While they were going in the midst of a forest, the Vaeddā King who dwelt in that forest saw this Glass Princess. In order to take possession of the Princess, he seized the three persons, and having put them in a house, prepared to kill the Prince.
So the Glass Princess, knowing this, became a mare, and placing the Prince on her back, and telling the other Princess to hang by her tail, went through the sky, and descended near another city. Having gone to the city and taken labourers, they engaged in rice cultivation. When they had been there a little while the King of the city died.
After his death they decorated the royal tusk elephant, and set off with it in search of a new King. While they were going along taking it through the streets, the elephant went and knelt near this Prince. Then all the men having made obeisance, and caused the Prince to bathe, placing the Prince and the two Queens on the back of the elephant, went and stopped at the palace, and he became King.
When he had been ruling a little time, there was no rain at the city of the King the Prince’s father, and that country became abandoned. Those six Princes and their six Queens, and his father the King, and his mother, all these persons, being reduced to poverty, came to an almshouse which this King had established, bringing firewood to sell.
There this King having seen them, recognising them, came back after summoning his father the King, and his mother, to the palace. He told them, “Because those six elder brothers and their six Queens tried to kill me in order that my elder brothers might seize and carry off the Glass Princess, I came away from the city, and was seized by a Vaeddā King, but I escaped and came here.” Then saying, “There is the place where I was cultivating rice. Go there, and cultivate rice and eat,” he sent the brothers to that place. Having sent them, he gave them this advice: “For the crime that you tried to commit by killing me, that has befallen you. Therefore behave well now.”
After that, his father the King, his mother the Queen, the King and the two Queens, those five persons, remained at the palace.
North-central Province.
Although the whole story apparently has not been found in India, several of the incidents in it occur in Indian folk-tales.
I have not met with the marriage to the sword in them, but in The Indian Antiquary, vol. xx, p. 423, it is stated by Mr. Prendergast that in southern India, among two Telugu castes, “the custom of sending a sword to represent an unavoidably absent bridegroom at a wedding is not uncommon. It is considered allowable among other Hindus also.”