Folklore of the Santal Parganas

by Cecil Henry Bompas

So then the jackal hurried back and turned them all away and Jogeshwar reached the palace, accompanied only by his palki bearers.

Before the wedding feast, the jackal gave Jogeshwar some hints as to his behaviour. He warned him that three of four kinds of meat and vegetables would be handed round with the rice, and bade him to be sure to help himself from each dish—of course in his own house the poor weaver had never had more than one dish to eat with his rice—and when pan was handed to him after the feast he was not to take any until he had a handful of money given him; by such behaviour he would lead every one to think that he was really a prince. Jogeshwar did exactly as he was told and was thought a very grand personage.

The next evening Jogeshwar set off homewards with his bride, the bride’s brothers and attendants accompanying them. They travelled on and on till the bride’s party began to grow tired and kept asking the jackal how much further they had to go. The jackal kept on putting them off, till at last they came in sight of a grove of palm trees, and he told them that Raja Jogeshwar’s palace stood among the palm trees but was so old and weather worn that it could not be seen from a distance.

When they reached the palm grove and found nothing but Jogeshwar’s humble hut, the bride’s brothers turned on the jackal and asked what he meant by deceiving them. The jackal protested that he had told no lies: the weaver ate every day off plates made of dry leaves and threw them away when done with and that was all he meant when he talked of golden plates. At this excuse they turned on him and wanted to beat him, but he ran away and escaped.

The bride’s friends went back and told the Raja how things had turned out and as divorce was not lawful for them, the Raja could only send for his daughter and her husband and give them an estate to live on.

LVI. The Strong Man.

There was once a Strong man but no one knew of his strength. He was in the service of a farmer who made him headman over all his labourers. In those days much of the country was still covered with jungle. One day the farmer chose a piece of forest land which he thought suitable for cultivation and told his labourers to set to work and clear it, and as usual after giving his orders he troubled himself no more about the matter, as he could fully rely on the Strong man.

The next morning, the Strong man set the other labourers to work ploughing a field and then said that he would go and have a look at the jungle which his master wanted cleared. So he went off alone with only a stick in his hand. When he reached the place, he walked all round it, and saw how much could be made into good arable land, and then he began to clear it. He pulled up the trees by the roots and piled them into a heap and he took the rocks and threw them to one side and made the ground quite clear and smooth, and then went back to the house. On being asked why he had been so long away, he answered that he had been pulling up a few bushes at the place which was to be cleared.

The following morning the Strong man told the farm labourers to take their ploughs to the clearing and begin to plough it. When the farmer heard this, he was puzzled to think how the land could be ready for ploughing so soon, and went to see it and to his amazement found the whole land cleared, every tree pulled up by the roots and all the rocks removed.