The Prince asked, “What art thou saying?” and gave the letter to the Rākshasī, and asked for the medicine for the eyes. After reading the letter the Rākshasī prepared abundant food for him, and gave him lodgings that day.
Next day, showing him a tree, she said, “After you have rubbed the juice of this tree on the eyes of the persons who are blind, their eyes will become well.”
The Prince said, “If so, tie a little of it in a packet and give me it.” So the Rākshasī having tied up a packet of it gave him it.
Then the Prince having taken it back, rubbed it on the eyes of those seven persons, and their eyes became well.
Afterwards, the Prince having gone with them to the city where he killed the Yakā, married the Princess, and remained there.
North-western Province.
This story does not appear to have been met with among the people of Southern India, but variants are well-known in other parts of the country. In all these forms of the tale the wicked Rākshasa Queen is killed.
In Indian Fairy Stories (Ganges Valley), by Miss Stokes, there are two variants, pp. 51 and 176. In both, a demoness or Rākshasī whom the King married induced him to cause the eyes of his other seven Queens to be plucked out, and six of the infants whom they bore were eaten, the seventh being saved as in Ceylon.
In one story the boy was sent for the milk of a tigress, an eagle’s feather, and night-growing rice; in the other he went for rose-water, flowers, and a dress. A friendly Fakīr in one tale, and a Princess in the other, substituted other letters for those in which the demons or ogres were instructed to kill him, so that he was well received and succeeded in his errands. In one case he got the blind Queens’ eyes, and ointment to make them as before; in the other he brought back magic water that cured them.