[1] Called also, “The Deer and the Girl and Nikini.” [↑]
[2] An expression often used in village talk, without any connexion with its literal meaning, “O demon.” “Fellow!” nearly expresses its ordinary meaning, which is less respectful than that of the word Bola. [↑]
No. 51
The Aet-kanda Lēniyā[1]
At a certain city there are the King and the Queen, it is said. They had one son, and while the Prince was living there the Queen bore yet [another] Prince.
One day the two Princes having gone to the river to bathe, a Princess from another city came to bathe [at the same place], and the eldest Prince hid the robes of the Princess. Afterwards, on his inviting the Princess she went with the Prince to his city.
After they had gone there, when the King got to know of it he said, “Should this rascal stay with me the kingdom will be destroyed,” and he ordered them to behead the Prince. Then the Queen, the Prince’s mother, having cooked a bundle of rice and given it to him, said, “Go away where you like [or the King will behead you].”
The Prince having taken the packet of cooked rice to the river, ate it with the Princess. After eating it the two persons went to the house of a widow woman. The Prince made the Princess stay with her, and having given the Princess’s robes into the hands of the widow woman, said, “Mother, put those robes into that box and this box” (that is, here and there, not all in one place, so that the Princess should not be able to find them).