Folklore of the Santal Parganas

by Cecil Henry Bompas

Kora said nothing but when the time for sowing maize came he took his grain of maize and sowed it by the dung heap, and he called them to see where he sowed it; and at the time of sowing rice he sowed his grain separately, and when the time for transplanting came he planted his rice seedling in a hollow and bade them note it. When the maize ripened it was found that his plant had two big cobs and one small one on it, and his rice seedling sent up a number of ears; and when it ripened he cut it and threshed it and got one pai of rice, and he kept the maize and rice for seed. And the next year also he sowed this seed separately and it produced a big basket of rice and another one of maize, and he kept this also for seed; and in the course of five or six years he had taken all their high lands to sow his seed in and in a few years more he had taken all their rice lands too. Then his master was very miserable but he saw that it was useless to make any complaint and the master became so poor that he had to work as a servant to Kora. At last the miser called the heads of the village together and wept before them, and they had pity on him and interceded for him; but Kora said “It is God who has punished him and not I; he made poor men work for nothing for so long and now he has to suffer;” but they asked him to be merciful and give him some land, and he agreed and said “Cut off his little finger and I will let him off his bargain; and call all the servants whom he has defrauded and I will pay them” but the miser would not have his finger cut off; then Kora said “Let him keep his finger and I will give him back half his land.” The miser agreed to this and promised to treat his servants well in future, and in order to lessen his shame he married his daughter to Kora; and he had to admit that it was by his own folly that this trouble had befallen him.

XVII. Kuwar and the Raja’s Daughter.

There was once a rich merchant who lived in a Raja’s city; and the Raja founded a school in order that his own children might have some education, and the boys and the girls of the town used to go to the school as well as the Raja’s sons and daughters and among them the rich merchant’s son, whose name Was Kuwar. In the course of time the children all learned to read and write. In the evenings all the boys used to mount their horses and go for a ride.

Now it happened that Kuwar and the Raja’s daughter fell in love with each other and she wrote him a letter saying that if he did not marry her she would forcibly install herself in his house. He wrote back and begged her not to come to his house as this would be the ruin of his family; but he said that he would willingly run away with her to a distant country, and spend his whole life with her, if she would overlook the fact that they were of different castes; and if she agreed to this they must settle to what country to go. Somehow news of their intention got about, and the Raja was told that his daughter was in love with the merchant’s son. Then the Raja gave orders that his daughter was not to be allowed to go outside the palace, and the merchant spoke severely to Kuwar and neither of them was allowed to go to the school any more. But one day the princess went to the place where the Raja’s horses were tied up and among them was a mare named Piyari and she went up to the mare and said “You have eaten our salt for a long time, will you now requite me?” And Piyari said “Certainly I will!”. Then the princess asked “If I mount you, will you jump over all these horses and this wall and escape?” And the mare said “Yes, but you will have to hold on very tight.” The princess said “That is my look-out: it is settled that on the day I want you you will jump over the wall and escape.” Then she wrote a letter to Kuwar and gave it to her maid-servant to deliver into Kuwar’s own hands, without letting anyone know: and in the letter she fixed a day for their elopement and told Kuwar to wait for her by a certain tree. So on the day fixed after everyone was asleep Kuwar went to the tree and almost at once the princess came to him riding on Piyari; he asked her how she had escaped and whether she had been seen and she told him how the mare had jumped over the wall without anyone knowing; then they both mounted Piyari and drove her like the wind and in one night they passed through the territory of two or three Rajas and in the morning were in a far country.

Then they dismounted to cook their rice, and went to the house of an old woman to ask for a light with which to light their fire. Now this old woman had seven sons and they were all robbers and murderers; and six of them had killed travellers and carried off their wives and married them. When Kuwar and the princess came asking for a light the seven sons were away hunting and when the old woman saw the princess she resolved to marry her to her youngest son, and made a plan to delay them; so she asked them to cook their rice at her house and offered them cooking pots and water pots and firewood and everything necessary; they did not know that she meant to kill Kuwar and unsuspiciously accepted her offer. When they had finished cooking Kuwar asked the old woman whether she lived alone and she told him that she was a widow but had seven sons and they were all away on a trading expedition. The old woman kept on looking out to see if her sons were returning, and she had made an arrangement with them that if she ever wanted them she would set fire to a small hut and they would come home at once when they saw the smoke rising. But before her sons came back Kuwar and the princess finished their meal and paid the old woman and mounted Piyari and gallopped off. Then the old woman set fire to the hut and her sons, seeing the smoke hurried home. She told them that a beautiful girl had just left who would make a suitable wife for the youngest of the brothers. Then the brothers tied on their swords and mounted their horses and went in pursuit. Kuwar and the princess knew nothing of their danger and rode on happily, but presently they heard horses neighing behind them and looking round, saw men riding after them with drawn swords. Then the princess said to Kuwar “Our enemies are upon us; do you sit in front and let me sit behind you, then they will kill us both together. If I am in front they may kill you alone and carry me off alive.” But while they were thinking of this the seven brothers caught them up, and began to abuse them and charge them with having set fire to the house in which they had eaten their rice, and told them to come back with them at once. Kuwar and the princess were too frightened to answer and they had no sword with which to defend themselves. Then the robbers surrounded them and killed Kuwar, and they said to the princess “You cannot stay here all alone; we will take you back and you shall marry one of us.” The princess answered “Kill me here at once, never will I go with you.” They said “We shall take away your horse and all your food, will not that make you go?” But the princess threw herself on the dead body of Kuwar and for all they could do they could not drag her off it. Then the murderers said to the youngest brother “She is to be your wife: you must pull her away.” But he refused saying “No, if I take her away she will not stay with me, she will probably hang herself or drown herself; I do not want a wife like that, if any of you want her, you can have her.” But they said that it would not be right for one of them to take a second wife while their youngest brother was unmarried, and that their mother intended him to marry this girl; if he would not they would kill her there and then. But the youngest brother had pity on her and asked them to spare her life, so they took away her horse and her food and everything that she had and went away and left her there.

For a day and a night the princess lay there weeping and lamenting her dead Kuwar and never ceased for a moment. Then Chando said “who is this who is weeping and what has happened to her?” And he sent Bidhi and Bidha to see what was the matter; they came and told him that a princess was weeping over the body of her dead husband and would not leave him though she had been robbed of everything she had.

Then Chando told them to go and frighten her, and if they could frighten her away from her husband’s dead body he would do nothing, but if she would not leave him then they were to restore him to life. So they went and found her holding the dead body of her husband In her lap and weeping; and they first assumed the form of tigers and began to circle round her roaring, but she only went on weeping and sang—

“You have come roaring, tigress:

First eat me, tigress: