In The Jātaka, No. 98 (vol. i, p. 239), a man in order to cheat his partner got his father to enter a hollow tree, and personate a Tree-Sprite who was supposed to occupy it. When the matter in dispute was referred to this deity, the father gave a decision in favour of his son.
In The Adventures of Rājā Rasālu (Swynnerton), p. 138, a man whose wife absented herself every night, followed her and discovered that she prayed at the grave of a fakīr that her husband might become blind. He hid himself in the shrine, and on the next night told her that if she fed her husband with sweet pudding and roast fowl he would be blind in a week; he then hurried home before her. Next morning she remarked that he was very thin and that she must feed him well; he acquiesced and was duly fed on the two dishes. He first stated that his eyes were getting dim, and after the seventh day that he was quite blind. Her paramour now began to visit the house openly. One day the man saw his wife hide him in a roll of matting; he tied it up, and saying he would go to Mecca, shouldered it and left. He met another man similarly cheated, and they agreed to let the lovers go.
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 40, after two brothers buried at the foot of a tree two thousand gold dīnārs, one of them secretly carried them off,[5] and afterwards charged the other with stealing them. As the King could not decide the case, the thief claimed that the tree at which the money was buried would give evidence for him. The question was put to it next day and a voice replied that the innocent brother took the money; but when the officers applied smoke to the hollow the father who was hidden there fell out and died, so the thief was punished by mutilation.
In Folk-Tales of the Telugus (G. R. Subramiah Pantulu), p. 28, there is a similar story in which the thief was sentenced to pay the whole amount to the other man.
In the Kolhān folk-tales (Bompas) appended to Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 482, a Potter’s wife whom a Raja advised to kill her husband, set up a figure of a deity in her house, and prayed daily to it that the man might become blind and die. On overhearing her, the Potter hid behind the figure, said her prayer was granted, and predicted that he would be blind in two days. When he feigned blindness she sent for the Raja, who together with the woman was killed at night by him, and his corpse placed in a neighbour’s vegetable garden. Towards morning the neighbour saw an apparent thief, struck him on the head, and discovered he had killed the Raja. He consulted the Potter and by his advice placed the body among some buffaloes, where their owner knocked it over as a milk thief, and after consulting the Potter threw it into a well. It was discovered there and cremated.
In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 247, a smith was the hero in place of the Potter. The body of a Prince was left at three houses in turn, the last householder being imprisoned.
In Santal Folk Tales (Campbell), p. 100, a man whose wife died left her corpse in a wheat field, tied in a bag loaded on a bullock, and got hid. When the field owner thrashed the bullock the man came forward, charged him with killing his sick wife, and received six maunds of rupees as hush money. The standard maund being one of 40 sers, each of 80 tolas or rupee-weights (Hobson-Jobson), this would be 19,200 rupees.
Regarding the black fowls, Bernier stated that in India there was “a small hen, delicate and tender, which I call Ethiopian, the skin being quite black” (Travels, Constable’s translation, p. 251). In a note, the translator added the remarks of Linschoten (1583–1589) on Mozambique fowls:—“There are certain hennes that are so blacke both of feathers, flesh, and bones, that being sodden they seeme as black as ink; yet of very sweet taste, and are accounted better than the other; whereof some are likewise found in India, but not so many as in Mossambique” (Voyage, i, 25, 26. Hakluyt Soc.).
[1] A breed of black fowls is considered to have the tenderest flesh of all; the flesh is very white, but the bones are black on the surface. [↑]