After that all were consoled.
North-western Province.
In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 131, Mr. W. Goonetilleke gives the incident of the plantain eating as part of a tale called “The Story of Hokkā.” The hero of it was a servant of the Gamarāla’s. He bought sixteen plantains, and ate his half share, on his way back repeating the process until only one was left, which he offered to the Gamarāla. His master complained of his stupidity in getting only one plantain for the money. Hokkā replied that he received sixteen, but had eaten the rest. “How did you [dare to] eat them, you dog?” asked the Gamarāla. Hokkā held up the plantain, peeled it, and put it in his mouth, saying, “This is the way I ate the plantains, your honour.”
In Indian Nights’ Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 92, a foolish man who was taking money to the local treasury, put it in some flour which he handed to a baker’s wife to be made into cakes. In the morning, when he remembered and asked for it, she refused to return it unless he told her two stories this way and two that way, and as he could think of none he went off without it. When his clever brother heard of it, he put some brass finger-rings into flour, handed it to the same woman, and in reply to her remarks stated that there were many rings at the bush where he picked these. When she went to pick some, thinking them gold, the man told her husband that she had followed a man who beckoned to her, the husband took a bamboo and gave her a sound beating. The clever brother, learning that the baker’s daughter was betrothed to a lad at another village, told a person whom he met to inform the boy’s parents that the girl had died from snake-bite; he himself told the girl’s mother that wolves had attacked and killed the lad. The two mothers met on the way, quarrelled and fought, and became reconciled on finding the reports false. The brother told the baker’s wife that he had now told her two stories this way, and she was glad to give him his brother’s money before he told her two that way.
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 289, a barber whose wife was visited by a King pretended to be sick, and informed the King that his wife was a witch who extracted and sucked his entrails while he slept, and then replaced them. When the barber went home he told his wife that his razor had broken on some abnormal and very sharp teeth of the King’s. When the King came, and the barber’s wife stretched out her hand to find the teeth, the King cried, “A witch! A witch!” and escaped.
In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton’s ed., vol. i, p. 355) a negro slave related how when his master sent him home for some article, he informed his wife and daughters that his master had been killed by the fall of an old wall. They rent their robes, overturned the furniture, and broke the windows and crockery, the slave assisting them. Then, led by him, they and the neighbours went lamenting to bring the body home. The Governor also took labourers with spades and baskets. The slave got ahead, told the master that his house had fallen and killed his wife, daughters, and everything else. While his master and his friends were lamenting and tearing their robes the procession of mourners arrived and the hoax was discovered. The Governor made the slave “eat stick” till he fainted.
In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 211, a man who was sent by his master to buy mangoes, only sweet and fine ones, tasted each one to ascertain if it was of the requisite quality.