To European folk-tales the longer legends of the Kahgyur bear but little resemblance, though many of the fables about animals, and other short stories towards the end of the present volume, have their counterparts in the West. Here and there, however, even in the long narratives of the legendary class, certain features may be recognised as being common to both Europe and Asia. The moral of King Māndhātar’s story (No. 1), for instance, seems to be identical, different as is its machinery, with that of a story which is current in many Western lands. That monarch, after conquering the whole earth, ascends into the heavenly home of the thirty-three gods, and is allowed to share the throne of their chief, Śakra or Indra. But at last he wishes for too much. “He came to the conclusion that he must expel the king of the gods, Śakra, from his throne, and take into his own hands the government of both gods and men.” As soon as he had conceived this idea, “the great King Māndhātar came to the end of his good fortune,” and soon afterwards he died. The most familiar form of the European story, which inculcates a similar moral teaching, is the German tale of “The Fisherman and his Wife” (the 19th of Grimm’s Collection). In it, a grateful fish for a long time accedes to every desire expressed by the fisherman. He and his wife become first rich, then noble, and eventually royal. But the fisherman’s wife is not satisfied with being a queen. She wishes to be the Pope, and the fish fulfils her desire. Even then she is discontented, and at last she demands to be made God. When the fish is told this [[xxxvii]]by her husband, it replies, “Go back, and you will find her in her hovel.” The fisherman’s good fortune has come to an end. He and his wife are poor folks once more. In a Hesse variant the husband’s final wish is, “Let me be God, and my wife the Mother of God.”[30]
A curious parallel to one of the incidents in King Māndhātar’s story is afforded by a Polynesian myth. On the crown of King Utposhadha’s head, according to the Tibetan tale, “there grew a very soft tumour, somewhat resembling a cushion of cotton or wool, without doing him any harm. When it had become quite ripe and had broken, there came forth from it a boy, shapely and handsome.” Mr. Gill tells us in his interesting “Myths and Songs from the South Pacific” (p. 10), that Tangaroa and Rongo were the children of Vātea, the father of gods and men, and his wife Papa. “Tangaroa should have been born first, but gave precedence to his brother Rongo. A few days after the birth of Rongo, his mother Papa suffered from a very large boil on her arm. She resolved to get rid of it by pressing it. The core accordingly flew out; it was Tangaroa! Another account, equally veracious, says that Tangaroa came right up through Papa’s head. The precise spot is indicated by ‘the crown’ with which all their descendants have since been born.” Professor Schiefner mentions that a suggestion has been made to the effect that “the name of Utposhadha may be a transformation of the Greek Hephæstus, though the part which the latter plays in the Greek myth at the birth of Athene is of a different nature.” But this seems to be going unnecessarily far.
The story of Kuśa, No. 2, may be linked with the numerous European variants of the tale which we know so well under the title of “Beauty and the Beast.” The principal feature of that tale is the union of a beautiful maiden with a monster of some kind, whose monstrosity is eventually [[xxxviii]]cured by her love and devotion. The Beast with whom the Beauty is linked is generally a supernatural monster, and possesses the power of at times divesting itself of its monstrous or bestial envelope or husk, and appearing in its real form as a fairy prince or other brilliant being. It is, as a general rule, only at night in the dark that this transformation takes place. In some cases, as in the Cupid and Psyche story, the wife is forbidden to look upon her husband. He visits her only in utter darkness. But in many versions of the story she is allowed to see her pseudo-monster in all his brilliant beauty. He is often a deity, whom some superior divinity has degraded from the sky and compelled to live upon earth under a monstrous shape. One day the wife lays her hands on her husband’s monstrous envelope or husk and destroys it. The spell being thus broken, the husband either flies away to heaven or remains living on earth in uninterrupted beauty.
