The Gamarāla and the Washerman. (Variant.)
In a certain country there is a Gamarāla, it is said. A Washerman, having come there, became friendly with the Gamarāla. Having become friendly, he takes charge of the Gamarāla’s cattle for grazing. During the time while he was grazing them the two persons chop chenas and do rice field work.
Well then, the two persons having become very thoroughly friends, at the time while they were thus, the cattle grazed by the Washerman increased by a buffalo bull and a buffalo cow. Afterwards, the Washerman having come [to the other man] said, “Now then, Gamarāhami,[2] we must divide the two cattle between us.” The Gamarāla said, “Hā. Let us divide them.” Afterwards the Washerman having gone and caught the two cattle, tied them up.
The Gamarāla went there. Then the Washerman said, “Now then, the Gamarāhami indeed has cattle. I myself have no cattle. Because of it, let the after portion of this buffalo cow be for me. The front portion the Gamarāhami will be good enough to take.” The Gamarāla, having consented to that, said, “Hā. It is good.” Well then, in complete agreement they shared the buffalo cow.
Again, to share the buffalo bull the Washerman said, “Gamarāhami, let the front side of the buffalo bull be for me, the after side the Gamarāhami will be good enough to take.” Well then, the Gamarāla having consented to that also, by the agreement of the two persons they divided the buffalo bull also.
During the time while they were thus, the Washerman having taken the buffalo bull ploughs for himself. The Gamarāla also one day was going to take the buffalo bull to plough. Then the Washerman quarrelled with him: “The front part belongs to me; the after part belongs to you. I will not allow you to plough with my side,” he said.[3] The Gamarāla having become angry came home.
The buffalo cow having gone to the Gamarāla’s house eats by stealth. Men having come told the Gamarāla, “Gamarāla, your buffalo cow comes to our rice field [and eats the crop]. On that account attend well to its grazing.”
Then the Gamarāla said, “Don’t tell me. Tell that to the Washerman.”
Then the men having gone, told the Washerman, “Washerman, the buffalo cow that you are causing to graze eats by stealth [in our rice field]. Attend well to its grazing.”
The Washerman said, “What are you telling me? Doesn’t the front half belong to the Gamarāhami? Isn’t it the Gamarāhami who must attend to the grazing?”[4]
The Washerman having come to the Gamarāla’s house, quarrelled with the Gamarāla [over it]. The Gamarāla became very angry.
Afterwards, the Gamarāla went to institute a lawsuit against the Washerman [on account of these matters]. That day, having entered the suit, and having come back to the village, he went to the Washerman to tell him the day of the trial. Having told him, the Gamarāla came home.
On the following day, the Washerman came to the Gamarāla. Afterwards, the Gamarāla having given the Washerman to eat and drink, and having made ready to go for the day of the trial, the Washerman said, “Gamarāhami, I have no [suitable] cloth to wear when going.” The Gamarāla gave (that is, lent) him a cloth. The Washerman putting on the cloth, both of them went for the trial-day.
After they went, the assessors[5] having assembled heard the lawsuit. When they asked the Gamarāla [regarding the matter], the Gamarāla said, “The after portion of the buffalo cow belongs to the Washerman; the front portion belongs to me.”
When they asked the Washerman he said, “Because the front portion of the buffalo bull belongs to me, I will not allow him to plough with the buffalo bull. Because the front portion of the buffalo cow belongs to the Gamarāhami, the Gamarāhami must attend to the grazing,” he answered.
Then after the assessors had thus asked him they said, “What the Washerman said is true.”
Thereupon the Washerman says, “That gentleman (Rāhami) will now say that this cloth which I am wearing is the gentleman’s, maybe!”
The Gamarāla asked, “Yes, indeed. Whose is it, Bola, if that cloth is not mine?”
Then the Washerman says to the assessors, “There! Be good enough to look. Didn’t that gentleman just now say that the cloth I am wearing is the gentleman’s. In that manner, indeed, he has brought this lawsuit, also.”
At that time the assessors said to the Gamarāla, “There is not a thing for us to say regarding this [except that] he is to gain [the action] against you.”
Then the Gamarāla having lost, came back with the Washerman to the village.
At that time, while the Gamarāla was angry with the Washerman, the Gamarāla, having said that he must build a house for himself, and having gone to the jungle, cut Halmilla, Mīlla, Waewarana trees; these three sorts [of good timber trees].
Then the Washerman, having got news that he had cut these woods, also went to the jungle, and having said, “I also must build a house for myself,” cut Paepol wood, Murungā wood, Eramudu wood; those three sorts [of soft useless woods]. After heaping them together, he wrote a book [of sham prognostications]: “For the house [built] of Halmilla, begging; for the house of Waewarana, killing; for the house of Mīlla, begging; for the house of Paepol, land; for the house of Eramudu, purity; for the house of Murungā, purity.”
After writing these, the Washerman taking up the book while the Gama-Mahagē (the Gamarāla’s wife) was going past for water, says them over every day for the Gama-Mahagē to hear. The Gama-Mahagē having heard them, said to the Gamarāla, “A book of the Washerman’s says thus. Because of it, come with the Washerman, and having given him our small quantity of timber speak with him to allow us to take his small quantity of timber.”
Afterwards, the Gamarāla having gone to the Washerman, asked at the hand of the Washerman, “Washerman, give me your small quantity of timber, and take for yourself my small quantity of timber.”
Then the Washerman says, “I don’t know [if I can do it], Sir (Rāhamiyē). I cannot [willingly], through sorrow [at the loss to me], give you my small quantity of timber, indeed; but because the gentleman says it, any way whatever is good. Be good enough to take it.”
Afterwards the Gamarāla brought [home] the Washerman’s small quantity of timber. The Washerman brought the Gamarāla’s small quantity of timber. Having brought it, the Washerman with the small quantity of the Gamarāla’s timber thoroughly built the house for himself, the Gamarāla also building the house for himself from the Washerman’s timber. When only three months had gone, the Gamarāla’s house fell down, and the Gama-Mahagē, having been underneath it, died. The house which the Washerman built from good timber remained in good condition.
[2] A contraction of Gama-rālahāmi. Hami is an intermediate form between swāmi, “lord”, and himi; Wanniyās still use the latter. [↑]
[3] The yoke of the plough is placed on the neck and fastened there, on the Washerman’s half of the animal. [↑]
[4] Because the mouth which grazes is in the Gamarāla’s half of the cow. [↑]
[5] Raṭē wissa. The word is new to me; this appears to be the meaning. [↑]
No. 60
The Two Thieves
Two thieves at Cairo were in love with the same girl, who promised to marry the one who showed the greatest cleverness.
The first one assisted a rich merchant in purchasing some cattle, and eventually purloined a bag of money which the merchant was carrying in the large pocket in the front of his gown, and put a similar bag in its place containing an orange or two.
The theft was discovered when the merchant was about to pay the money for the cattle. The robber assumed the rôle of the sympathising friend, and suggested that a mistake might have been made by the merchant’s wife, and the wrong bag given to him. The merchant went home to inquire about it, and on his return the robber ran up to him, and embraced and kissed him, saying, “Hallo, Friend! I am very glad to see you again. I hope you have succeeded in finding your money.” As he said this he put back the purse, and took the bag of oranges.
The merchant replied, “I hope God will hear what you say.”
The thief said, “You are playing me a trick; put your hand in your pocket, and feel if your purse is not there.”
So he put his hand in his breast pocket, and found his bag of money there. The thief explained the matter, and requested him to relate the particulars to the girl, who then decided that she would marry this thief.
I give the rest of the story in full, as it was dictated to me:—
The second thief said, “Oh! that is nothing. I can play a better trick than that. Will you be kind enough to come to-morrow morning to the Government offices to see me?” The merchant man said, “I also will come to see the trick.” Then the merchant went away, and the three remained there till evening.
After dinner, the second robber went out to the café to spend the time, and there he met one of the higher class people. The robber said, “Salām,” and sat down next this merchant. They both smoked hashish together, and the thief told him, “I have just arrived from outside the city. The four gates are now shut, and I cannot return. I do not know where to go to sleep.”
The merchant told him, “Don’t you feel ashamed to say that to me when you know what size my house is?”
The robber said, “Thank you for the favour,” and at the end of their smoke they went together to the merchant’s house. When the two entered, lights were put in the writing room, with two beds for them, so that they might sleep together there.
While the merchant was fast asleep and snoring, the robber awoke, and took the key of the money-box and the seal from the merchant’s pocket, opened the box, counted the money, wrote a promissory note giving the amount of each kind of money, signed it with the merchant’s seal, and put all back again as before, keeping the note. He then went to sleep again.
Next morning they breakfasted together, becoming very friendly, and the robber said, “Please can you lend me your horse and a clean suit of clothes, because I must go to report a person to the Government?” So the merchant gave him a clean suit and a horse, and told him, “You can change your clothes and wash here. I must go to my office.” He then left.
The robber put on the clothes, and rode off to the Government office, and explained his case, and asked for a man to be sent to fetch the merchant, as he had to recover a large sum of money from him. The Chief of the Police sent a man to call him.
When the merchant came, the Chief of the Police asked him, “Why don’t you pay this gentleman the money you owe him?”
He says, “Which gentleman?”
“This gentleman,” said the Chief of the Police, pointing to the robber.
“This one!”
“Yes, I am the one,” said the robber.
The merchant said, “Don’t you feel ashamed at saying I owe you some money?”
“Of course,” he replied, and then he took out the promissory note, and handed it to the Chief of the Police.
The Chief of the Police looked at it, and said, “Hallo! That is a big amount.”
The merchant asked to see it, and he looked at the list, and said, “I have not got so much money in my box. If I have so much in my house it must really be yours.”
The Chief of the Police sent some men to bring the box to the station, and on counting the money in it, he found it was exactly the amount written in the promissory note. The woman, and the other robber, and the merchant who was tricked on the previous day were all present and listening, and were all astonished.
The Chief of the Police said, “Well, it must be the claimant’s money,” and he gave it to him.
The merchant was angry, so the robber said, “I suppose you will be saying next that the horse is yours, and the suit I am wearing”; and when the merchant angrily demanded them the robber requested the Chief of the Police to lock the man up, because he was now trying to steal his horse and clothes.
Then the merchant was locked up, and the robber left the money in the box at the Police Station, and rode off to his own home, where he met the woman and the first robber. He asked them, “How do you like that trick?”
She said, “A very clever man you are,” and she agreed to marry him.
After three days they both went to the merchant, and told him the whole story, and returned him the money, and the horse and clothes. And the merchant was so pleased to get them back that he gave them some money to live upon.
In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 297 ff., two thieves had one wife, who agreed that she should belong only to the one who brought her the most valuable spoil in two days. The King executed her, as being the instigator of the robberies they committed.
No. 61
The Margōsa Tree
In a certain city there is a King, it is said. The King thought of growing a Margōsa tree without bitterness [in the fruit], so one day he made proclamation accordingly by beat of tom-toms.
While two friends of one village were coming to seek a means of subsistence they heard this sound of tom-toms. When they asked at the hand of a tom-tom beater, “What is the sound of tom-toms for?” he said, “What is it? His Majesty our King will give presents to any person who should grow and give him a Margōsa tree without bitterness.” One of the friends, saying, “I can [do it],” went to the royal palace.
“Canst thou grow and give me a Margōsa tree without bitterness?” the King asked.
“Yes, your Majesty,” he said.
“What things dost thou want for it?” the King asked.
“I want monthly a hundred-weight of sugar and a large pot of cow’s butter,” he said.
After that, the King asked, “Where wilt thou grow it?”
“I must grow it on the edge of a river,” he said.
Having built and given him a house on the edge of the river, he gave him a hundred-weight of sugar and a large pot of butter monthly.
Seven times in succession he planted seven trees. Seven times the seven trees were washed away by the river.
