In another variant of the Western Province the two birds which reared the child were Crows. After the child was born, the mother, a Gamarāla’s wife (Gama-Mahagē or Gama-Mahayiyā) said, “Are we to take the child, or are we to take the bag of Kaekiri?” Her husband replied, “Should we take the child it will be [necessary] to give it to eat and to wear; should we take the bag of Kaekiri we shall be able to eat it for one meal.” “So the Gama-Mahagē, having put the child among the Kaekiri creepers, taking the bag went home.” The Crows carried away the infant, and called it Emal Bisawā, Queen of the Flowers. When the girl had grown up, the birds went to bring pearls for her to wear, after giving her the usual injunctions regarding the food of the Dog, the Cat and the Parrot. She reduced the Dog’s food, and it put out the fire. The Parrot found smoke rising from the house of a Rākshasī, and guided her to the place. The Rākshasī was absent; her two daughters gave the girl two amunas (nearly twelve bushels) of paddy to pound. “She thought, ‘Having been pounded, go into the house,’ and it became pounded of its own accord.” Then they gave her seven perforated pots to be filled with water and brought. She filled them and handed them over. They gave her a piece of coconut husk with a hole in it, and a perforated coconut shell, and filled the former with sesame seeds, and the latter with ashes on which was placed burning charcoal. She hurried home with these, being warned by the Parrot that the Rākshasī was coming.
When the Rākshasī asked her daughters who had been to the house, they replied that the female Crow’s girl had taken some fire, and that there would be sesame and ashes along the path by which she had gone. The Rākshasī ran along it, found the door shut, and said, “Mother has come. Father has come. We are bringing pearls of the sea; we are bringing also wire for stringing the pearls. Open the door, O daughter.” The Katuru-Murungā tree warned her that it was false; when it was burnt, its ashes repeated the warning, then the Dog, the Cat, and the Parrot. Then the Rākshasī, “having broken her finger nails, and having fixed one above and one below in the door-frame, went away. After that, her mother and father came, and said, ‘Mother has come. Father has come. We are bringing pearls of the sea; we are bringing also wire for stringing the pearls. Open the door, my daughter.’ The Parrot said the same. As she opened the door, a finger-nail having entered the crown of her head she died. When they asked the Parrot, ‘What has happened?’ ‘Because of the Rākshasī elder sister died,’ he said.”
In a fourth variant of the North-western Province the aspect of the story is partly changed, and I give a translation of the latter portion, because it contains an account of a runaway match, such as still sometimes occurs.
In this story, a Gamarāla’s wife went with another woman to the chena while the Gamarāla was asleep, and after eating as much fruit as possible they filled a bag also. As they were proceeding home rapidly with it, the Gamarāla’s wife gave birth to a child at a hollow in which pigs wallowed. She asked the other woman to carry it home for her, but this person refused, and took the bag of Kaekiri fruit instead, so the child was abandoned.
Then the two Storks came, and carried the child to their cave, and reared it. After the girl grew up, they went off to seek bracelets and necklaces for her, instructing the girl to “give an equal quantity of food to the Cock, the Dog, the Cat, the Parrot, the Crow, the Rat, and the other creatures,” and warning her that if she gave less to the Rat it would extinguish the fire. After some days she reduced the Rat’s food, so it put out the fire.
The Parrot found a house—not a Rākshasa’s—from which smoke was rising, and guided the girl to it. The woman who was at it gave her some fire without delaying her, and she returned home with it. I now translate the concluding part.
“After the son of the woman who had the fire came home, the woman says to her son, ‘To-day a good-looking Princess came to the house.’ Then the son asks, ‘Mother, by which stile did the Princess go?’ His mother says, ‘Here, by this stile,’ and showed him it.
“Then the man having set off, and having gone near the cave, and seen the Princess, when he said, ‘Let us go to our house,’ the Princess said, ‘Because my parents are not here [to give their consent] I cannot go.’ This man says, ‘No matter for that,’ and seizing the hand of the Princess, they came to his house.
“Afterwards the two Black Storks which went seeking bracelets and rings, having come near the cave, when they looked the Princess was not there. The Black Storks ask the Dog, the Cat, the Crow, the Parrot, the Rat, and the Cock, ‘Where is the Princess?’ They all say, ‘A man came, and while the Princess was saying she could not go he seized her hand and took her away.’ When the Storks asked, ‘By which stile did he take her?’ saying, ‘There, by that stile,’ the animals showed them it.
“Then the two Black Storks having gone flying, when they looked the Princess was staying at the house. Afterwards the two Storks gave the Princess the bracelets, rings, and coral necklaces which they had brought; and having handed her over to the man, the two Black Storks went to their dwelling.”