Note.
With regard to the exorcism of the flies, I give a relation of the similar treatment of locusts in Abyssinia, by Father Francis Alvarez, who visited that country in 1520, in the suite of a Portuguese Ambassador. The account is appended in Pory’s translation of the History of Africa, by Leo Africanus, 1600, p. 352. An appeal having been made to Alvarez to drive away an enormous flight of locusts, “which to our iudgement couered fower and twentie miles of lande,” the following is his own record of the proceedings:—
“And so I went to the Ambassadour, and told him, that it would be very good to goe on procession, beseeching God that hee woulde deliuer the countrie, who peraduenture in his great mercie might heare vs. This liked the Ambassadour very well: and the day following we gathered togither the people of the land, with all the priests, and taking the consecrated stone, and the crosse, according to their custome, all we Portugals sung the Letanie, and appointed those of the land, that they should lift vp their voices aloud as we did, saying in their language Zio marina Christos, which is as much to say, as Lord God haue mercy vpon vs: and with this manner of inuocation we went ouer a peece of grounde, where there were fieldes of wheate, for the space of a mile, euen to a little hill: and heere I caused many of these locustes to be taken, pronouncing ouer them a certaine coniuration, which I had about me in writing, hauing made it that night, requesting, admonishing, and excommunicating them, enioining them within the space of three howers to depart towards the sea, or the lande of the Moores, or the desert mountaines, and to let the Christians alone: and they not performing this, I summoned and charged the birdes of heauen, the beasts of the earth, and all sorts of tempests, to scatter, destroy, and eate vp their bodies: and to this effect I tooke a quantitie of locusts, making this admonition to them present, in the behalfe likewise of them absent,[6] and so giuing them libertie, I suffered them to depart. It pleased God to heare us sinners, for in our returne home, they came so thicke vpon our backes, as it seemed that they woulde haue broken our heads, or shoulders, so hard they strooke against vs, as if we had beene beaten with stones and cudgels, and in this sort they went towards the sea: The men, women, and children remaining at home, were gotten vpon the tops, or tarrasses of their houses, giuing God thankes that the locusts were going away, some afore, and others followed. In the meane while towardes the sea, there arose a great cloude with thunder, which met them full in the teeth, and continued for the space of three howers with much raine, and tempest, that filled all the riuers, and when the raine ceased, it was a fearefull thing to behold the dead Locustes, which were more then two yardes [marginal note, or fathomes] in height vpon the bankes of the riuers, and in some riuers there were mightie heapes of them, so that the morning following there was not one of them found aliue vpon the earth.”
[1] See note at the end of the Introduction. [↑]
[2] Cf. Jātaka, No. 206 (vol. ii, p. 106). [↑]
[3] From the Tamil kuppam, a village of small houses, perhaps + ayam, ground. [↑]
[4] The Tamil stories of Mariyada Rāman, or some of them, are known in one district. Arabic is unknown. [↑]
[5] Folk-Tales of Kashmir, Knowles, 2nd ed., pp. 258 and 331. [↑]
[6] Āgata anāgata, as the early cave inscriptions say. [↑]
Part I
STORIES TOLD BY THE CULTIVATING CASTE AND VAEDDĀS.
No. 1
The Making of the Great Earth
From the earliest time, the whole of this world, being filled up and overflowed by a great rain, and being completely destroyed, was in darkness. There were neither men, nor living beings, nor anything whatever.
During the time while it was in this state, Great Vishnu thought, “In what manner, having lowered the water, should the earth be established?” Having thought this, Great Vishnu went to the God Saman. Having gone there, he asked at the hand of the God Saman, “What is the way to establish this earth?”
The God Saman replied, “There is no one among us [gods] who can establish this earth.”
Thereupon the God Great Vishnu asked, “Then who is able to do it?”
The God Saman said, “You must go to the residence of Rāhu; he can do it.”
After that, the God Great Vishnu went to the abode of Rāhu, and spoke to Rāhu, the Asura Chief[1]: “Rāhu, Asura Chief, our residence has been swallowed up by water; on account of that can even you make us an earth?”
Then Rāhu, the Asura Chief, said, “Countless beings having gone to the world of Brahmā (i.e., having been destroyed in the water), how can I descend into the water which is there?”
The God Great Vishnu asked, “In what way, then, can you make the earth?”
Rāhu told him to put a lotus seed into the water.
After that, the God Great Vishnu, having returned to this world, placed a lotus seed in the water. Having placed it there, in seven days the lotus seed sprouted.
Then the God Vishnu again went to the dwelling-place of Rāhu. Having gone there, he spoke to Rāhu, the Asura Chief: “The lotus plant has now sprouted.”
Afterwards Rāhu arose, and came with the God Vishnu to this world. Having made ready to descend into the water, he asked Great Vishnu, “What thing am I to bring up from the bottom of the water?”
Then Great Vishnu said, “I do not want any [special] thing; bring a handful of sand.”
Rāhu, having said “Hā” (Yes), descending along that lotus stalk proceeded until he met with the earth. Having descended to the earth in seven days, taking a handful of sand he returned to the surface again in seven days more. Having come there, he gave the handful of sand into the hand of the God Great Vishnu.
After it was given, taking it and squeezing it in his hand, the God Great Vishnu placed it on the water. Having placed it there the God Great Vishnu made the resolution: “This water having dried up, may the Earth be created.”
Afterwards, that small quantity of sand not going to the bottom, but turning and turning round on the surface of the water, the water began to diminish. Thus, in that manner, in three months and three-quarters of the moon, the water having diminished, the earth was made.
After it was formed, this world was there in darkness for a long time. [After the light had appeared], the God Great Vishnu thought: “We must make men.”
Having gone to the God Saman he said, “What is the use of being the owner of this world when it is in this state? We must make men.”
The God Saman said, “Let us two make them.”
Then those two spoke to each other: “Let us first of all make a Brāhmaṇa.”
Saying that, they made a Brāhmaṇa from that earth, and having given breath to the Brāhmaṇa those two told him to arise. Then the Brāhmaṇa arose by the power of those Gods; and having arisen, that Brāhmaṇa conversed with those Gods.
Then the God Vishnu said, “Brāhmaṇa, for thy assistance thou art to make for thyself a woman.”
Afterwards the Brāhmaṇa by the power of those very Gods made a woman, and from that time men began to increase in number up to to-day.
North-western Province.
This is evidently a story of the last creation. In Hinduism there is a series of four ages termed Yugas, each ended by a destruction of the world by fire, which is quenched by cataclysmal rainfall. These are the Krita, Trēta, Dwāpara, and Kali Yugas, their periods being respectively 4,000, 3,000, 2,000, and 1,000 divine years. There are also intermediate periods equal to one-tenth of each of the adjoining Yugas. A divine year being 360 times as long as a human year, the whole series, called a Maha Yuga, amounts to about 4,320,000 years (Vishnu Purāna, Wilson, p. 24). When a series is ended the order is reversed, that is, the Kali Yuga, which is the present one, is followed by the Dwāpara.
The Vishnu Purāna, p. 12, thus describes the state of things before the original creation: “There was neither day nor night, nor sky nor earth, nor darkness nor light, nor any other thing, save only One”—“the Universal Soul,” the All-God, Vishnu in the form of Brahmā.
His action is thus summarised: “Affecting then the quality of activity Hari [Vishnu], the Lord of all, himself becoming Brahmā, engaged in the creation of the universe.”
At the end of the Yuga, “the same mighty deity, Janārddana, invested with the quality of darkness, assumes the awful form of Rudra, and swallows up the universe. Having thus devoured all things, and converted the world into one vast ocean, the Supreme reposes on his mighty serpent couch amidst the deep: he awakes after a season, and again, as Brahmā, becomes the author of creation (V.P., p. 19).
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 583, there were two Dānavas, a form of Asura, “invincible even by gods,” who impeded Prajāpati in his work of creation. The only way which the Creator could hit upon to destroy them was to create two lovely maidens, one black and one white. Each of the Dānavas wished to carry off both, so they fought over them and killed each other.
It is only in the Sinhalese story that we find an Asura assisting in the creation. Rāhu is usually known as a dark planetary sign, a dragon’s head, which endeavours to swallow the sun and moon, and thus causes eclipses, at which time, only, it is seen. In the account of the great Churning of the Ocean, it is evident that he was supposed originally to have, or to be able to assume, a figure indistinguishable from those of the Gods.
The story of the application of Vishnu for Rāhu’s assistance is based on the Indian notion that the Asuras were of more ancient date than the Gods. The Mahā Bhārata states that they were the elder brothers of the Gods, and were more powerful than the Gods, who were unable to conquer them in their strongholds under the sea. The God Saman is Indra, the elder brother of Vishnu.
According to the Mahā Bhārata, Vishnu assuming the form of a boar raised the earth to the surface of the waters (which covered it to the depth of one hundred yōjanas), on his tusk, without the aid of any other deity.
The following accounts of the state of things in very early times are borrowed from The Orientalist, vol. iii., pp. 79 and 78, to which they were contributed by Mr. D. A. Jayawardana.
“In the primitive good old days the sky was not so far off from the earth as at present. The sun and moon in their course through the heavens sometimes came in close contact with the house-tops. The stars were stationed so close to the earth that they served as lamps to the houses.
“Once upon a time, there was a servant-maid who was repeatedly disturbed by the passing clouds when she was sweeping the compound [the enclosure round the house], and this was to her a real nuisance. One cloudy morning, when this naughty girl was sweeping the compound as usual, the clouds came frequently in contact with the broom-stick and interfered with her work.
“Losing all patience she gave a smart blow to the firmament with the broom-stick, saying, ‘Get away from hence.’ The sky, as a matter of course, was quite ashamed at the affront[2] thus offered to it by a servant-girl, and flew away far, far out of human reach, in order to avoid a similar catastrophe again.”
The second account is as follows: “Till a long period after the creation, man did not know the use of most of the vegetables now used by him for food. His food at first consisted of some substance like boiled milk, which then grew spontaneously upon the earth. This substance since disappeared, and rice took its place, and grew abundantly without the husk.
“The Jak fruit (Artocarpus integrifolia), one of the principal articles of food of the Sinhalese, was not even touched, as it was thought to be poisonous. The God Śakra [Indra] bethought himself of teaching mankind that Jak was not a deadly fruit, but an article of wholesome food.”
The story goes on to relate that, assuming the form of an old man, he got a woman to boil some Jak seeds for him, with injunctions not to eat them or she would die; but the smell being appetizing she first tasted one, and then ate a quantity.
[2] It is one of the greatest possible insults in the East to strike a person with a broom. Even demons are supposed to be afraid of being struck by it, and thus it is a powerful demon-scarer. [↑]
No. 2
The Sun, the Moon, and Great Paddy
In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. There are also the children of those two persons, the elder brother and younger brother and elder sister. Well then, while these three persons were there, the man having died those children provided subsistence for the mother of the three.
One day the three persons went to join a party of friends in assisting a neighbour in his work.[1] That mother stayed at home. For that woman there was not a thing to eat. Should those persons bring food, she eats; if not, not.
When the three persons were eating the food provided for the working party, the elder sister and the elder brother having eaten silently, without even a [thought of the] matter of their mother, came away home. The younger brother thought, “Anē! We three persons having eaten here, on our going how about food for our mother? I must take some.” Placing a similar quantity of cooked rice and a little vegetable curry under the corner of his finger nail, the three came back.
Then the mother asked at the hand of the elder sister, “Where, daughter, is cooked rice and vegetable curry for me?” She said, “I have not brought any. Having indeed eaten I came [empty-handed].”
Then the mother said to the daughter, “Thou wilt be cooked in hell itself.”
Having called the elder son she asked, “Where, son, is the cooked rice and vegetable curry for me?”
The son said, “Mother, I have not brought it. Having indeed eaten, I came [empty-handed].”
Then the mother said to the son, “Be off, very speedily.”
Having called the young younger brother she asked, “Where, son, is cooked rice and vegetable curry for me?”
Then that son said, “Mother, hold a pot.” After that, the mother brought it and held it. The son struck down his finger nail in it. Then the pot was filled and overflowed.
Afterwards the mother, having eaten the rice and curry, gave authority to those three persons, to the elder brother, to the younger brother, and to the sister older than both of them.
Firstly, having called the elder sister she said, “Thou shalt be cooked even in hell.” That elder sister herself now having become Great Paddy,[2] while in hell is cooked in mud.
She told the eldest son to go speedily. That elder brother himself having become the Sun, goes very speedily. For the Sun, in very truth (aettēma), there is no rest. In the little time in which the eyelids fall, the Sun goes seven gawwas,[3] they say. At the time when the Great Paddy is ripening, the Sun goes across (harahin).[4] Because it is older than the Sun,[5] the Great Paddy represents the elder sister.
Having called the younger son she said, “My son, go you in the very wind (pawanēma)[6].” That one himself having become the Moon, now goes in the wind. For the Moon in very truth there is not a difficulty, by the authority given by the Mother.
[1] A Kayiya, usually to provide help in clearing jungle, or ploughing, or reaping, for which no pay is given, but the party are fed liberally. [↑]
[2] Mā Vī, the name of the largest variety of rice. [↑]
[3] Twenty-eight miles. According to Indian reckoning of about six winks to a second, as given in the Mahā Bhārata, this would be an orbit of about 14,500,000 miles, with a diameter of 4,620,000 miles. [↑]
[4] That is, the sun rises in the latitude of the district where the story was related. This would be within a day or two of February 22. [↑]
[5] I cannot explain this remark. [↑]
[6] This is, where refreshing breezes blow. [↑]
No. 3
The Story of Senasurā[1]
In a certain country a man having been stricken by the evil influence (apalē) of Senasurā, any cultivation work or anything whatever which the man performs does not go on properly.
The man having become very poor said, “I cannot stay in this country; I must go to another country”; and having gone away from that country he sat down at a travellers’ shed. During the time while he was there a friend of the man’s came there. That man, sitting down in the travellers’ shed, said, “Friend, where are you going?”
Then the man said, “What is it, friend? Well then, according to my reckoning there is no means of subsistence for me. I am going away to some country or other, to look if I shall obtain a livelihood.” [He told him how everything that he did failed, owing to the ill-will of Senasurā.]
Then the friend said, “Friend, don’t you go in that way; I will tell you a good stratagem. Having gone back to your village, when dry weather sets in cut chenas; when rain falls do rice field work.”
The man having come back again to his village, began to cut a chena. At the time when he was cutting the chena rain rained. Then, having dropped the chena cutting, he went to plough the rice field. Then dry weather again began to set in. Again having gone he chops the chena. Then rain rained. Again having gone he ploughs the rice field. In that manner he did the chena and rice field works, both of them. Having done the work, the [crops in the] chena and the rice field, both of them, ripened.
After that, Senasurā said at the hand of the man, “What of their ripening! I will not give more than an amuna (5·7 bushels) from a stack. Let it be so settled (aswanu).”
Afterwards, having cut the rice crop, the man began to make the stacks separately of two or three sheaves apiece. Then having trampled out [the corn in] the stacks [by means of buffaloes] at the rate of the amuna from the stack—should there be one sheaf in it, an amuna; should there be two sheaves, an amuna—in that manner having trampled out [the corn in] the stacks he filled up two corn stores. Having cut the millet in the chena he filled up two corn stores of millet.
In that very country there is an astrologer (naekatrāla). Having gone to him, he informed the astrologer of the evil influence that there was from Senasurā [and how he had outwitted him]. Then the astrologer said, “Until the time when you die the evil influence of Senasurā over you will not be laid aside.”
The man said, “Can you tell me the place where Senasurā is [and what I must say to him]?”
The astrologer replied, “Senasurā having taken a man’s disguise and come to your house, will talk with you. Then say, ‘The evil influence of Senasurā has been over me. I did a good trick for it. I worked in both a chena and a rice field. I got the things into the corn stores. While staying here eating them I can do cultivation again [in the same way].’”
Afterwards this man came home. While he was there, on the day foretold by the astrologer Senasurā came. The man having given him sitting accommodation asked, “Where are you going?”
Then Senasurā said, “It is I indeed whom they call Senasurā, the Divine King. Because of it tell me any matter you require.”
So the man said, “What is the matter I require? I have become very poor, having been stricken by the evil influence of Senasurā. Now then, I want an assistance from you for that.”
Afterwards Senasurā, the Divine King, having given the man a book said, “Without showing this book to anybody, place it in your house. Remain here, and make obeisance [to me] three times a day, having looked and looked into [the instructions in] the book. From any journey on which you may go, from any work you may do, you will obtain victory [that is, success].”
Having said this, Senasurā, the Divine King, went away. After that, having remained there in the very manner told by Senasurā, the man became a person of much substance.
North-western Province.
In Indian Folk-Tales (Gordon), p. 61, a Jackal is represented as outwitting the great deity Śiva or Mahādeo, by telling him that he was Sahadeo, the father of Mahādeo. See the notes at the end of Nos. 39 and 75.
[1] The deity of the planet Saturn. [↑]
No. 4
The Glass Princess
In a certain country there are seven Princes, the sons of a King. When the seven persons had grown up, messengers were sent to find the places where there were seven Princesses to be taken in marriage by them. They obtained intelligence that there was a kingdom where they were to be met with.
After that, the seven portraits of the seven Princes having been painted, two or three ministers were summoned, and sent with the instructions, “Go to that kingdom, and observe if the seven Princesses are there. If they are there, take the portraits of the seven Princesses and come back with them.”
The ministers having gone there and looked, found that seven Princesses were there. So they went to the King, the father of the Princesses. After they had come, the King having given quarters to the ministers, and having given them food and drink, asked, “Where are you going?” Then the ministers said, “On account of news that you have seven Princesses, as there are seven Princes of the King of our country we have come, bringing the portraits of the seven Princes to show you, in order to marry the Princesses to those seven.” The King and the Princesses having looked at the portraits were pleased with them.
Afterwards, a suitable occasion for the marriage having been appointed, the portraits of the Princesses were painted, and given into the hands of the ministers, and they were sent away with them.
The party having brought them, showed them to the King and the seven Princes. The King and the seven Princes being pleased with those persons after they had shown the portraits, the King of that city, on the very day appointed as the date for setting out for the marriage, having decorated an elephant for the King and Queen, and both of them having mounted on it, and having decorated seven other elephants for the seven Princes, the party made ready to go.
Then the youngest Prince of all, having placed his sword on the back of the elephant, and made obeisance to his father, said, “I will not go. Should the Princess come after being married to the sword, let her come. If not, let her simply stop there.” Having said this he did not go; he sent only the elephant, and the elephant and all the other persons went.
Having gone there the six Princes were married to the six Princesses. Then the King whose Princesses they were, asked, “Is there not a Prince for the youngest Princess?”
When he asked this, the King whose son was the Prince replied, “There is my youngest Prince. He has not come. If she will come after being married to the sword placed on the back of this elephant, he said she is to come; if not, he said that she is to remain here.”
The King whose Princess she was, was not satisfied with that. What of that? The youngest Princess was contented, and said, “Even a deaf man or a lame man would be good enough for me. Therefore I must be married.” So having been married to the sword she came away with the others.
The Prince who did not go, but stayed at home, knew that there was a pool on the way, and that there was also a Cobra which had charge of that pool. The Prince was well aware that if the people who went to the marriage came there, and being thirsty drank the water, that Cobra would ask for a human offering. How was that? A deity came to the Prince in a dream and told him. Having learnt this, the Prince went, and at the time when they were coming hid himself near the pool, and remained there.
Then all the party having come there drank the water. Having drunk it, when they were setting out to come away, a large Cobra which had been in a rock cave near by, came out, and said, “Because you drank water from my pool one person must remain here as an offering to me. If not, I shall not permit even one of you to go.”
After that, the youngest Prince who had gone near and hidden himself came forward, and saying, “I will stay as the human offering; go you away,” he started off all that marriage party, and sent them to their village. He said to the Princess who had come after being married to his sword, “Until whatever time it may be when I return, go and stay at the palace of mine which is there. There are servants at it. Set the party of them to work, and eat and drink in great contentment just as though I were there.” After he had said this, the party returned to the city, and the youngest Prince went with the Cobra to the cave.
After they had gone there, the Cobra said to the Prince, “There is an ulcer on my forehead. You may go after curing the ulcer. Because of your curing it I shall not require a human offering.”
The Prince said, “It is good,” and continuing to eat the things for which it provided the expenses, stayed there. Twice a day he washed and washed the ulcer, while applying medicine to it, but it did not heal.
