Indian Fairy Tales
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Title: Indian Fairy Tales
Editor: Maive Stokes
Commentator: William Ralston Shedden Ralston
Mary Stokes
Release date: February 7, 2010 [eBook #31209]
Language: English
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Transcriber's Note
There are some characters with diacritical marks in this text, which
are represented as follows:
Characters with an underdot are shown as [x.], where x is the letter
concerned.
Characters with an acute accent above, which are not available in this
character set, are shown as ['x].
INDIAN FAIRY TALES
COLLECTED AND TRANSLATED
BY
MAIVE STOKES.
_WITH NOTES BY MARY STOKES,_
_AND AN INTRODUCTION BY W. R. S. RALSTON, M.A._
London:
ELLIS & WHITE, NEW BOND STREET.
1880.
[_All Rights reserved._]
To my dear Grannie, Susan Bazely.
[Decoration]
PREFACE.
The first twenty-five stories in this book were told me at Calcutta
and Simla by two Ayahs, Dunkní and Múniyá, and by Karím, a Khidmatgar.
The last five were told Mother by Múniyá. At first the servants would
only tell their stories to me, because I was a child and would not
laugh at them, but afterwards the Ayahs lost their shyness and told
almost all their stories over again to Mother when they were passing
through the press. Karím would never tell his to her or before her.
The stories were all told in Hindústání, which is the only language
that these servants know.
Dunkní is a young woman, and was born and brought up in Calcutta. She
got the stories, she told me, from her husband, Mochí, who was born in
Calcutta and brought up at Benares.
Múniyá is a very old, white-haired woman. She has
great-grandchildren. She was born at Patna, but when she was seven
years old she was taken to Calcutta, where she was brought up and
married. She and Dunkní are both Hindús.
Karím is a Muhammadan and was born at Lucknow. He says that "The
Mouse" and "The Wonderful Story" are both Lucknow tales.
The notes to this book were written by Mother, and Father helped her
to spell the Native names and words. He also made the Index.
Dr. George King helped us in the Botany; Mr. Tawney and Mr. Campbell
of Islay, who saw many of the stories in manuscript, have given us
several remarks. So has my uncle, John Boxwell.
M. S. H. STOKES.
CALCUTTA,
_March 24th, 1879_.
[Decoration]
INTRODUCTION.
In almost every part of Europe the tales current among the common
people have been of late years diligently sought out, and carefully
collected. Variants of them pour in profusely every year. But it does
not seem probable that any entirely new stories will be discovered in
any European land. Nor is it likely that in fresh variants of the
longer and apparently more artificial tales, any quite new incidents,
or even any unquestionably novel features, will be found. The harvest
has been abundant, its chief fruits are now stored, and the work which
is still going on among the gleaners, although in itself good and
praiseworthy, may be regarded without the excitement of eager hope.
The task of the present seems to be, not so much the garnering of
European folk-tales, as their comparison and elucidation, and, so far
as possible, their explanation. But in many cases they do not appear
to contain in themselves the ingredients which are necessary for their
resolution into their primary elements. Nor do the records of the
lands in which they exist always supply what is wanted. The "fairy
tales" of Europe throw very little light upon, are but slightly
illuminated by, the histories of the widely differing lands in which
they so closely resemble each other. And the most interesting among
them, those which appear most clearly to bear witness to their being
embodiments of mythological ideas, or expansions of moral precepts,
seem to be but little in keeping with what we know of the sentiments
and beliefs of the heathen ancestors of the villagers in whose
memories they have been for so many centuries retained. Among such
tales of this kind, for instance, as linger on in our own islands,
there is but little to be found which can be looked upon as a
specially characteristic deposit left by the waves of Iberian, Celtic,
and Teutonic population which have successively passed over the face
of the land. This statement does not, of course, hold good in the case
of such legends about national heroes as Mr. J. F. Campbell has found
thriving in Ireland and the West Highlands of Scotland, and which he
justly believes to be "bardic recitations, fast disappearing, and
changing into prose." They belong to a different section of popular
fiction from that to which reference is now made. It is often
difficult to draw the line between these two classes of folk-tales.
But there is a striking difference between the typical representatives
of the two divisions, between cosmopolitan novelettes like Cinderella
or the Sleeping Beauty, on the one hand, and pseudo-historic legends
about local heroes on the other. It is unfortunate that we do not
possess a sufficiency of accurate designations for the numerous
species of the genus folk-tale. Their existence would prevent much
misapprehension. But in their absence, a discusser of popular tales
should take pains to define precisely to what tribe, family, or group
of stories his remarks are intended to apply.
There are to be found, in all European lands, certain tales which are
of a more complex structure than the rest, which appear to have been
constructed by a skilled workman, to be artificial productions rather
than natural growths. It is only with such stories as these that we
have at present to deal. These novelettes or comediettas, as they may
be called, of the European common people, differ but little in their
essential parts, whether they are recited in the cold north or the
balmy south, the rude east or the cultured west. Their openings, it is
true, vary with their localities; but in the main body of the tale,
not only does the same leading idea pervade all the variants, but also
the same sequence of events leads up in almost every case to the same
termination. To this class of stories belong nearly all the tales
which, under considerably modified forms, have naturalized themselves
in the nurseries of Europe. In it are comprised many popular fictions,
on the obscurer parts of which a quite insufficient light is thrown by
researches among the manners and mythologies of old European
heathenism.
It is upon such stories as these that a kindly light beams with the
greatest advantage from Asia. Very similar stories have been preserved
in the memories of the common people in many parts of Asia, but
especially in India. And their leading ideas are perfectly in
accordance with the mythology or the moral teaching of the Asiatics
who, age after age, have delighted in telling or hearing them. In such
cases as these it seems to be not very unreasonable to suppose that
the story was originally, if not created, at all events shaped and
trimmed in Asia, and thence was afterwards conveyed from lip to lip
into Europe. Such universal favourites as Beauty and the Beast and
Puss in Boots may be confidently cited as oriental fictions which have
taken possession of European minds. There is a rich store of other
popular fictions, which may be left to be accounted for according to
the two principal methods of interpretation in vogue. They may be
explained as independent developments of mythological germs common to
the ancestors of the various Aryan peoples of Europe. Or they may be
regarded as embodiments of certain ideas common to savages of all
races. It will be sufficient to deal at present with the more
limited, but better known class, to which special attention has been
called.
Among the Asiatic folk-tales which seem likely to assist in their
explanation, none are more copious or more useful than those of India.