In some of the European variants, the original idea having apparently been forgotten, the transformation appears not only grotesque but unreasonable. Thus in a Wallachian tale (Schott, No. 23), a princess is married to “a pumpkin,” or at least to a youth who is a pumpkin by day. Wishing to improve her husband, she one day puts him in the oven and bakes him, whereupon he disappears for ever. In a German story (Grimm, No. 127), a princess who has lost her way in a wood is induced to marry an iron stove. But the disfiguring “husk” is in most cases the hide or skin of some inferior animal, an ass, a monkey, a frog, or the like, or else the outside of a hideous man. Sometimes it is a brilliant female being who is after this fashion “translated.” Thus an Indian story[31] tells of a prince who was obliged to take a monkey as his wife. But when she liked she could slip out of her monkey skin and appear as a beautiful woman arrayed in the most magnificent apparel. She adjured her husband to take [[xxxix]]great care of her “husk” during her absence from it. But one day he burnt it, hoping to force her to be always beautiful. She shrieked “I burn!” and disappeared. In a Russian variant of the same story a prince is compelled to marry a frog, which is “held in a bowl” while the marriage service is being performed. But when it so pleases her, his frog-wife “flings off her skin and becomes a fair maiden.” One day he burns her “husk,” and she disappears. In the Tibetan story of Kuśa, the “Beast” is merely an ugly man disfigured by “the eighteen signs of uncomeliness.”[32] On that account it was decided that “he must never be allowed to approach his wife by daylight.” But she caught sight of him one day, and her suspicions were aroused. So she hid away a lighted lamp in her room, uncovered it suddenly when her husband was with her, shrieked out that he was a demon, and fled away. After a time, however, won by his military reputation, she said to herself, “As this youth Kuśa is excellently endowed with boldness and courage, why should I dislike him?” And straightway “she took a liking for him,” just as the Beauty of the fairy-tale did for the Beast. It may be worth noticing that the conch-shell which Kuśa sounds with such force that the ears of his enemies are shattered, and they are either killed or put to flight, finds a Russian parallel in the whistle employed by the brigand Solovei, or Nightingale, whom Ilya of Murom overcomes. In the builmas, or Russian metrical romances, he often figures; and when he sounds his whistle his enemies fall to the ground, nearly or quite dead.
No. 3, which chronicles some of the wise judgments of King Ādarśamukha, comprises two different stories—the first narrating the ingenuity with which the king satisfied the demands of a number of complainants without injuring the man who had involuntarily given rise to their complaints; [[xl]]the second describing a journey made by a traveller who was commissioned by various persons, animals, or other objects, passed by him on his way, to ask certain questions on his arrival at his destination. The latter story is one which is familiar to Eastern Europe. In one of its Russian variants a peasant hospitably receives an old beggar, who adopts him as his brother, and invites him to pay him a visit. On his way to the beggar’s home, he is appealed to by children, who say, “Christ’s brother, ask Christ whether we must suffer here long.” Later on, girls engaged in ladling water from one well into another beg him to ask the same question on their account. When he arrives at his journey’s end he becomes aware that his beggar friend is Christ himself; and he is informed that the children he had passed on the way had been cursed by their mothers while still unborn, and so were unable to enter Paradise; and the girls had, while they were alive, adulterated the milk they sold with water, and were therefore condemned to an eternal punishment resembling that of the Danaides (Afanasief, “Legendui,” No. 8). The judgments attributed in the Tibetan tale to King Ādarśamukha, and in another Tibetan work, the “Dsanglun” (as Professor Schiefner has remarked) to King Mdges-pa, form the subject of a story well known in Russia under the title of “Shemyakin Sud,” or “Shemyaka’s Judgment.” It exists there as a folk-tale, but it belongs to what may be called the chap-book literature of the country, and it is derived from literary sources. A variant given by Afanasief (“Skazki,” v., No. 19) closely resembles part of the Tibetan tale. A poor man borrowed from his rich brother a pair of oxen, with which he ploughed his plot of ground. Coming away from the field he met an old man, who asked to whom the oxen belonged. “To my brother,” was the reply. “Your brother is rich and stingy,” said the old man; “choose which you will, either his son shall die or his oxen.” The poor man thought and thought. He was sorry both for the oxen and for his brother’s son. [[xli]]At last he said, “Better let the oxen die.” “Be it as you wish,” said the old man. When the poor man reached his home the oxen suddenly fell down dead. The rich brother accused him of having worked them to death, and carried him off to the king. On his way to the king’s court the poor man, according to the chap-book version (“Skazki,” viii. p. 325), accidentally sat down upon a baby and killed it, and tried to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge, but only succeeded in crushing an old man whose son was taking him into the river for a bath. He had also had the misfortune to pull off a horse’s tail without meaning it. When summoned into court for all these involuntary offences, he took