Afterwards the Cobra said, “There is a certain daughter of the King of a city, called the Glass Princess. The Princess takes any disguise she likes and goes through the sky, supported by her power of flying through the air. The Princess knows a medicine by which, if it should be applied by her own hand, my ulcer will become healed; otherwise it will not heal, and there will be no going to your village for you.”
The Prince replied, “It is good. I will go and bring the Glass Princess.”
Having said this, he set off to go to the city where the Glass Princess lived. Having hurried along the road which led in that direction, there was a river to which he went. When he looked up the river he saw some rats coming floating in the water. Then what does he do? He seizes all those few rats, and goes and places them on the bank.
After he had put them there the rats said, “Anē! O Lord, if Your Majesty should require any assistance, be pleased to think of us; then we will come and stay with you, and assist you.” The Prince said, “It is good,” and went to the city in which the Glass Princess dwelt.
Having come there, being without a place to stay at he went to the spot where a widow-mother was stopping, and said, “Anē! Mother, give me a mat to sleep on.”
The widow-mother said, “It is good, son. Remain here. I am alone here, therefore it will be good for me also.”
Then the Prince said, “If so, mother, cook and give me a little rice. Having obtained some money to-morrow, I will bring it and give you it.” The old woman having heard his words, cooked and gave him a little rice.
When she had given it and he had eaten, the Prince asked that old woman, “Mother, what are the new things that are happening at this city?”
The old woman replied, “What! Son, the new matters at this city are like those of other cities indeed; but there is one new affair at this city. If so, what is it? The daughter, called the Glass Princess, of the King of this city remains an [unwedded] Princess. The Princess, creating any disguise she wants, can go through the sky sustained by her power of flight through the air. Through the beauty of her figure she is a very celebrated person. Because of that, many royal Princes have come to ask to marry the Princess. Having come, they are asked, ‘What have you come for?’ When they have said, ‘We have come to take this Princess in marriage,’ the King puts on the hearth a very great cauldron of water, and having made it boil tells them to bathe in it without making the water lukewarm. There is a large iron tree in the open space in front of the palace. Having bathed in the water, he tells them to saw the iron tree in two. If they do not bathe in the water and cut it in two, he does not permit the Princes to go away; he beheads them there and then, and casts them out.”
The Prince asked the old woman, “Mother, can no one go to the place where the Glass Princess is staying?”
The old woman said, “Anē! Son, even a bird which passes along in the air above cannot go to the place where the Glass Princess is.”
Then the Prince asked, “Mother, why do they say that the Princess is the Glass Princess?”
The old woman said, “O son, they call her the Glass Princess. The bed on which the Princess sleeps is a bed of glass throughout. Glass is fixed all round the bed in such a manner that even the wind cannot get to her.[1] Because of that, they say that she is the Glass Princess.”
The Prince asked, “Mother, at what time does the Princess eat rice at night?”
The old woman said, “O son, at night water for bathing, and cooked rice, having gone there for the Princess, they are placed in the upper story where the Princess sleeps alone. When the Princess has been sleeping at night, at about eight she awakes, and after bathing in the water eats rice. Before that she does not get up.”
Then the Prince, after listening to all these words, asked for a mat, and went off to sleep at the travellers’ shed which was in front of the old woman’s house. Having gone there, while he was lying down he thought, “Anē! O Gods, in any case you must grant me an opportunity of going to the place where that Princess is.” Then while he was thinking, “Anē! Will even those rats that I took up that day out of the river and placed on the bank, become of assistance to me in this matter?” he fell asleep.
After that, those rats, collecting thousands of rats besides, came there before the Prince awoke, and having come near the Prince while he was sleeping, waited until he awoke. When the Prince awoke and looked about, he saw that rats, thousands in number, had come and were there.
The rats asked the Prince: “O Lord, what assistance does Your Majesty want us to give?”
The Prince said, “I want you to excavate a tunnel, of a size so that a man can go along it erect, to the upper story of the house in which the Glass Princess is staying, and to hand it over without completing it, leaving a very little unfinished. It was on account of this that I thought of you.” Then the rats went, and having dug it out that night, finished it and handed it over, and went away.
The Prince having been in the travellers’ shed until it became light, took the mat and went to the widow-mother. He gave her one masurama and said, “Here, mother, this is given for the articles I obtained. Bring things for you and me, and in order that I may go and get something to-day also, quickly cook and give me a little rice.” The old woman speedily cooked and gave it. The Prince having eaten it, during the whole day walked round about the city.
At night he went along the tunnel to the upper story where the Princess was. Having gone there, when he thought of looking in the direction of the Princess he could not through diffidence, it is said. The Princess was asleep on the glass bed; a lamp shone brightly.
After that, the Prince having rubbed soap in the water which was ready for the Glass Princess, and washed in it, and eaten half the rice that was set on the table, and having eaten a mouthful of betel that was in the betel box, left the room without speaking, and went away after closing the opening through which he had come.
The Princess arose at about eight, and having gone to bathe in the water, when she looked at it saw that soap had been rubbed in the water, and some one had washed in it. Then she went to the table on which was the rice, and when she looked half the rice had been eaten. So the Princess having returned without eating the rice, lay down and thought, “A much cleverer person than I, indeed, has done this work. Except a deity, no man can come to the place where I am staying. I shall seize that thief to-morrow.” Having thought that, she went to sleep.
The Prince having come away, and having been asleep in the travellers’ shed, in the day-time went to the old woman and ate. Then having returned to the tunnel and slept there, he went that night also, and washed in the water and ate, and came away. That night, also, the Princess being asleep was unable to seize him.
The Prince came back, and having slept that night, also, at the travellers’ shed, in the day time asked the old woman for rice and ate it. Then he returned to the tunnel, and after sleeping in it, at about twelve went and washed in the water, and ate the rice. After eating betel he came away. The Princess being asleep on that night also, was unable to seize him.
After that, what does the Princess do? At night, pricking her finger with a needle, and rubbing lime-juice in the place, she remained awake blowing it [on account of the smarting]. That night, also, the Prince went. The Princess having seen the Prince enter, took a sword in her hand, after awaking as though she had been asleep. Having seen that the figure of the Prince was beautiful, and being pleased with it, she closed her eyelids, pretending to be asleep.
The Prince knew very well that the Princess was awake. Now, as on other nights, he went looking on the ground, and having soaped himself, washed himself in the water. Then having come to the table, he ate the rice. While he was eating it, the Princess, taking the sword, arose, and having come towards him, asked, “Who are you?”
The Prince asked, “Who are you?”
The Princess said, “I am she whom they call the Glass Princess.”
Then the Prince also said, “I am he whom they call the youngest Prince of the King of such and such a city.”
After that, the Prince and Princess ate the food, and having talked much, the Princess asked, “For what purpose have you come?”
The Prince replied, “I have not come for anything else but to take you away.”
The Princess said, “Our hiding and going off would not be proper. Here, put away this jewelled ring and lock of hair. To-morrow morning, having gone to our father the King, say, ‘I have come to marry your Princess.’
“Then saying, ‘It is good,’ he will boil a cauldron of water and give you it, and tell you to bathe in it. And he will show you an iron tree, and tell you to saw it. When he has given you the water, put this jewelled ring in the water and bathe; it will be like cold water. When he has shown you the iron tree, pull this lock of hair across it; then it will saw it in two. After that, we two having been married, let us go to your city.”
Then taking the ring and the lock of hair, the Prince went back to the travellers’ shed.
Next day, the Prince in the very manner the Princess told him, came and spoke to the King. The King said, “It is good,” and gave him those two tasks. The Prince performed both the tasks.
After that, the King, being pleased, publicly notified the celebration of their marriage, and said, “If you wish to live here, stay here; if you wish to go, summon the Princess [to accompany you] and go.” Afterwards, having performed the marriage ceremony, he called the Princess, and went to the place where that Cobra was staying.
There she applied the medicine to the Cobra’s ulcer, and it healed. The Cobra, being pleased, gave the two persons a hidden treasure consisting of gold, silver, pearls, and gems. After that, they went to the Prince’s city.
Thus, by bringing this Princess the Prince had two Princesses. The King, the Prince’s father, was pleased because the Prince who went as the offering and the Princess had got married, and had returned. Having eaten the marriage feast they remained there.
When those six elder brothers looked they saw that their Princesses were not so beautiful as the Glass Princess. Because of it, the six persons spoke together about killing the youngest Prince and taking the Glass Princess; and they tried to kill the Prince. The Glass Princess, knowing of it, told that Prince, and the two Princesses and the Prince set off to go to another King.
While they were going in the midst of a forest, the Vaeddā King who dwelt in that forest saw this Glass Princess. In order to take possession of the Princess, he seized the three persons, and having put them in a house, prepared to kill the Prince.
So the Glass Princess, knowing this, became a mare, and placing the Prince on her back, and telling the other Princess to hang by her tail, went through the sky, and descended near another city. Having gone to the city and taken labourers, they engaged in rice cultivation. When they had been there a little while the King of the city died.
After his death they decorated the royal tusk elephant, and set off with it in search of a new King. While they were going along taking it through the streets, the elephant went and knelt near this Prince. Then all the men having made obeisance, and caused the Prince to bathe, placing the Prince and the two Queens on the back of the elephant, went and stopped at the palace, and he became King.
When he had been ruling a little time, there was no rain at the city of the King the Prince’s father, and that country became abandoned. Those six Princes and their six Queens, and his father the King, and his mother, all these persons, being reduced to poverty, came to an almshouse which this King had established, bringing firewood to sell.
There this King having seen them, recognising them, came back after summoning his father the King, and his mother, to the palace. He told them, “Because those six elder brothers and their six Queens tried to kill me in order that my elder brothers might seize and carry off the Glass Princess, I came away from the city, and was seized by a Vaeddā King, but I escaped and came here.” Then saying, “There is the place where I was cultivating rice. Go there, and cultivate rice and eat,” he sent the brothers to that place. Having sent them, he gave them this advice: “For the crime that you tried to commit by killing me, that has befallen you. Therefore behave well now.”
After that, his father the King, his mother the Queen, the King and the two Queens, those five persons, remained at the palace.
North-central Province.
Although the whole story apparently has not been found in India, several of the incidents in it occur in Indian folk-tales.
I have not met with the marriage to the sword in them, but in The Indian Antiquary, vol. xx, p. 423, it is stated by Mr. Prendergast that in southern India, among two Telugu castes, “the custom of sending a sword to represent an unavoidably absent bridegroom at a wedding is not uncommon. It is considered allowable among other Hindus also.”
In The Story of Madana Kāma Rāja (called by the translator, Paṇḍita Naṭēśa Sāstrī, The Dravidian Nights), p. 43, the Kings of Mathurāpurī and Vijayanagaram caused the portraits of their respective son and daughter to be painted, and sent envoys with them in search of royal persons resembling them. The envoys met at a river, exchanged pictures there, and returned to their masters, who were satisfied with the portraits, and caused the wedding of the Prince and Princess to be celebrated at the latter’s home, Vijayanagaram.
In the same work, p. 12, a Prince in the form of a parrot, which was confined in a cage in the sleeping apartment of a Princess, on two successive nights resumed his human form, and smeared sandal and scent over the Princess while she slept, and then became a parrot once more. On the third night she was awake, and he told her his history.
At page 103, also, the King of Udayagiri, father of a Prince who had run off when about to be beheaded, having been deprived of his kingdom by the King of the Oṭṭa country, was reduced to selling firewood for a living, together with his wife and six sons. They came for this purpose to the city over which the Prince had become sovereign, and were discovered by him and provided for.
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 93, a thief gained access to the bedroom of a Princess by means of a tunnel.
In Indian Fairy Tales (Thornhill), p. 122 ff., a Prince, riding a magical wooden horse, visited a Princess nightly while she was asleep, and pricking his arm each night, wrote “I love you,” in blood on her handkerchief. Although she tried to keep awake, for six nights after the first one she was asleep when he came. On the next night she scratched her finger with a needle and rubbed salt into the wound, so that the pain might keep her awake. When he entered the room she started up and inquired who he was, and how and why he had come.
In Indian Fairy Tales, Ganges Valley (Stokes), p. 163, the cutting of the tree trunk with the hair of the Princess occurs.
In the Panchatantra (Dubois), an elephant released rats when caught and imprisoned in earthen pots, and the rats in their turn served him by filling up with earth the pit in which he had fallen.
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara, p. 360 ff., a Rākshasa King gave three tasks to the Prince who wished to marry his daughter. She assisted him by means of her magical powers, and he accomplished them successfully.
[1] The narrator understood this to mean that large upright sheets of glass were fixed round the bed. [↑]
No. 5
The Frog Prince
At a city there is a certain King; a widow lives at a house near his palace. She subsists by going to this royal palace and pounding rice there; having handed it over she takes away the rice powder and lives on it.
During the time while she was getting a living in this way she bore a frog, which she reared there. When it was grown up, the King of that city caused this proclamation to be made by beat of tom-toms: “I will give half my kingdom, and goods amounting to an elephant’s load, to the person who brings the Jewelled Golden Cock[1] that is at the house of the Rākshasī (Ogress).”
Every one said of it that it could not be done. The widow’s Frog having heard the King’s proclamation, said to the widow, “Mother, I will bring the Jewelled Golden Cock. Cook a bundle of rice and give me it.” Having heard the Frog’s words, the widow cooked a bundle of rice and gave it to him.
The Frog took the bundle of rice, and hanging it from his shoulder went to an Indi (wild Date) tree, scraped the leaf off a Date spike (the mid-rib of the leaf), and strung the rice on it. While going away after stringing it, the Frog then became like a very good-looking royal Prince, and a horse and clothing for him made their appearance there. Putting on the clothes he mounted the horse, and making it bound along he went on till he came to a city.
Hearing that he had arrived, the King of that city prepared quarters for this Prince to stay at, and having given him ample food and drink, asked, “Where art thou going?”
Then the Prince said: “The King of our city has made a proclamation by beat of tom-toms, that he will give half his kingdom and an elephant’s load of gold to the person who brings him the Jewelled Golden Cock that is at the Rākshasī’s house. Because of it I am going to fetch the Jewelled Golden Cock.”
The King, being pleased with the Prince on account of it, gave him a piece of charcoal. “Should you be unable to escape from the Rākshasī while returning after taking the Jewelled Golden Cock, tell this piece of charcoal to be created a fire-fence, and cast it down,” he said. Taking it, he went to another city.
The King of that city in that very manner having prepared quarters, and made ready and given him food and drink, asked, “Where art thou going?” The Prince replied in the same words, “I am going to bring the Jewelled Golden Cock that is at the house of the Rākshasī.” That King also being pleased on account of it gave him a stone, “Should you be unable to escape from the Rākshasī, tell this stone to be created a mountain, and cast it down,” he said.
Taking the charcoal and the stone which those two Kings gave him, he went to yet another city. The King also in that very manner having given him quarters, and food and drink, asked, “Where art thou going?” The Prince in that very way said, “I am going to bring the Jewelled Golden Cock.” That King also being greatly pleased gave him a thorn. “Should you be unable to escape from the Rākshasī, tell a thorn fence to be created, and cast down this thorn,” he said.
On the next day he went to the house of the Rākshasī. She was not at home; the Rākshasī’s daughter was there. That girl having seen the Prince coming and not knowing him, asked, “Elder brother, elder brother, where are you going?”
The Prince said, “Younger sister, I am not going anywhere whatever. I came to beg at your hands the Jewelled Golden Cock which you have got.”
To that she replied, “Elder brother, to-day indeed I am unable to give it. To-morrow I can. Should my mother come now she will eat you; for that reason come and hide yourself.”
Calling him into the house, she put him in a large trunk at the bottom of seven trunks, and shut him up in it.
After a little time had passed, the Rākshasī came back. Having come and seen that the Prince’s horse was there, she asked her daughter, “Whose is this horse?”
Then the Rākshasī’s daughter replied, “Nobody’s whatever. It came out of the jungle, and I caught it to ride on.”
The Rākshasī having said, “If so, it is good,” came in. While lying down to sleep at night the sweet odour of the Prince having reached the Rākshasī, she said to her daughter, “What is this, Bola?[2] A smell of a fresh human body is coming to me.”
Then the Rākshasī’s daughter said, “What, mother! Do you say so? You are constantly eating fresh bodies; how can there not be an odour of them?”
After that, the Rākshasī, taking those words for the truth, went to sleep.
At dawn on the following day, as soon as she arose the Rākshasī went to seek human flesh for food. After she had gone, the Rākshasa-daughter, taking out the Prince who was shut up in the box, told that Prince a device on going away with the Jewelled Golden Cock: “Elder brother, if you are going away with the Cock, take some cords and fasten them round my shoulders. Having put them round me, take the Cock, and having mounted the horse go off, making him bound quickly. When you have gone I shall cry out. Mother comes when I give three calls. After she has come, loosening me will occupy much time; then you will be able to get away.”
In the way she said, the Prince tied the Rākshasa-daughter, and taking the Jewelled Golden Cock mounted the horse, and making it bound quickly came away.
As that Rākshasa-daughter said, while she was calling out the Rākshasī came. Having come, after she looked about [she found that] the Rākshasa-daughter was tied, and the Jewelled Golden Cock had been taken away. After she had asked, “Who was it? Who took it?” the Rākshasa-daughter said, “I don’t know who it was.” After that, she very quickly unfastened the Rākshasa-daughter, and both of them came running to eat that Prince.
The Prince was unable to go quickly. While going, the Prince turned round, and on looking back saw that this Rākshasī and the Rākshasa-daughter were coming running to eat that Prince.
After that, he cast down the thorn which the above-mentioned King of the third city gave him, having told a thorn fence to be created. A thorn fence was created. Having jumped over it they came on.
After that, when he had put down the piece of stone which the King of the second city gave him, and told a mountain to be created, a mountain was created. They sprang over that mountain also, and came on.
After that, he cast down the charcoal which the King of the first city gave him, having told a fire fence to be created. In that very manner a fire fence was created. Having come to it, while jumping over it both of them were burnt and died.
From that place the Prince came along. While coming, he arrived at the Indi tree on which he had threaded the rice, and having taken off it all that dried-up rice he began to eat it. On coming to the end of it, the person who was like that Prince again became a Frog.
After he became a Frog, the clothes that he was wearing, and the horse, and the Jewelled Golden Cock vanished. Out of grief on that account that Frog died at that very place.
North-western Province.
In the Jātaka story No. 159 (vol. ii, p. 23) there is a tale of a Golden Peacock which lived upon a golden hill. A King got it caught and informed it that the reason was because “Your colour is golden; therefore (so it is said) those who eat your flesh become young and live so for ever.”
In the story No. 491 (vol. iv, p. 210) the chick is described as “of the colour of gold, with two eyes like gunja fruit, and a coral beak, and three red streaks ran down his throat and down the middle of his back.” On p. 212, it is said that “they who eat his flesh will be ever young and immortal.” This one lived in the Himālayas for seven thousand years.
In The Story of Madana Kāma Rāja (Naṭēśa Sāstrī), p. 56, a Queen bore a Tortoise Prince who had the power of leaving his shell. At p. 141, a Queen also bore a Tortoise, which was reared by her, and eventually went in search of divine Pārijāta flowers (Erythrina indica) from a tree which grew in Indra’s heaven. He seems to have been a turtle and not a tortoise, being described as swimming for weeks across the Seven Seas. He climbed Udayagiri, the Mountain of the Dawn, and blocked the way of the Sun-god (who rises from behind it), in honour of whom he uttered 1,008 praises. Pleased with this, the deity gave him a splendid divine body like a man’s, and the power to resume his tortoise shape at will; he directed him to a sage, who sent him to another, and this one to a third, by whose advice he secured the love and assistance of a divine nymph, an Apsaras, by concealing her robes when a party of them were bathing. With her aid he obtained the heavenly flowers.
In Old Deccan Days, Ganges Valley (Frere), p. 69, a Prince, using a wand belonging to a Rākshasī, created in order to stop her pursuit, a river, a mountain, and apparently a forest. Lastly, by throwing down three of her hairs that he had secured he set the trees on fire, and she was burnt in the flames.
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), p. 360 ff., the daughter of a Rākshasa King gave the Prince who wanted to marry her “some earth, some water, some thorns, and some fire, and her own fleet horse,” telling him how to use them. He was chased by the brother of the King, whom he went to invite to the wedding. When he threw down the earth a mountain was produced behind him; the water became a great river; the thorns a dense thorny wood. When the Rākshasa emerged from the wood and was coming on, the Prince threw down the fire, which set the bushes and trees in front of him ablaze, and finding this difficult to cross he returned home, “tired and terrified.”