There the old religion has maintained itself with which so many of
these stories are linked, and there the moral teaching still prevails
which made its voice heard in other tales of the far-off time when
they first became current. Any collection of genuine Indian Fairy
Tales is therefore certain to be, not only of interest to the general
reader, but also of real value to the specialist who devotes himself
to the comparison of folk-tales. The collection now before us has
great merits of its own. The stories have been told in Hindústání to
the very young collector by two ayahs, who are both Hindús, and by a
Muhammadan man-servant. In this respect Miss Stokes's contribution to
our knowledge of India differs from the very similar, and very
charming, work by Miss Frere, "Old Deccan Days," the stories in which
were told by an ayah who was, as her father and grandfather had been,
a native Christian. The two books ought to be compared with each
other. No possessor of the one ought to be without the other. All the
stories contained in the present volume, as we learn from the notes,
have been read back by the young collector to the tellers in
Hindústání after they were told, and a second time by the annotator
before they were printed. "I never saw people more anxious to have
their tales retold exactly, than are Dunkní and Múniyá," the two
story-telling ayahs. Not till each tale was pronounced by them to be
exact was it sent to the press. The stories may be taken then as
faithful transcripts of Indian thought. The merits of the copious
Notes contributed by the late Mrs. Whitley Stokes, bearing witness to
a very wide range of reading, and to a most intelligent use of the
authorities referred to, will be fully acknowledged by all who have
had occasion to explore the regions from which she has gathered so
much valuable information. Throughout the whole of the work thus
conscientiously compiled and intelligently annotated, there will be
found scattered, in addition to its other merits, many a parallel with
our own popular tales, many an illustration or explanation of their
meaning--a ray of light shot here or there which illumines their dark
places, and may enable the explorers of their mystic domains to avoid
stumbles which are often somewhat mortifying. It remains only to point
out a few of the most important passages.
* * * * *
Some of the stories in this volume are so thoroughly oriental, so
little in accordance with western thought or feeling, that they have
not found an echo among ourselves; their counterparts are not to be
found naturalized in European lands. Of such a kind are the legends,
taken from literary sources, of "The Upright King," and of "Rájá
Harichand's Punishment," in which the patience of a religious monarch
is tried as was that of Job, and comes out from the trial equally
victorious. The sorrows of Patient Grissel have met with sympathy in
many lands, for meekness has ever been considered a womanly virtue.
But the heroism of a husband and father who sells his wife to a
merchant, and his son to a cowherd, in order that he may be able to
keep his promise to a holy mendicant, and bestow upon him two pounds
and a half of gold, can scarcely be expected to invest itself, to
western eyes, with the air of a manly virtue. In the same way, the
great sitting powers displayed by King Burtal, who never once moves
from his seat in the jungle for twelve whole years, during which space
of time he neither eats nor drinks, and thereby elevates himself to
the dignity of a fakír, are not of a kind to elicit the sympathies or
command the admiration of nations addicted to active exercise.
The explanation of Nánaksá's thrice repeated laugh, also, could
retain its vitality only in an atmosphere pervaded by a belief in the
transmigration of souls. Buddhistic apologues have sometimes passed
into legends of Christian Saints. But it would be difficult to perform
the operation in the case of an account of how a woman, who had
tormented to death her husband's sister, was justly punished by the
reappearance in the world of the ill-used sister-in-law, in the form
of that unkind woman's exceedingly peevish baby daughter. Numerous,
also, as are European stories about ogres, vampires, and other
demoniacal cannibals, we shall not readily find a western counterpart
of the terrible tale, in No. 24, of the "Rakshas" which sometimes
appears as a goat, and sometimes as a most beautiful young girl,
dressed in grand clothes and rich jewels, but at midnight turns into a
devouring demon with a craving for human flesh.
Just as some of the themes of these stories do not seem to have
European counterparts, so portions of their machinery appear to be
without exact western equivalents. The stupendous transformations
which now and then take place (see pp. 5, 148, 244) can reconcile
themselves only to an oriental imagination. However much the
occidental mind may attempt to "make believe," it cannot credit such a
statement as that when the Bél-Princess died, her eyes turned into two
birds, her heart into "a great tank," and her body into "a splendid
palace and garden," her arms and legs becoming "the pillars that
supported the verandah roof," and her head "the dome on the top of the
palace." In almost all countries, when a fairy hero has been slain by
a demoniacal or otherwise villainous personage, he is recalled to life
by magic means. In European folk-lore the resuscitating remedy is
usually a Water of Life, or a Balsam, or some similar fluid. In these
Indian tales, it is blood streaming from the resuscitator's little
finger. Thus when Loving Lailí (p. 83) found her husband dead and
headless, she put his head back on his shoulders, and smeared his neck
with the blood which flowed "like healing medicine," when "she cut
her little finger inside her hand straight down from the top of her
nail to her palm." A power of becoming at will invisible is everywhere
often attributed to heroes of romance. But it is generally connected
with "a cap of darkness," or some similar magic article. But the
Prince of No. 21, when he seeks the Bél-Princess, becomes invisible to
the "demons and fairies" who surround her, when he blows from the palm
of his hand, "all along his fingers," the earth which a friendly fakír
has given him for that purpose. A "sleep-thorn," or other somniferous
piece of wood, is commonly employed in our fairy tales, in order to
throw a hero or heroine into a magic slumber. In these Indian stories
a state of catalepsy, or of death, is produced or relieved by a
peculiar application of a magic stick. Thus the Princess who was
called the Golden Rání, "because her teeth and her hair were made of
gold," and who was stolen by a demon, informed the Prince who found
her, motionless but not sleeping, that "the Rakshas who had carried
her off, and whom she called papa, had a great thick stick, and when
he laid this stick at her feet she could not stir, but when he laid it
at her head she could move again." In "The Demon and the King's Son"
(No. 24), the hero opens a "forbidden chamber," and there finds the
demon's daughter lying on a bed, apparently lifeless; for "every day,
before her father went out he used to make the girl lie on her bed,
and cover her with a sheet, and he placed a thick stick at her head,
and another at her feet; then she died, till he came home in the
evening and changed the sticks, putting the one at her head at her
feet, and the one at her feet at her head. This brought her to life
again." An interesting parallel to the "sleep-thorn" is afforded by
the pin which, while it remains in the head of the bird which had been
the wife of the Pomegranate King (No. 2), prevents her from resuming
her human shape. When the Rájá pulled out the pin, "his own dear
wife, the Pomegranate Rání, stood before him." Magic boxes are common
in fairy land. But there is something new in at least the name of the
"sun-jewel box," which was sent by the "Red Fairy," who lived at the
bottom of the well, to "The Princess who loved her father like salt"
(No. 23), and which contained "seven little dolls, who were all little
fairies."
