Sinhalese Folklore Notes, Ceylon

by Arthur A. Perera

Elfin tales deal with the magical powers and the cannibalistic nature of the Râkshas.

A Gamarala’s wife, while expecting a baby, weaves a mat bag to collect the kekira melons when the season is on. The Gamarâla goes out every day, enjoys the kekira himself without informing his wife that the melons are ripe. The wife discovers that the kekira is ripe from a seed on the Gamarala’s beard. Both go out to collect the kekira melons and fill the mat bag, when the wife gives birth to a girl. They decide to carry the bag of kekira home and throw the child into the woods as it is a girl. A male and female crane see this and carry the child to a cave. The cranes get a parrot, a dog and a cat to be companions of the girl who all grow up together and the girl is called ‘sister’ by the pets. The cranes leave the girl to dive for some pearls to adorn her and before departing advise her not to leave the cave as there is a cannibalistic Rakshi in the woods; they also ask her to manure the plantain tree with ash, to water the murunga tree and to feed her pets especially the cat. The cat gets a less allowance of food than usual and in anger puts out the fire by urinating on it. The girl goes out to fetch fire and comes to the Rakshi’s cave and meets her daughter, who tries to keep the girl till her mother comes by promising to give her fire, if she would bring water from the well, break firewood and pound two pots of amu seed. The girl does all this work before the Rakshi arrives and the daughter gives her live coals in a cocoanut shell with a hole in it, so that the ashes dropped all along her way. On the Rakshi’s return she is told of the girls’ departure and she follows up the ash track and reaches the cave. The Rakshi sings out to the girl that the crane father and crane mother have come with the pearls and to open the door. The dog and the cat warn her from the outside and the Rakshi kills them and goes away leaving her thumb nails fixed to the lintel and her toe nails to the threshold. The cranes return and on the parrot’s advice the girl opens the door and comes out but gets fixed by the nails and swoons away. The cranes think she is dead, but on removal of the nails the girl recovers. They dress up the girl beautifully, cover her with a scab covered cloth, tell her that she is too grown up to live with them and bid her farewell. The girl travels through the woods, becomes tired and meets the Rakshi; she asks the Rakshi to eat her up but the Rakshi contemptuously passes her by saying “I do not want to eat a scab covered girl; I am going to eat a beautiful princess.” The girl arrives at a king’s palace and is employed as a help mate to the cook. She used to remove her scab covered cloth only when she went out to bathe, and a man on a kitul tree tapping for toddy saw her beauty and informed the king who forced her with threats to remove her scab covering and married her.

In beast tales the actors are animals who speak and act like human beings.

A hare and a jackal sweep a house-compound; they find two pumpkin seeds and plant them; the jackal waters his creeper with urine and the hare waters his from the well; the jackal’s creeper dies; the hare generously agrees to share the pumpkin with his friend; the jackal proposes a ruse to obtain the other requisites for their meal; the hare lays himself on the road as if dead; pingo bearers pass carrying firewood, cocoanuts, rice, pots; as each pingo carrier passes, the jackal cries out “keep that pingo down and take away the dead hare; as they do so the hare scampers away and the jackal runs away with the pingos; the jackal places the food on the fire and asks the hare to fetch stalkless kenda leaves, the hare goes in search and the jackal cooks and eats the whole meal leaving a few grains of rice for the hare; the jackal places a cocoanut husk under his tail to act as a stopper for his over-filled stomach; the hare returns without the leaves and shares the remnants of the meal with the jackal; at the jackal’s request the hare strokes the jackal’s back and removes the cocoanut husk and is besmeared with excretion; the hare runs to a meadow, rolls on the grass and returns quite clean; the jackal asks him how he became so and the hare replies that the dhoby has washed him; the jackal runs to the riverside and asks the dhoby to make him also clean; the dhoby takes him by his hind legs and thwacks him on the washing stone till he dies, saying “this is the jackal who ate my fowls.”

The noodle tales describe the blunders of fools and foolish husbands.

Twelve men went one day to cut fence sticks and they made twelve bundles. One of them inquired whether there were twelve men to carry the bundles. They agreed to count and only found eleven men. As they thought that one man was short, they went in search of him to the jungle. They met a fellow villager to whom they mentioned their loss. He arranged the bundles in one line, and the men in another and said “now you are alright; let each one take a bundle of sticks and go home” which they did as no one was missing.

The people of Rayigam Korale threw stones at the moon one moonlight night to frighten it off as they thought it was coming too near and there was a danger of its burning their crops; they also cut down a kitul tree to get its pith and to prevent its falling down, one of them supported it on his shoulder and got killed.

The country folks of Tumpane tried to carry off a well because they saw a bee’s nest reflected in the water; the men of Maggona did the same but ran away on seeing their shadows in the well.

The Moravak Korale boatmen mistook a bend in the river for the sea, left their cargo there and returned home; and the Pasdum Korale folk spread mats for elephants to walk upon.

In cumulative tales there is a repetition of the incidents till the end when the whole story is recapitulated.