No. 152
The Story of a King and a Prince
This is partly a variant of the story No. 22, in vol. i, called there “The Kulē-Bakā Flowers.” The first part is a repetition of the narrative given in that one, up to the point where the King’s sons were imprisoned at the gambling house. It then continues as follows:—
The Prince who also went afterwards having gone near a widow-mother of that very city [after] filling a bag with bits of plates, when he said, “Mother, a son of yours was lost before, is it not so?” the widow woman said “Yes.” Then the Prince while weeping falsely said, “It is I myself.”
After that, she said, weeping, “Anē! Son, where did you go all this time?”[1] Having gone inviting him into the house, and given him to eat, after he finished she asked, “What is there in this bag, son?”
The Prince says falsely, “In that bag are masuran, mother,” he said.
The woman says, “What are masuran to me, son! Look at that: the heap of masuran which the King has given for my having worked.”
After that, the Prince asks, “Whose house is that, mother?”
Then the woman says, “Anē! Son, at that house an extremely wicked[2] woman gambles. Should anyone go to gamble she gives him golden chairs into which she puts [magical] life, to sit upon. She has put [magical] life into the lamp also. [When gambling], the woman is sitting upon the silver chair,” she said.
After that, after the woman went to sleep, the Prince having emptied the pieces of plate in the house, went to gamble [after] filling the bag with the [woman’s] masuran.