During the time while he was there in that way, the other friend having come, asked, “Where is the tree?”
Then the friend who had planted the tree says, “Either the King, or I, or the river.”[1]
The words that he said meant, “Either His Majesty the King will die; if not, I shall die, because of no means of subsistence.”
“Having cheated the King I get a living. When it is so, the foolish King has been caught by my trick.”
Durayā. North-western Province.
[1] Rājā hō, mā hō, gangā hō. “Either the King, or I, or the river” [floods] will come to an end (naeti wenawā). He meant that if the periodical floods in the river did not come to an end, the job would last during the King’s life-time, and that if he gave it up he had nothing else to live upon. [↑]
No. 62
The Gamarāla’s Foolish Son
While a Gamarāla and a Gama-gāēni (his wife) were at a village, as there were no children to those two for a long time they went to a Dēwāla, and worshipped the Gods in order to obtain a child. After that they obtained a child. As that child was growing up the Gamarāla and Gama-gāēni were becoming very old.
So one day the Gamarāla says to the Gama-gāēni, “Before we die we must summon and give a bride to the youth.” Having said this they summoned and gave him a small girl.
During the time while they were living thus, the Gamarāla had an illness. After that the Gamarāla died. Afterwards, while the Gama-gāēni, and the son, and the son’s wife were there, one day the wife of the Gama-puta (son of the Gamarāla) said, “Now then, let us go to my village, and having gone there, sowing our rice field lands let us do cultivation”; and both of them went.
While they were there, one day, as an illness settled on the Gama-puta’s wife, the Vedarāla (village doctor) went to see her. The Vedarāla asked, “What is the illness?”
Then he said, “My wife has tumours which are growing large.” The Vedarāla having made a medicine which was to be rubbed [on the places], and having come to the house gave it, saying, “Rub thou this medicine on them.”
When he had been rubbing it for four or five days they grew larger. The Gama-puta having seen this, said, “Aḍā! These tumours are becoming very severe. I cannot go for medicine every day if they go on like this. Let us go to my village.” So they set off to come to the Gama-puta’s village.
As they were coming, a man was driving a bull on the road. This Gamarāla’s son asked, “Where are you taking the bull?”
The man said, “I am taking it to my village,” he said. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“We are going to my village. My wife has tumours. We are going to apply medical treatment,” he said.
“Where? Let us look at them. I also know a little medical art,” he said.
Then he showed them. When the man who was taking the bull saw them he said, “They are growing larger; they will never become well,” he said.
Then the Gama-puta thought, “This woman does not matter to me.” So he said, “It would be good for you to give me that bull and take this woman.” So taking the bull he gave the woman.
“This one has water in his stomach (i.e., he had drunk water); you will be careful,” the man said.
Then having taken the bull, as he was going to the village he took a large cloth and tied it round the middle of the bull. While he was there after tying it, a man came, carrying a bill-hook on his shoulder. When he saw it he asked, “What is this doing?”
“This one has water in his stomach; on that account I have tied the cloth round it,” he said.
Having seen the bill-hook, “What is that?” he asked.
“This is a bill-hook,” the man said.
After he asked, “What do you do with the bill-hook?” the man said, “Taking a packet of cooked rice and a water-gourd, it is for cutting the jungle,” he said.
When he asked, “Will you take this bull and give me the bill-hook,” the man said, “It is good,” and having given the bill-hook went away taking the bull.
Then the Gama-puta, having taken the bill-hook, and gone to the village, during the time while he was there thought he would go to cut jungle. Having thought so, he took a packet of cooked rice and a water-gourd, and the bill-hook, and having placed them upon a rock he remained looking on. Seeing that the bill-hook stayed [there] without cutting the jungle, and thinking that it was because he was looking at it, he came home.
Having come and eaten rice, and having gone back afterwards, when he looked, the bill-hook having been put in the sun had become extremely hot. So the Gama-puta thinks, “The bill-hook having got fever, is it on that account it did not eat the cooked rice and did not cut the jungle?”
