Meanwhile a potter had found the mongoose boy still alive and had taken him to his home. There the child grew up and became a strong boy. One day he asked the potter to make him an earthenware horse. On this horse he used to ride about, for directly he mounted it, it was endowed with life. One day the mongoose boy took his earthenware horse to water it at a tank near the palace and there his six brothers saw it and insisted that they also should have earthenware horses to ride. Horses were accordingly made for them but when they mounted, the horses would not budge an inch. Enraged at this the princes complained to their mothers. The Rānīs at once suspected the identity of the potter’s boy and told their sons to kill him.
So one day when the young princes met him at the tank they killed the mongoose boy and buried his body. At the place where the body was buried there grew up a bamboo of extraordinary size and a bush with sweet and beautiful flowers: many people tried to cut down the big bamboo and to pluck the beautiful flowers but every arm that was raised to do so was restrained by some unseen power. Eventually the news of this portent reached the ears of the Rājā who went to see what was happening. When the Rājā tried to pluck a flower he succeeded at the first attempt. The Rājā then cut down the bamboo and out of it stepped the mongoose boy who told of the illtreatment which he had received at the hands of the six Rānīs and their sons. The Rājā wished him to come to the palace but he insisted that his mother should first be sent for. This was at once done.
Then the Rājā had a wide and deep well dug and announced that a Pujā was to be performed at the opening of the well. To the ceremony came the six Rānīs and their sons. As they all knelt at the edge of the well doing pujā the Rājā had them pushed into it, so that they were all drowned. Thus the wicked were punished and the mongoose boy eventually succeeded to his father’s kingdom.
(21)—The Prince and the Tigress.
Once upon a time there was a Rājā who had seven sons. One day a tigress came to the palace and asked the Rājā to allow one of his sons to be her servant and look after her cattle. The Rājā consented and ordered his eldest son to go with the tigress. The young man took his axe and bow and arrows and went with the tigress to her cave. When he got there he asked where were the cattle which he was to tend. The tigress pointed out to him all the bears which were roaming in the jungle and said that they were her cattle. By the cave stood a large rock and the tigress told the prince to take his axe and cut it in two. The prince tried, but the rock only turned the edge of his axe and he quite failed to cut it. The tigress being thus satisfied that the prince had no superhuman powers sprang upon him and killed him and devoured his body. Then she went back to the Rājā and said that she had too much work to be done, that she wished him to give her a second son. The Rājā agreed, but this prince met the same fate as the first; and in succession, all the sons of the Rājā, except the youngest, went with the tigress and were devoured by her. At last the youngest son went with the tigress: when bidden to cut the rock in two, he easily accomplished the task. Then the tigress knew that she had met her master and ran into her cave. Looking into the cave, the prince saw the bones of his dead brothers. Gathering the bones together, he prayed for fire to burn them, and fire fell from above and burned the bones.
Then he climbed a tree in order to be out of the reach of the tigress, and the tigress came and sat at the foot of the tree so that he could not descend. Then he prayed again and wind arose and wafted him away and set him down by a house where lived an old man and his wife. The tigress followed in pursuit, but the aged couple hid the prince and assured the tigress that he had not been seen; so the tigress returned disappointed. The prince stayed with the old people and worked on their land. One day as he was ploughing, the tigress came and killed one of the bullocks that were drawing the plough. The prince at once ran to the house to fetch his bow and arrow that he might kill the tigress. When he returned, he found that several tigers were sucking the blood of the bullock and with them a wild boar. He shot an arrow which wounded the boar. The boar maddened by the pain turned on the tigers and killed them all; including the tigress which had killed the Rājā’s sons.
The prince then being no longer in danger from the tigress returned to his father’s palace.