a stone in his pocket tied up in a handkerchief, and stealthily produced it when he was had up before the judge, saying to himself, “If the judge goes against me I will kill him with this.” The judge fancied that the stone was a bribe of a hundred roubles which the defendant wished to offer him; so he gave judgment in his favour in each case. The poor man was to keep his brother’s horse until its tail grew again, and to marry the woman whose child he had crushed, and to stand under the bridge from which he had jumped and allow the son of the man he had killed to jump off the bridge on to him. The owner of the horse, the husband of the woman, and the son of the crushed man were all glad to buy off the culprit whom they had brought up for judgment. The satirical turn of the story and the allusion to bribe-taking are characteristic features of the Russian variants of this well-known Eastern tale. The Russian story takes its title from the notorious injustice and oppression of Prince Demetrius Shemyaka, who blinded his cousin, Vasily II., Grand Prince of Moscow, and for a time usurped his throne. To this day an unjust legal decision is known as a Shemyaka judgment. But in the Eastern versions of the story, which are numerous, there is no mention of injustice; stupidity, however, is sometimes attributed by them to the judge. Thus in the [[xlii]]Kathá Sarit Ságara[33] the story of Devabhúti tells how the excellent wife of the learned Brahman of that name “went into the kitchen garden to get vegetables, and saw a donkey belonging to a washerman eating them. So she took up a stick and ran after the donkey, and the animal fell into a pit as it was trying to escape and broke its hoof. When its master heard of that, he came in a passion and beat with a stick and kicked the Brahman woman. Accordingly she, being pregnant, had a miscarriage, but the washerman returned home with his donkey. Then her husband, hearing of it, came home after bathing, and, after seeing his wife, went in his distress and complained to the chief magistrate of the town. The foolish man immediately had the washerman, whose name was Balásura, brought before him, and, after hearing the pleadings of both parties, delivered this judgment: ‘Since the donkey’s hoof is broken, let the Bráhman carry the donkey’s load for the washerman until the donkey is again fit for work, and let the washerman make the Bráhman’s wife pregnant again, since he made her miscarry. Let this be the punishment of the two parties respectively.’ When the Bráhman heard this, he and his wife in their despair took poison and died. And when the king heard of it, he put to death that inconsiderate judge.”
As they deal with the subject of wise judgment, the seventh and eighth stories may be spoken of next. One of them describes the cleverness of a girl, the other that of a lad. Each of them is very popular in the East, and both of them find more or less complete counterparts in the West. There is a well-known group of folk-tales familiar to most European and Asiatic lands, the theme of which is the sharpness of a woman’s wits. Just as there thrive among the common people of all countries many jeers and flouts against women, such as the proverbs [[xliii]]“A woman’s hair is long, but her mind is short,” and “A woman is worse than a dog, for it does not bark at its master,” or stories illustrative of a wife’s obstinacy, folly, or perfidy, so there flourish by their side numerous popular arguments in favour of women, generally conveyed in the form of stories. In the Perso-Turkish story-book of “The Forty Viziers,” a tale accusing women frequently alternates with one told in their defence. The framework of the collection is as follows:—A wicked queen calumniates her stepson as Phædra calumniated Hippolytus. His father sentences him to death. But the forty ministers intercede for him, each of them daily telling a tale of which the aim generally is to show how little reliance can be placed on a woman. Each night the queen tells a story which is usually of quite the opposite tendency, pointing out that men are miserable creatures, and that they are morally inferior to women. At the end of the forty days and nights, the prince is allowed to speak in his own defence (having been during that period prohibited by the astrologers from opening his lips), and all goes well. Among encomiums upon women, the story of Viśākhā (forming No. 7 of the present collection and a part of No. 8) is entitled to rank high. Her discretion, intelligence, and thoughtfulness for others, entitle her to an honourable place among the heroines of popular fiction. One of her decisions of a knotty legal point is specially interesting, as it belongs to the cycle of which Solomon’s judgments in the case of the two disputing mothers is the best known example. The actual mother and the adopted mother of a boy dispute as to which is really his mother. The point is legally important, for with the possession of the boy goes that of his deceased father’s homestead. The case is referred to the king, whose ministers investigate it, but in vain. At length Viśākhā is consulted. She replies, “What need is there of investigation? Speak to the two women thus: ‘As we do not know to which of you two the boy belongs, let who is the strongest take the [[xliv]]boy.’ When each of them has laid hold of one of the boy’s hands and he begins to cry out on account of the pain, the real mother will let go, being full of compassion for him, and knowing that if her child remains alive she will be able to see it again. But the other, who has no compassion for him, will not let go.”