back. Then while the thief is [left] at the grave, the man came to his village. When he came he went to the thief’s house, and seeing the mother and father he says, “Don’t ye open the door; to-day, in the night, a Yakā will come.” Having gone to the house, also, of that thief’s wife, he says, “Don’t thou open the door to-day; a Yakā will come to thy house to-day.” Having gone to all the houses and said this, he went away. After that, taking on his back that dead body which was at the burial place, the thief came to his house. When he came he tells the woman to open the door. The woman is silent through fear. Then the thief says, “I am not a Yakā; you must open the door.” The woman at that time, also, is silent through fear. He went to his father’s house, this thief. Having gone, he says, “Mother, open the door.” Then the woman through fear is silent. He went to the house of the thief’s friends: “O friend, open the door.” Having said, “This is a Yakā,” the friends did not open the door. That thief afterwards went by the outside villages. When he was going on the journey the light fell. He went to the jungle in which is that Rākshasa. When going, the thief met with a parrot. Then the parrot says, “Friend, what did you come to this jungle for?” The thief thought, “Who spoke here?” When he looked up he got to know that the parrot is [there]. After that, he says to the parrot, “What art thou here for?” The parrot says, “I am sitting in my nest.” The thief says, “If so, how shall I go from this jungle?” After the parrot descended it cut the tyings of that dead body. Having cut them and finished the parrot says, “Thou canst not go in this jungle.” The thief says, “What is that for?” Then the parrot says, “In this there is the Rākshasa. Catching thee he will eat thee. Because of it don’t thou go.” The thief without hearkening to the parrot’s word said he must go. Then the parrot says, “Listen to the word I am saying. The Rākshasa who is in this jungle is my friend. Say thou camest because I told thee to come.” Afterwards the man went. After he went, the Rākshasa, with a great loud evil roar, seized the man on the path. After he seized him, the man says, “What didst thou seize me for?” Thereupon the Rākshasa says, “To eat thee.” Then the man says, “A parrot told me to come in this manner: ‘The Rākshasa is my friend,’ [he said].” The Rākshasa says, “Those are lies thou art saying. Let us go, let us go, us two, near the parrot.” When they came near the parrot, the Rākshasa says to the parrot, “Friend, didst thou send this one to my forest?” The parrot says, “I sent him.” Then the Rākshasa says, “Am I to eat this one?” The parrot says, “Seize another man and eat him. Let that man go.” Then the Rākshasa let him go; after that the man went away. Having gone and hidden, he stayed in the midst of the forest. The Rākshasa went to watch the path. After that, that man came to the Rākshasa’s house. Having come, the man says to the Rākshasa’s boy (son), “O youth (kollōweni), thy Rākshasa died.” The Rākshasa youth is grieved, and says, “You are not my mother, not my father; what man are you?” Then the man says, “I am thy Rākshasa’s elder brother.” The man told a lie. The Rākshasa youth says, “It is good. There is much wealth of my father’s,” he said. Then the man went into the Rākshasa’s house to take the wealth. Having gone in, there was a golden mat (kalālē); he took it. There was a golden cloth; he took it. Taking these, the man went away unknown to the Rākshasa youths.[4] After he went secretly (himin), the Rākshasa next (dewanu) came to the house. Having finished coming,[5] he says, “Where is my golden mat?” he asked. Thereupon, the Rākshasa youth said, “Your elder brother came and took away the mat.” Then the Rākshasa says, “Where have I, Bola, an elder brother?” That thief went near the parrot. “Look here, I met with a golden mat in the midst of this forest,” he said. “Parrot, am I to take thee?” he said. Thereupon the parrot came near the thief. After he came, he seized the parrot by its two legs. Having waited until the time when he is catching it, when he caught it the thief killed the parrot. After that, the thief went away plucking and plucking off the feathers. The Rākshasa says to that Rākshasa’s youth, “Where went this thief?” “He entered your forest wilderness,” he said. The Rākshasa having gone along the thief’s footprints, after he went to the place where the parrot was, the parrot was not [there]. He looked to see who killed this parrot:—“It is the very thief who killed this parrot.” Then the Rākshasa fell down and wept through grief that the parrot was not [there]. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In the Mahā Bhārata (Śānti Parva, CLXX) a crane sent a poor Brāhmaṇa to a Rākshasa King who was his friend. He was well-received on account of the bird’s friendship, was presented with a large quantity of gold, returned to the bird, and killed and ate it. When the Rākshasa King noticed that the bird did not visit him as usual, he sent his son to ascertain the reason, the remains of the bird were found, and the Brāhmaṇa was pursued and cut to pieces. In Santal Folk Tales (Campbell), p. 81, a hero in search of gems possessed by an Apsaras (Indarpuri Kuri) fed, as he went and returned, her three animal guards stationed at her three doors,—an elephant with grass, a tiger with a goat, and a dog with a shoe which it worried. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 179, a man killed a monkey that had saved his life. In vol. iii, p. 51, a corpse was tied on a man’s back. [1] The Yakā who gives effect to evil magic spells and charms, and to the evil eye and evil mouth, that is, evil wishes and curses. [↑] [3] In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., pp. 411, 412, a Prince who was going for a magical sandal-wood tree, fed two tigers which protected it, with the leg of a sheep, and the serpents with bread and curdled milk, after which they did not attempt to harm him. In Ceylon, it is believed that the demons who protect the treasure, or those who are summoned by means of evil invocations in other cases, take at first various forms of animals; and it is imperative that these animals must be fed with appropriate food, otherwise the demon would be able to destroy the persons engaged in the business. [↑] At the time when King Gaja-Bāhu[1] was lying in the shade one day in his garden, he said, “There is not a greater King than I.” He having said it, a Crow that was in the tree dropped excreta in his mouth.[2] Then he gave orders for the Crow to be caught alive, and published them by beat of tom-toms on the four sides. All the men said, “We cannot.” Then a widow woman went to the King and said, “I can catch that Crow.” The King asked, “What are the things you require for it?” The woman said, “I want a suckling woman and an [infant] child. How about the maintenance of those two?” The King said, “Up to the time when you catch the Crow I will give their maintenance.” Afterwards the King caused a suckling woman and an [infant] child to be brought to her. With these two that woman went to her village, and having gone there began to give food to the crows every day. Many crows collected together there for it. She caused that child to be near the crows at the place where the crows were eating the food. During the time while it was there, that little one was playing in the midst of the party of crows, the crows surrounding it. [At last it came to understand their language.] Afterwards she taught the child, “When the crows are quarrelling, on hearing a crow say, ‘It was thou who droppedst excreta in Gaja-Bāhu’s mouth,’ seize that very Crow [which did it].” When the crows came to eat the food they quarrelled. At the time when they were quarrelling the child stayed in that very party of crows. Then a crow which was quarrelling said to another crow, “Wilt thou be [quiet], without quarrelling with me? It was thou who droppedst excreta in Gaja-Bāhu’s mouth.” As it was saying the words the child seized that Crow. The woman having come, caught the Crow and imprisoned it, without allowing it to go. On the following day she took the Crow to the King. The King asked at the hand of that woman, “How didst thou recognise this Crow, so as to catch it?” The woman told him the manner in which it was caught. Then the King asked the Crow, “Why didst thou drop excreta in my mouth?” At the time when he was asking it there was a jewelled ring on his finger. The Crow replied, “You said, ‘There is not a greater King than I.’ I saw that there is a greater King than that; on that account I did this.” Then the King asked, “How dost thou know?” The Crow said, “I have seen the jewelled ring that is on the finger of that King; it is larger than your jewelled ring. Owing to that I know.” The King asked, “Where is that ring?” Then the Crow having said, “I can show you,” calling him, went to a city. At that city there is a very large rock house (cave). Having gone near the rock house, he told him to dig in the bottom of the house, and look. The King caused them to dig, and having dug, a jewelled ring came to light. King Gaja-Bāhu, taking the jewelled ring and the Crow, came back to his city. Having come there he put the jewelled ring on his head, and it fell down his body to the ground. Well then, the King on account of the strange event let the Crow go, and gave employment to the widow woman. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. [1] Probably Gaja-Bāhu I, A.D. 113–135. [↑] [2] The Hitōpadēśa relates this of a traveller near Ujjain. [↑] In a certain country the King’s elephant every day having descended into a pool, bathes. In the water a Water Snake (Diya nayā) stayed. One day a beggar went to the pool to bathe. As soon as he came the Snake came to bite him. When it came, the man having beseeched it and made obeisance, said, “Anē! O Lord, for me to bathe you must either go to the bottom or come ashore.” “If so, because thou madest obeisance to me I will give thee a good assistance,” the Snake said. “The King’s tusk elephant every day comes to the pool to bathe. When it is bathing I will creep up its trunk. Having gone to the city from that place, the tusk elephant will fall mad on the days when it rains.[1] Then doctors having come, when they are employing medical treatment they cannot cure it. After that, you, Sir, having gone to the royal palace must say, ‘Having employed medical treatment I can cure the tusk elephant.’ Having heard it, the King will allow you to practise the medical treatment. Should you ask, ‘What is the medical treatment?’ [it is this:]—Having brought a large water-pot to the place where the tusk elephant is, and placed the elephant’s trunk in the water, and covered and closed yourself and the tusk elephant with cloths, and tapped on the forehead of the elephant, [you must say], ‘Anē! O Lord, you must descend into the water-pot; if not, to-day I shall cut my throat (lit., neck).’ Then I shall descend into the water.” This was all done as the Snake said. The beggar tapped on the tusk elephant’s forehead, and said, “Anē! O Lord, you must descend into the water-pot; if not, to-day I shall cut my throat.” Then the Snake came down the tusk elephant’s trunk into the water-pot, as he had promised. The beggar then took the tusk elephant to the King; it was no longer mad. The King rode on it along the four streets, and came back to the palace, and descended. Then he asked the beggar, “How didst thou cure this sickness?” The beggar said, “I caused a Water Snake to come down the tusk elephant’s trunk into the water-pot, and thus cured him.” Then the King went with the beggar to look at the Snake. When he saw it in the water-pot he ascertained that the man’s statement was true. After that he gave offices to the beggar. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. Dr. J. Pearson, Director of the Colombo Museum, has been good enough to inform me that the water-snake termed diya nayā in Sinhalese (lit., Water Cobra) is Tropidonotus asperrimus. Though neither large nor venomous, snakes of this species sometimes attacked my men when they were bathing at a pool in a river, or endeavoured to carry off fishes which they had placed in the water after stringing them through the gills on a creeper. They did this even when the man held the other end of the creeper. [1] The narrator explained that when the rain came the snake would twist about inside the elephant’s head, and drive it mad. [↑] At a certain city there were seven women. The seven went into the jungle for firewood. Out of them one woman met with a young female Hare (Hā paeṭikkī). The other six persons brought six bundles of firewood; the woman brought the Leveret. There were seven Princes (sons) of the woman who brought the Leveret. Out of them, to the youngest Prince she gave the Leveret in marriage. The above-mentioned seven Princes cut a chena. Having sown millet (kurahan) in the chena it ripened. After that, for cutting the millet the six wives of the above-mentioned six brothers having come out, said to the youngest Prince, “Tell your wife to come.” Thereupon the Prince says, “How are there women for me? My parents gave me a female Leveret in marriage.” Thereupon the Leveret says, “What is it to you? ṭik; I am proud, ṭik.”