The account given to me is as follows:—[The Paṇḍitayā said,] “O Lord, Your Majesty, I myself will tell you a story, be pleased to hear it.” Having said this he began thus:—“At a time, at a city a widow-mother reared a Mungus. The widow-mother alone takes firewood and water home. One day the woman having placed her child in the house, while the Mungus stays there she went for firewood. Having gone for firewood, when she was returning, the Mungus,[2] having blood smeared on its body and head, came in front of the widow-woman. The woman thought that having indeed bitten her child it came here. At the time when through anger at it she struck the Mungus with the firewood sticks that were in her hand, causing it to fall, it died.
“When she came home, having seen that the Mungus had bitten in pieces a Polan̆gā which came to bite (lit., eat) the child, she said, ‘Anē! If not for my Mungus the Polan̆gā would have bitten my child. Now, not making inquiry I killed the Mungus, the Mungus!’ and having become grieved she died. After her death the child also died.”
P. B. Madahapola, Raṭēmahatmayā, North-western Province.
In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 213, Mr. H. A. Pieris gave this story, the widow killing the Mungus with the rice pestle, and in the end committing suicide.
In the Hitōpadēśa and Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 300, the story is similar, the owner of the animal being a Brāhmaṇa, who was overwhelmed with grief when he realised what he had done.
Regarding the supposed enmity between the Cobra and Polan̆gā, Capt. R. Knox wrote, “if the Polonga and the Noya meet together, they cease not fighting till one hath kill’d the other.” (Hist. Rel., p. 29.) In my own experience I have seen nothing to support this belief; but as both snakes live on similar food it is probable that on their casually meeting when in search of it the stronger or fiercer one will drive the other away, and occasionally this may result in a fight.