While the Leopard was saying he could not, having gone calling the Leopard they told him to place his feet at the place where those sticks and leaves and earth have been put; and having told him to bend, they poured that pot of boiling water on the Leopard’s body. That one having fallen into the hole that was cut deep, died. Those seven Princes having thrown in earth and filled it up, came away and ate cooked rice.
That younger sister, having cooked and finished, seeks the Leopard. While she is seeking him the sisters-in-law say, “Sister-in-law, you eat that cooked rice. Elder brother is eating cooked rice here.”
The Princess is [there] without eating. While she is there the sisters-in-law say again, “Sister-in-law, eat; elder brother is eating cooked rice here. He will not come there, having become angry that you have come [away].”
After that, the Princess came to look [for him]. Having looked at the whole seven houses without finding the Leopard, she went to the place where he bathed, and when she looked [saw that] earth was [newly] cut and placed there.
Having seen it, thinking, “Here indeed having murdered him, this earth has been cut and placed [over him],” she went into the house, and did not eat; and having been weeping and weeping, and been two or three days without food, the Princess died through very grief at the loss of the Leopard.
The eight Princes and the seven Princesses, taking the Leopard’s goods and the Princess’s goods, remained there.
North-western Province.
In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xiv, p. 135 ff. (Folklore in Southern India, p. 116), in a Tamil story by Naṭēśa Sāstrī, a girl who had married and gone off with a tiger disguised in the form of a Brāhmaṇa youth, escaped when her three brothers, in response to her request sent by a crow, came to rescue her. She first tore in two the tiger cub she had borne, and hung the pieces to roast over the fire. The tiger followed in the form of a youth, was well received, and food was cooked. On the pretext of giving him the customary oil bath (of Southern India) before dining, the brothers put sticks across the well, and laid mats over them. When the tiger-youth sat there for the bath he fell into the well, which they filled with stones, etc. The girl raised a pillar (apparently of mud) over the well, with a tulasī (basil) plant at the top; and during the rest of her life she smeared the pillar in the morning and evening with cow-dung, and watered the plant.
In the Kolhān folk-tales (Bompas), appended to Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 454, a tiger which assisted a Raja by carrying a load of grass for him, received in marriage one of the Raja’s daughters as a recompense. He ate her, and when he went to ask for another in her place, saying she had died, boiling water was poured over him while he was asleep, and he was killed. At p. 470, a Raja married a she-bear which took the place of his bride in her palankin; apparently the bear had a human form.