Folklore of the Santal Parganas

by Cecil Henry Bompas

“If she consents to marry me I will give it:

If she consents I will put it in her hand.”

And as he did not listen to the father and mother, her father’s younger brother and his wife sang the same song, but in vain; and then the girl herself begged for it, and thereupon the monkey let down one end of the cloth to her; and when she caught hold of it, he pulled her up into the tree, and there made her put on her cloth and ran off with her on his back.

The girl was quite willing to go with him and called out as she was carried away: “Never mind, father and mother, I am going away.” The Hanuman took her to a cave in the mountains and they lived on fruit,—mangoes or jack or whatever fruit was in season. The monkey climbed the trees and shook the fruit down; but if the girl saw by the marks of teeth that the monkey had bitten off any fruit, instead of only shaking it down, she would not eat it, and pretended that she had had enough; for she would not eat the leavings of the monkey.

At last the girl got tired of having only fruit to eat; and demanded rice. So the monkey took her to a bazar, and leaving her on the outskirts of the village under a tree, he went and stole some pots from a potter and rice and salt and turmeric and pulse and sweetmeats from other shops, and brought them to the girl. Then she collected sticks and lit a fire and cooked a meal; and the monkey liked the cooked food, and asked her to cook for him every day. So they stayed there several days. Then the girl asked for more clothes and the monkey tried to steal them too, but the shopkeepers were on the watch and drove him away.

The girl soon got tired of sleeping under a tree so they went back to the cave and the monkey gathered mangoes and jackfruit and told her to go and sell them in the market and then she would be able to buy cloth. But when she had sold the fruit, she stayed in the village and took service with a well-to-do shopkeeper, and never returned to the monkey. The monkey watched for her and searched for her in vain, and returned sorrowfully to his hill; but the girl stayed on in the village and eventually married one of the villagers.

LXXI. Lakhan and the Wild Buffaloes.

Once upon a time there was the only son of a widow, who used to tend the sheep and goats of a Raja and his name was Lakhan. One day he harnessed one of the goats to a plough and ploughed up a piece of high land and sowed hemp there. The crop grew finely, but one night a herd of wild buffaloes came and ate it all up; at this Lakhan resolved to pursue the buffaloes and shoot them.

His mother did all she could to dissuade him but he made up a bundle of provisions, and set off on his journey with a stick, and a bow and arrows, and a flute made of the castor oil plant. He tracked the buffaloes for some days and one evening he came to the house of an old witch (hutibudhi) and he went up to it and asked the witch if he might sleep there. She answered “My house is rough and dirty, but you can choose a corner to sleep in; I can give you nothing more, as I have not a morsel of food in the house.” “Then,” said he, “I must go to bed hungry” and he lay down supperless.