[1] Mini Ran Kukuḷā. The spelling in this and other instances is according to the manuscripts, except in such words as Rākshasa and Rākshasī, the village forms of which are Rāsayā and Rāsī; and Brāhmaṇa, which is usually given as Brahmanayā. [↑]
[2] A word without any special meaning in English, often used in addressing a person familiarly and somewhat disrespectfully. [↑]
No. 6
The Millet Trader
At a certain city two men were cutting jungle, it is said. Having cut it for many days, one man said, “Friend, I will go and bring millet[1] to sow in this chena clearing; you continue to cut the jungle.” The other man said “Hā” (Yes), and that man went to seek millet.
Having gone to a village, he went along asking the way to a house where there was millet. After he had gone there it became night, so he remained in a shed at the house. A lucky hour had been fixed by astrology for cutting the hair [for the first time] of a child at the house, on the following day after that.
Having told at the hand of his wife to put rice in water [to clean it], and to cook cakes from it, the man of the house that evening went to the watch-hut in his chena. The woman having pounded the rice and cooked cakes, selected the best cakes and put them in the rice mortar in order to give them to another man. The millet trader in the shed remained there looking on.
Afterwards the man who went to the watch hut returned, and when he was eating the cakes said, “Give a couple of cakes from them to that millet trader.” Then the woman having selected burnt, very burnt ones, and given them to the millet trader, the trader saying, “I cannot bite these,” put the cakes on the others in the rice mortar, and pounded them. The woman scowled at the millet trader, but because her husband was present she was unable to say anything, so she remained silent. The millet trader, having pounded all the cakes and eaten, tied up the surplus ones and put them aside.
After that, the man went again to the watch hut. Then that woman quickly put a gill of rice in water, and having pounded it into flour and very hurriedly cooked cakes, placed them in the house, and lay down in it.
The millet trader awoke, and while he was there looking about, saw a man coming. Arising quickly, he came to the open space in front of the house and coughed. Then the man, thinking, “Perhaps the man is at the house,” went back again.
After that, the millet trader went inside the house. That woman taking those cakes gave them in the dark to the millet trader, and said, “Andō! When I was cooking cakes I put the best cakes in the rice mortar in order to give them to you. Then, after being in the watch hut he (the husband) came, and while eating the cakes said to me, ‘Give a couple of cakes to that millet trader’; so I gave them. After that, the millet trader, that Roḍiyā, having put the cakes in the rice mortar that was full of the best cakes, pounded them and ate. Then I again put a gill of rice into water, and pounded it into flour, saying that you will come; and only just now finished cooking.”
The millet trader said, “Hā. It is good,” and ate.
Afterwards the woman said, “Now then, are we not cutting the child’s hair to-morrow? Now, what will you give on account of it?”
The millet trader said, “What have I got to give? When coming for millet I only brought four tuttu.”[2]
Then the woman, saying, “Be off! Be off! Roḍiyā! Are you the millet trader, Bola?” drove him away.
When he had gone back to the shed, she again put a gill of rice in water, and having pounded it and very rapidly cooked cakes and brought them into the house, lay down.
Afterwards, while the millet trader was there looking about, he again saw that man coming, so he arose quickly, and came to the open space in front of the house and coughed. That man again went away.
After that, the millet trader went into the house again. That woman rose quickly, and gave those cakes to him, and said to the man, “Andō! When I was cooking cakes to give to you I put the best cakes in the rice mortar. Afterwards he came from the watch hut, and while eating the cakes said to me, ‘Give a couple of cakes to that millet trader.’ So I gave them. Afterwards that Roḍiyā, putting the cakes in the rice mortar which was full of the best cakes, pounded them and ate. Then I again put a gill of rice in water, and cooked more cakes. Then, while I was looking out for you, some one like you came in the dark. I gave them to him. While he was eating them I said, ‘Now then, are we not cutting the child’s hair to-morrow? What will you give?’ That Roḍiyā said, ‘Only the four tuttu that I brought for millet.’ Then I got to know who it was. I drove him away, and again put a gill of rice in water, and pounded it, and I have only just finished cooking more cakes.”
The millet trader, saying, “Hā. It is good,” ate the cakes.
Then the woman said, “Now then, are we not cutting the child’s hair to-morrow? What will you give?”
The millet trader said, “If you should ask me even another time, still the same four tuttu.”
The woman saying, “Be off! Be off! Millet trader, Roḍiyā! Hast come again, thou!” drove him away. Then it became light.
Afterwards, the man who went to the watch hut came, and handed over the millet to the millet trader. On his giving it, the millet trader, tying it up in two bundles and placing them on his head, set off to go into the house.
That man saw it, and asked, “Where are you going there?”
The millet trader replied, “I don’t know. During the whole of last night they were going and coming along this very way, so I thought, ‘Maybe this is a high road.’ ”
The man said, “Put down the packages of millet there,” and having gone to the millet store-room, and handed over a greater quantity from the millet in it, beat that woman.
From there the millet trader went to another village, and sitting down at a house unfastened that package of pounded cakes, and was eating them. A woman who was looking on said, “Aḍē! What are you eating?”
The trader said, “They are pounded cakes of our country.”
The woman saying, “The colour of them is good indeed; give me some to look at,” begged and got some.
After eating them she said, “Aḍē! These millet cakes have a sweet taste; they are indeed good.”
The trader replied, “In our quarter the millet is of that very sort; let us go there together if you like.”
The woman said, “Hā” and having taken out all the effects in the house placed them in the jungle, ready for taking when she went.
Afterwards, taking those things, as they were getting very far away the man said, “What have you forgotten? Consider well.”
The woman replied, “I have not forgotten anything. I only forgot my flowered hair comb. It is of the pattern of my flowered hair pin.”
The trader said, “To be without a flowered hair comb is not proper in my country. I shall be here; you go and fetch it. If I should not be here on your return, call me, saying, ‘Day-before-Yesterday! Day-before-Yesterday!’ My name is Day-before-Yesterday (Perēdā).”
Then the woman came running home. When she returned, taking the flowered hair comb, the man was not there. So saying, “Day-before-Yesterday! Day-before-Yesterday!” the woman called and called. The man was not there.
The woman returned home, weeping and weeping. While she was there, her husband, having gone somewhere or other, came back, and asked, “What are you crying for?”
The woman said, “He who was taking millet, Day-before-Yesterday, plundered the house.”
The man said, “If he plundered the house day before yesterday, why didst thou not tell me yesterday?”
The woman replied, “Not day before yesterday. He who was taking millet, Day-before-Yesterday.”
Then the man said, “Isn’t that just what I’m saying? When he plundered the house day before yesterday, why didst thou not tell me yesterday?” Having said this, he beat the woman.
When the millet trader, taking the effects and the bundles of millet, went from there carrying his load, he came to another village. On going to a house, a woman was there weeping and weeping.
As the man was placing the effects and the millet bundles on the veranda of the house, he said, “Appē! I have been to the other world and back,”[3] and laying them on the veranda, said, “What are you crying for, mother?”
The woman said, “My daughter died six days ago. When I think of her I am weeping.” Then she asked the millet trader, “Anē! My Lattī went to the other world; did you meet her there?”
The millet trader said, “Don’t cry, mother. I did meet her there. She is now in the other world. I have taken in marriage that very Lattī. I have come for Lattī’s things that she puts on her arms and neck. She told me to come.”
The woman quickly arose, and having cooked abundantly for the trader, and given him to eat, he said, “Mother, I must go immediately. Where is father-in-law?”
“He went to plough; wait till he comes,” she said.
“I cannot,” he said. “It is our wedding feast to-morrow. I must be off now to go to the wedding.”
So she gave the trader the silver and golden things for placing on her daughter’s arms and neck, also. Then the trader taking the bundles of millet, the effects, and the things for the arms and neck, went away.
After that, when the woman’s husband who had gone to plough came, the woman was laughing. Seeing it, he asked, “What are you laughing at?”
The woman replied, “Bolan, why shouldn’t I laugh? Our son-in-law came.”
“What son-in-law?” the man asked.
The woman said over and over again, “Lattī’s man came, Lattī’s man came. Our son-in-law, to whom our daughter is given in the other world. It is true.”
The man asked, “Bola, can any one in the other world come to this world? Didst thou cook and also give him to eat?”
The woman replied, “What! Didn’t I cook and give him to eat! After I had given him to eat he said that Lattī had told him to take away the things for her arms and neck. So I gave him those also.”
Then the man said, “Where is now, Bola, the horse that was here?” and asking, “Which way did he go?” and mounting on the horse’s back, went to seek that millet trader.
As the trader was going along in the rice field he looked back, and having seen a man coming on horseback, said, “That one is coming to seize me.”
There was a Timbiri tree very near there into which he climbed. While he was there, that man making the horse bound along, having come up, tied the horse to the root of the Timbiri tree. After he had climbed up the tree to catch the trader, the trader, descending from the ends of the Timbiri branches and cutting the fastening, mounted the horse, after placing on it also the bundles of millet and the other goods, and went off on the horse.
Then that man descended slowly from the tree, and having called “Hū” to the millet trader [to arrest his attention], said, “Tell Lattī that your mother-in-law gave you a few things to put on her arms and neck, but your father-in-law gave you a horse.”
Having returned to the house, he said to the woman, “It is true. He is really Lattī’s man. I said ‘Don’t go on foot,’ and having given him the horse I came back.”
The woman said, “Isn’t it so indeed! I told you so.”
Then the millet trader having gone to his village, and divided the goods with the chena cultivator, sowed the millet in the chena, and remained there.
North-western Province.
The story about Lattī’s husband occurs in The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 62, the dead girl’s name being Kaluhāmī. Her father was a Gamarāla, and the man who carried off the things for her was a beggar.
This part of the story is also given, with slight variations, in Tales of the Sun, Southern India (Kingscote and Naṭēśa Sāstrī), p. 135 ff.
In Folklore in Southern India (Naṭēśa Sāstrī), p. 131 ff., the rogue did not pretend to be married to the woman’s daughter, but represented to her that her parents were living in the other world in a very miserable state, without proper clothing, and without the means of purchasing food. She handed over to him the clothing, jewels, and cash in the house, and he went off at once with them. The ending of the incident is the same as in Ceylon.
In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xviii, p. 120, there is a story from Southern India, by Paṇḍita Naṭēśa Sāstrī, in which a youth obtained work under an appā[4] (or “hopper”) woman, giving his name as “Last Year.” When he absconded with her cash-box she gave the alarm in the village by saying, “Last Year (he) stole and took my box,” and was thought to be out of her mind.
In The Orientalist, vol. ii, p. 182, the incident of the cakes pounded in the mortar is related. After eating part of the pounded cakes, the traveller was about to enter the corn-store in which the woman had concealed her lover. On the woman’s stopping him, the husband’s suspicions being aroused he examined the corn-store, and finding the man in it, beat him well, and his own wife also.
[1] Amu (Paspalum scrobiculatum), the Tamil Varaku, a small grain cultivated in jungle clearings. [↑]
[3] Elawa gihin melawa āwā, “Having gone to that world I came to this world.” This is a common saying, meaning in village talk, “What a long and tiring journey I have had.” According to the Rev. C. Alwis it also means, “I almost died, and recovered.” (The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 62.) [↑]
No. 7
The Turtle Dove
In a certain city there are two Princes, it is said. A flower-mother[1] cooks and gives food to the two Princes. The mother of the Princes is dead; the father is alive. The King has married another Queen, and because the Queen is not good to the Princes they live with the flower-mother.
One day, while they were living in that manner, the two Princes having gone to shoot birds with bows and arrows, walked until night-fall, but were unable to find any birds. As they were coming back, there was a Horse-radish tree (Murungā)[2] at the front of the King’s palace, in which was a turtle dove. The younger brother saw it, and said to the elder brother, “Elder brother, there! There is a turtle-dove.” The elder brother shot at the turtle-dove, and it fell dead.
Afterwards, the younger brother having picked it up and come back, said at the hand of the elder brother, “Elder brother, are we to give this to our father the King, or are we to give it to the flower-mother?”
Then the elder brother said, “Why should we give it to our father the King? We will give it to the flower-mother who gives us food and clothing.” Taking the turtle-dove, the two Princes came to the house of the flower-mother, and gave it into the flower-mother’s hand.
On that day the King was not at the palace; only the Queen was there. The Queen remained listening to all that the two Princes said, and stayed looking [to see] if they gave the turtle-dove into the hand of the flower-mother.
That being so, after the King’s return to the palace in the evening the Queen told at the hand of the King what the Princes said, and the fact that they gave the turtle-dove into the hand of the flower-mother.
After that, the King settled to behead both Princes on the morrow. The flower-mother on hearing of it said at the hand of the Princes, “Children, the King said that he must behead you two to-morrow. To save both your lives go away somewhere.”
Having cooked a bundle of rice in the night, she placed gem-stones at the bottom of the bag and the cooked rice above them; and having tied up the bag she gave it into the hands of the Princes before it became light, and told them to go.
The two Princes took the bundle of cooked rice and went away. Having gone on and on, being hungry they sat down in the shade of a great forest. For rinsing their mouths after chewing betel, before eating rice, there was no water.
While they were seated there, a turtle-dove came and fell down, making a noise, “tas,” as it struck the ground. The younger brother asked, “Elder brother, what shall we do with this turtle-dove?” Then the elder brother said, “Hide it in a heap of leaves, for us to eat it yet.” The younger brother hid it.
Thereupon a Vaeddā came, and asked at the hand of the two brothers, “Anē! Didn’t a turtle-dove fall here?”
The two Princes said, “No.”
So the Vaeddā sought for it, continuing to say, “Anē! After trying for seven years, I shot the turtle-dove with my bow and arrow.”
Then the Princes said, “Anē! Vaedi-elder-brother, why is the turtle-dove such a good one?”
The Vaeddā replied, “Why shouldn’t it be good? The person who has eaten the right portion at that very time will receive the sovereignty. The person who has eaten the left portion will receive the sovereignty after seven years have gone by.”
Having said thus, the Vaeddā sought and sought it; he was unable to find the turtle-dove, and he went away. Then, having cooked it, the elder Prince ate the right half; the younger Prince ate the left half.
Having eaten it, the elder Prince, taking the small copper water-pot which the flower-mother gave them, went to seek for water. The younger brother remained there.
The elder brother, breaking and throwing down branches all along the path, having gone on and on, came to a large stream. Hearing a beating of tom-toms while getting water in the pot, he stayed there, looking [to see] what it was about. While he was there, the tom-toming having come near him, a tusk elephant came close to the Prince and knelt down.
The Prince knew that the royal elephant had selected him for the sovereignty, and said, “Anē! A younger brother of mine is there; how can I go without him? I will go there and come with him.”
Then the men who were there said, “You cannot seek your younger brother; you must mount now.” Afterwards the Prince having mounted on the elephant, went to the city of that kingdom, and became the king.
The younger brother, after having looked and looked for a long time, taking the bundle of cooked rice, came along the path on which the branches were broken, and descended to the stream. Then, having seen the elephant’s footprints, continuing to say, “Anē! It is this very elephant that has killed elder brother,” weeping and weeping he drank water; and having eaten part of the cooked rice, tied up the other part and went away.
While going along the path on which were the elephant’s footprints, he saw that his Prince’s robes were torn and torn, and repeating, “Anē! Elder brother has been killed. It is this very elephant. Kill me also, O Gods,” weeping and weeping, going on and on, he went after nightfall to a Heṭṭiyā’s house at some city or other, and said, “Anē! You must give me a resting-place for the night.”
The Heṭṭiyā was not at home; only his wife was there. The woman said to the Prince, “No resting-place will be given here. We do not allow any one to come to our house. The Heṭṭirāla goes to the King, to fan his face. On that account the Heṭṭirāla does not permit any one to come to this house. To-day the Heṭṭirāla went to the King, to fan his face. He will come at this time. Before he comes go away quickly.”
The Prince said, “Anē! Don’t say so. There is not a quarter to which I can go now. In some way or other you must give me it.”
Then the woman, taking a bit of mat, gave it into the Prince’s hand, saying, “If so, go to that calf house. When the Heṭṭiyā comes don’t even cough or anything. You must be silent.”
Afterwards, when the Prince was sitting in the calf house, the Heṭṭiyā returned, and while he was eating rice a cough came to the Prince. The Prince tried and tried to be silent. He could not. He coughed.
The Heṭṭiyā having heard it said to his wife, “What is that, Bola, I hear there?”
The woman said, “Anē! A youth, not vicious nor low, came and asked for a resting-place. I told him to go to the calf house. Do nothing to him. I told him to get up before daylight and go away.”
Then the Heṭṭiyā, saying, “I told thee, ‘Do not give a resting-place to any one’; is it not so? Why didst thou give it?” beat the woman. Having finished eating rice he came into the raised veranda.
When he was there, that Prince took the remains of his rice, and while eating it and thinking in his mind, “Anē! Was I not indeed a royal Prince before; why must I stop now in a calf house?” he saw the gem-stones at the bottom of the rice, and placing one on his knee ate the rice by its light.
The Heṭṭiyā having seen the light, asked at the hand of the woman, “Aḍē! Did you go and give a light also to that one?” The woman said, “It is not a light that I took and gave him.”
Then the Heṭṭiyā got up and went to look, and having seen the gem-stone, scolded the woman. “Aḍē! When my friend from a foreign town came dost thou give him a resting-place in this way? What hast thou given it at the calf house for? Was there no better place to give?”
Having said this, and again beaten the woman, “Quickly warm water,” he said. After waiting while she was warming it, he took the water into the house, and having placed it there, said to the Prince, “Let us go, younger brother, to bathe,” and gave him a bath. After finishing bathing him, having cooked food abundantly and laid the table, he gave him to eat.
When that was finished, he prepared a bed for sleeping, and said, “Younger brother, come and sleep.” The Prince came. Afterwards the Heṭṭiyā said to the Prince, “Younger brother, if there are any things of value in your hands give them into my hands. I will return them to you at the time when you ask for them. If they be kept in your hands they may be lost. There are thieves hereabouts; we cannot get rid of them. They will not let us keep anything; they carry it off.”
Then the Prince said, “Anē! There is nothing in my hands.”
The Heṭṭiyā said, “Nay, there was a gem-stone in your hand; I saw it. It will be there yet; give me it. I shall not take it in that way. I will give you it at the time when you ask for it.”
The Prince said, “Anē! Heṭṭi-elder-brother, I know your Heṭṭi slumber. It is necessary for me to arise early, while it is still night, and go away.”
Then the Heṭṭiyā said, “I shall give you it when you ask for it, no matter if I should be asleep. You can awake me; then I will give it.” Having said thus and thus, the Prince gave all the gem-stones into the hands of the Heṭṭiyā. The Heṭṭiyā taking them and placing them in a house in the middle of seven houses, went to sleep.
Afterwards, the Prince having been asleep, arose while it was still night, and awoke the Heṭṭiyā, saying, “Anē! Heṭṭi-elder-brother, it is necessary for me to go expeditiously. Quickly give me those few gem-stones.”
Thus, in this manner he asks and asks. It is no affair of the Heṭṭiyā’s. Then the woman said, “What is this! One cannot exist for this troubling. Must not persons who took a thing give it back? Must not this youth who is not vicious nor low go away? Why are you keeping them back?”
After that, the Heṭṭiyā, having got up, opening the seven doors of the seven houses came out into the light, and saying, “When, Bola, did I get gem-stones from thee?” he cut off the hair-knot of the Prince, and took him for his slave. So the Prince remained there, continuing to do slave work for the Heṭṭiyā.
Afterwards, one day the Heṭṭiyā and the Prince having gone on a journey somewhere, as they were coming to a stream the seven Princesses of the King of that country having been bathing in the stream, saw the Heṭṭiyā and the Prince going on the road.
The youngest Princess said to the other Princesses, “Elder sisters, that one going there is indeed a Prince.”
The six Princesses said, “So indeed! The Heṭṭiyā’s slave has become a Prince to thee!”
Then the Princess said another time, “However much you should say it is not so, that is indeed a Prince going along there.”
The six Princesses said, “It is not merely that to thee the Heṭṭiyā’s slave has become a Prince; he will come to call thee [to be his wife].”
Then the Princess replied still another time, “It is really so; he is inviting me indeed. However much you should say that, it was really a Prince who went there.”
The six Princesses said, “If he is inviting thee go thou also. The Heṭṭiyā’s slave is going there; go thou before he departs.”
The Princess replied, “I shall really go. You look. What though I have not gone now! Shall I not go hereafter?”
After the seven Princesses had come to the palace, the youngest Princess said at the hand of her father the King, “When we were bathing now, a slave youth went along with the Heṭṭiyā. That slave youth is really a Prince.”
Then the King sent an order to the Heṭṭiyā that the Heṭṭiyā’s slave and the Heṭṭiyā should come to him. Afterwards the Heṭṭiyā and the Heṭṭiyā’s slave went to the King.
The King asked, “Whence this slave youth?”
Then before the Heṭṭiyā said anything the Prince replied, “I was formerly a royal Prince; now I am doing slave work for this Heṭṭi-elder-brother.”
The King asked at the hand of the Heṭṭiyā, “Is he doing slave work for you?”
The Heṭṭiyā said, “Yes.”
After that, the King decided that he would give his youngest daughter to the slave youth (as his wife), so he sent away the Heṭṭiyā, and the Princess with the slave youth.
As those three were going to the Heṭṭiyā’s house, the Heṭṭiyā, becoming hungry while on the way, gave money into the hand of the Prince, and said, “With this money get three gills of rice, and with these ten sallis (half farthings) get a sun-dried fish, and come back and cook them.” He gave money for it separately into the Prince’s hand.
The Prince having bought three gills of rice with the money given for it, and placed it on the hearth to boil, took the ten sallis and went to the shops for the dried fish. When he looked at the dried fish there was none to get for ten sallis.
As he was coming back bringing the ten sallis, a man was on the road, having laid down a heap of dried fish. When the Prince came there the man asked him, “Where, younger brother, are you going?”
The Prince said, “I came for a dried fish; I have ten sallis. There being no dried fish to get for ten sallis I am going away.”
Then the man said, “Give me the ten sallis. Take any dried fish you want.”
So the Prince having given the ten sallis to the trader, selected a large dried fish, and putting it on his shoulder, as he was coming near the river the dried fish was laughing. After laughing, it asked, “Are you taking me in this manner to cook?”
The Prince replied, “Yes, to cook indeed.”
The dried fish said, “Do not take me. You are going to die now. From that I will deliver you. Put me into the river.”
The Prince having placed the dried fish in the river, and come back “simply” (that is, without it), made sauce and cooked the rice. When he had finished, the Heṭṭiyā said, “Separate and give me the cooked rice boiled from two gills.” So the Prince separated the rice from two gills and gave it. Then the Heṭṭiyā asked, “Where is the dried fish?”
The Prince said, “I could not get a dried fish for ten sallis; I walked through the whole of the bazaar. I came back empty-handed (‘simply’).”
Afterwards, the Heṭṭiyā having eaten half the rice in silence, heaped up the other half in the direction of the Princess (thus inviting her to eat it). The Princess saying, “Go thou! Have I come to eat rice out of the Heṭṭiyā’s bowl?”[3] went to the place where the Prince was eating, and ate rice from the Prince’s plate.
Then the Heṭṭiyā said, “If it is wrong for thee to eat from my bowl, how is it thou art eating from my slave’s bowl?”
The Princess said, “Heṭṭiyā, shouldst thou any day say ‘slave’ again, I will tell it at the hand of my father the King, and get thee quartered and hung at the city gates.” After that the Heṭṭiyā was silent.
The whole three having finished eating rice, went on board the vessel that was to carry them along the river. While going along in the vessel, the Heṭṭiyā said to the Prince, “Cut me a mouthful of betel and areka-nut, and give me it.”
The Princess said, “Now then, having already cut betel and areka-nut, his food is done.”
The Prince saying, “It is not wrong; I will cut and give it,” cut and gave it to the Heṭṭiyā.
Afterwards the Heṭṭiyā again said to the Prince, “Get a little water and give me it.”
The Princess saying, “Now then, your doing slave work is stopped,” told the Prince not to give it.
The Prince said, “When there is thirst, how can one not give water? I will give him a little.”
While he was bending down over the side of the vessel to get the water, the Heṭṭiyā raised him, and threw him into the river.
As the Prince fell into the river, the dried fish that he had previously put in the river took him on its back, and having brought him to the shore, left him there. The Heṭṭiyā and the Princess went on in the ship to the Heṭṭiyā’s house.
The Prince was in the sun, on a sandbank. Then, as a flower-mother was coming to the river for water, she saw the Prince, and said, “What is this, son, that you are in the sun? Come away and go with me.” Inviting him, and going to her house with him, she warmed some water and made him bathe, and gave him food.
While he was there, the Prince told all at the hand of the flower-mother. After telling it, when he said, “I must go again to the Heṭṭiyā’s house,” the flower mother said, “O son, let him do what he likes. Don’t you go. Stop here.”
The Prince replying, “I cannot stay without going, O flower-mother; I will go there and come back to you,” went there. After he had gone to the Heṭṭiyā’s house he found that men had collected together there, and were saying that the Heṭṭiyā and the Princess were to be married on such and such a day. He stayed listening to them, and went again to the flower-mother’s house.
After he returned, asking for four sallis at the hand of the flower-mother he went to the potters’ village, and giving them the four sallis told them, “When I come to-morrow you must have ready a kettle having three zig-zag lines round it and twelve spouts.” So saying, he came back to the flower-mother’s house.
On the morning of the following day he walked to the potters’ village, and taking the kettle, came to the Heṭṭiyā’s house. As he arrived, men were dancing, and the King was looking on. At the time when they were finishing dancing he got on the raised veranda, and looked on. The dancing being ended he came out to the wedding hall. Then the Princess saw him and laughed. At that moment the Heṭṭiyā trembled.
The Prince having gone there said, “Stop that. It is necessary for me to dance a little.” Then he began to tell them all from the very beginning: “We were of such and such a city, the sons of the King of such and such a name. We were two Princes, an elder brother and a younger brother. Our mother was dead. A flower-mother gave us food and clothing.”
Having thus said a little of the story that he was relating, he danced, and while dancing sang to the kettle that he held in his hand—
Possessing three bent lines, a dozen spouts as well,
Little kettle, hear this our trouble that befel.[4]
Then he said, “While living thus we said one day, ‘Let us go and shoot birds,’ and elder brother and I went. Having walked till night-fall we did not meet with a single one. While we were returning home, as it was becoming night, there was a Horse-radish tree in front of the palace of our father the King. In that Horse-radish tree was a turtle-dove which elder brother shot; at the stroke it fell dead.
“Afterwards I asked at elder brother’s hand regarding it, ‘Elder brother, to whom are we to give this?’ Then elder brother said, ‘There is no need to give it to our father the King; let us give it to the flower-mother who gives us food and clothing.’ So saying, we took it home and gave it to the flower-mother.”
Again he danced, and sang while dancing—
Possessing three bent lines, a dozen spouts as well,
Little kettle, hear this our trouble that befel.
“Our Puñci-Ammā (step-mother, lit. ‘little mother’) after hearing this, on the return of our father the King told him of it, and our father the King appointed to behead us. Afterwards our flower-mother to save the lives of us both told us to go away. Having cooked a bundle of rice, and tied up a bag of it, placing gem-stones at the bottom and the cooked rice above, she gave it into the hand of both of us, and told us to go away somewhere before it became light. So we both came away. Walking on and on, we came to a great forest, and both of us sat down in the shade.”
Then he danced again, and sang while dancing—
Possessing three bent lines, a dozen spouts as well,
Little kettle, hear this our trouble that befel.
After that, he told a further part of his tale, and then danced again. Thus, in that way he related all the things that had occurred.
The King who had come to celebrate the wedding was the Prince’s elder brother. While the Prince was relating all these things the King wept.
Then the King asked at the hand of the Heṭṭiyā, “Is what he has said regarding the gem-stones, and the taking him as a slave, true?” The Heṭṭiyā replied, “It is true.”
Then the King caused the Heṭṭiyā to be quartered, and hung at the four gateways of the city.
After the King had caused the Prince and Princess to be married, and had given that kingdom to the Prince, both the King and the Prince went to their cities.
The elder brother who had eaten the right portion of the turtle-dove shot by the Vaeddā, at that very time obtained the sovereignty. The younger brother having eaten the left portion, when seven years had passed, on that day obtained the sovereignty.
So the Prince and Princess remained at their city.
North-western Province.
The notion that the persons who ate two birds, or the halves of one bird or of a fruit, would become Kings, or a King and his minister, is found throughout India in folk-tales.
In the Jātaka stories No. 284 (vol. ii, p. 280), and No. 445 (vol. iv, p. 24), two cocks were overheard to say that whoever ate one would get a thousand pieces of money, and the person who ate the other would become King, Chief Queen or Commander-in-Chief, and Treasurer or King’s favourite cleric. The second one was selected and eaten, with the corresponding result.
In The Orientalist, vol. ii, p. 150, there is a story by Miss S. J. Goonetilleke, in which a blind man, sitting under a tree, heard a Rākshasa who was in the tree saying to others that if the fruit of the tree were rubbed on the eyes of a blind man he would recover his sight, and that a person who ate the fruit on the top of the tree would become a King within seven days. The man regained his sight in this way, and having also eaten the fruit was selected as King by the royal elephant, which knelt before him. The man who had blinded him married his Prime Minister’s daughter; and ascertaining how the King recovered his sight and obtained his position, he got his wife to treat him in the same way and leave him under a tree, where he died.
In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xvii, p. 75, there is a tale of two Princes who were ordered to be blinded because of a false charge made by the Queen, their step-mother. They escaped, and killed a Chakwā (Sheldrake) which they heard informing its mate that he who ate its head would become a King, and he who ate the liver would be very happy after twelve years’ wanderings. The elder brother went for food to a city, where the royal elephant threw a garland over his neck, and he became King. The younger brother being unable to find him worked for a potter, then travelled on and took the place of a woman’s son who was going to be offered to an Ogre, who had forced a King to give him daily a cart-load of sweet cakes, a couple of goats, and a young man. The Prince killed the Ogre while he was eating the cakes. The King gave him his daughter in marriage, and half the kingdom. The elder brother came to the wedding, and they recognised each other. When they visited their father he sent the Queen into exile.
In the Tamil work, The Story of Madana Kāma Rāja (Naṭēśa Sāstrī), p. 125 ff., a Mango tree growing in a thick forest bore a magical fruit once in one hundred years. A sage waited for it, and went to bathe in order to purify himself before eating it. As two Princes whose parents had been reduced to poverty, were passing, the younger one picked up the fruit and placed it in their packet of rice. The sage followed them, but they denied all knowledge of the fruit. He informed them that the person who ate the outer part would become a king, and that from the mouth of the person who ate the seed, gems would drop whenever he laughed. The brothers divided the fruit in this way, and a royal elephant coming in search of a new King placed a garland on the neck of the elder one, and depositing him on its back went off with him. The younger one, thinking he was carried off by a wild elephant, left the wood, and was received at the house of a dancing girl. One day when he laughed gems fell from his mouth, and after getting many more, they gave him a purgative pill and secured the magic stone. After other adventures he was united to his brother, recovered the mango stone, and became a King himself.
In Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), p. 138 ff., Tales of the Punjab (F. A. Steel), p. 129, two Princes ran away on account of their step-mother’s cruelty, and while resting under a tree heard a Maina (Starling) and a Parrot telling each other that the two persons who ate them would become a King and a Prime Minister. They shot the birds with crossbows, and ate them. The younger one went back for the other’s whip, which was left at a spring, and was bitten and killed by a snake. The elder was selected as King, by a royal elephant. A magician found the dead Prince, drained the spring into his wife’s small brass pot, and the snakes being waterless gave back the Prince’s life. After stirring adventures, the younger Prince married a Prime Minister’s daughter, who went on a ship with him. There he was thrown overboard, but caught a rope and got back to his wife’s cabin unobserved. He met his brother the King at last, and was made to relate his life story. This he did in sections, on seven days, and at the end the King claimed him as his brother, and he became Prime Minister.
In Indian Nights’ Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 276 ff., a step-mother got two Princes exiled. At night while they were under a tree two birds were heard predicting that those who ate them would become a King and a Minister, so they shot and ate them. The whip and snake incident are as above, the guilty snake being brought up by a cowry shell, of which the magician had despatched four to the four quarters. The snake breathed into the Prince’s mouth and revived him. He had wonderful adventures, and married a Princess, went on a ship with her, was thrown overboard, and assisted a gardener. The Princess had been sold at the palace, where the King, who was the elder brother, wished to marry her. The younger brother went disguised as a woman, and related his story by sections in three days, when the Princess claimed him as her husband. His brother made him Chief Counsellor, and at last he succeeded to his father’s kingdom.
In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 78, the persons who ate the head and breast of a bird became Kings.
At p. 159, the King’s elephant selected a person as King, the elephant bowing down to him, and the royal hawk perching on his hand.
At p. 167 ff., two Princes who escaped their death sentence, which was due to their step-mother’s plotting, heard two birds say of two others that they who ate them would become a King and Minister. They shot and ate them. The whip and snake incident occurred, the latter being a dragon. The elder brother was selected as King by the royal elephant and hawk. A jōgī emptied the spring and made the dragon restore the Prince, who was captured by robbers, saved by the daughter of one, went with her on board a ship, was pushed overboard, and was saved by the girl. They landed at the city where the elder brother was reigning, and he was made Minister, and eventually King when the elder brother succeeded their father.
In Folk-Tales of Bengal (Day), p. 99, a royal elephant with a rich howdah on its back selected a Prince as King, and took him to the city.
[2] Moringa pterygosperma. [↑]
[3] A thing only done by a man’s wife. [↑]
Wangi tunak aeti, kembi dolahak aeti,
Apaṭa waeduna duka mē asāpan koṭa kotali.
No. 8
The Prince and the Princess
In a certain city there are a Prince and a Princess, it is said. Because these two go together to the school the teacher said, “You two came together to-day; on another day you must not do it again.”
When they were coming separately on that account, the Princess, being in front, one day went to the well, and having bent down while trying to drink water, her writing style fell into the well. Being there alone the Princess was unable to get the writing style.
After the Prince came up she said, “Anē! My writing style fell into the well; get it and give me it.”
Then the Prince said, “I will get it and give you it if you will swear that you will not marry another person.”
The Princess said, “I will not marry another; I will only marry you yourself.” Having touched the Prince’s body she swore it, and the Prince having touched the body of the Princess also swore it. Then he got and gave her the writing pin, and one of them went in front and one went behind.
Those two learnt their letters excellently. Afterwards, both having grown up, when they inquired about arranging the marriage for the Prince he said, “You must bring me in marriage such and such a Princess, of such and such a village. If not, I do not want a different marriage.”
Then the King said, “Do you want the kingdom, or do you want the Princess?”
The Prince replied, “I do not want your kingdom at all; I want the Princess.”
Afterwards the King went and asked for the Princess. Then the father of the Princess said, “I will give the Princess to the persons who give me this well full of gold.”
So the Prince filled it and gave it, and the Prince and Princess having got married stopped many days at the Prince’s house.
Then the King said to the Prince, “Because at first you said that you did not want the kingdom, that you only wanted the Princess, you shall not live at my house. Go where you want.”
Then having gone to the Princess’s house, after they had been living there many days the father of the Princess said, “Taking a well of gold, I sold the Princess. You shall not live at my house. Go where you want.”
So those two went away. As they were going the Princess went along sewing a jacket. Having gone very far, after they sat down at a travellers’ shed near a city, the Princess gave the jacket that she had sewn into the Prince’s hand, and said, “Take this, and having sold it at the bazaar bring something to eat.”
The Prince having taken it to the bazaar, after he had told the bazaar men to buy it they said, “We are unable to say a word about buying this. It is so valuable that we have not got the means to purchase it.”
The guards of the King of that country having been present looking on, and having seen this, told the royal servants to bring the jacket to the King. After they had brought it the King took it, and gave the Prince two bags of money. The Prince left one and took one away.
The King having called his servants, ordered them, “Look at the place where that Prince goes and stays, and come back.” Well then, the servants having gone and having seen that the Princess was stopping at the travellers’ shed, came running, and said at the hands of the King, “There is a good-looking Princess at such and such a travellers’ shed.”
The Prince having left at the travellers’ shed the bag of money which he took, came for the other bag of money. While he was coming, the King, taking a horse also, went to the travellers’ shed by a different road, and placing the Princess on horseback brought her to the palace.
Well then, when the Prince, taking the other bag of money went to the travellers’ shed the Princess was not there. He called and called; she did not come. Afterwards, taking both bags of money he comes away along the road.
The Princess, while she was looked after by the guards, having seen from afar that the Prince was coming, said to the servants, “I am thirsty,” and told them to bring an orange quickly. After it was brought and given to her, she opened the skin and wrote a letter thus: “Give even both those bags of money, and buying two horses come near the palace, and having tied up the two horses stay there without sleeping. After the King has gone to sleep I shall descend down robes tied together, and having come to you, when I mount a horse you mount the other horse, and we will go off.”
Having placed the letter inside the skin of the orange and shut it up completely, so as to appear like a whole orange fruit, she threw it behind the guards, in front of the approaching Prince. The Prince thinking, because he was hungry, “I must eat this,” picked it up, and having gone into the shade of a Timbiri tree, sat down. When he opened the skin of the orange, having seen that there was a letter inside it he took it to the light, and read it aloud.
A Karumāntayā (a Kinnarā, a man of the lowest caste) who was in the Timbiri tree heard all that was written in the letter. Well then, the Prince having given the two bags of money and taken two horses, and having come near the palace on the appointed day, tied the two horses there. While he was there the Karumāntayā also came, saying, “Anē! I also must stop here at this resting place.”
The Prince said, “Do not stay here. Should the King hear of it he will drive us both away.”
The Karumāntayā replied, “Don’t say so. I also am going to stop here to-day,” and stayed there. The Prince went to sleep; the Karumāntayā remained awake.
After the King had gone to sleep, the Princess, descending down some robes, came there. When she was mounting a horse, the Karumāntayā mounted the other horse, and both of them went off together.
Having gone off, when the Princess looked after it became light, she saw the Karumāntayā. Afterwards she stopped the horse, and said to the Karumāntayā, “Get and give me a little water.” The Karumāntayā said, “I will not; get it to drink yourself.”
After the Princess had said it yet another time, the Karumāntayā dismounted from the back of the horse. When he had gone for water, the Princess cut with her sword the throat of the horse on which the Karumāntayā came, and went off, making the horse bound along. The Karumāntayā having run and run a great distance, returned again because he could not come up to her.
While the Princess was going on horseback, she came to a place where seven Vaeddās were shooting with bows and arrows. Those seven persons having seen the Princess coming, said to each other, “That Princess who is coming is for me.” The Princess having heard that saying, stopped the horse and asked, “What are you saying?”
Then each of the seven said, “The Princess is for me, for me.”
Afterwards the Princess said, “You seven persons shoot your arrows together. I will marry the one whose arrow is picked up in front of the others.”
After that, they all seven having at one discharge shot their arrows, while the seven persons were running to pick up the arrows the Princess went off, making the horse bound along. Those seven persons having run and run for a great distance, returned again because they could not come up to her.
The Prince having awoke, when he looked the two horses were not there, and the Princess was not there. So he walked away weeping and weeping.
Then, while the Princess was going near yet another city, putting on Brāhmaṇa clothes she went to the school at that city, and there having begged from a child a slate[1] and slate pencil,[1] she wrote a name in Brāhmaṇa letters (Dēvanāgari).
When she had given it to the children who were at the school, nobody, including also the teacher, was able to read it. Then the teacher took it to the King of that country, and showed him it. The King also could not read it. So the King appointed her as a teacher, saying, “From to-day the Brāhmaṇa must teach letters at the school.”
Now, when the Brāhmaṇa had been teaching letters for a long time, men told the King tales about her: “That is a woman indeed; no Brāhmaṇa.”
Then the King having said, “Hā. It is good,” told the servants, “Inviting that Brāhmaṇa, go to my flower garden. If it be a woman, she will pick many flowers and come away after putting them in her waist pocket. If it be a Brāhmaṇa, he will pick one flower, and come away turning it round and round near his eye.”
That Brāhmaṇa had reared a parrot. The parrot heard from the roof of the palace the words said by the King, and having gone to the school said to the Brāhmaṇa, “The King says thus.”
Next day, the Ministers having come to the school said, “Let us go to the flower garden,” and inviting the Brāhmaṇa, went there. Keeping in mind the words said by the parrot, the Brāhmaṇa broke off one flower, and holding it near the eye came away turning it round and round. The King looking on said, “From to-day no one must say again that it is a woman.”
Again, in that manner, when she had been there a long time, people began to say to the King, “No Brāhmaṇa; that is a woman indeed.”
Then the King again said to the servants, “To-morrow, inviting the Brāhmaṇa, go to my betel garden. If it be a woman, she will pluck many betel leaves, and go away after putting them in her waist pocket. If it be a Brāhmaṇa, he will pluck one betel leaf, and holding it near his eye he will come away turning it round and round.” Hearing that also from the roof of the palace, the Brāhmaṇa’s parrot having gone to the Brāhmaṇa said, “The King says so and so.”
Next day, the King’s Ministers having gone to the school said, “Let us go to the betel garden,” and inviting the Brāhmaṇa, went there. Keeping in mind the words said by the parrot, in that very manner breaking off one betel leaf, and holding it near the eye, she came away turning it round and round. The King, looking on at it also, said, “From to-day I shall cut with this sword the one who says again that it is a woman.”
After that, the Brāhmaṇa having carved a figure like the Princess, gave it into the hands of the scholars, and said, “Taking this, go and collect donations (samādama). After you have gone, inviting to come with you him who on seeing this figure recognises it, return with him.”
After the scholars, taking the figure, had gone to a city, the seven Vaeddās saw it, and said, “Here is the Princess.” Having drawn near they asked, “How is it that she has gone away for such a long time since she went from here that day? Where is she now?”
Then the scholars, saying, “She is now at our city; let us go there,” inviting those seven persons, returned with them. After they had come to the school the Brāhmaṇa said, “Cut them down, the seven persons.”
After they had cut them down, the Brāhmaṇa said to the scholars, “Take this again. Again inviting him whom you meet, return with him.”
The scholars took it again, and while they were going to another city met that Karumāntayā. After he had said, “Anē! Ammē! Where did you go for such a long time? Where is she now?” the scholars replied, “The Princess is now at our city; let us go there.” After they had come to the school the Brāhmaṇa said, “Cut down that one also.”
After they had cut him down, she said to the scholars, “Take this again.” The scholars, taking it, and having gone to another city, met with the Prince. Having come in front of it, the Prince fell down weeping. The scholars said, “Do not weep. She is in our city; let us go there.”
After they had come to the school, the Brāhmaṇa arose quickly, and having thrown off the Brāhmaṇa clothing, dressed herself in her Princess’s robes. Having prepared warm water and made the Prince bathe, the Princess cooked ample food, and gave him to eat.
While she was doing this, the scholars having gone to the King said, “It was a Princess who was there. After we went to a city to collect donations, having met with the Princess’s Prince he came back with us. Both of them are now at the school.”
After that, the King, having come to the school, and having asked about those things from those two, built a house with a tiled roof, and gave it and half the village to the Princess as a present.
North-western Province.
In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 86, a Prince induced three persons who were quarrelling over the ownership of some wonderful articles left by their master, a Fakīr, to run for three arrows which he discharged in three directions. While they were absent, he took three of the articles, and seating himself on a magic seat which was one of the things, was conveyed away by it.
At p. 306 ff. of the same work, a Prince and Princess eloped when the latter was about to be married to another Prince. While on their way, she remembered some jewels which she required, and he returned for them. In the meantime a robber had come up in the dark, and finding her servant asleep had ridden off with the Princess, who thought he was the Prince. When daylight came she found out her mistake, sent him to a village for food, and then rode off alone; and calling at a goldsmith’s house for a drink, was detained and requested to marry him. On her agreeing, he gave her gold ear-rings and her jewels, with which she rode off, and stayed with a married couple, disguising herself as a man. An elephant selected her as King. Then she got an artist to paint her portrait, and she hung it in a thoroughfare of the city, with a guard who seized all who recognised her. These proved to be the robber, her servant, the goldsmith, and the two who befriended her, and lastly the Prince. When the Prince saw her portrait he fainted. He was first made Prime Minister, and afterwards the Princess revealed herself to him, and he became King. The robber and goldsmith were imprisoned, and the others rewarded. The resemblance to the Sinhalese story is striking.
[1] Evidently a modern interpolation, as the Princess was represented as using only a writing style. [↑]
No. 9
Tamarind Ṭikkā
In a certain city there are seven elder brothers and younger brothers, it is said. The seven have a younger sister, who cooks and gives food to all seven.
While the seven brothers were cutting and cutting the sides of an earthen ridge (nīra) in the rice field, they saw seven women coming, and said to them, “Where are you going?”
The seven women replied, “We are seven elder sisters and younger sisters; and we are going to seek seven elder brothers and younger brothers.”
Then the seven brothers said, “We are seven elder brothers and younger brothers. Stop with us.”
The seven sisters said, “Hā.”
The seven brothers having brought the seven sisters to their house, leaving them there went again to the rice field, and chopped the ridges. Those seven sisters having boiled seven pots of paddy and spread it out to dry, said to their sister-in-law, “We are going for firewood; you stay at home and look after these things.”
After they had gone, that sister-in-law fell asleep. Then rain having fallen, the seven large mats (māgal) on which the paddy was spread were washed away. When the seven sisters came, and saw that the mats and paddy had been washed away, they seized that woman, and having beaten her, drove her away from the house. So she went to the foot of a Tamarind tree on the roadside, and stayed there.
When a long time had passed after she went there, all those seven women bore girls. The woman under the Tamarind tree bore a boy.
As the eldest brother was going along the road on which was the tree, the woman said, “Anē! Elder brother, look at my boy’s horoscope.” He said, “I will not.”
As the next brother was going she said, “Anē! Elder brother, look at my boy’s horoscope.” He said, “I will not.”
Thus, in that way all the six elder brothers refused.
Afterwards, when the youngest brother was going, on her saying, “Anē! Elder brother, look at my boy’s horoscope,” he said, “Hā,” and went.
When he looked at it, the astrologer said, “He is born such that he will bring misfortune to those seven girls. The child will be so lucky that he might obtain a kingdom.”
Then the brother having returned, said to that woman, “That one has been born such that he will eat thee. Knock his head on a stone or root, and kill him.”
The woman saying, “It is good. Let him eat me,” reared him.
The child having become big, said at the hand of the woman, “Mother, now then, oughtn’t you to bring me an assistant (i.e. a wife)?” The woman replied, “Anē! Son, who will give in marriage to us?”
Afterwards the youth went to a place where they were grinding flour, and having put a little flour under his finger nail, came back. “Mother, mother, quickly hold a basin,” he said. The woman held one. Then, when he put into the basin the little flour that was under his finger nail, it filled it and ran over.
Having gone again to a place where they were expressing coconut oil, in the same way he took a little coconut under his finger nail, and came back. “Mother, mother, hold that quickly,” he said. The woman held it. That also was filled and overflowed.
Again, having gone to a place where they were warming Palm-tree syrup, in the same way he took some under his finger nail, and came back. “Mother, mother, hold that quickly,” he said. That also was filled and overflowed.
Afterwards the youngster said, “Mother, cook cakes with those things, and give me them.” So the woman having cooked them, tied up a pingo (carrying-stick) load, and gave it to him.
The youngster, taking the pingo load, went to his eldest uncle[1]. After he asked him for his daughter’s hand in marriage, the uncle said, “Be off! Be off! Who would give in marriage to Tamarind Ṭikkā?”
From there he went to the next uncle, and asked him. That uncle spoke in the same manner. All the six elder uncles spoke in the same manner.
Then he went to the youngest uncle, and when he asked him the uncle said, “Put the packages of cakes there, then.” (Intimating by this that he accepted him as a son-in-law. He alone knew of the nature of the boy’s horoscope.)
Afterwards, having cooked and given Tamarind Ṭikkā to eat, the uncle said, “My buffalo cow has died, Tamarind Ṭikkā. Let us go and bury it, and return.”
Tamarind Ṭikkā said “Hā,” and having gone to the place where the dead buffalo was lying, said, “Uncle, shall I make that get up?” The uncle said “Hā.” So Tamarind Ṭikkā went to the low bushes at the edge of the jungle, and came back cutting a white stick. Then calling out, “Into the cattle-fold, Buffalo cow! Into the cattle-fold!” he struck the buffalo. Then the buffalo cow that had been dead got up, and came running to the cattle-fold. By the calves from that buffalo cow the cattle herd was increased.
One day, while the six uncles and Tamarind Ṭikkā were watching cattle in the field, the uncles said, “Tamarind Ṭikkā, we will watch. You go and eat, and come back.” After he had gone home, the six uncles cut all the throats[2] of his cattle. When he returned the six uncles said, “Anē! Tamarind Ṭikkā. Some men came, and having tied us all and thrown us down in the dust, cut all the throats of your cattle. Not a thing could we do.” Tamarind Ṭikkā said, “Hā. It is good.”
As he was going away, having seen people burying a corpse he waited while they were burying it, and after they had gone he dug out the grave, and raised the dead body to the surface. Then lifting up the body and taking it to a tank, he bathed it, dressed it in a cloth, tied a handkerchief round its waist, tied a handkerchief on its head, put a handkerchief over its shoulder,[3] and placing it on his shoulder went away with it.
After nightfall, having gone to a village, Tamarind Ṭikkā set the body upright against a clump of plantain trees, and asked at a house, “Anē! You must give us a resting-place to-night.”
When he said this the men in the house replied, “There will be no resting-place here. Go away, and ask at another house.”
Then he said, “Anē! Don’t say so. Our great-grandfather is coming there.”
Women were driving cattle out of that garden. Tamarind Ṭikkā said to them, “Anē! Our great-grandfather is coming there. His eyes cannot see anything. Don’t hit him, any one.”
Then a woman at the raised terrace of the shop, having knocked down a stump, when she was throwing it at the cattle the dead body was hit, and fell down. At the blow Tamarind Ṭikkā went running there, and cried out, “Appē! Great-grandfather is dead.”
The men came out of the house and said, “Tamarind Ṭikkā, don’t cry. We will give you a quart measure of money.”
“I don’t want either a quart measure of money or two. Our great-grandfather is dead,” Tamarind Ṭikkā said, and cried aloud.
Again the men said, “Appā! Tamarind Ṭikkā, don’t cry. We will give you three quart measures of money.”
Tamarind Ṭikkā said, “I don’t want either three or four. I want our great-grandfather.”
Again the men said, “Tamarind Ṭikkā, don’t cry. We will give you five quart measures of money.”
Tamarind Ṭikkā said, “I don’t want either five or six. Give me my great-grandfather.”
The men said, “Tamarind Ṭikkā, don’t cry. We will give you seven quart measures of money.”
Then Tamarind Ṭikkā said, “Hā. It is good. Give me them. What of that! Will our great-grandfather come to his senses again?”
Taking the seven quart measures of money, and returning to his village, Tamarind Ṭikkā spread a mat on the raised veranda of his house, and having put the seven quart measures of money on it, was counting it. The six uncles having come, said, “Whence, Tamarind Ṭikkā, this money?”
“Ō! Will people with cattle hides to sell become in want of money?” he said.
After that, the six uncles having cut the throats of all the cattle they had, and tied the skins into pingo loads, taking them to the villages asked, “Will you buy cattle hides?”
The men said, “Go away. Go away. Who will give money for cattle hides?”
Then the uncles having come to their village, becoming angry with Tamarind Ṭikkā, spoke together, “We must kill him.” So they went to him and said, “Tamarind Ṭikkā, let us go on a journey together.” He asked, “Where?” The six uncles said, “A daughter of ours has been asked in marriage. On that account we must go to-day to eat betel at the house of the people who have asked for her. Tamarind Ṭikkā said “Hā,” and went with the uncles.
Having gone very far, they came to a foot-bridge made of a tree trunk (ēdanḍa), and on seeing it the uncles spoke together, “Let us hang Tamarind Ṭikkā under this, and go away.” So they put him in a sack, and having hung it under the foot-bridge, went off.
While he was under it, as a washerman bringing a bundle of clothes was going over the bridge, Tamarind Ṭikkā said, “Appē! The lumbago is a leetle better since I have been hanging here.” Then the washerman said, “Tamarind Ṭikkā, I also have lumbago; hang me up a little.”
Tamarind Ṭikkā said, “If so, unfasten this sack.” After the washerman unfastened it, Tamarind Ṭikkā came out, and having put him in the sack, and again tied it in the same manner under the foot-bridge, took his bundle of clothes, came to the rice field with it, and spread the clothes out to dry.
As the six uncles were returning, they cut the fastenings of the sack that hung under the bridge (thus letting it fall into the stream).
While coming along afterwards to the village, they saw Tamarind Ṭikkā in the rice field spreading clothes out, and asked, “Whence, Tamarind Ṭikkā, these clothes?”
Then he said, “Ō! Will people who have to be under foot-bridges become in want of clothes?”
The six uncles said, “Hang us there also, Tamarind Ṭikkā,” and they brought six sacks and gave them to him. So he put the six uncles into the six sacks, and hung them under the foot-bridge, and afterwards cut the fastenings of the sacks. Then the six uncles were carried away down the river, and died in the sea.
The six women (their wives) ran away; their six girls, saying, “Our fathers are going for clothes to wear. Let us go also,” also ran away.
So the six uncles, and the six women, and the six girls all died. Tamarind Ṭikkā, and his wife, and uncle, and aunt, and mother, these five remained.
North-western Province.
In the Jātaka story No. 432 (vol. iii, p. 304), a similar incident to the last one is related. A woman whom her son and his wife thought they had burnt while asleep, frightened a robber when he came to the cave in which she had taken refuge, and thus got his bundle containing jewels. When she returned home next day with the jewels, and was asked by her daughter-in-law where she got them, she informed her that all who were burnt on a wooden pile at that cemetery received a similar present. So she went there, and burnt herself.
In The Story of Madana Kāma Rāja (Naṭēśa Sāstrī), p. 97 ff., a Prince was requested to deliver letters to the departed relatives of all at the palace of the King under whom he was employed, who twice before had endeavoured to kill him by giving him apparently impossible tasks. By the aid of the magical powers of his wives, he jumped into a pit of fire with the letters, and was saved by Agni, the Fire God, who sent him back next day out of the fire, with costly jewels and a splendid dress. All the persons who were hoping to kill him decided to follow his example, and were burnt up. The Prince then became the ruler of the kingdom.
In The Indian Antiquary, vol. iii, p. 11, in a Bengal tale by G. H. Damant, six men burnt a farmer’s house. He loaded two bags of the ashes on a bullock, and on the way met some men driving bullocks laden with rupees, changed two of their bags for his own, met the six men who burnt his house, and told them he got the money by selling the ashes. They burnt their houses and were beaten by people for trying to sell ashes. Then they went to the farmer’s house, tied him, put him in a sack, and threw him into a river. He was saved by a man who was riding past, on his offering to cut grass for his horse without pay. He rode off on the horse, overtook the six men, and informed them that he found the horse in the river, where there were many more. They persuaded him to throw them in, tied in sacks, and all were drowned.
In the same journal, vol. iv, p. 257, the incident is given as found among the Santals. A man who was in a sack, about to be drowned, induced another, a shepherd, to take his place. The man then took possession of the shepherd’s cows, and when those who thought they had killed him heard from him that there were many more in the river, they allowed themselves to be tied up and thrown in.
In vol. xviii, p. 120, in a South Indian story by Paṇḍita Naṭēśa Sāstrī, a man who had cheated some persons was carried off, tied up in a bag, to be burnt alive. While firewood was being fetched, he induced a cow-watcher to take his place, and he himself drove off the 1,001 cows of which the man had charge. When his enemies returned to his house after burning the watcher, they found him there to welcome them, the cows being all around. He informed them that on going to Kailāsa, the residence of the God Śiva, after being burnt, he met his father and grandfather, who stated that his allotted time on earth had not expired, and sent him back with the cows. The others decided to go also, and were tied up and burnt.
A variant of the last incident is also found in West Africa, and is given in Contes Soudanais (C. Monteil), p. 121. A sorceress captured a youth, whom she wished to destroy enclosed in three goat skins, and she set her daughter to watch the package while she dug a pit and filled it with wood, which she set on fire. The girl heard the boy apparently eating food inside, and questioned him about it. He said, “I have better than that; I have some dainties.” As she wanted some she released him and was tied up in his place, while he escaped clothed in her dress. The sorceress returned, and threw the bundle into the fire. Although she heard a voice inside saying the boy had tied up the girl in it, she believed it was only a trick of his.
A similar incident is related in another story in the same volume, p. 164.
It also occurs in a folk-tale of the Southern Province which I contributed to The Orientalist (vol. ii, p. 53). As other incidents in that story resemble some in the tales given below, I give it in full here.
I may add that however improbable the marriage of seven brothers to seven sisters may appear, it has been nearly matched in recent years in England. The Daily Mail of January 20, 1908, contained the following words regarding an old lady who had just died:—“She was one of seven members of her family who married seven sons and daughters of a neighbouring farmer.”
[3] This is the dress of a villager when visiting friends. A white jacket is now often added. [↑]
No. 10
Mātalangē Loku-Appu
Once upon a time there lived a man and a woman, whose son was a youth named Mātalangē Loku-Appu.
One day the mother went to the river to fetch water, telling her son to allow nothing whatever to enter the house in her absence. While she was away a small lizard (hikanalā) ran into the house. As it approached, the boy called out to it to stop, but it took no notice of him, and climbed up into the roof, whereupon Loku-Appu set fire to the roof and burnt the house down. When his mother returned, and asked him how the house came to be burnt, he informed her that he had done it in driving the lizard out of the roof.
Afterwards the father came home, and on learning what had occurred set off into the forest with his son to cut sticks, in order to build a new house. While he cut the sticks he ordered Loku-Appu to collect them.
A river flowed through the forest, and Loku-Appu asked him where it ran. “To your house,” he replied. The son, taking this literally, threw all the sticks into the river, so that it might transport them home. When the father discovered that all the sticks were lost in this way, he flew into a passion, tied the boy on a log, and set him afloat in the river, saying, “Go thou also.”
At a short distance down the river there was a sweet-potato garden. The gardener saw the log and boy floating past, and rescued Loku-Appu. He inquired the boy’s name, and was told it was “Uprooter-of-Creepers, Sweet-Potato-Eater.” Nevertheless, he placed the boy in charge of his garden.
After two or three days, the gardener returned to inspect his garden, and found all the sweet potatoes pulled up and eaten. So he tied the boy on the log again, and set him afloat once more.
Further down the river there was a plantain garden, the owner of which saw Loku-Appu on the log, and drew him ashore. When asked his name, Loku-Appu replied, “Eater-of-the-first-Comb-of-Plantains, Crusher-of-young-Plantain-Shoots.” The man gave him charge of the garden.
In a few days, the man came to see how his garden progressed, and found everything broken down and eaten. On this, he at once dismissed Loku-Appu.
Having nothing to live upon, Loku-Appu now began to borrow from some tom-tom beaters. After a few months, these men, finding that he did not repay them, called on him to make him come to a settlement. Loku-Appu saw them at a distance, and guessing their errand, put a young girl into the corn store-room, and began to trim a club with his knife.
When the creditors arrived he requested them to be seated. Soon afterwards he fetched up an old woman who lived in the house, gave her a smart blow with the club, and put her also into the corn-store.
After a few minutes, he called for betel to be brought, and the little girl came out with it. At this, the tom-tom beaters were greatly astonished, and made inquiries regarding the miracle, for such they thought it. Loku-Appu told them that the virtue lay in the club, with which all old women could be converted into young girls.
When they heard this, they became exceedingly anxious to possess the wonderful club, but Loku-Appu refused to part with it on any terms. At last, finding persuasion useless, the tom-tom beaters took it from him by force, and went straight home with it.
There they called up part of the old women of their village, and after beating them well with the club, put them into the corn store-rooms. To give the charm time to work they waited three days. Then they went to examine the old women, expecting to find them become young again; but all were dead.
Full of anger, they went to Loku-Appu to tell him that he had deceived them, and that the women were all dead. While they were still at a distance, Loku-Appu cried out, “Alas, alas! They have taken hold of the wrong end of the stick!” When they came near he explained to them the blunder they had made. As they took the stick from him by force he was not responsible for it.
This time he cut a mark on the right end of the stick to be used, telling the tom-tom beaters that if the wrong end were used the women would certainly die, while the proper end would as certainly change them into young girls.
When the tom-tom beaters returned to their village they fetched up all the rest of the old women, and after belabouring them well with the proper end of the club, put them also into the corn-stores. Yet after three days they found that the result was just the same as at first; all the women were dead.
Determined to revenge themselves on Loku-Appu, they came to his house, tied him up in a sack, and set off to the river with him, intending to drown him. On the way, they heard the beating of tom-toms, whereupon they set the sack down on the road, and went to see what it was about.
During their absence, a Muhammadan trader in cloth who was coming along the road, found the sack, and heard a voice proceeding from it: “Alas! What a trouble this is that has come upon me! How can I govern a kingdom when I cannot either read or write?”
