In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 118, a woodcutter dreamt that he married a dancing-girl and gave her a thousand gold muhrs. A dancing-girl who heard him say this determined to try to get the money from him, so she claimed him as her husband, demanded it from him, and took the matter before the Rāja. Her friends having supported her statements the Rāja could not decide the case, but a merchant’s clever parrot (Vikrama Maharāja in disguise) gave judgment in favour of the woodcutter. When the girl afterwards obtained the parrot as a reward for her dancing, she ordered her maid to cook it. While the servant went for water after plucking it, the parrot got into the drain for kitchen refuse, the servant substituted a chicken for it, and the dancing-girl ate this, jeering meanwhile at the parrot. After its feathers grew again, it flew off and perched behind the statue of the deity in a temple. When the girl prayed to be transported to heaven, the parrot replied, “Your prayer is heard,” and told her to sell everything, give away the money, break down her house, and return in seven days. She obeyed, and was accompanied by a crowd when she returned. Then the parrot flew over her head, told her it was a chicken she ate, and jeered at her. She fell down, dashed her head on a stone, and died.
In Folk-Tales of the Telugus (G. R. Subramiah Pantulu), p. 17, a courtesan demanded one hundred pagodas from a Brāhmaṇa who had seen her in a dream. He appealed to the King, who promised to give her payment. He caused the money to be hung from the top of a post, and told her to take it out of a mirror placed beneath.
In the Totā Kahānī (Small), p. 14, a merchant who had left his parrot in charge of his house heard on his return from a journey that his wife had misconducted herself. Thinking the parrot had informed him she plucked out its feathers and threw it out, pretending the cat had run off with it. The parrot lived in a tomb at a cemetery on fragments of food left by travellers. When the merchant drove his wife away she went to the cemetery, and heard a voice—the parrot’s—from a tomb telling her she should be reconciled to her husband after shaving her head and fasting for forty days. She did this; the parrot then told its master the wife’s story was true regarding its being eaten by a cat, and that God had sent it to reconcile the husband and wife. The husband then brought her home again.
In A. von Schiefner’s Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 163, when a merchant who had made a bet of five horses that a courtesan could not induce him to visit her, stated that he had been with her in a dream, she claimed the horses. The King was unable to give a decision, but the Minister’s wife settled the matter by allowing her to see the reflection of the horses at the edge of a sheet of water.
In the same work, p. 172, after the King of Vidēha had married the daughter of the King of Pañcāla, the latter induced his daughter to send him a clever parrot that was assisting the former King against him. He plucked it bare, threw it out of the window, a falcon caught it, and being promised daily food placed it in a temple, where it got hid and ordered offerings to be made daily by the King, who thought this was the deity’s voice. When its feathers had grown, it induced the King, Queen, Prince, and Ministers to come with shaven heads to receive forgiveness of their sins, and then it flew aloft jeering at them.
No. 174
The Parrot and the Crow
A crow beginning to roost at the house at which a Parrot roosts, when much time had gone, as those two were talking together the Crow asked the Parrot, “Friend, what do you eat?”
Then the Parrot said, “I eat fruits possessing a good flavour.”