[1] Having said it, springing into the house she stayed [there]. Having waited [there] in this way, when it was becoming night she went into the jungle, and collecting the whole of the hares of both sides (m. and f.) went to the chena, and having cut all the millet they carried the whole to the store-room. After that, having allowed all the hares (hāhō) to go, the Leveret the same night came home. After it became light, the above-mentioned female Hare’s husband went to the chena. At the time when he looked there, ascertaining that the millet is cut and finished, he said thus, “Anē! Elder brothers’ wives, with no helper, have finished the millet. Having divided the millet there they brought it [home].” Not a long time afterwards, while they are [there], people came for giving betel for a wedding at that village.[2] Having given betel there to the seven persons they went away. On the day for going there to the wedding they came [for them]. After that, the above-mentioned six women came out, and said, “Tell your wife to come out to go.” Thereupon that Prince says, “How are there women for me? My two parents gave me a female Hare in marriage. I am unable to go,” he said. Thereupon the female Hare says, “You go,” she said. So the Prince went. Afterwards the female Hare went there; having taken off her hare jacket on the road, she went to the [wedding] feast. The Prince [recognised her there, went back, and found and] burned the hare jacket which she had hidden [so that she was unable to resume her hare form again]. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In Folk-Tales of Hindustan (Shaik Chilli), p. 54, the youngest of seven Princes married a female Monkey who in the end proved to be a fairy, and took off her monkey skin. [1] Obaṭa mokada, ṭik; mama oda, ṭik. The ṭik represents the stamp of the hare’s foot, or a snort, perhaps. [↑] [2] Each person who receives a packet is considered to be invited. [↑] At a certain city three cultivators cut a chena. Having cut it they spoke [about it]: “Let us plant plantains.” Having planted plantains, the flowers that came on the plantains began to fall when the fruits were coming to mature. When they looked, having seen that except the fresh ones [the trees] were without ripe [fruits], they began to seek [the reason]. Having sought and sought it, they do not perceive whether some one is destroying them [or not]. Owing to it they contrived a device. What was it? Having brought a plantain tree they set it up [? after inserting poison in the fruits that were on it]. The flowers on it having fallen, and [the fruits] having become ripe, after they were emitting a fragrant smell When it said it, the [young] Palm-cat says, “What though I looked up, if I didn’t go up the tree!” it said. It went up the tree. Once more the female Palm-cat said again, “Don’t.” Thereupon the [young] Palm-cat says, “What if I went up the tree, if I didn’t take hold of it!” it said. Having taken hold of it, it looked at it. When the female Palm-cat said, “What is that [you are doing]?” it said, “What if I took hold of it! If I didn’t eat it is there any harm?” After it removed the rind, when she said, “What is that [you are doing]?” it says, “What if I removed the rind, if I didn’t eat it!” Having set it to its nose it smelt at it. When she said, “What is that [you are doing]?” it said, “What if I put it to my nose, if I didn’t eat it!” It put it in its mouth. “What if I put it in my mouth, if I didn’t swallow it!” it said. It swallowed it; then it fell down. It having fallen down and died, the female Palm-cat went away lamenting. The thief of the garden was caught. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. No. 194
The Story of Ayiwandā
No. 195
The Gamarāla’s Son-in-law
No. 196
The Story of the Gamarāla’s Son
No. 197
The Manner in which the Gamarāla buried his Sons
No. 198
The Story of the Wooden Peacock
No. 199
The Wicked Step-mother
No. 200
The Woman who ate by stealth
No. 201
The Story of the Bitch
No. 202
The Elephant Guard
No. 203
The Elephant-Fool
No. 204
How a Girl took Gruel
No. 205
The Boy who went to learn the Sciences
No. 206
The Prince and the Ascetics
No. 207
The Turtle Prince[1]
No. 208
The Gem-set Ring
No. 209
The Story of the Brāhmaṇa
No. 210
The Story of a Siwurāla[1]
No. 211
How the Poor Man became Wealthy
No. 212
The Story of Mādampē-rāla
No. 213
Æwariyakkā
No. 214
The Horikaḍayā Story
No. 215
The Story of Bahu-Bhūtayā
No. 216
The Story of Goḷu-Bayiyā[1]
No. 217
The Yakā of the Akaraganē Jungle
No. 218
The Four Rākshasas
No. 219
The Story of the Rākshasa
No. 220
The Thief and the Rākshasas
No. 221
King Gaja-Bāhu and the Crow
No. 222
The Assistance which the Snake gave
No. 223
The Leveret, or the Story of the Seven Women
No. 224
The Greedy Palm-cat[1]