* * * * *
Of more general interest than the few peculiarities of these tales are
the many points in which they resemble and illustrate some of the
familiar features of European folk-lore. As an example of the latter
may be taken a "husk-myth," which is a valuable contribution to the
literature of the "Beauty and the Beast" cycle. In all the stories
belonging to that group, the action turns upon the union of the human
hero or heroine with a spouse who is really or apparently an inferior
animal. In the modified version of the story with which our nurseries
have become acquainted through a French literary medium, the species
of Beast to which the Beauty is wedded is not stated, and its
transformation into a princely husband is attributed to her unaided
love. But in by far the greater part of the variants of the folk-tale
on which it seems to have been founded, as well as of the other
stories in which a similar transformation is the principal
feature--variants which have been gathered in abundance from all parts
of Europe, not to speak of Asia--the animal nature of the mysterious
spouse is clearly defined. In them the husband whom the Beauty is
induced by filial affection, fear, or compassion to wed, is an
unmistakable Beast--a pig in Sicily, a bear in Norway, a hedgehog in
Germany, a goat in Russia. Sometimes he is even of a lower type, often
a frog or a snake. And once, in Wallachia, he has been transferred
from the animal to the vegetable world, and figures as a pumpkin. In
every instance he is represented as being able to change at times his
repulsive appearance for one of beauty, and this he generally does by
doffing a kind of husk which when donned conceals his real form, and
invests him with that of an inferior being. If this husk be destroyed
during the temporary absence of its owner, he loses his transforming
power. The destruction of the husk is generally the work of the wife,
who is sometimes rewarded, her husband remaining with her constant to
his true nature; at other times she is punished, he being lost to her
for a time or for ever. These stories about a monster husband have
their exact counterparts in tales about a monster wife, the leading
idea being the same in both groups; the only difference being that it
is the wife who appears at times as a frog or other inferior creature,
and who continues to do so until her transforming power terminates
with the destruction of her disguising husk.
Now these temporary transformations, though common to the folk-tales
of all parts of Europe, are not in accordance with the European
superstitions of the present day, nor with those, so far as we are
acquainted with them, of old European heathenism. The nearest approach
to them is afforded by the wehr-wolf superstition, but that is an
isolated belief, and appears to be based upon altogether different
ideas. As to the metamorphoses of classical literature, they are of a
nature quite alien to that of the voluntary eclipse, under a degrading
form, of a Frog Princess or a Pig Prince. It may be said with
confidence that European "husk-myths" do not explain themselves; the
peasants among whom they are current, cannot explain them; and the
knowledge we have of ancient European paganism throws no light on
their meaning. But in India, where countless variants of such tales
exist--many of them preserved in ancient as well as in modern
literature, but by far the greater part still current among the
common people--the transformations in question are frequently, if not
generally, explained in the stories themselves, and explained in a
manner perfectly in accordance with the Indian thought of the present
as well as of the past. To Indian minds there is nothing monstrous in
the belief that a celestial being may have been condemned, in
consequence of the wrath of a superior divinity, or even of the magic
words pronounced by an offended sage, to assume for a time the
inferior form of a mere man or woman, or even to wear the shape of an
inferior animal--a monkey or a frog; and that this transformation is
to continue chronic, though not constant, until the destruction of the
disguising skin or husk, by the donning of which it is from time to
time brought about, deprives the curse of its power, and enables
earth's celestial visitor to return to heaven. The whole story is
closely connected with Indian religious beliefs, and may fairly be
looked upon, when found in India, as an expansion of a Hindu myth. Its
existence in other parts of Asia may, at least frequently, be
attributed to the natural spread of Hindu tales among the various
tribes and nations which accepted Buddhism from India.
If all this be true, and the "husk-myth" stories which are current all
over Europe may justly be supposed to have drifted westwards from
India, then all Indian variants of these tales naturally become
invested with special importance. The specimen in the present volume,
the "Monkey Prince" (No. 10), belongs to a remarkably interesting
class--that in which the story-teller gives an explanation of the
hero's transformation. A childless king is told by a fakír to give
some mangoes to his seven wives. Six of them eat up the fruit, and
each of the six gives birth to a prince of the usual kind. But the
seventh wife, who has been able to obtain as her share only the stone
of one of the mangoes, "had a monkey, who was called in consequence
Bandarsábásá, or Prince Monkey." In reality, the story-teller goes on
to explain, "he was a boy, but no one knew it, for he had a
monkey-skin covering him." And this monkey-skin he takes off when he
wishes to appear in true princely form, as when he woos and wins the
Princess Jahúran. Finding out what his real nature is, she insists
upon marrying him, in spite of her vexed father's natural question:
"Who ever heard of any one marrying a nasty monkey?" When he is alone
with his wife he takes off his monkey-skin, and reveals himself in all
his beauty, replying to her questions as to its use, "I wear it as a
protection, because my brothers are naughty, and would kill me if they
knew what I really am." On one occasion, when he has gone in state to
a nautch, after taking off his monkey skin, folding it up, and laying
it under his wife's pillow, she reveals her husband's secret to his
mother, who, "though she was very glad her monkey-son had such a wife,
could never understand how it was that her daughter-in-law was so
happy with him." Taking the monkey-skin from under her pillow, "See,"
she says, "when your son puts this on, then he is a monkey; when he
takes it off he is a beautiful man. And now I think I will burn this
skin, and then he must always be a man." So she throws it into the
fire. Prince Monkey's heart instantly tells him his wife has burnt his
skin, and he returns home in a rage. It passes off, however, and all
goes well. He now appears always as a beautiful prince, "with his hair
all gold." "Why did you wear that monkey-skin?" naturally asks his
father. "Because," he replies, "my mother ate the mango-stone instead
of eating the mango, and so I was born with this skin, and God ordered
me to wear it till I had found a wife." The story has evidently been
considerably altered in the course of time from its original form, but
it still keeps true to its ancient lines. In it, as in many other
specimens of the same class, the idea of the degradation of a divine
or semi-divine being has been lost, and the sufferer is merely a human
being cased in a disfiguring hide. It is noteworthy that, as we are
informed at p. 259, Dunkní, the narrator of the tale, "in telling this
husk-story, just as often called the monkey-skin a husk, as she called
it a skin."
