Having said, “It is good,” the mother-in-law, having gone taking her daughter-in-law, and having put her on the pile of firewood, set fire [to it].
At that time, “Apoyi! I indeed cannot stay,” she cried when she began to burn.
Thereupon her mother-in-law cries out, “Hā! Hā! Don’t cry out. Should you cry out you will not receive the goods. While you were burning me did I also cry out? Anē! Because you are stronger than I, [after] making a great many articles into bundles come back,” she said. In this manner having told and told her, and having burnt the daughter-in-law, the mother-in-law went home.
After a few days had gone, her son asks, “Mother, you by this time came bringing the goods. This giantess[8] has not [come] yet; what is that for?” he asked.
She said, “No, son; she is staying to bring a great many goods.”
Having waited, one day the son having thoroughly tied the mother to kill her, on account of the manner in which he accepted the daughter-in-law’s word, she said, “Why, Bola, fool! Dead men having arisen from the dead, will there be a country also to which they come?[9] I came in this manner,” and having told her whole story, and employed her son, they went taking a great many carts, and brought to the village the whole of the goods that were in the above-mentioned rock house.
After that, this son contracted another marriage. Having seen his wealthiness, the King of that country gave him a post as Treasurer.[10]
Western Province.
This is also a folk-tale called “The Wicked Daughter-in-law,” in the North-western Province, the parents of the young man being a Gamarāla and Gama-Mahagē. The wife wished to kill her mother-in-law because the latter and her own mother were quarrelling. She and her husband threw the first bed into a forest pool (eba). The incident of the return of the robbers to the cave where they had hidden their plunder is omitted; the Mahagē simply put on a number of silver and gold articles and carried home a bundle of others, including necklaces and corals. She told her daughter-in-law that there were many more at the burial ground, and the latter went to fetch them. When she arrived there she saw a fresh corpse, and became so much afraid that she fainted, and fell down and died.