[34] Professor Schiefner has called attention in a note to the article in “Ausland” by the late Professor Benfey on the somewhat similar tale of “Die Kluge Dirne,” and to the variant of the Viśākhā story given in Mr. Spence Hardy’s “Manual of Buddhism.” There is a well-known folk-tale about a woman’s intelligence, of which the Russian variant may be cited here. It is the 6th of Khudyakoff’s collection of “Great Russian Popular Tales” (Moscow, 1860). A peasant girl was so intelligent that she solved all the problems proposed to her by a certain judge. Charmed by her cleverness, he married her. But he stipulated that if she ever found fault with any of his legal decisions she was to be divorced, and was bound to return at once to her father’s cottage. Only she was to be allowed to take away with her whatever thing she liked best in her husband’s house. All went well for some time with the judge and his clever wife. At length she heard him deliver a preposterous judgment in court, and she could not help protesting against it. Accordingly she was ordered to return to her father’s hut. She obeyed, but she took with her the judge, to whom she had administered so much liquor before leaving, that she was able to drive him in a cart tranquilly sleeping. When he awoke, and found himself in his father-in-law’s cottage, he naturally asked how he got there. “I brought you away with me,” replied the divorced wife. “You know I was entitled to take away whatever I liked best in your house, and I chose you.”[35] There is a very interesting story of the same kind in [[xlv]]Radloff’s great collection of songs and tales from Central Asia (“Proben der Volkslitteratur der türkischen Stämme Sud-Sibiriens,” vol. iii. pp. 347–354). There was once a choleric khan who understood the language of birds. He ordered his vizier one day to find out what two geese had said to each other as they flew past, threatening to put him to death if he failed to do so. The vizier applied for help to the khan’s wise daughter, who gave him the information he required. He promised not to mention his informant, but he broke his promise. The khan was so angry with his daughter, when he found out that it was she who had told the vizier what the geese had said, that he gave her in marriage to the most miserable specimen of humanity he could find. She proved an excellent wife to her unsightly and poverty-stricken husband, and he and she prospered in consequence.[36]
The story of the cleverness of Mahaushadha (No. 8) forms the counterpart of that of Viśākhā, who herself plays a part in the tale, which is told at somewhat tedious length. Some of its incidents will be familiar to readers of Western folk-tales. Professor Schiefner has called attention (in a footnote to page 129) to several variants of the story of the mystic fowl—sometimes a cock, sometimes a hen or goose, a layer of golden eggs—the eater of which is destined to become a king. It forms the opening of the German story of “The Two Brothers” (Grimm, No. 60, vol. iii. pp. 102–107); but in it the peculiarity of the bird is stated to be that the eating of its heart and liver enables the eater to become rich. Three Russian variants of the story are given by Afanasief in his collection of “Russian Popular Tales” (v., No. 53, viii., No. 26, and pp. 464–7). In all of them the eater of the bird or a part of it becomes a king. Many mythologists[37] recognise [[xlvi]]in the golden egg the Sun, which may be looked upon as a gleaming egg laid every morning by the brooding Night. But the king-making power attributed to the bird’s eaten flesh remains a mystery. In the story of Mahaushadha, the boy Bahvannapāna, who has eaten the head of the mystic cock, is elected king by the ministers at a certain court on account of his good looks. Having gone forth in search of some successor to their deceased monarch, they find him sleeping under a tree, “the shadow of which never moved from his body,” and they exclaim, “As he is extremely handsome, and is well provided with signs, we will invest him with the sovereignty.” In the East-European variants the fortunate youth is frequently chosen as king because his taper, when he takes one to church, kindles of its own accord. One of the tasks which Mahaushadha is called upon to execute by way of proving his cleverness is “to supply some rice which had not been crushed with a pestle, and yet was not uncrushed, and which had been cooked neither in the house nor out of the house, neither with fire nor yet without fire,” and to send it “neither along the road nor yet away from the road, without its being shone upon by the daylight, but yet not in the shade,” by a messenger who should be “not riding, but also not on foot” (page 139). Similar tests frequently appear in European folk-tales. Thus, in one of the Lithuanian Tales (Schleicher, No. 1), a gentleman promises to marry a village maiden if she can fulfil certain conditions, saying, “If you come to me neither clothed nor bare, not riding nor driving nor walking, not along the road, nor beside the road, nor on the footpath, in summer and likewise in winter, then will I marry you.” The abduction of the mule which was watched by five men (page 142), one of whom sat on its back while the others held its four legs, is evidently a reminiscence of an ingenious theft commemorated in many such stories as “The Master Thief” (Grimm, No. 192). But Mahaushadha’s contrivances for making the dog talk and for keeping [[xlvii]]the sheep thin (page 175) are novel. The latter, as a plan of working on the body through the eye, may be compared with Jacob’s use of the rods which he placed “in the watering-troughs when the flocks came to drink” (Genesis xxx. 38).