Another of the apparently mythological European folk-tales,
instructive parallels to which are contained in the present volume, is
that which may be designated as the Golden-locks myth. It relates the
fortunes of a brilliant being, usually a radiant prince, who, often
without any apparent reason, submits himself to a voluntary eclipse,
hides from sight his grandeur and his good looks, and assumes an
appearance of squalor and misery. Like Cinderella, whose male
counterpart he is, he at times arises from his low estate, becomes
again a brilliant prince, but always capriciously eludes those who
wish to retain him in that shape. At last he is always detected, and
then he has to remain constant to his true and magnificent form. His
temporary eclipse is somewhat similar to that of the hero of a
husk-myth; but no special power is attached to the wrappings under
which his brilliance is concealed, nor is his change of form imposed
upon him against his will. The meaning of the Golden-locks story, in
its original form, still remains to be discovered, as also does that
of the sister tale of Cinderella. That they both refer to the
temporary eclipse, seclusion, or obscuration of a brilliant being, is
evident. But what that brilliant being represents is a problem of
which several solutions have been confidently offered, but which does
not seem to have been as yet certainly solved. In the story of "The
Boy who had a Moon on his forehead and a Star on his chin" (No. 20),
the self-eclipsing process is brought about by a twist of his right
ear; "when the boy had twisted it, he was no longer a handsome prince,
but a poor, common-looking, ugly man; and his moon and star were
hidden." And so, after he has been chosen out of a number of suitors
by a princess whose heart he has won by the beauty of his singing, he
restores himself to his true form by twisting his left ear; after
which operation "he stood no longer a poor, common, ugly man, but a
grand young prince, with a moon on his forehead and a star on his
chin."
A third class of stories for which an Asiatic origin may fairly be
claimed, contains those in which figures a monster or demon who cannot
be killed until some external object with which his life is
mysteriously linked has been destroyed. Such a being occurs at times
in European folk-tales, especially in those of the east and north of
Europe. The most familiar instance is that of "The Giant who had no
Heart in his body" of the "Tales from the Norse." Some of the best
specimens of this kind of monster are to be found in the Russian tales
about Koshchei the Deathless. But these remarkably abnormal beings
scarcely seem at home in western folk-lore. They are but little in
keeping with their European surroundings, and never seem to divest
themselves of their alien air. In oriental stories, on the other hand,
they figure frequently, and they seem to occupy a familiar and an
appropriate place. The oldest of the world's tales of wonder, the
Egyptian story of the Two Brothers, contains an heroic being whose
life comes to an end when his heart falls to the ground from the tree
upon which he has hung it. And in the modern folk-tales of India,
demons of this kind play their part without exciting any more than
usual surprise. Miss Frere's Deccan stories make us well acquainted
with one of these personages, "a wicked magician named Punchkin,"
whose name serves as a convenient designation for the long-lived
monsters in question. The present collection contains several
specimens. In "Brave Hírálálbásá" (No. 11) we meet with a Rakshas, who
is induced, as usual by female wiles, to reveal the secret of his
life. "Sixteen miles away from this place," he says, "is a tree. Round
the tree are tigers, and bears, and scorpions, and snakes; on the top
of the tree is a very great flat snake; on his head is a little cage;
in the cage is a bird; and my soul is in that bird." When the bird is
seized by the hero of the story, the Rakshas feels that something
terrible has occurred. When the bird's legs and wings are pulled off,
the Rakshas becomes a mere head and torso; and when the bird's neck is
wrung, down falls the Rakshas dead. In like manner, in the tale of
"The Demon and the King's Son" (No. 24), the demon dies when the
prince has killed a certain bird, the lives of the bird and of the
demon being conterminable. According to the narrator Dunkní, "all
Rakshases keep their souls in birds;" but another authority asserts
(p. 261) that "a whole tribe of Rakshases, dwelling in Ceylon, kept
theirs in one and the same lemon."
The tale of "The Voracious Frog" (No. 6) is a valuable contribution to
the store we already possess of what appear to be myths relating to
apparent destruction, but ultimate resuscitation. To this class seem
to belong the stories on which Little Red Riding Hood was probably
based, describing how a wolf or other monster swallowed various
innocent beings, but was at last forced to restore them uninjured to
the light of day. In its original form the tale may have been a nature
myth, illustrating the apparent annihilation brought about by the
darkness of night or the cold of winter, and the revival which
accompanies the return of the day or of spring; or, perhaps, a moral
apologue, intended to suggest that death may not be a lasting
annihilation. In its modern forms, whether in the east or the west, it
often assumes a grotesque air. A good illustration of this fact is
afforded by the well-known Norse tale of "The Greedy Cat," of which
"The Voracious Frog" (No. 6) is an Indian counterpart. The cat, after
devouring all that comes in its way, is at last split in half by a
goat, whereupon all its victims come forth unhurt. The frog, after
similar feats of gluttony, is cut open by a barber, who, while shaving
it, thinks that it looks very fat; and its victims also emerge
uninjured.
There are many tales now current in different parts of Europe, but
chiefly in the south and east, which turn upon the relations existing
between human beings and their fates: each person being supposed to
have a special fate or fortune, a species of guardian demon, upon
whose good will all his or her success in life depends. It is very
doubtful whether such stories are products of European fancy, their
leading ideas seeming to be little in keeping with the religious
beliefs--whether of classic times, or of Teutonic, Slavic, or Celtic
antiquity--respecting either an overruling destiny, or a triad of
Fates or Norns. But in India a belief in a personal "luck" has
prevailed from very early times; and such stories as "The Man who went
to seek his Fate" (No. 12), appear there to be as indigenous as in
Europe they seem to be exotic. The Servian story, for instance, of the
man who sets out to look for his fate, and the Sicilian account of how
the unfortunate Caterina is persecuted by hers until she discovers its
hiding-place, and propitiates it by cakes (see Notes, p. 263), have a
foreign air about them, which does not manifest itself in the Indian
tale. The likeness between the Servian and the Indian variants of the
narrative, especially as regards the questions which the fate-seeker
is requested by the beings he meets on the way to ask when he arrives
at his destination, is too great to allow it to be supposed that they
have been independently developed from a common germ. They are
manifestly, so far as the journey is concerned, copies of the same
model, differing but slightly from each other. But the embodiment of
the wayfarer's destiny is quite differently represented in the two
stories. The Servian pilgrim first discovers his fortune, or rather
misfortune, in the person of a hag, who tells him she has been given
to him as his luck by Fate. Then he seeks out Fate, who appears in
human form. But in the Indian tale, "the fates are stones, some
standing, and others lying on the ground." One of the prostrate
stones, the traveller felt sure, must belong to him. "This must be
mine," he said; "it is lying on the ground, that's why I am so poor."
Whereupon he took to beating it, and continued to do so all day. When
night came, "God sent a soul into the poor man's fate, and it became a
man," who satisfied the wanderer's own wishes, and also answered the
questions which he had been requested to ask. Then "God withdrew the
soul, and the fate became a stone again, which stood up on the
ground."
There are two stories which enjoy a world-wide popularity in peasant
circles, but which have not been made familiar by modern literature to
cultured children. One of them may for the sake of convenience be
known by the name of the Substituted Bride, and the other by that of
the Calumniated Wife. The first relates the sorrows of a maiden who is
compelled to see an impostor seated in the place which she was
intended to fill, by the side of the princely husband whom she was
meant to wed. The second describes the sufferings long undergone by a
faithful wife and tender mother, who is falsely accused of some crime
by an envious rival, and is hastily punished by her angry lord. In
both of them the supernatural usually plays a part, but their main
interests are always human, and it is easier to sympathize with their
heroines than with most of the similar characters of popular fiction.