The trader immediately untied the sack, and questioned Loku-Appu as to how he came there. Loku-Appu explained to the trader that he was about to be made a king, but not possessing the requisite amount of knowledge for such a high position he had refused the dignity; and now he was being carried off in this way to be put on the throne. “By force they are going to make me king,” he said.
The trader remarked to him, “It will be a great favour if you will let them do it to me instead”; and eventually they changed places, Loku-Appu tying the trader in the sack, and he himself taking the man’s clothes and bundle of cloth. Loku-Appu then hid himself.
In a short time the tom-tom beaters came back, carried away the sack with the would-be king, and threw it into the river.
As they were returning past a part of the river, they saw, to their intense surprise, Loku-Appu washing clothes in it. They came to him and said, “What is this, Loku-Appu? Where have you come from? Where did you get all this cloth?” He replied, “These are the things which I found in the river bottom when you threw me in with the sack. As they are rather muddy I am cleaning them.”
The tom-tom beaters said that they would be greatly obliged if he would put them in the way of getting such treasures, so he requested them to bring sacks like that in which he had been tied.
They soon came back with the sacks, were tied up in them, and were thrown into the river by Loku-Appu.
Then Loku-Appu went to the tom-tom beaters’ village, and took possession of their lands and houses.
Some of the incidents of this story are found in No. [58] also.
In The Indian Antiquary, vol. iii, p. 11, in a Bengal story, by Mr. G. H. Damant, some men who had been cheated by a farmer, called at his house regarding the matter. He offered them food, and when they sat down to the meal struck his wife with his bullock goad, and said, “Be changed into a girl, and bring in the curry.” She went out, and sent back their little daughter with the food. He then sold the men the magic stick for one hundred and fifty rupees, telling them that if they beat their wives well with it they would all recover their youth. They acted accordingly, and beat them so thoroughly that the wives were all killed. Then they returned and burnt the farmer’s house down, as noted at the end of the last story, where the later incidents are given.
In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xviii, p. 120, there is a South Indian story by Paṇḍita Naṭēśa Sāstrī, in which, when three persons who had been cheated by a man came to interview him regarding the frauds, they were welcomed by him. According to arrangement, he beat his wife, who was dressed as an old woman, with a pestle and put her inside the house, explaining to his guests that he had only done it to make her young again. Soon afterwards she reappeared as a young woman. He lent them the magic pestle for a week, but by its use they only killed their relatives. Then they returned in order to square up accounts with him, tied him in a bag, and carried him up a mountain, intending to burn him alive. When they went for the firewood, a cow-herd came up, learnt from him that he was about to be forcibly married to a girl, took his place, and was burnt, the impostor himself driving off the 1,001 cows which the man was watching. When the three cheated persons returned and learnt that he had been sent back from Kailāsa with the cattle, as his time on earth had not expired, two of them got him to burn them in a similar way.
No. 11
The White Turtle
At a village there are an elder sister and a younger sister, two persons. The two are going away, it is said.
While going, they saw two bulls going along. Then the cattle asked, “Where are you going?”
“We are going to a country where they give to eat and to wear” (meaning that they were in search of husbands).
“Are we good enough for you?”[1] the cattle asked.
“What do you eat?” they asked.
“Having been put in those chenas we eat paddy and jungle vegetables.”
Saying, “We don’t want you,” the two women go on.
As they were going, they met with two jackal-dogs. “Where are you going?” they asked the two women.
“We are going to a country where they give to eat and to wear,” they said.
“Are we good enough for you?” they asked.
“What do you eat?” they asked.
“We eat a few fruits and crabs,” the two jackals said. “What do you eat?”
“We eat dried-fish fry,” they said. Saying, “We do not want two jackals,” the two women still go on.
While they were going, an elder brother and a younger brother were ploughing. They asked the two women, “Where are you going?”
“We are going to a country where they give to eat and to wear,” they said.
“Are we good enough for you?” they asked.
The two women asked, “What do you eat?”
“We eat dry-fish fry,” they said.
“Then both parties eat it,” they said. “It is good.”
“If so, it is good. Go to our house,” the men said.[2]
Afterwards those two men, having given the two keys of their houses into the hands of the elder sister and the younger sister, said, “The cooking things are in such a place; go there, and having opened the doors cook until we come.”
Then the two women went to the houses, and the elder sister opened the door of the elder brother’s house and cooked; and the younger sister opened the door of the younger brother’s house and cooked. Afterwards the two men came home, and having eaten, stopped there [with the sisters, as their husbands].
After many days had passed, the two sisters bore two girls. The younger sister had many things at her house; the elder sister had none. On account of that, the elder sister through ill-feeling thought, “I must kill younger sister.”
One day, the two sisters having cooked rice, while they were taking it to the rice field the younger sister went in front, and the elder sister went behind. On the way, they came near the river. Then the elder sister said, “Younger sister, didst thou never bathe? The skin on thy back is dirty. Take off that necklace and the clothes on thy body, and lay them down, and let us bathe and then go.”
They put down the two mat boxes of cooked rice, and having descended into the river, she called, while bathing, to her sister, “Younger sister, come here for me to rub thy back.” While rubbing she threw her into the middle of the river. Then she took the two boxes of cooked rice and went to the rice field. The younger sister died in the river.
After the elder sister went to the rice field, the younger brother asked at the hand of the elder sister, “Why has no one come from our house?”
Then the elder sister said, “Andō! Catch her coming![3] Isn’t she playing [illicit] games at home?” Having given the two boxes of rice to the elder brother and the younger brother, that woman returned home.
Afterwards that younger sister’s girl asked, “Loku-Ammā,[4] where is our mother?”
Then the woman said, “Andō! Catch her coming! When I came she was still stopping in the rice field.”
After it became night, the elder brother and the younger brother having come home, the younger brother asked, “Girl, where is thy mother?”
Then the girl said, “At noon she took cooked rice to the rice field with Loku-Ammā; she has not come yet.”
The younger brother said, “Where? She did not go to the rice field.”
Then the girl said, “At the time when I asked at the hand of Loku-Ammā, ‘Where is our mother?’ she said, ‘She is at the rice field.’ ”
Afterwards the elder sister, calling the elder brother and the younger brother, both of them [to be her husbands], took her sister’s goods, and remained there with them. From the next day, having cooked she gave the rice into the hands of the two girls to take to the rice field.
After the girls had gone near the river for two or three days, they saw one day a White Turtle in it, and approached and tried to catch it. When the elder sister’s girl went to catch it, it went to the middle of the river; when the younger sister’s girl went, it came to the bank, and rubbed itself over the whole of her body.
After the elder sister’s girl had gone home, she told the elder sister of it: “Mother, there is a White Turtle in the river. When that girl goes it comes to her; when I go it swims far away,” she said.
That elder sister said, “Hā. It is good. I shall eat it,” and lay down.
The younger sister’s girl hearing it, went near the river, and said, “Mother, she must eat you, says Loku-Ammā.”
Then the White Turtle said, “Hā. It is good, daughter. Let her eat. After she has cooked she will give you, also, a little gravy, and a bone. Drink the gravy, and take the bone to the cattle-fold, and having said, ‘If it be true that you are our mother, may you be created a Mango tree,’ throw it down.”
Afterwards, when those two men came home, having seen that the woman was lying down, “What are you lying down for?” they asked.
Then the woman said, “It is in my mind to eat the White Turtle that is in the river.” So the men went to the river, and having caught the White Turtle, and brought it home, and cooked it, gave it to the woman. Then the woman got up and ate it.
She gave the girl a little gravy, and a bone. The girl having drunk the gravy, took the bone to the cattle-fold, and saying, “If it be true that you are our mother, may you be created a Mango tree,” threw down the bone.
After that, a Mango tree being created, in a day or two grew large and bore fruit. As the two girls were going near the Mango tree they saw that there were Mangoes on it, and went close to it. When the elder sister’s girl went to pluck the Mango fruits, the branches rose up; when the younger sister’s girl went to pluck them, the branches bent down, and spread over her body and head. Well then, after that girl had plucked and eaten as many as she wanted, the branches rose again.
That also the elder sister’s girl, having come home, told her: “Mother, there are fruits on the Mango tree at the cattle-fold. When I try to pluck them the branches rise; when that girl tries to pluck them the branches rub the ground.”
The woman said, “Hā. It is good. I will split that and warm it in the fire.”
After hearing that also, that girl, having gone to the Mango tree said, “Mother, having split you she must warm you in the fire, Loku-Ammā says.”
Then the Mango tree said, “Hā. It is good, daughter. Let her split. A splinter having fallen will remain here. Take it, and having said, ‘If it be true that you are our mother, may you be created a Kaekiri creeper,’ put it down at the back of the house.”
Afterwards, when the elder sister’s two men came, having seen that she was lying down, “What are you lying down for to-day also?” they asked.
Then the woman said, “Having split the Mango tree at the cattle-fold, it is in my mind to have a few splinters warmed for me in the fire.” So the two men having gone to the cattle-fold, and having cut and split up the Mango tree, and brought a few splinters home, put them in the fire and fanned it. After that, the woman got up, and warmed herself at the fire.
Then that girl went to the place where the Mango tree was, and when she looked a splinter was there. Taking it, she came to the back of the house, and having said, “If it be true that you are our mother, may you be created a Kaekiri creeper,” she put it down. In a day or two a Kaekiri creeper was created there, and bore fruits.
On going there, the younger sister’s girl said, “There is fruit,” and having plucked and eaten as many as she wanted, she came home. When the elder sister’s girl went to pluck them there was not a single fruit.
Having returned home, the girl said regarding that also, “Mother, on the Kaekiri creeper which is at the back of the house there are many fruits when that girl goes to it; when I go, not a single one.”
The woman said, “Hā. It is good. Having uprooted it I will eat it in a dry curry.”
That girl after hearing that also, went near the Kaekiri creeper and said, “Mother, having uprooted you and cooked you in a dry curry, she must eat you, says Loku-Ammā.”
The Kaekiri creeper said, “Hā. It is good, daughter. Let her eat. At the place where I am uprooted there will be a Kaekiri root. Take it to the river, and having said, ‘If it be true that you are our mother, be created a Blue-Lotus flower,’ throw it into the river.”
The elder sister having uprooted the Kaekiri creeper, took it home, and having cooked the curry, ate. After that, the girl went to the place where the Kaekiri creeper had been, and when she looked a Kaekiri root was there. Having taken it to the river, and said, “If it be true that you are our mother, be created a Blue-Lotus flower,” she threw it into the river. Then a Blue-Lotus flower was created.
When the two girls were going together to the river to bathe, having seen that there was a Blue-Lotus flower, that younger sister’s girl went and held out her hands in a cup shape. Then the flower which was in the middle of the river came into the girl’s hands, and opened out while in her hands. When the elder sister’s girl was holding her hands for it, it goes to the middle of the river.
That girl having come home, said of it also, “Mother, there is a Blue-Lotus flower in the river. When that girl goes it comes to her hands; when I go it moves far away.”
The woman said, “Hā! It is good. That also I shall seize, and take.”
The girl after having heard that also, went and said, “Mother, she must pluck you also, says Loku-Ammā.”
Then the Blue-Lotus flower said, “Let that woman say so, daughter. She is unable to pluck me.”
Afterwards the woman having told at the hands of the two men, “Pluck the flower and come back,” the two men having gone to the river tried to pluck it; they could not. When they are trying to pluck it, it goes to the middle of the river.
Afterwards, the men having told it at the hand of the King of the country, and having told the King to cause the flower to be plucked and to give them it, the King also came near the river on the back of an elephant, together with the King’s servants. The elder sister, and the two girls, and the two men stayed on this side.
Then the people on this side and the people on that side try and try to take that flower; they cannot take it. That younger sister’s girl having gone to one side, after looking on said, “Indeed I am able to take it, that flower.” The King on the other side of the river having heard that, while he was on the back of the elephant, said, “What is it, girl, that you are saying?”
Then that girl said, “O Lord, I am greatly afraid to speak; I indeed am able to take it, the flower.”
“Hā. Take it,” the King said. Afterwards, when the girl was holding her hands in a cup shape, the flower that was in the middle of the river came into her hands.
Afterwards the King, taking that flower, and placing the girl on the elephant, went to the King’s city.
North-western Province.
In the Jātaka story No. 67 (vol. i, p. 164), a woman went to a King and begged for “wherewith to be covered,” by which she meant her husband, who had been arrested. She explained that “a husband is a woman’s real covering.”
In Indian Fairy Tales (Stokes), p. 144, a girl who was supposed to be drowned became a pink-lotus flower which eluded capture, but came of its own accord into the hand of a Prince.
[1] Literally, “Are we bad?” [↑]
[2] Up to this point the story follows one related by a Durayā; the rest belongs to the cultivating caste. [↑]
[3] Literally, “Is there any coming for her?” [↑]
[4] Great Mother: The title of a mother’s elder sister; her younger sister is called Puñci-Ammā, Little Mother. The letter c is pronounced as ch in transliterations. I follow the village writers in not marking the various forms of n; they write punci or pun̥ci. [↑]
No. 12
The Black Storks’ Girl
In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. The man cuts jungle at a chena clearing; the woman is weaving a bag. After the man comes home, the woman asks, “Is the jungle cut yet?” The man says, “A couple of bushes are cut; is the bag woven?” The woman says, “A couple of rows are woven.”
Continuing in that way, after the end of two or three days the man, while returning from cutting jungle, saw a Kaekiri creeper at a threshing-floor, and having come near, and seen that there was a fruit on it, plucked and ate it. A Kaekiri seed remained fixed in his beard.
After he came home, the woman, seeing it, asked, “Where did you eat Kaekiri?”
The man said, “When I was coming home there was a Kaekiri creeper at a threshing-floor on the way; on it there was a fruit. I ate it.”
Then the woman said, “There will be more on that creeper. After I have woven the bag let us go there.”
Afterwards, having gone with him to the threshing-floor, she saw that the Kaekiri creeper had spread completely over the floor, and that there were as many fruits as leaves. While plucking them, she bore a girl there.
Afterwards, the man having plucked Kaekiri, and filled and tied up the bag, said to the woman, “Shall I take the girl, or shall I take the bag?”
The woman told him to take the bag, leaving the girl there. So the girl was left at the threshing-floor, and the man and woman went home, taking the bag of fruit with them.
While a Black Stork (Mānā) and a female Black Stork (Mānī) were going about seeking food, the female Stork saw that a girl was at the threshing-floor, and having gone near it, cried out, “Aḍē! A thing for me! Aḍē! A thing for me!” When the male Stork heard this he came running to the spot. Having looked at the girl, the two Black Storks took her to their house, and reared her there.
After a time, the girl having become big, the female Black Stork and the male Black Stork said, “Daughter, we must go for golden bracelets and golden anklets for you.”
At that house there were a Parrot, a Dog, and a Cat, which were reared there. The two Storks told the girl, “Daughter, after we have gone, do not reduce the food of either the Parrot, or the Dog, or the Cat. Until we return, be careful not to put out the fire on the hearth, and not to go anywhere whatever.” After saying this, they went to bring the golden bracelets and golden anklets.
That girl having been careful for two or three days in the way the female Stork and male Stork told her, lessened the food of the Cat. That night the Cat extinguished the fire on the hearth.
Next morning, the girl having gone to the hearth to cook, when she looked there was no fire on the hearth. So she said to the Parrot, “Younger brother, last night I reduced the food of the Cat a little. For that, the Cat has extinguished the fire on the hearth, and now there is no fire for cooking. You go and look from which house smoke is rising, and come back.”
Then the Parrot having gone flying, looked and looked. There was not any coming from any other houses; from the house of the Rākshasa, only, there was a smoke. The Parrot having come home, said, “Elder sister, I looked at the whole of the houses. There was not any; only from the house of the Rākshasa the smoke came.” Afterwards the girl, having said, “If so, younger brother, you stop at home until I go and bring fire,” went for the fire.
The Rākshasa was not at home; only the Rākshasa’s wife was there. The girl having gone to that house, said, “Give me a little fire.” Then that woman made the girl boil and dry seven large baskets of paddy (unhusked rice), and pound the paddy in those seven, and bring seven large pots of water, and bring seven bundles of firewood. Then taking a piece of coconut shell with a hole in it, she put ashes at the bottom, and having placed a fire-charcoal on them, gave it to her. While the girl was going home, the ashes fell through the hole all along the path.
Afterwards, when the Rākshasa came home, “What is this, Bolan?” he asked the woman; “there is a smell of a human body, a human body that has been here.”
The woman said, “A girl came for fire. Thinking you would come, I employed that girl, and having made her boil seven baskets of paddy, and dry it, and pound it, and bring seven large pots of water, and seven bundles of firewood, when I looked you were not to be seen. Afterwards, having placed ashes in a piece of coconut shell with a hole in it, I put a fire-charcoal on them, and gave her it. By this time she will have gone home. There will be ashes along the path on which that girl went. Go, looking and looking at the ashes-path,” she said.
Afterwards the Rākshasa went along the ashes-path. The Parrot having seen him coming in the rice field, said, “Elder sister, the Rākshasa is coming. Shut the door,” he said. So the girl, shutting the door and bolting it, stopped in the house.
The Rākshasa having come near the house, said, “Here are golden bracelets, O daughter. Here are golden anklets, O daughter. Open the door, my daughter.”
Then the Parrot said, “No golden bracelets, O elder sister. No golden anklets, O elder sister. Open not the door, wise elder sister.”
Then the Rākshasa ran to catch the Parrot. He could not catch it; the Parrot went into the forest and stayed there.
Afterwards the Rākshasa having come again near the house said, “Here are golden bracelets, O daughter. Here are golden anklets, O daughter. Open the door, my daughter.”
Then the Dog, which was in the open space at the front of the house, said, “No golden bracelets, O elder sister. No golden anklets, O elder sister. Open not the door, wise elder sister.”
The Rākshasa having gone running after the Dog, and having caught and killed the Dog, came again near the house, and said, “Here are golden bracelets, O daughter. Here are golden anklets, O daughter. Open the door, my daughter.”
Then the Cat that was in the raised veranda said, “No golden bracelets, O elder sister. No golden anklets, O elder sister. Open not the door, wise elder sister.”
The Rākshasa, having gone running, killed also the Cat, and again having come near the house, said, “Here are golden bracelets, O daughter. Here are golden anklets, O daughter. Open the door, my daughter.”
Then the Gam-Murungā[1] tree said, “No golden bracelets, O elder sister. No golden anklets, O elder sister. Open not the door, wise elder sister.”
Afterwards the Rākshasa, having cut down and broken up the Gam-Murungā tree, again went near the house, and said, “Here are golden bracelets, O daughter. Here are golden anklets, O daughter. Open the door, my daughter.”
Then the Murungā logs said, “No golden bracelets, O elder sister. No golden anklets, O elder sister. Open not the door, wise elder sister.”
The Rākshasa, having set fire to the logs, and gone near the house again, said, “Here are golden bracelets, O daughter. Here are golden anklets, O daughter. Open the door, my daughter.”
Then the ashes of the burnt Murungā tree said, “No golden bracelets, O elder sister. No golden anklets, O elder sister. Open not the door, wise elder sister.”
The Rākshasa, having collected the ashes, and taken them to the river and placed them in it, and again having gone to the house, said, “Here are golden bracelets, O daughter. Here are golden anklets, O daughter. Open the door, my daughter.”
Then the water of the river said, “No golden bracelets, O elder sister. No golden anklets, O elder sister. Open not the door, wise elder sister.”
Afterwards, the Rākshasa, having gone to the river, and having drunk and drunk, could not finish the water, and at last he burst open and died.
After that, the female Black Stork and the male Black Stork brought the golden bracelets and golden anklets, and having given them to the girl, remained there.
North-western Province.
In a variant of this story, related by a Durayā in the North-western Province, the persons who abandoned the child were a Gamarāla and his wife, the Gama-mahagē.
On the Storks’ finding it, they cried, “Aḍā! I have met with a gem!” Their home was in a rock-cave. When the Parrot warned the girl that the Rākshasa was coming, “having gone running, and having sprung into the cave, she shut the door. The Rākshasa says, ‘Having brought bracelets for the arms, jackets for the body, cloths for the waist, O daughter, open the door, my daughter.’
“Then the Parrot said, ‘It is false that there are bracelets for the arms, jackets for the body, cloths for the waist. Open not the door, my elder sister.’
“Then the Rākshasa tried to kill the Parrot. Having flown away it settled on a tree. The Rākshasa having smashed the Parrot’s cage, again says, ‘Having brought bracelets for the arms,’ ” etc.
The Cat warned the girl and was killed, then the Dog, next the Ash-plantain tree, and lastly the Katuru-Murungā tree. I now translate again.