He went quickly for medicine. Having gone he told the Vedā (village doctor). The Vedā having looked [at it] told him to bury it under the frame on which the water pots were set. Afterwards, having come home, he buried it under the water-pots’ frame. On the following day, after he had looked [he found that] having become thoroughly wetted by the water it was cold. Having seen that, he got into his mind [the notion], “Aḍā! The medical treatment is very good.”
When a little time had gone, one day the Gamarāla’s wife had a severe illness, having got fever. The Gama-gāēni said, “Son, I have much fever. Having gone for medical advice and brought a little medicine, give me it,” she said.
He said, “It is good,” and speedily having cut a hole under the water-pots’ frame, and put the Gama-gāēni in the hole, he covered her with earth.
Afterwards when he looked, the fever having thoroughly gone down she had become cold like a plantain tree; and saying, “Aḍā! Mother’s fever is completely well,” he went away.
Durayā. North-western Province.
In Indian Fables (Ramaswami Raju), p. 71, a variant of the last incident is given. A man with severe fever having cooled a red-hot poker in cold water, thought he could cool himself in the same way, so he sat in a tub of cold water, with a fatal result.
In Indian Nights’ Entertainment, Panjāb (Swynnerton), p. 83, a weaver got a smith to make a sickle that would cut corn of itself. He laid it beside the standing corn, which he ordered it to cut; but on returning he found no work done, and the sickle ill with fever, through being in the sun. The smith to whom he applied for advice recommended him to tie a string to it, and lower it into a well; this cooled it. When his mother caught fever he treated her in the same way until she died and became cold.
No. 63
The Jackal’s Judgment
At a village there is a tank. A Crocodile, making a burrow in the [foot of the] embankment, stayed in it. Afterwards the mud having dried and become hard, the Crocodile being unable to get out of the hole was going to die.
As a man was going past to fetch a midwife-mother to attend to his wife, the Crocodile, hearing him, said to the man, “Somehow or other manage to save me by breaking up the earth so that I may get out.” The man broke up the earth, and let it out.
After that, as there was no water left in the tank, the man, placing the Crocodile on his shoulder, went to the edge of the river. Having gone there, after he had placed it in the water, the Crocodile seized the arm of that man in order to eat him.
“Why wilt thou eat me?” he asked. “Dost thou not know the help I gave thee? Yet thou art going to eat me!”
The Crocodile said, “It is true, indeed, regarding the assistance. It is because I am hungry that I am going to eat thee.”
The man said, “It is good. Eat thou me. There are my witnesses, two or three persons. First ask them [regarding the justice of it], and then eat me.” So they went to ask the witnesses about it.
Having met with a Kumbuk tree,[1] he said to the Kumbuk tree, “This Crocodile is going to eat me. I ask this one’s opinion of it.”
“What is that about?”
The man said, “This Crocodile was going to die. I saved it. It is now going to eat me. Is that right?”
Then the Kumbuk tree says, “O Crocodile-cultivator, do not let that man go. There is no animal so wicked as that man. He stays near the tree in the shade, and having broken off the bark and the leaves he takes them away. At last he cuts down and takes the tree.”
From there he goes and asks it of the Cow. “O Cow, I saved this Crocodile from death. This Crocodile is now going to eat me. Do you think it right?”
The Cow says, “O Crocodile-cultivator, do not let that man go. That man is a wicked man. He takes our milk, and at last kills and eats us. Do not let him go.”
After that he asks it of the Jackal. The Jackal asks, “What is it about?”
He says to the Jackal, “O Jackal-artificer, without letting this Crocodile die, I saved it. Now it is going to eat me.”
The Jackal-artificer says, “I cannot give this decision, not having seen what is the meaning of it. You must show me the whole affair from the beginning.”
Then the man, placing the Crocodile on his shoulder, and having gone with it and put it in the house in which the Crocodile was at first, [and closed the entrance], and made the soil hard, the Jackal says, “Now then, don’t you be afraid. I am on your side.”
Then the man says, “Jackal-artificer, hear this case.”
