In The Story of Madana Kāma Rāja (called by the translator, Paṇḍita Naṭēśa Sāstrī, The Dravidian Nights), p. 43, the Kings of Mathurāpurī and Vijayanagaram caused the portraits of their respective son and daughter to be painted, and sent envoys with them in search of royal persons resembling them. The envoys met at a river, exchanged pictures there, and returned to their masters, who were satisfied with the portraits, and caused the wedding of the Prince and Princess to be celebrated at the latter’s home, Vijayanagaram.
In the same work, p. 12, a Prince in the form of a parrot, which was confined in a cage in the sleeping apartment of a Princess, on two successive nights resumed his human form, and smeared sandal and scent over the Princess while she slept, and then became a parrot once more. On the third night she was awake, and he told her his history.
At page 103, also, the King of Udayagiri, father of a Prince who had run off when about to be beheaded, having been deprived of his kingdom by the King of the Oṭṭa country, was reduced to selling firewood for a living, together with his wife and six sons. They came for this purpose to the city over which the Prince had become sovereign, and were discovered by him and provided for.
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 93, a thief gained access to the bedroom of a Princess by means of a tunnel.
In Indian Fairy Tales (Thornhill), p. 122 ff., a Prince, riding a magical wooden horse, visited a Princess nightly while she was asleep, and pricking his arm each night, wrote “I love you,” in blood on her handkerchief. Although she tried to keep awake, for six nights after the first one she was asleep when he came. On the next night she scratched her finger with a needle and rubbed salt into the wound, so that the pain might keep her awake. When he entered the room she started up and inquired who he was, and how and why he had come.
In Indian Fairy Tales, Ganges Valley (Stokes), p. 163, the cutting of the tree trunk with the hair of the Princess occurs.
In the Panchatantra (Dubois), an elephant released rats when caught and imprisoned in earthen pots, and the rats in their turn served him by filling up with earth the pit in which he had fallen.
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara, p. 360 ff., a Rākshasa King gave three tasks to the Prince who wished to marry his daughter. She assisted him by means of her magical powers, and he accomplished them successfully.
[1] The narrator understood this to mean that large upright sheets of glass were fixed round the bed. [↑]