Stray leaves from strange literature; and, Fantastics and other fancies

by Lafcadio Hearn

And Madhusudam, astonished and wroth, answered: "How dost thou dare ask me why I do not eat? How might any being, excepting a Rakshasa, eat in the house of one by whom such a demon-deed hath been committed?"

But the Brahman smiled, and rose up and went to another part of the house, and returned speedily with a book of incantations—a book of the science of resurrection. And he read but one incantation therefrom, when, lo! the boy that had been burned came alive and unscorched from the fire, and ran to his mother, crying and clinging to her dress as before.

Then Madhusudam thought within himself: "Had I that wondrous book, how readily might I restore my beloved to life!" And he sat down again, and, having finished his repast, remained in that house as a guest. But in the middle of the night he arose stealthily, and purloined the magical book, and fled away to his own city.

And after many days he went upon a pilgrimage of love to the place where the body of Madhumalati had been burned (for it was the anniversary of her death), and arriving he found that the other two who had been betrothed to her were also there before him. And lifting up their voices, they cried out: "O Madhusudam! thou hast been gone many years and hast seen much. What hast thou learned of science?"

But he answered: "I have learned the science that restores the dead to life." Then they prayed him, saying, "Revive thou Madhumalati!" And he told them: "Gather ye her bones together, and her ashes, and I will give her life."

And they having so done, Madhusudam produced the book and read a charm therefrom; and the heap of ashes and cindered bones shaped itself to the command, and changed color, and lived, and became a beautiful woman, sweet as a jasmine-flower—Madhumalati even as she was before the snake had bitten her!

But the three youths, beholding her smile, were blinded by love, so that they began to wrangle fiercely together for the sake of her....

Then the Demon said: "O Vikramaditya! to which of these was she wife? Answer rightly, lest I devour thee."

And the king answered: "Truly she was the wife of him who had collected her ashes, and taken them with him into the recesses of the forest, where he built a hut and dwelt alone with the memory of her."

"Nay!" said the Demon; "how could she have been restored to life had not the other also preserved her bones? and despite the piety of those two, how could she have been resurrected but for the third?"

But the king replied: "Even as the son's duty is to preserve the bones of his parents, so did he who preserved the bones of Madhumalati stand to her only in the place of a son. Even as a father giveth life, so did he who reanimated Madhumalati stand to her only in the place of a father. But he who collected her ashes and took them with him into the recesses of the forest, where he built a hut and dwelt alone with the memory of her, he was truly her lover and rightful husband."

...Many other hard questions the Demon also asked, concerning men who by magic turned themselves into women, and concerning corpses animated by evil spirits; but the king answered all of them save one, which indeed admitted of no answer:

O Vikramaditya, when Mahabal was rajah of Dharmpur, another monarch strove against him, and destroyed his army in a great battle, and slew him. And the wife and daughter of the dead king fled to the forest for safety, and wandered there alone. At that time the rajah Chandrasen was hunting in the forest, and his son with him; and they beheld the prints of women's feet upon the ground. Then said Chandrasen: "Surely the feet of those who have passed here are delicate and beautiful, like those of women; yet I marvel exceedingly that there should be women in this desolate place. Let us pursue after them; and if they be beautiful, I shall take to wife her whose feet have made the smallest of these tracks, and thou shalt wed the other."

So they came up with the women, and were much charmed with their beauty; and the rajah Chandrasen married the daughter of the dead Mahabal, and Chandrasen's son took Mahabat's widow to wife. So that the father married the daughter of the mother, and the son the mother of the daughter...