Tales of the Punjab: Folklore of India

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

'Fair sisters!' quoth Rasâlu gaily, 'give me my task and I will perform it.'

So the sixty-nine maidens mixed a hundredweight of millet seed with a hundredweight of sand, and giving it to Rasâlu, bade him separate the seed from the sand.

Then he bethought him of the cricket, and drawing the feeler from his pocket, thrust it into the fire. And immediately there was a whirring noise in the air, and a great flight of crickets alighted beside him, and among them the cricket whose life he had saved.

Then Rasâlu said, 'Separate the millet seed from the sand.'

'Is that all?' quoth the cricket; 'had I known how small a job you wanted me to do, I would not have assembled so many of my brethren.'

With that the flight of crickets set to work, and in one night they separated the seed from the sand.

Now when the sixty-nine fair maidens, daughters of the King, saw that Rasâlu had performed his task, they set him another, bidding him swing them all, one by one, in their swings, until they were tired.

Whereupon he laughed, saying, 'There are seventy of you, counting my little bride yonder, and I am not going to spend my life in swinging girls; yet, by the time I have given each of you a swing, the first will be wanting another! No! if you want to swing, get in, all seventy of you, into one swing, and then I will see what I can compass.'

So the seventy maidens, merry and careless, full of smiles and laughter, climbed into the one swing, and Raja Rasâlu, standing in his shining armour, fastened the ropes to his mighty bow, and drew it up to its fullest bent. Then he let go, and like an arrow the swing shot into the air, with its burden of seventy fair maidens, merry and careless, full of smiles and laughter.

But as it swung back again, Rasâlu, standing there in his shining armour, drew his sharp sword and severed the ropes. Then the seventy fair maidens fell to the ground headlong; and some were bruised and some broken, but the only one who escaped unhurt was the maiden who loved Rasâlu, for she fell out last, on the top of the others, and so came to no harm.