Well then, the city, the multitude of the city, the cattle, the sacks, and the whole of the goods became the property of the Princess. Well then, the Princess having told about this to the Princess’s Prince also, and having started off that party [who accompanied her] to the Princess’s country, the Prince and Princess went with the party from the Prince’s country.
When they were coming along to the Prince’s country, the Prince’s mother and the King too, remained weeping and weeping under a tree in the rice field, wearing a sort of ugly clothes, the hair of the head unfastened and hanging down, and mucus trickling down, filthy to the extent that they could not look at them.
The Prince and Princess having seen from very far that these two are [there], dressed themselves. But the two persons were unable to recognise the Prince and Princess. Having come very near they asked the King and Queen, “What are you weeping there for?”
Thereupon, the two say, “There was only a single son of ours. There is news that that son, having gone away to Puttalam, has been caught at the courtesan woman’s city. Now then, we have nobody; because of it we are weeping.”
Thereupon these two persons said, “Well then, what shall we do about that? Will you give us a resting-place in your kingdom?” they asked.
Then these two persons having said, “We can,” and having gone summoning them to the palace, gave them the resting-place. This Princess, taking off the Heṭṭi clothes, and the Prince, having put on other clothes in such a manner that they can recognise them, and having summoned the King and Queen, the Princess told all this account from the top to the root, and having said, “Behold! Your Prince is [here],” she handed him over to them.
Thereupon, this King and Queen having prepared sandal milk,[4] and caused the Prince and Princess to bathe in it, gave charge of the King’s kingdom to the Princess; and in that very palace these four persons passed the time in a good manner.
North-western Province.
In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 149, a woman who kept a gambling house was accustomed to win from everyone by the aid of her cat, which brushed against the lamp and extinguished it when the play was going against her. A young woman whose husband had in this way lost everything he possessed, and who had lost his liberty also, went in search of him, bribed the servants to tell her the secret of the gambling woman’s success, and then went to play disguised as a man, having a mouse concealed in her sleeve. When the cat approached the lamp she released the mouse, which was chased by the cat. In the meantime she won back all that her husband lost.