Yet those ill-used but patient princesses are but little known to the
thousands of story-readers who are familiar with the adventures of
Cinderella and the Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, and the
wives of Bluebeard and of the Beast. They have at various times
entered into literature, but not into that section of it which has
supplied our nursery fiction. They figure in most of the now so
numerous collections of folk-tales, but they have not been introduced
into society by the novelists or playwrights who have made their
sister-sufferers undying favourites. They are essentially moral tales,
their good characters bearing their unmerited misfortunes with
unvarying meekness and patience, and being ultimately rewarded, while
the envious and malicious rivals who have supplanted or slandered them
are punished in the end. But they have not taken a firm hold on the
west, where they are probably destined to become forgotten when the
progress of education has replaced folk-lore by literature, while they
are likely to go on living for ages in the east, which seems to have
been their original home.
In the present collection the story of the Substituted Princess occurs
several times. In "Phúlmati Rání" the heroine is a wife instead of a
bride, which makes the substitution more than usually improbable. As
she and her husband are resting beside a tank, a shoemaker's wife
comes up, and pushes her into the water, in which she is drowned. The
shoemaker's wife takes her place, though she is "very black and ugly,"
one-eyed, and exceedingly wicked. It may be remarked that the
substitution in question generally takes place by the side of water.
In the "Bél-Princess," the beautiful maiden who has come out of the
fruit which the prince opened by the side of a well, is pushed into
the water, while the prince is asleep, by a wicked woman, very ugly,
and with "something wrong with one of her eyes," who then assumes her
place. In tales like the story of "The Princess who loved her Father
like Salt," the transformation scene is of a different nature, though
the leading idea of the change is the same. It is not an ordinary
bride or wife who is supplanted, and the substitution need not take
place beside water. The heroine is a stranger who, generally after
long wanderings, finds a prince really or apparently dead, by patient
watching all but effects his cure, but is at the last moment
supplanted by a servant, who gives the final touch to the work, claims
its entire merit, and is made the wife of the grateful patient. In the
Indian tale the prince lies motionless, his body "stuck full of
needles." The heroine sits down by the side of his couch, and there
remains for a whole week "without eating, or drinking, or sleeping,
pulling out the needles." At the end of two weeks more the needles are
all extracted, except those in the eyes. She then goes away to bathe;
and while she is absent, a servant maid whom she has left in charge of
the body pulls out the remaining needles. The prince opens his eyes,
thanks God for bringing him to life again, and makes the servant maid
his wife. The substitution is similar to that which takes place in
such stories as the Norse "Bushy Bride;" but closer parallels are
supplied by some of the stories of southern Europe. Mrs. Stokes refers
in her Notes to the dead prince in one of Gonzenbach's Sicilian tales,
who is brought to life by a wandering princess, who for more than
seven years rubs his body with grass from Mount Calvary. Pitre's great
collection of Sicilian _Fiabe_ also offers several variants of the
substitution story, in some of which occurs the singular incident,
known also to Swedish and Finnish folk-tales, of the imprisonment of
the heroine, after she has been flung into the sea, by a submarine
supernatural being. In some instances it is not water which the
heroine has to dread, but light. The true bride must be conveyed to
the bridegroom's palace in a darkened vehicle. Her supplanter draws
aside a curtain. The sunlight shines in. The princess turns into a
lizard or some other animal, and the false bride takes her place.
The Calumniated Wife story which occurs in No. 20 of the present
collection, closely resembles many European variants. A king hears a
girl say that when she is married she will have a son with a moon on
his forehead and a star on his chin. So he marries her. She gives
birth to a boy who really is thus decorated. But the king's other
wives, naturally jealous of her, put a stone in her bed, and pretend
that it is the object which she has brought into the world, upon which
she is disgraced and turned into a servant maid. In other variants of
the story she is often accused of having murdered her children, and
even eaten them. In one instance her mortified husband is represented
as twice forgiving her, after remonstrating with her on her inordinate
appetite, but as thinking it necessary to take some precautions when
the possibility of her committing the crime for the third time makes
itself manifest. Sometimes all the innocent wives of a king are
accused of murderous habits by a guilty wife, who is in reality a
destroying and devouring demon. Such is the case in No. 20 of the
present collection, which ends with the restoration of the seven
calumniated wives, and the death by burning of the demon spouse.
* * * * *
Besides illustrating the themes or leading ideas of many groups of
European tales, these Indian stories frequently serve to throw light
upon some of their obscurer features, or at least to offer such
parallels to them as are useful contributions to our stock of
materials for a systematic classification. Among the strange
characters who figure in European folk tales, there are few more
puzzling than the fair maidens who are at times discovered inside
fruits, and who must be provided with water to drink the moment they
emerge into the light, or else they will die. They seem properly to
belong to the south and east of Europe, to such countries, for
instance, as Greece, Sicily, and Wallachia. When they are found
elsewhere, as in the Norse tale of "The Three Lemons," the very name
of which speaks of the sunny south, they seem out of keeping with
their surroundings. In these Indian stories, the enclosure of a
heroine in a fruit is an incident which does not appear to be more
than usually amazing. The need of immediate water drinking is not
referred to. But the hero is warned (p. 81) that he must not open the
fruit in public, because the enclosed maiden will be quite destitute
of clothes. In another story which is widely spread over Europe--but
which we know best in the form of the tale of "The Blue Bird," founded
upon the theme of "The Lay of Ywonec," by Marie de France--the
murderous means by which the bird-lover is all but done to death by
jealous hands, which set sharp knives in the narrow opening through
which he has to fly, or beset his path with some other instruments of
ill, find their counterpart in the powdered glass employed to injure
the hero of the "The Fan Prince" (No. 25). His wife's six sisters, who
"were angry at their youngest sister being married, while they who
were older were not married," insist upon making his bed, and cover
the spot on which he is to lie with the powder into which they have
ground a glass bottle. Whereupon the prince becomes very ill, from the
glass powder going into his flesh.
The ordinary opening of many familiar folk-tales, including the
"Beauty and the Beast" story, finds a parallel in the same Indian tale
(p. 195). In all of them a man, when starting on a journey, promises
his youngest daughter that he will bring her back some object. This he
forgets to obtain. On his homeward journey, his ship refuses to move
until he has acquired the object in question. The Indian parent
promised to bring home Sabr to his daughter, having no idea what Sabr
meant. Not having obtained it, he set out on his homeward journey.