“I am both the judge and the witness,” the Jackal said. “Now then, taking a cudgel beat thou him until he dies. I saw thy excellence and this one’s wickedness.”
Durayā. North-western Province.
This is one of the best-known of folk-tales. A Malay variant is given in Mr. W. Skeat’s Fables and Folk-Tales from an Eastern Forest, p. 20. A tiger, being released from a cage-trap by a man, seized him in order to eat him. When appealed to, the road and tree were against him. The Mouse-deer, which in Malaya fills the place of the clever animal in folk-tales, got the tiger to return to the cage, and called the neighbours to kill it.
The tiger story is given in Old Deccan Days (Frere), p. 198 ff., and the appeal was made to a banyan tree, camel, bullock, eagle, and alligator [crocodile], which were against the man. The Jackal settled it in his favour.
In Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), p. 116—Tales of the Punjab, p. 107—the matter was referred to a pipal (or bō) tree, a road, and the Jackal, who induced the tiger to re-enter the trap, and left him there.
In Indian Fairy Tales (Stokes), p. 16, the matter was not referred to others, but the Jackal told the tiger a good way of eating the man, by getting inside a large bag and having him thrown in to it. When it was inside the bag, the Jackal, a dog who was present, and the man tied it up, and beat the tiger to death.
The Panchatantra (Dubois), as in several other instances, comes nearest to the Sinhalese story. A Brāhmaṇa carried a Crocodile in a sack from a stream to the Ganges, and was then seized by it. In reply to his appeal to the Crocodile’s virtue and gratitude, he was told, “The virtue and gratitude of our days is to devour those who nourish us and who do good to us.” Reference was made to a mango tree, an old cow (both of which agreed with the Crocodile), and a Jackal, who, stating that he wished to get to the bottom of the matter, induced the Crocodile to re-enter the sack, after which the Jackal broke his head with a stone.
In Indian Nights’ Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 134, a boy on his way to fetch his bride, killed a mungus that was attacking a snake, which then turned on him, to eat him, but gave him eight days’ grace to get married. When he returned with his wife she remonstrated with the snake, and was referred to some trees. One had preserved a thief in its hollow interior, but he found sandalwood there, and cut it down; and now it had become a rule to do evil for good. For the future widow’s protection, the snake gave her magic powder capable of reducing to ashes whatever it fell on, so she applied it to the snake, and burnt it to dust.
The tale is found in West Africa also, in a form which is very close to the South Indian and Sinhalese one. In Contes Soudanais (C. Monteil), p. 53, a child found a tired Crocodile, and carried it back to water. The Crocodile asked if he knew how goodness was rewarded. “By evil,” the child said. The Crocodile was going to eat him, but referred the matter to an old horse and an old ass (both of which recommended it to do so), and lastly to a Hare, which refused to believe that the child could have carried it. When this was proved, and the Crocodile taken back, the Hare said to the child, “Doesn’t thy father eat Crocodile?” “Yes.” “And thy mother?” “Yes.” “Hast thou not an axe?” “I have one,” the child replied. “Then break the Crocodile’s head and eat it,” the Hare said. In many West African tales the Hare is the clever animal who outwits the others.
No. 64
The Heron and the Crab
There is a great big mountain. On the mountain there is a rock-hole [containing water]. In it there are some small fishes. At all other places a Heron[1] eats the small fishes. In this rock-hole the Heron cannot eat the small fishes; he goes along [in the air], above the rock cave.
On account of it, the Heron puts on a false appearance. “I am indeed an ascetic,” he said. “I do not kill living creatures,” he said.
Thereupon the small fishes came for a talk. After they came he said, “Being in this hole ye cannot go up and down,” he said. “Because it is so, I will take you and put you in a river possessing length and breadth,” he said.
After that, having taken them one by one he ate them. At the time when he was taking the Crab which remained over from them, the Crab took hold of the neck of the Heron. While on the way, when the Heron was preparing to kill the Crab, the Crab getting to know of it, cut the neck of the Heron with his claws and killed it.
Durayā. North-western Province.