The boy says, “I cannot in that way; first take me out,” he says.
In that manner there is a struggle of the two persons there. At the time when they are going on struggling in that way, anger having come to the soothsayer he moved the door, for it to shut. Then the boy having got into the middle of [the doorway] the door shut. The soothsayer went away.
While the boy quite alone is wriggling and wriggling about there, in some way or other again, as it was at first the door of the hidden treasure opened. The boy placing the lamp on his shoulder and having become very tired, [carried away and] put the lamp and book in his house; and because of too much weariness fell down and went to sleep.
The soothsayer went to his village.
Western Province.
This appears to be the first part of the story of Ala-addin, transformed into a Sinhalese folk-tale; but the variant quoted below shows that the general idea is of much older date and of Indian origin. A variant from the Ūva Province is nearly the same, and also ends with the boy’s return home.
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 558, an ascetic induced a King to join him in obtaining a magical sword. Accompanied by the King, the ascetic went at night, and in the King’s words, “having by means of a burnt-offering and other rites discovered an opening in the earth, the ascetic said to me, ‘Hero, enter thou first, and after thou hast obtained the sword, come out, and cause me also to enter; make a compact with me to do this.’ ” The King entered, found a palace of jewels, and “the chief of the Asura maidens who dwelt there” gave him a sword, the possession of which conferred the power of flying through the air and bestowed “all magical faculties.” The ascetic took it from him afterwards, but the King at last recovered it.
[1] The son’s father’s brothers are called his fathers in Sinhalese, the father’s sisters being, however, his aunts, not mothers. [↑]