The “Clever Thief” (No. 4) is one of the numerous variants of the well-known story which we generally associate with the treasure of Rhampsinitos.[38] As Professor Schiefner has pointed out some of its Western parallels (pp. 37 and 43), it is not necessary to do more here than to add a few references to those which he has given. Professor Schiefner has himself written on the subject.[39] The most recent commentator is Professor G. Maspero, who has devoted to it four pages of the Introduction to his collection of ancient Egyptian tales.[40] The name of Rhampsinitos, he says, is a Greek form of the Egyptian name Ram-sis-si-nit, or Ramses the son of Nit. Two objections, he remarks, have been made to the supposition that the story is of Egyptian origin. One is the nature of the masonry employed by the builders of the treasury, which has been stated not to be in keeping with Egyptian architectural practice. The other is the shaving of the beards of the drunken soldiers who had been set to watch the corpse of the clever thief’s comrade. This has been said to be an incident evidently not of Egyptian origin, seeing that in Egypt only barbarians wore beards. But Professor Maspero impugns both objections. He shows that some Egyptian temples did actually possess hiding-places resembling that described in the story; and as regards the shaving, he points out that in the first place Egyptians could wear beards, and did wear them when they felt inclined, and that in the second [[xlviii]]place the soldiers who guarded the corpse would belong “to a tribe of Lybian origin of the name of Matiou,” and therefore be fully entitled, in their capacity of foreigners, to wear their beards. A modern Greek variant of the story has been lately discovered in Cyprus,[41] and Mr. Tawney has recently translated an Indian variant,[42] which offers a striking resemblance to the Gaelic tale of “The Shifty Lad.”[43] The Tibetan tale, however, is more nearly akin to the Egyptian form of the story than to that which it takes in this Indian variant.
The story of Prince Sudhana (No. 5) has several points in common with Western folk-tales. One of these is the capture by the hunter Phalaka of the celestial maiden, the Kinnarī Manoharā, who becomes Sudhana’s bride. This is effected by means of a “fast-binding chain” which the hunter throws around her when she is bathing in a lake. Her companions fly away heavenward, leaving her a captive on earth. This incident will at once remind the reader of the captures of “swan-maidens” and other supernatural nymphs, which so frequently occur in popular romance. It is usually the swan’s feather-dress or bird-husk on which the liberty of the captured maiden depends. While she is deprived of it she must live on earth as a mortal’s wife. But if she can recover it, she becomes a bird once more, and soars heavenward. Manoharā is captured by means of a magic chain. But her power of flying through the air depends upon her possession of a jewel. So long as she is without that, she remains a slave; when she recovers it, she becomes free and flies aloft.[44] Sudhana’s visit to the palace of his supernatural wife’s [[xlix]]father, and the task which is set him of recognising her amid her ladies, bear a strong resemblance to the adventures which befall the heroes of many tales current in Europe. A mortal youth often obtains, and then for a time loses, a supernatural wife, generally represented as the daughter of a malignant demon. He makes his way, like Sudhana, to the demon’s abode. There tasks are set him, which he accomplishes by means of his wife’s help. One of these is that he shall recognise her when surrounded by her numerous sisters, each of whom is exactly like her in appearance and dress. He calls upon her to step forth from among them; she does so, and the recognition takes place.
As a specimen of an European variant of the tale may be taken the Russian story of “The Water-King” (“Russian Folk-Tales,” No. 19). In it a prince steals the dress of one of the water-king’s twelve daughters while they are bathing. Her sisters become spoonbills and fly away, but she remains in his power till he restores her dress. Then she also flies away in spoonbill form. When he arrives after a time at her father’s palace, she aids him to accomplish the tasks which are set him. At last the water-king says, “Choose yourself a bride from among my twelve daughters. They are all exactly alike in face, in hair, and in dress. If you can pick out the same one three times running, she shall be your wife; if you fail to do so, I shall have you put to death.” The maiden whose dress he had stolen and restored enables him to succeed in this task also. The recognition of Sudhana by his wife, brought about by means of a ring, is an incident of which frequent use is made in folk-tales. When a demon’s daughter, or a princess who has been enslaved by a demon, has enabled a hero to escape along with her from that demon’s power, she often warns him that he will forget her if he, on his return home, kisses his mother (as in “Two Kings’ Children,” Grimm, No. 113), or does something else which he has been forbidden to do. He [[l]]always neglects the warning and forgets his wife. But eventually she manages to remind him of her existence, usually by means of a ring. In the similar story of “The Mastermaid” (“Tales from the Norse,” No. 11), the recognition is due to a golden apple and two golden fowls which the hero and heroine had carried off from a giant’s palace. In “The Battle of the Birds” (Campbell’s “West Highland Tales,” No. 2), the prince forgets the giant’s daughter after being kissed by “an old greyhound,” but remembers her when he hears a conversation between a golden pigeon and a silver pigeon which spring out of a glass offered to his forgotten love. Similar parallels to this story will be found in most of the large collections of European folk-tales.