“After that, he struck a finger-nail into the lintel, and having struck another finger-nail into the threshold, the Rākshasa went away.
“After that, the male Black Stork and female Black Stork came. Having come, they say, ‘Having brought bracelets for the arms, jackets for the body, cloths for the waist, open the door, my daughter.’
“Then the Parrot says, ‘It is true that there are bracelets for the arms, jackets for the body, cloths for the waist, elder sister. Open the door, my elder sister.’
“As she was coming out opening the door, her foot was pricked by a finger-nail, and the crown of her head by a finger-nail. Then becoming unconscious she fell down, the finger-nails having entered her. Both Storks together drew out the finger-nails.”
She recovered, and they gave her the things they had brought, but sent her away. The rest of the story is an evident modern addition of no interest. She went to a large chena, and was taken home by a widow who was there.
In another variant of the Western Province the two birds which reared the child were Crows. After the child was born, the mother, a Gamarāla’s wife (Gama-Mahagē or Gama-Mahayiyā) said, “Are we to take the child, or are we to take the bag of Kaekiri?” Her husband replied, “Should we take the child it will be [necessary] to give it to eat and to wear; should we take the bag of Kaekiri we shall be able to eat it for one meal.” “So the Gama-Mahagē, having put the child among the Kaekiri creepers, taking the bag went home.” The Crows carried away the infant, and called it Emal Bisawā, Queen of the Flowers. When the girl had grown up, the birds went to bring pearls for her to wear, after giving her the usual injunctions regarding the food of the Dog, the Cat and the Parrot. She reduced the Dog’s food, and it put out the fire. The Parrot found smoke rising from the house of a Rākshasī, and guided her to the place. The Rākshasī was absent; her two daughters gave the girl two amunas (nearly twelve bushels) of paddy to pound. “She thought, ‘Having been pounded, go into the house,’ and it became pounded of its own accord.” Then they gave her seven perforated pots to be filled with water and brought. She filled them and handed them over. They gave her a piece of coconut husk with a hole in it, and a perforated coconut shell, and filled the former with sesame seeds, and the latter with ashes on which was placed burning charcoal. She hurried home with these, being warned by the Parrot that the Rākshasī was coming.
When the Rākshasī asked her daughters who had been to the house, they replied that the female Crow’s girl had taken some fire, and that there would be sesame and ashes along the path by which she had gone. The Rākshasī ran along it, found the door shut, and said, “Mother has come. Father has come. We are bringing pearls of the sea; we are bringing also wire for stringing the pearls. Open the door, O daughter.” The Katuru-Murungā tree warned her that it was false; when it was burnt, its ashes repeated the warning, then the Dog, the Cat, and the Parrot. Then the Rākshasī, “having broken her finger nails, and having fixed one above and one below in the door-frame, went away. After that, her mother and father came, and said, ‘Mother has come. Father has come. We are bringing pearls of the sea; we are bringing also wire for stringing the pearls. Open the door, my daughter.’ The Parrot said the same. As she opened the door, a finger-nail having entered the crown of her head she died. When they asked the Parrot, ‘What has happened?’ ‘Because of the Rākshasī elder sister died,’ he said.”
In a fourth variant of the North-western Province the aspect of the story is partly changed, and I give a translation of the latter portion, because it contains an account of a runaway match, such as still sometimes occurs.
In this story, a Gamarāla’s wife went with another woman to the chena while the Gamarāla was asleep, and after eating as much fruit as possible they filled a bag also. As they were proceeding home rapidly with it, the Gamarāla’s wife gave birth to a child at a hollow in which pigs wallowed. She asked the other woman to carry it home for her, but this person refused, and took the bag of Kaekiri fruit instead, so the child was abandoned.
Then the two Storks came, and carried the child to their cave, and reared it. After the girl grew up, they went off to seek bracelets and necklaces for her, instructing the girl to “give an equal quantity of food to the Cock, the Dog, the Cat, the Parrot, the Crow, the Rat, and the other creatures,” and warning her that if she gave less to the Rat it would extinguish the fire. After some days she reduced the Rat’s food, so it put out the fire.
The Parrot found a house—not a Rākshasa’s—from which smoke was rising, and guided the girl to it. The woman who was at it gave her some fire without delaying her, and she returned home with it. I now translate the concluding part.
“After the son of the woman who had the fire came home, the woman says to her son, ‘To-day a good-looking Princess came to the house.’ Then the son asks, ‘Mother, by which stile did the Princess go?’ His mother says, ‘Here, by this stile,’ and showed him it.
“Then the man having set off, and having gone near the cave, and seen the Princess, when he said, ‘Let us go to our house,’ the Princess said, ‘Because my parents are not here [to give their consent] I cannot go.’ This man says, ‘No matter for that,’ and seizing the hand of the Princess, they came to his house.
“Afterwards the two Black Storks which went seeking bracelets and rings, having come near the cave, when they looked the Princess was not there. The Black Storks ask the Dog, the Cat, the Crow, the Parrot, the Rat, and the Cock, ‘Where is the Princess?’ They all say, ‘A man came, and while the Princess was saying she could not go he seized her hand and took her away.’ When the Storks asked, ‘By which stile did he take her?’ saying, ‘There, by that stile,’ the animals showed them it.
“Then the two Black Storks having gone flying, when they looked the Princess was staying at the house. Afterwards the two Storks gave the Princess the bracelets, rings, and coral necklaces which they had brought; and having handed her over to the man, the two Black Storks went to their dwelling.”
In Old Deccan Days, Ganges Valley (Frere), p. 87 ff., there is a variant according to which the child was carried off to their nest by two eagles, from the side of the mother. After the eagles went to bring a ring for her, the cat stole some food, and on being punished by the girl put out the fire.
The girl went to a Rākshasa’s house for a light, and was detained by his mother, pounding rice and doing other housework. She left at last with instructions to scatter corn along the path.
The Rākshasa followed the track and climbed to the nest, but the outer door was bolted, and he could not enter, so he left his nail in a crack of the door. When the girl opened the outer door—there were seven in all—the nail wounded her hand, and being poisonous apparently killed her. The eagles returned, and seeing this flew away. When a King arrived and drew out the nail, she recovered, and he married her.
[1] Moringa pterygosperma. [↑]
No. 13
The Golden Kaekiri Fruit
In a certain city there are a man and his daughter, it is said. The man’s wife being dead, the girl cooks food for the man. The man cuts jungle at a chena clearing. The girl every day having cooked, and placed the food ready for her father, goes to rock in a golden swing.[1] Then a Mahagē[2] comes and says, “Daughter, give me a little fire.” The girl sitting in the swing says, “Is it here with me? It is at the hearth; take it.” The Mahagē goes into the house, pulls out and takes the things which that girl has cooked and placed there, and having eaten, carries away the fire.
So, after two or three days had passed in that manner, the man asked, “Who, daughter, while I am coming home has eaten the rice that you have cooked and placed for me?”
Then the girl said, “I don’t know, father. Every day when I have cooked the food and placed it ready for you, and gone to rock in the golden swing, a Mahagē comes and begs fire from me. Then I say, ‘Is it here with me? It is at the hearth; take it.’ It will be the Mahagē.”
Then the man, having said, “Hā. Daughter, cook and arrange the food to-day also, and go to the golden swing,” got onto the shelf, and stayed there.
Afterwards the girl, having cooked and placed the food exactly as on other days, went to the golden swing. Then the Mahagē having come on that day also, begged, “Daughter, give me a little fire.” The girl said, “Is it here with me? It is at the hearth; take it.”
Then the Mahagē having gone into the house, and drawn out the pots, and eaten part of the rice, when she was about to rise after taking the fire, the man on the shelf asked, “What is that you have been doing?”
The Mahagē said, “What indeed! Why don’t you invite me [to be your wife]?”
The man said, “Hā. Stop here.” So the woman stayed.
After a great many days had passed, the woman lay down. “What are you lying down for?” asked the man.
The woman said, “It is in my mind to eat your daughter’s two eyes.”
Afterwards the man called the girl, and said, “Daughter, a yoke of cattle are missing; let us go and seek them.” While he went with the girl, taking a cord, the dog also followed behind.
Having gone into a great forest, he said, “Daughter, come here in order that I may look at your head.”[3] While he was looking and looking at it, the girl fell asleep. Then the man placed the girl against a tree, and tied her to it; and having cut out her two eyes, came home and placed one on the shelf and one in the salt pot. The dog that went with the man having come home, howled, rolling about in the open space in front of the house.
There was also a child. That little one having gone somewhere, on coming back bringing a mango, asked that Mahagē, “Loku-Ammā, give me a knife.” The woman said, “Have I got one here? It is on the shelf; get it.”
Then the child, going into the house, and putting his hand on the shelf, caught hold of the eye placed there by the man, and said, “This is indeed our elder sister’s eye. Loku-Ammā, give me a piece of salt.”
The woman said, “Have I got any here? Take it from the salt pot.”
When the child put his hand into the salt pot the other eye was there. He took it also. When he stepped down from the veranda of the house into the compound, the dog went in front, and the child followed after him.
Having gone on and on, the dog came to the place in the great forest where the girl was, and stopped there. When the child looked, his elder sister was tied to the tree. He saw that red ants were biting her from her eyes downward, and having quickly unfastened her he took her to a tank, and bathed her. Then taking both her eyes in his hand, he said, “If these are our elder sister’s eyes, may they be created afresh,” and threw them down. After that, they were created better than before.
Afterwards the girl said, “Younger brother, we cannot go again to that house. Let us go away somewhere.” So they went off. While they were going along the road, a King was coming on horseback, tossing and tossing up a golden Kaekiri fruit. The child, after looking at it, said, “Elder sister, ask for the golden Kaekiri.”
The girl replied, “Appā! Younger brother, he will kill both of us. Come on without speaking.”
Then the child another time said, “Elder sister, ask for it and give me it.”
The King having heard it, asked, “What, Bola, is that one saying?”
The girl replied, “O Lord, nothing at all.”
“It was not nothing at all. Tell me,” the King said a second time.
Then the girl replied, “O Lord, I am much afraid to say it. He is asking for that golden Kaekiri.”
The King said, “I will give the golden Kaekiri if thou wilt give me thy elder sister.”
The child said, “Elder sister and I, both of us, will come.”
So the King, having placed the girl on horseback, went to his city with the child, and married the girl.
After many days had passed, when the King was about to go to a war the girl was near her confinement. So the King said, “If it be a girl, shake an iron chain. If it be a boy, shake a silver chain.” Afterwards the girl bore a boy, and shook a silver chain.
Before the King came back, the girl’s father and Loku-Ammā (step-mother), having collected cobras’ eggs, polangās’[4] eggs, and the like, the eggs of all kinds of snakes, and having cooked cakes made of them, came to the place where the girl was.
The girl’s Loku-Ammā told her to eat some of the cakes. When she did not eat them, that woman, taking some in her hand, came to her and rubbed some on her mouth. At that very moment the girl became a female cobra, and dropped down into a hole in an ant-hill. Her father and Loku-Ammā went home again. The infant was crying on the bed.
Afterwards, when the girl’s younger brother was saying to the golden Kaekiri:—
They’ll me myself to kill devise;
In bed the gold-hued nephew cries;
As a lady, gold-hued sister rise,”[5]
the cobra returned [in her woman’s form], and having suckled and bathed the infant, and sent it to sleep, again [becoming a snake] goes back to the ant-hill.
Then the King having returned, asked the younger brother, “Where, Bola, is thy elder sister?”
The child said, “Our father and Loku-Ammā having cooked a sort of cakes came and gave us them, and Loku-Ammā told elder sister to eat. Afterwards, as she did not eat, Loku-Ammā, taking some, rubbed them on elder sister’s mouth. At that very moment elder sister became a female cobra, and dropped down into an ant-hill.”
Then the King asked, “Did she not return again, after she had dropped down into the ant-hill?”
The child replied, “While I was calling her she came back once.”
The King said, “Call her again in that very way.”
So the boy said to the golden Kaekiri,
They’ll me myself to kill devise;
In bed the gold-hued nephew cries;
As a lady, gold-hued sister rise.”
Afterwards, the cobra came [in her woman’s form], and having suckled and bathed the child, and sent it to sleep, cooked for the King, and apportioned the food for him.
Then when she tried to go away [in her cobra form], the King cut the cobra in two with his sword. One piece dropped down into the ant-hill; the other piece became the Queen, and remained there.
After that, the King collected cobras, polangās, all kinds of snakes, and having, with the Queen, put them into two corn measures, they took the two boxes, and went to the house where the Queen’s father and Loku-Ammā were. There they gave them the two boxes, and said, “We have brought presents for you. Go into the house, and having shut the door, and lowered the bolt, open the mouths of the two boxes. Otherwise, do not open the mouths in the light.” The King and Queen remained outside.
The Queen’s father and Loku-Ammā, taking the two boxes, went into the house, and having shut the door and bolted it, opened the mouths of the two boxes. At that moment, the snakes that were in them came out, and bit both of them, and both of them died.
Afterwards, the King and Queen came to the city, and stayed there.
North-western Province.
In Folk-Tales of Bengal (Day), p. 132, a girl received a fan, the shaking of which summoned a Prince, however far away he might be.
At p. 239 also, a Queen received a golden bell, the ringing of which summoned the absent King.
In the Sinhalese story, it is evidently to be understood that the shaking of the chain would be heard by the King while he was away, although the narrator omitted to mention this.
[2] A well-to-do woman of the village. Gama-Mahagē is the title of the wife of a Gamarāla, a village headman or elder. [↑]
[3] To search for insects. She would sit down for the purpose. [↑]
Un mamma nasinḍayi,
Ranwan bāēnā aendē andanḍayi,
Ranwan akkā sāminē wenḍayi.
No. 14
The Four Deaf Persons
In a certain city there were a woman and a man, it is said. Both of them were deaf. A female child was born to that man, and this child was also deaf. The man to whom she was given in marriage when she grew up was also deaf.
The girl’s husband went to plough a rice field at the side of the high road. While he was ploughing, a man who was going along the road asked the way. Continuing to plough with the yoke of bulls, the deaf man said, “I brought this bull from the village. This other bull is from father-in-law’s herd.”
“What are the facts about the bulls to me? Tell me the way,” the man said.
The deaf man replied, “The bull is from my herd.”
The man said again, “What are the facts about the bulls to me? Tell me the way.”
Then the deaf man, replying, “Don’t say that another time,” beat the man with the goad, and the man having received the blows went away.
Afterwards, the deaf man’s wife having brought cooked rice to the field, he unfastened the cattle which had been ploughing, and while he was eating said to the woman, “A man came just now, and saying, ‘Whose is the yoke of bulls?’ quarrelled with me about them.”
The woman replied, “Through seeking firewood and water and vegetables, and cooking, I was a little late in the day in coming.”
Having quarrelled with him over it, she bounded off, and having gone home, went to the place where her mother was plaiting a mat, and said to her, “Mother, our house man quarrelled with me, saying that I was late in taking the rice.”
The woman said, “Marry thy father! What is it to thee whether my works are good or not good now?” and she quarrelled with her.
The woman having gone to the place where her husband was watching a sweet-potato chena during the day time, on account of thieves uprooting the plants, said, “To-day my daughter having taken cooked rice to the field, and having given it and returned, quarrelled with me, saying that the plaiting of my mat was bad. I also indeed scolded her a great deal, saying, ‘What is it to thee whether my works are good or not good now?’ I have come to tell you about it.”
Then the man said, “Bola, you infamous woman! Because I stopped in the chena you cooked and ate three sweet-potatoes, did you?” and he beat and drove away the woman.
Then saying that it was useless to go on with the chena when his wife was eating the crop, he cut the fence, and abandoned it to the cattle. And the man left the village and the district, and went away.
North-western Province.
The quarrels of deaf persons through misunderstanding each other’s remarks form a common subject of folk-tales. The mistakes of three deaf people are related in Folklore in Southern India (Naṭēśa Sāstrī), p. 3 ff., and Tales of the Sun (Kingscote and N. Sāstrī), p. 1 ff.
The Abbé Dubois published another amusing South Indian variant, which recounted the mistakes of four deaf men (le Pantcha-Tantra, 1872, p. 339 ff.). The four persons in it were a shepherd, a village watchman, a traveller who was riding a stolen horse, and a Brāhmaṇa. The shepherd requested the watchman to look after his flock during his temporary absence. In reply the latter refused to let him have the grass that he had cut. On the shepherd’s return, he offered him a lame lamb as a reward for the trouble he thought the man had taken, but the watchman fancied he was being accused of laming it. They stopped a horseman who was riding past, and asked him to decide their quarrel. In reply, he admitted that the horse was not his. Each thought the decision was against him, and cursed him for it; and while the quarrel was at its height they referred it to a Brāhmaṇa who came up, who replied that it was useless for them to stop him, as he was determined never to return to his wicked wife. “In the crew of devils I defy any one to find one who equals her in wickedness,” he said. The horse-thief, observing men coming in the distance, made off on foot, the shepherd returned to his flock, the watchman, seeing the lamb left, took it home in order to punish the shepherd for his false charge, and the Brāhmaṇa stayed at a rest-house, and went home again next day.
In the Contes Soudanais (W. Africa), by C. Monteil, p. 18 ff., there is a story which resembles both this South Indian one and the Sinhalese one, in part. A shepherd in search of a lost sheep asked a cultivator about it. He replied, “My field begins before me and ends behind me.” The shepherd found the sheep, and offered it to the cultivator in payment for quarters for the night. The latter thought he was being charged with stealing it, and took him before a village headman, who remarked, “Still another story about women! Truly this can’t continue; I shall leave the village.” When he told his wife to accompany him, she said she would never live with a man who was always talking of divorcing her.
No. 15
The Prince and the Yakā
A king of a single city had one son, who was a Prince of five years. At that time, a Yakā[1] having settled in that kingdom began to devour the people of the city, and by reason of this the whole city was like to be abandoned. At last, the King and the men of the city, making great efforts, seized the Yakā, and having made an iron house, put him in it, and shut the door.
At that time it became necessary for the King of the city to go to war. After he had gone off to the war, when the King’s son one day had opened the door of the house in which was the man-eating Yakā, and was looking at him, the Yakā fell down, and made obeisance to him, and signifying his misery to the Prince, began to weep. So the Prince, pitying him, told the Yakā to go away. Then the Yakā, saying to the Prince, “It is good. I will assist you, too,” went away.
After he had left, when the Prince had gone home the King who had gone to the war returned, having conquered. When he looked at the room in which the Yakā had been, the door was open. The King asked who had opened the door. The Queen replied that the Prince opened it. Then the King said, “To-morrow I must behead that wicked Prince.”
The Queen, being sorry at this, having tied up a packet of cooked rice, and given it and money to the Prince, and having given him a horse and sword, said, “The King has settled to behead you to-morrow for letting the Yakā escape. Go away at night to any country you like.”
So the Prince, taking the money and the bundle of cooked rice, and the sword, mounted the horse, and set off to go to another country. There was a travellers’ shed at the road along which he was going. As he was unable to go further on account of weariness, he went that night to the travellers’ shed; and having fastened the horse to one of the posts of the shed, he lay down, placing the bundle of rice at his side.
Then seeing a youth running along the road, he called him, and asked, “Boy, where art thou going?”
The boy said, “I am going to a place where they give to eat and to wear.”
Then the Prince said, “I will give you pay. Stop and look after my horse.”
The youth said, “It is good. I will stay.”
The Prince said, “I do not know the fords in this country; therefore tell me of a path by which we can go to another country.”
The youth replied, “There is a river here. On the other side of it there is a city, to go to which there is not a short road from here. However, there is another road further on. By it we must pass over a bridge.”
“If so,” said the Prince, “having bathed here let us go.”
Having seen that three Princesses who were at the city on the other side were bathing, he also was pleased at bathing there. After he had gone to bathe, the three Princesses of the King of the country on the other side, when they looked saw the good figure of this Prince.
After that, as the Prince wished to go after bathing, the youth who was to look after the horse having mounted it, began to ride away, wearing the Prince’s clothes, and taking the sword.
When the Prince, having bathed, and seen the Princesses on the other bank putting on their clothes, came ashore to put on his clothes, on his looking for them there were no clothes, no sword, no horse. The youngest Princess of the three who had bathed on the other side well knew what had happened.
This Prince, having on only his bathing cloth, bounded off, and while running along overtook the horse and youth. When he was still far away, the youth said, “Do not come near me; should you come I will cut you with the sword. If you are willing to look after this horse, take hold of its tail and come.”