"But the boat would not move, because he had forgotten one thing--the
thing his youngest daughter had asked for." Sabr turns out to be a
fairy prince. It is a common incident in Indian tales for a hero or
heroine to demand a spouse, generally of a more or less supernatural
nature, whose name is known but nothing more. Just as the Fan Prince
was demanded, under the apparently meaningless name of Sabr, so is the
hand of the Princess Labám longed for by the Rájá's son in No. 22,
although her existence was unknown to him till he heard a parrot
pronounce her name one day; and so is the acquisition of a
Bél-Princess resolved upon by the prince in No. 21, because his
sisters-in-law say to him, in a disagreeable manner, "We think that
you will marry a Bél-Princess." Múniyá, the narrator of the story,
"says that telling the prince he would marry a Bél-Princess was
equivalent to saying he would not marry at all; for these brothers'
wives knew she lived in the fairy country, and that it would be very
difficult, if not impossible, for the prince to find her, and take her
from it." But this seems to be merely a rationalistic view of the
matter. Some mystery seems to underlie these suggestions of, or
desires for, unions with unfamiliar beings. They occur not
unfrequently in Russian tales. In one of Afanasief's skazkas (vol.
vii., No. 6) a baby prince cries, and refuses to go to sleep, till his
royal father rocks his cradle, crooning the while, "Sleep, beloved
one! When you grow up you shall marry Never-enough-to-be-gazed-at
Beauty, daughter of three mothers, sister of nine brothers." Having
slept vigorously, the baby awakes, asks for the king's blessing, and
sets out in search of the unknown Beauty in question. In another (vol.
i., No. 14), Prince Ivan, having married his three sisters to the
Wind, the Hail, and the Thunder, wanders forth in search of a bride.
Finding the remains of two slaughtered armies, and discovering that
their slaughterer was named Anastasia the Fair, he resolves, though
knowing nothing else about her, to make her his wife. Among the
numerous minor incidents which are common to eastern and western
folk-tales, may be mentioned the aid lent to heroes in difficulties by
Magic Instruments, as in No. 22, or by Grateful Beasts, as in No. 24.
A belief in magic is of course world-wide, but the particular
instruments referred to seem to have good reasons for claiming an
oriental extraction. The stories in which stress is laid upon the
gratitude of the inferior animals are almost always derivable from the
east; especially if, as in the correct versions of the tale on which
Puss in Boots is founded, their gratitude is contrasted with the
ingratitude of that superior animal, man. When we meet with so close a
resemblance as exists between the miracle wrought by Shekh Faríd (p.
97), who turns the lying carter's sugar into ashes, and that
attributed to St. Brigit, who turns the liar's salt into stones, we
need have little scruple about referring both stories to the same
source and, considering how much monastic legend-writers were indebted
to oriental fancy, in locating that source in the east.
The comic elements of eastern and western folk-lore are closely akin,
and the Lie-stories, or _Lügenmärchen_, in Nos. 4, 8, and 17 of these
Indian Tales find their parallels in most European collections. As an
example of the close kinship which prevails among the jests which make
merry the hearts of men far apart from each other, we may take the
Indian story of "Foolish Sachúlí," and compare it with the Russian
tale of "The Fool and the Birch Tree" (Afanasief, vol. v., No. 22).
Sachúlí kills a woman; his Russian counterpart kills a man. The corpse
of the woman is hidden away in a well, that of the man in a cellar. In
each case the fool's sensible relatives, knowing that he will be sure
to tell the truth if he is asked, withdraw the body during his
absence, and substitute for it that of an animal killed for the
purpose. When the seekers after the victim arrive at Sachúlí's home,
he at once conducts them to the well. Being let down into it, he asks,
"Has she got eyes?" "Of course, every one has eyes," is the reply.
"Has she a nose?" "Yes, she has a nose." But at last he inquires if
she has four feet; and the seekers after the dead woman find that the
body in the well is that of a sheep. In the same way, when the Russian
fool has confessed his guilt, and has gone into the cellar to look for
his victim's remains, he finds there the body of a goat. So he calls
out to the anxious inquirers, "Was your man dark-haired?" "He was."
"And had he a beard?" "Yes, he had a beard." "And had he horns?" "What
horns are you talking about, fool?" they reply. So he hands up the
goat's head, and the Russian tale comes to the same conclusion as the
Indian. The likeness here is too strong to be attributed to an
accidental coincidence.
* * * * *
It does not, of course, follow that, because a story is found both in
Europe and Asia, therefore the western version has been borrowed from
the east. Europe has, doubtless, sometimes lent a fancy to Asia. Greek
fables are supposed to have exercised an influence upon the Indian
mind. European missionaries may have sometimes rendered a Christian
legend current among Hindus. Professor Monier Williams was assured by
an intelligent native that the spread of railways had materially
diminished the number of malignant ghosts in India. Still, as a
general rule, the east is stubbornly conservative. The Japanese, it is
true, are abandoning their own costume and art for ours, not entirely
to their advantage. But the various peoples of India have never shown
any such tendencies towards change. In their popular fiction, at all
events, they have never shown an inclination to import foreign
manufactures in order to replace their home products. In their
thoughts and feelings they are now very much what they have been for
periods of time which it would be difficult to define. When we find
stories now current in all parts of India, which we know from their
occurrence in Sanskrit literature must have existed there very long
ago, and we see that the mythological element in those stories is in
accordance with religious ideas that have prevailed there for
countless centuries, we can have no doubt that these stories were
framed there at a very early period. Then if we find almost identical
stories current in all parts of Europe, many of their at least
apparently mythological features offering difficulties which cannot be
removed by a reference to the mythologies of the heathen ancestors of
the peasants who now repeat them, it seems not unreasonable to come to
the conclusion that such stories have been borrowed by the west from
the east. From mythological germs common to European and Asiatic
Aryans, it is quite true that legends might arise in Europe and in
Asia, independent of each other, but similar in their general tenor.
But it is not likely that out of any common germ could be
independently developed in several different countries as many
variants of the same tale, in each of which there is a similar
sequence of scenes or acts, and the dramatic action is brought to a
close by a termination that scarcely ever varies. Far more difficult
is it to believe in such a triumph of independent development, than to
place reliance upon a statement to the effect that the wave of
story-telling, as well as of empire, has wended its way westward.
W. R. S. RALSTON.
[Decoration]
CONTENTS.