Then because that one in any case must go to the city, he said, “It is good,” and having taken hold of the horse’s tail went with him. Going thus from there, they arrived at the city.
It was a custom of the King of that country that, having sent a guard, when any one of the men of another country arrived, he was to write the names of those persons, and come to the King. When these persons arrived, a guard being there asked their names. The youth who came on the horse said, “My name is Mānikka Seṭṭiyā; except the youth who looks after my horse, there is no one else with me.”
The guard having gone, said to the King, “Lord, a person called Mānikka Seṭṭiyārē has come and is there, together with a horse-keeper.”
Then the King thought, “Because the man called Mānikka Seṭṭiyārē has this name, Mānikka, he will be able to value my gem” (mānikya). A gem of the King’s having been taken through the whole country, no one had been able to value it.
So having summoned that Mānikka Seṭṭiyārē, the King, after giving him food and drink, showed him it, and said, “Mānikka Seṭṭiyārē, there is my gem. Can you value it?”
That Mānikka Seṭṭiyārē replied, “My horse-keeper will tell you the value.”
The King became angry because he said, “My horse-keeper will tell you it,” and indignantly caused the horse-keeper to be brought speedily, and asked, “Can you value this?” The horse-keeper Prince said, “If I try hard I can.” Then the King gave it into his hands.
Taking it and weighing it, and learning when he looked at it that there was sand inside the gem, he said, “As it now appears to me, the value of this gem is four sallis” (half-farthings).
The King becoming angry asked, “How do you know?”
The Prince replied, “There is sand inside this gem.”
Then the King asked, “Can you cut it, and show me it?”
The horse-keeper said, “If you will ask for the sword belonging to that Mānikka Seṭṭiyārē, I will cut it and show you it.”
After that, the King gave him the sword that was in the hand of the Seṭṭiyārē. Then the horse-keeper, taking the sword, and remembering the name of his father the King, and thinking, “By the favour of the Gods, if it be appointed that it will happen to me to exercise sovereignty over this city, I must cut this gem like cutting a Kaekiri fruit,” put the gem on the table, and cut it with the sword. Then the sand that was in the gem fell out, making a sound, “Sara sara.”
Afterwards the King, thinking, “When this horse-keeper knows so much, how much doesn’t this Seṭṭirāla know!” having given food and drink to the horse-keeper, and also to the Seṭṭiyārē, and having greatly assisted them, made them stay there a little time.
The youngest Princess well knew the wicked things that this Seṭṭiyārē was saying about the horse-keeper youth. On account of her great sorrow concerning this horse-keeper, the Princess instructed the butler who gave the food at the royal house: “Give the horse-keeper who accompanied that Mānikka Seṭṭiyārē, food like that you prepare for me, and a bed for sleeping on, and assist him a little.”
After that, the butler and the rest helped him. The Prince was unwilling to enjoy that pleasure. “Anē! I am a horse-keeper. Do not you assist me in that way,” he said.
After that, the King’s youngest Princess, for the sake of sending the Prince away from the post of looking after the horse, went to the King, and wept while saying thus: “Anē! Father,[2] because of this youth who looks after them, my sheep are nearly finished. On that account, taking the horse-keeper who came with that Seṭṭiyārē, to look after my sheep, let us send the youth who looks after the sheep to look after the horse.”
The King replied, “Having asked the Seṭṭiyārē we can do it.”
The King having asked the Seṭṭiyārē the thing she told him, “You can do it,” he said; and after he had thus spoken to the Seṭṭiyārē it was done. So the horse-keeper went to look after the sheep. Having gone there, while he was looking after them for a long time, the sheep increased in number by hundreds of thousands.
One day, when the King had gone for hunting sport into the midst of the forest, he was seized there by a Yakā. After being seized, he undertook to give the Yakā the King’s three Princesses, and having escaped by undertaking this charge he came back.
Next day he made a proclamation through the whole city by beat of tom-toms. What was it? “Having been seized yesterday in the forest by a Yakā, I only escaped by promising to give him my three Princesses. To-morrow a Princess, on the day after to-morrow a Princess, on the day after that a Princess; in this manner in three days I am giving the three Princesses. If a person who is able to do it should deliver them, having married that person to them, I will appoint him to the kingdom.”
Then Mānikka Seṭṭiyārē said, “I can do it.”
On that day, that Prince who was looking after the sheep went to look after them. While he was there, a man, taking a sheep, ran off into the chena jungle. While bounding after him in order to recover it, having gone very far, the Prince saw him go down the hole of a polangā snake.
After going near the polangā’s hole, and looking down it, and seeing that the hole descended into the earth, the Prince went along that tunnel. Having gone on from there it became dark, and going on in the darkness he saw a very great light. Having gone to the light, when he looked about there was a man asleep, wearing very many clothes.
Then it was in the mind of this shepherd to go away, and in his mind not to go. If you should say, “Who was sleeping there?” it was the Yakā who had formerly been in that iron house, and had left it. That Yakā at that very time saw in a dream that the Prince who had sent him out of that house had come to him, and was there. While seeing him in the dream, the sleeping Yakā awoke, and when he looked up the Prince was beside him.
The Yakā, getting up from there, went to the Prince, and while he was embracing him the Prince became afraid. Then the Yakā said, “Lord, let not Your Majesty be afraid. The Yakā whom you sent away from that house is I indeed.”
After that, the Prince sat down. Then the Yakā asked, “Where are you going?”
The Prince replied, “That I sent you away, our father the King decreed as a fault in me, and appointed that I should be beheaded. Then our mother, having tied up and given me a bundle of cooked rice, told me to go anywhere I wanted.” Having said this he told him all the matter.
After that, the Yakā brought the lost sheep, and having given it to the Prince, asked, “What more do you want?”
The Prince said, “I want another assistance.”
“What is the assistance?” he asked.
The Prince replied, “After I had remained in this way, the King, the father of the Princess who looks after the sheep, and of two more Princesses, having gone hunting and been caught by a Yakā, is giving the three Princesses to him as demon offerings. If there should be a person who can deliver them, he has made proclamation by beat of tom-toms that having given to him the three Princesses in marriage, he will also give him a part of the kingdom.”
The Yakā said, “It is good. I will bring and give you victory in it. Be good enough to do the thing I tell you. After you have eaten rice in the evening, be good enough to come to this palace.” He then allowed the Prince to return home.
The Prince having eaten his rice in good time, went to the Yakā. After he had gone there, the Yakā having given him a good suit of clothes, and a horse, and a sword, instructed him: “As you go from here there will be a path. Having gone along that path, there will be a great rough tree. Go aside at it, and while you are waiting there the Yakā from afar will make a cry, ‘Hū.’ Having come to the middle of the chena jungle he will say again, ‘Hū, Hū, Hū.’ At the next step, having bounded to the place where the Princess is stopping, he will again say, ‘Hū.’ After he has said this, as he comes close to the Princess you will be good enough to step in front. Then the Yakā, becoming afraid, will look in the direction of your face; then be good enough to cut him down with the sword.”
The Prince having gone in that manner to the tree, when he looked about, Mānikka Seṭṭiyārē having climbed aloft was in a fork of the trunk, lamenting, having turned his back. While he was lamenting he saw this Prince coming, and [thinking it was the Yakā], trembled and lost his senses.
Then, in the very manner foretold, the Yakā came, crying and crying out. As he came near the Princess, the Prince cut him down, and having drawn out and cut off his tongue, and also asked for a ring off the hand of the Princess, came away to the palace of the friendly Yakā. Having arrived there, and placed there the clothes, the horse, and the tongue, all of them, he returned to his house before any one arose.
Mānikka Seṭṭiyārē, having descended in the morning, chopped the Yakā’s body into bits, and smeared the blood on his sword. While he was there, the King went in the morning to see if the Princess was dead or alive. Having arrived there, he saw Mānikka Seṭṭiyārē there looking on, and he returned to the city, taking Mānikka Seṭṭiyārē and the Princess.
On the next night, also, they went and tied another Princess. The Prince that night also having gone there, killed a Yakā who came, and cut off the Yakā’s tongue, and after asking for a jewelled ring came away. That time, also, Mānikka Seṭṭiyārē went there, and after smearing blood on his sword remained there. The King went there in the morning, and calling the two persons came away.
On the following day he did the very same to the other Princess. This Prince, having taken away the three jewelled rings that were on the hands of the three Princesses, and the three tongues of the three Yakās that he had cut off, remained silent.
As Mānikka Seṭṭiyā had come falsely smearing blood on his sword each morning, as though he had killed the Yakās, the King sent letters to all royal personages: “Mānikka Seṭṭiyā has cut down three such powerful Yakās, and has delivered the three Princesses who had been devoted to be given as a demon offering to the Yakā who seized me when I went hunting. Because of that, I am giving the three Princesses to him in marriage. You must come to the festival, and look at the Yakās who have been killed.” After that, the royal persons came from those countries.
While they were there, that Prince went to the palace of the friendly Yakā. The Yakā having given that Prince golden clothes, and a golden crown and necklace, and a golden sword, told him to go, taking those rings and tongues, and mounted on a white horse. The Prince putting on those things, and mounting the white horse, went.
When he went to the palace where the royal persons were who had come to fulfil the object of the occasion, those royal persons became afraid, and having made obeisance to him, asked, “Lord, where is Your Majesty going?”
“ ‘I have cut down a very powerful sort of Yakā.’ Letters went through foreign countries to this effect, and that there is a marriage festival for the person who killed the Yakā. On account of the news I also have come to look,” he said.
After that, those royal persons said, “It is good, Lord,” and with pleasure showed him the heads of the Yakās.
Then this Prince asked, “Is there or is there not a tongue to every living being whatever?”
Every one said, “Yes, there is one.”
The Prince having looked for the tongues in the mouths of the Yakās, asked, “What is this, that there are not tongues for these Yakās?”
After that, every one asked it of Mānikka Seṭṭiyā. Mānikka Seṭṭiyā being afraid, remained without speaking.
Then he asked it of the two eldest Princesses. The two Princesses said, “We do not know.”
At the time when he was asking it of the youngest Princess, she replied, seizing the hand of the Prince who split off the tongues and took the jewelled rings, “This one went away after taking in his hand the ring, and cutting off the tongue of the Yakā.” After that, the Prince brought to light the three rings and the three tongues, and showed them.
Speedily having beheaded and cast out Mānikka Seṭṭiyā, they carried out the wedding festival of the marriage of the three Princesses to the Prince. After that, those royal personages went to their own kingdoms, and the kingdom having been bestowed on this Prince he remained there ruling it.
North-western Province.
In the Jātaka story No. 510 (vol. iv, p. 305), an iron house was built, in which a King’s son was confined for sixteen years in order to preserve him from a female Yakā who had carried off two children born previously. The demon was unable to break into it.
In the Jātaka story No. 513 (vol. v, p. 13), there is an account of a King who was seized by an Ogre while hunting. The latter allowed the King to go home on a promise to come back next day to be eaten. His heroic son returned in his place, but was spared by the Ogre. The Prince said of these beings, “The eyes of Ogres are red, and do not wink. They cast no shadow, and are free from all fear.”
[1] In these stories the Yakās are always evil spirits or demons. [↑]
No. 16
How a Yakā and a Man fought
In a certain country three men went shooting,[1] it is said. At the time when the three persons were going, one man was obliged to go aside for a certain purpose. The man went aside without telling those two men.
A Yakā saw the man separate from those two persons. Having seen it, the Yakā seized the man, and began to push against him. At that time those two men were very distant. The men having said, “What has happened to this man?” came to look for him. When they came [they saw that] there was a black one near the man. The two persons spoke together, “Let us shoot this black one.” So they shot[1] him. Then the black one went out of the way.
Afterwards the men went to look near at hand. When they went the man had fallen. After that, having taken hold of the man and raised him, when they looked at him the man’s body having gone quite slimy he was unconscious also.
Afterwards, while the two men, raising [and carrying] that man, were [endeavouring] to come away, the Yakā did not allow them to come. He shakes the bushes; he breaks the trees; he blocked up the path all along. One man of the two men looked upward. Then the Yakā spit into the man’s eye, and the man’s eye became blind.
Well then, the two men having uttered and uttered spells, with pain lifting up [and carrying] that man, came to the village. Having come there, and summoned a Yaksa Vedarāla[2] to restore the man to consciousness, when he arrived they showed him this man. Then the Yaksa Vedarāla told them to warm a large pot of water. So they warmed the water. After that, having bathed the man, and having uttered spells, after the Vedarāla had tied protective written spells and diagrams[3] on him the man became conscious.
After that, the Yaksa Vedarāla and those two men asked about the circumstances that had occurred. The man said, “A Yakā having come, seizing me pressed against me for me to roll over on to the ground. What of that? I did not fall [on account of it]. After you two fired, indeed, I fell. Then the Yakā bounded off, and went away. Well, I don’t know anything after that. Whether you came and lifted me up, or what, I do not know.”
The man having recovered from that, again the Yakā came, and having possessed the man he began to have the powers conferred by “possession.”[4] Afterwards that Yaksa Vedarāla having come again, and given the Yakā many offerings placed on frames (dola piḍēni), the Yakā went out of the way. The man remained very well [afterwards].
[1] The word used indicates the use of guns, and not bows and arrows. [↑]
[2] A Vedarāla (medical practitioner) or another man who knows the spells and magical practices which have power over demons. [↑]
[4] Ē minihāṭa waehilā, māyan wenḍa paṭangattā. [↑]
No. 17
Concerning a Man and Two Yakās
In a certain country there was a man who had cut a chena. The man, without any one joining with him, went one day and made ready to cut a fresh chena at a place where there was a large tree.
Then the Yakā who dwelt in the tree became afraid, and having descended to the ground, and having said, “Lord, do not cut a chena here. At every eventide I will bring and give you rice, coconuts, chillies, etc.,” he made obeisance. The man said, “It is good,” and went home.
That very evening the Yakā brought and gave him rice and all things sufficient for curries, and went away. After that, in no long time the man became in a good position and wealthy, through the Yakā’s bringing him his provisions.
When coming afterwards, the Yakā met another Yakā, who asked, “Where are you taking those things?”
The Yakā replied, “A man came to cut the residence in which I stay. On account of it, I promised to give him food and goods.”
Then the Yakā said, “Do thou give the things to-day only. I will kill the man to-morrow.”
The other Yakā said, “It is good.”
On the following day, when the man of that house was going somewhere or other, the Yakā who said, “I will kill him,” came to the house, and having crept under the bed remained there. At that time the man returned, and sitting on the bed, said to his wife, “Bola, I am hungry enough to eat a Yakā.”
His wife had placed the knife on the shelf, and having plucked a pine-apple had put it under the bed. The woman [not seeing the Yakā], said, “Look there! On the shelf. Look there! Under the bed.”
So the man, taking the knife that was on the shelf, went near the bed to get the pine-apple. Then the Yakā, thinking he was coming to kill and eat him, said, “Lord, do not eat me. I will bring and give you each month anything you want.”
So the man saying, “It is good,” sent away the Yakā.
Then the Yakā met that other Yakā, and said, “When I went to set you free I also was caught. Both of us are in the same state.”
After that he gave the things monthly. Then this man having become a great wealthy person, remained so.
North-western Province.
In a variant in Folk-Tales of Bengal (Day), pp. 258–260, a barber frightened a Bhūta (evil spirit) who was going to eat him, by threatening to put him in his bag. He took out his looking-glass, and showed the Bhūta his reflection, which the evil spirit thought was another imprisoned one. The Bhūta promised to obey the barber’s orders, and provided money, and a granary filled with paddy. The Bhūta’s uncle told him that he had been cheated; but he was treated in the same way, and made to build another granary, and fill it with rice.
No. 18
The Three Questions[1]
In a certain country, as a man was going through the middle of a city he met a man of the city, and asked him, “In what manner does the King of this city rule?”
The man said, “It does not appear to us that he has any fault.”
Then the man said [sarcastically]: “Does the King of this city know these three matters—the centre of this country, the number of the stars in the sky, and the work which the King of the world of the Dēvas[2] does?” Having asked this, that wicked man went through the midst of the city.
Afterwards, the man of the city came to the palace, and declared to the King that there were three matters regarding which a man had wanted information. After he had informed him, the King asked, “What are the three matters?”
The man said, “The centre of the country, the number of the stars in the sky, and the work which the King of the world of the Dēvas does; these three matters,” he said.
Then the King, having caused the Raṭēmahatmayās—(the highest provincial Chiefs)—to be told that he ordered them to come, after he had asked them concerning these three matters, the Chiefs said that they could not tell him the answers. When they said that, the king commanded that the Raṭēmahatmayās should be beheaded. Thereupon the executioners came and beheaded them.
After that, he caused the Adikāramas—(the Ministers)—to be brought, and asked them if they knew these three matters. Those persons also said that they could not explain them. He commanded that party also to be beheaded, and the executioners came and beheaded them.
Having beheaded all the people of both parties, there remained still the Royal Preceptor[3] only, so he caused the Royal Preceptor to be brought, and asked him regarding these matters. Then the Royal Preceptor said, “I cannot tell you about them to-day. I will tell you to-morrow.” After he had said this he returned to his house, and having come there, lying down prone on the bed he remained without speaking a word.
The youth who looked after the Royal Preceptor’s goats came at that time, and asked, “For what reason are you lying down, Sir?”
The Royal Preceptor said, “They beheaded the Adikārama party and the Raṭēmahatmayā party to-day; they will behead me to-morrow. The post that I have told thee of [under the executioner] will be made over to one’s self.”
The youth said, “Lord, you must tell me the reasons for it.”
The Royal Preceptor replied, “If I should be unable to-morrow to say which is the centre of the country, the number of the stars, and the work which the God of the world of the Dēvas does, they will behead me to-morrow.”
Then the youth said, “Are you so much troubled about that? I will say those very things for you.”
Afterwards, at the time when the Royal Preceptor, on the morning of the following day, was setting off to go to the palace, he called the youth, and went with him to the palace. The King asked for the answers to these three sayings. Then the Royal Preceptor said, “What is there in these for me to tell you? Even the youth who looks after the goats for me knows those three sayings.” Then he told the youth to come forward, and the youth came near the King.
The King asked, “Dost thou know the centre of the country, and the number of the stars, and the work which the God of the world of the Dēvas does?”
The youth fixed a stick in the ground, and showed it. “Behold! Here is the centre of one’s country. Measure from the four quarters, and after you have looked at the account, if it should not be correct be good enough to behead me,” he said. The King lost over that.
Then he told him to say the number of the stars in the sky. Throwing down on the ground the goat-skin that he was wearing, “Count these hairs, and count the stars in the sky. Should they not be equal be good enough to behead me,” he said. The King lost over that also.
Thirdly, he told him to say what work the God of the world of the Dēvas does.
The youth said, “I will not say it thus.”
The King asked, “If so, how will you say it?”
The youth said, “Should you decorate me with the Royal Insignia, and put on me the Crown, and give the Sword into my hands, and place me on the Lion-throne, I will say it.”
Then the King, having caused that youth to bathe, and having decorated him, placed him upon the Lion-throne.
After that, he called the executioners, and said to them, “Aḍē! This one beheaded so many [innocent] people; because of that take him and go, and having beheaded him, cast him out. Behold! That indeed is the work which the King of the world of the Dēvas does,” he said.
Thus, having killed the foolish King, the youth who looked after the goats obtained the sovereignty; and ruling the kingdom together with the Royal Preceptor, he remained there in prosperity.
North-western Province.
The dramatic, and apparently improbable, ending of this Kandian story is founded upon an historical fact. It is recorded in the Mahāvansa, the Sinhalese history (Part I, chapter 35), that King Yasalālaka-Tissa, who reigned in Ceylon from 52 to 60 A.D., had a young gate porter or messenger called Subha, who closely resembled him in appearance. The Mahāvansa relates the story of the King’s deposition by him as follows (Turnour’s translation):—
“The monarch Yasalālaka, in a merry mood, having decked out the said Subha, the messenger, in the vestments of royalty, and seated him on the throne, putting the livery bonnet of the messenger on his own head, stationed himself at a palace gate, with the porter’s staff in his hand. While the ministers of state were bowing down to him who was seated on the throne, the King was enjoying the deception.
“He was in the habit, from time to time, of indulging in these scenes. On a certain occasion (when this farce was repeated), addressing himself to the merry monarch, the messenger exclaimed: ‘How does that messenger dare to laugh in my presence?’ and succeeded in getting the King put to death. The messenger Subha thus usurped the sovereignty, and administered it for six years.”
A variant was related to me by the resident monk at a Buddhist temple to the south of Colombo. Its tenour was as follows:—