PAGE
I. PHÚLMATI RÁNÍ, OR THE FLOWER LADY 1
II. THE POMEGRANATE KING 7
III. THE CAT AND THE DOG 15
IV. THE CAT WHICH COULD NOT BE KILLED 18
V. THE JACKAL AND THE KITE 21
VI. THE VORACIOUS FROG 24
VII. THE STORY OF FOOLISH SACHÚLÍ 27
VIII. BARBER HÍM AND THE TIGERS 35
IX. THE BULBUL AND THE COTTON-TREE 39
X. THE MONKEY PRINCE 41
XI. BRAVE HÍRÁLÁLBÁSÁ 51
XII. THE MAN WHO WENT TO SEEK HIS FATE 63
XIII. THE UPRIGHT KING 68
XIV. LOVING LAILÍ 73
XV. HOW KING BURTAL BECAME A FAKÍR 85
XVI. SOME OF THE DOINGS OF SHEKH FARÍD 95
XVII. THE MOUSE 101
XVIII. A WONDERFUL STORY 108
XIX. THE FAKÍR NÁNAKSÁ SAVES THE MERCHANT'S LIFE 114
XX. THE BOY WHO HAD A MOON ON HIS FOREHEAD AND A STAR
ON HIS CHIN 119
XXI. THE BÉL-PRINCESS 138
XXII. HOW THE RÁJÁ'S SON WON THE PRINCESS LABÁM 153
XXIII. THE PRINCESS WHO LOVED HER FATHER LIKE SALT 164
XXIV. THE DEMON IS AT LAST CONQUERED BY THE KING'S SON 173
XXV. THE FAN PRINCE 193
XXVI. THE BED 201
XXVII. PÁNWPATTÍ RÁNÍ 208
XXVIII. THE CLEVER WIFE 216
XXIX. RÁJÁ HARICHAND'S PUNISHMENT 224
XXX. THE KING'S SON AND THE WAZÍR'S DAUGHTER 234
NOTES 237
GLOSSARY 295
LIST OF BOOKS REFERRED TO 297
INDEX 299
[Decoration]
[Decoration]
INDIAN FAIRY TALES.
I.
PHÚLMATI RÁNÍ.
There were once a Rájá and a Rání who had an only daughter called the
Phúlmati Rání, or the Pink-rose Queen. She was so beautiful that if
she went into a very dark room it was all lighted up by her beauty. On
her head was the sun; on her hands, moons; and her face was covered
with stars. She had hair that reached to the ground, and it was made
of pure gold.
Every day after she had had her bath, her father and mother used to
weigh her in a pair of scales. She only weighed one flower. She ate
very, very little food. This made her father most unhappy, and he
said, "I cannot let my daughter marry any one who weighs more than one
flower." Now, God loved this girl dearly, so he went down under the
ground to see if any of the fairy Rájás was fit to be the Phúlmati
Rání's husband, and he thought none of them good enough. So he went in
the form of a Fakír to see the great Indrásan Rájá who ruled over all
the other fairy Rájás. This Rájá was exceedingly beautiful. On his
head was the sun; and on his hands, moons; and on his face, stars. God
made him weigh very little. Then he said to the Rájá, "Come up with
me, and we will go to the palace of the Phúlmati Rání." God had told
the Rájá that he was God and not a Fakír, for he loved the Indrásan
Rájá. "Very well," said the Indrásan Rájá. So they travelled on until
they came to the Phúlmati Rání's palace. When they arrived there they
pitched a tent in her compound, and they used to walk about, and
whenever they saw the Phúlmati Rání they looked at her. One day they
saw her having her hair combed, so God said to the Indrásan Rájá, "Get
a horse and ride where the Phúlmati Rání can see you, and if any one
asks you who you are, say, 'Oh, it's only a poor Fakír, and I am his
son. We have come to stay here a little while just to see the country.
We will go away very soon.'" Well, he got a horse and rode about, and
Phúlmati Rání, who was having her hair combed in the verandah, said,
"I am sure that must be some Rájá; only see how beautiful he is." And
she sent one of her servants to ask him who he was. So the servant
said to the Indrásan Rájá, "Who are you? why are you here? what do you
want?" "Oh, it's only a poor Fakír, and I am his son. We have just
come here for a little while to see the country. We will go away very
soon." So the servants returned to the Phúlmati Rání and told her what
the Indrásan Rájá had said. The Phúlmati Rání told her father about
this. The next day, when the Phúlmati Rání and her father were
standing in the verandah, God took a pair of scales and weighed the
Indrásan Rájá in them. His weight was only that of one flower! "Oh,"
said the Rájá, when he saw that, "here is the husband for the Phúlmati
Rání!" The next day, after the Phúlmati Rání had had her bath, her
father took her and weighed her, and he also weighed the Indrásan
Rájá. And they were each the same weight. Each weighed one flower,
although the Indrásan Rájá was fat and the Phúlmati Rání thin. The
next day they were married, and there was a grand wedding. God said he
was too poor-looking to appear, so he bought a quantity of elephants,
and camels, and horses, and cows, and sheep, and goats, and made a
procession, and came to the wedding. Then he went back to heaven, but
before he went he said to the Indrásan Rájá "You must stay here one
whole year; then go back to your father and to your kingdom. As long
as you put flowers on your ears no danger will come near you." (This
was in order that the fairies might know that he was a very great Rájá
and not hurt him.) "All right," said the Indrásan Rájá. And God went
back to heaven.
So the Indrásan Rájá stayed for a whole year. Then he told the Rájá,
the Phúlmati Rání's father, that he wished to go back to his own
kingdom. "All right," said the Rájá, and he wanted to give him horses,
and camels, and elephants. But the Indrásan Rájá and the Phúlmati Rání
said they wanted nothing but a tent and a cooly. Well, they set out;
but the Indrásan Rájá forgot to put flowers on his ears, and after
some days the Indrásan Rájá was very, very tired, so he said, "We will
sit down under these big trees and rest awhile. Our baggage will soon
be here; it is only a little way behind." So they sat down, and the
Rájá said he felt so tired he must sleep. "Very well," said the Rání;
"lay your head in my lap and sleep." After a while a shoemaker's wife
came by to get some water from a tank which was close to the spot
where the Rájá and Rání were resting. Now, the shoemaker's wife was
very black and ugly, and she had only one eye, and she was exceedingly
wicked. The Rání was very thirsty and she said to the woman, "Please
give me some water, I am so thirsty." "If you want any," said the
shoemaker's wife, "come to the tank and get it yourself." "But I
cannot," said the Rání, "for the Rájá is sleeping in my lap." At last
the poor Rání got so very, very thirsty, she said she must have some
water; so laying the Rájá's head very gently on the ground she went to
the tank. Then the wicked shoemaker's wife, instead of giving her to
drink, gave her a push and sent the beautiful Rání into the water,
where she was drowned. The shoemaker's wife then went back to the
Rájá, and, taking his head on her knee, sat still until he woke. When
the Rájá woke he was much frightened, and he said, "This is not my
wife. My wife was not black, and she had two eyes." The poor Rájá felt
very unhappy. He said, "I am sure something has happened to my wife."
He went to the tank, and he saw flowers floating on the water and he
caught them, and as he caught them his own true wife stood before him.
They travelled on till they came to a little house. The shoemaker's
wife went with them. They went into the house and laid themselves down
to sleep, and the Rájá laid beside him the flowers he had found
floating in the tank. The Rání's life was in the flowers. As soon as
the Rájá and Rání were asleep, the shoemaker's wife took the flowers,
broke them into little bits, and burnt them. The Rání died
immediately, for the second time. Then the poor Rájá, feeling very
lonely and unhappy, travelled on to his kingdom, and the shoemaker's
wife went after him. God brought the Phúlmati Rání to life a second
time, and led her to the Indrásan Rájá's gardener.
One day as the Indrásan Rájá was going out hunting, he passed by the
gardener's house, and saw a beautiful girl sitting in it. He thought
she looked very like his wife, the Phúlmati Rání. So he went home to
his father and said, "Father, I should like to be married to the girl
who lives in our gardener's house." "All right," said the father; "you
can be married at once." So they were married the next day.
One night the shoemaker's wife took a ram, killed it, and put some of
its blood on the Phúlmati Rání's mouth while the Rání slept. The next
morning she went to the Indrásan Rájá and said, "Whom have you
married? You have married a Rakshas. Just see. She has been eating
cows, and sheep, and chickens. Just come and see." The Rájá went, and
when he saw the blood on his wife's mouth he was frightened, and he
thought she was really a Rakshas. The shoemaker's wife said to him,
"If you do not cut this woman in pieces, some harm will happen to
you." So the Rájá took a knife and cut his beautiful wife into pieces.
He then went away very sorrowful. The Phúlmati Rání's arms and legs
grew into four houses; her chest became a tank, and her head a house
in the middle of the tank; her eyes turned into two little doves; and
these five houses, the tank and the doves, were transported to the
jungle. No one knew this. The little doves lived in the house that
stood in the middle of the tank. The other four houses stood round the
tank.
One day when the Indrásan Rájá was hunting by himself in the jungle he
was very tired, and he saw the house in the tank. So he said, "I will
go into that house to rest a little while, and to-morrow I will return
home to my father." So, tying his horse outside, he went into the
house and lay down to sleep. By and by, the two little birds came and
perched on the roof above his head. They began to talk, and the Rájá
listened. The little husband-dove said to his wife, "This is the man
who cut his wife to pieces." And then he told her how the Indrásan
Rájá had married the beautiful Phúlmati Rání, who weighed only one
flower, and how the shoemaker's wife had drowned her; how God had
brought her to life again; how the shoemaker's wife had burned her;
and last of all, how the Rájá himself had cut her to pieces. "And
cannot the Rájá find her again?" said the little wife-dove. "Oh, yes,
he can," said her husband, "but he does not know how to do so." "But
do tell me how he can find her," said the little wife-dove. "Well,"
said her husband, "every night, at twelve o'clock, the Rání and her
servants come to bathe in the tank. Her servants wear yellow dresses,
but she wears a red one. Now, if the Rájá could get all their dresses,
every one, when they lay them down and go into the tank to bathe, and
throw away all the yellow dresses one by one, keeping only the red
one, he would recover his wife."
The Rájá heard all these things, and at midnight the Rání and her
servants came to bathe. The Rájá lay very quiet, and after they all
had taken off their dresses and gone into the tank, he jumped up and
seized every one of the dresses,--he did not leave one of them,--and
ran away as hard as he could. Then each of the servants, who were only
fairies, screamed out, "Give me my dress! What are you doing? why do
you take it away?" Then the Rájá dropped one by one the yellow dresses
and kept the red one. The fairy servants picked up the dresses, and
forsook the Phúlmati Rání and ran away. The Rájá came back to her with
her dress in his hand, and she said, "Oh, give me back my dress. If
you keep it I shall die. Three times has God brought me to life, but
he will bring me to life no more." The Rájá fell at her feet and
begged her pardon, and they were reconciled. And he gave her back her
dress. Then they went home, and Indrásan Rájá had the shoemaker's wife
cut to pieces, and buried in the jungle. And they lived happily ever
after.
Told by Dunkní at Simla, July 25th, 1876.
[Decoration]
[Decoration]
II.
THE POMEGRANATE KING.
There was once a Mahárájá, called the Anárbásá, or Pomegranate King;
and a Mahárání called the Gulíanár, or Pomegranate-flower. The
Mahárání died leaving two children: a little girl of four or five
years old, and a little boy of three. The Mahárájá was very sorry when
she died, for he loved her dearly. He was exceedingly fond of his two
children, and got for them two servants: a man to cook their dinner,
and an ayah to take care of them. He also had them taught to read and
write. Soon after his wife's death the neighbouring Rájá's daughter's
husband died, and she said if any other Rájá would marry her, she
would be quite willing to marry him, and she also said she would like
very much to marry the Pomegranate Rájá. So her father went to see the
Pomegranate Rájá, and told him that his daughter wished to marry him.
"Oh," said the Pomegranate Rájá, "I do not want to marry again, for if
I do, the woman I marry will be sure to be unkind to my two children.
She will not take care of them. She will not pet them and comfort them
when they are unhappy." "Oh," said the other Rájá, "my daughter will
be very good to them, I assure you." "Very well," said the Mahárájá,
"I will marry her." So they were married.
For two or three months everything went on well, but then the new
Rání, who was called the Sunkásí Mahárání, began to beat the poor
children, and to scold their servants. One day she gave the boy such
a hard blow on his cheek that it swelled. When the Mahárájá came out
of his office to get his tiffin, he saw the boy's swollen face, and,
calling the two servants, he said, "Who did this? how did my boy get
hurt?" They said, "The Rání gave him such a hard blow on his cheek
that it swelled, and she gets very angry with us if we say anything
about her ill-treatment of the children, or how she scolds us." The
Mahárájá was exceedingly angry with his wife for this, and said to
her, "I never beat my children. Why should you beat them? If you beat
them I will send you away." And he went off to his office in a great
rage. The Rání was very angry. So she told the little girl to go with
the ayah to the bazar. The ayah and the little girl set off, never
suspecting any evil. As soon as they had gone, the Rání took the
little boy and told him she would kill him. The boy went down on his
knees and begged her to spare his life. But she said, "No; your father
is always quarrelling with me, beating me, and scolding me, all
through your fault." The boy begged and prayed again, saying he would
never be naughty any more. The Rání shook her head, and taking a large
knife she cut off his head. She then cut him up and made him into a
curry. She then buried his head, and his nails, and his feet in the
ground, and she covered them well with earth, and stamped the ground
well down so that no one should notice it had been disturbed. When the
Pomegranate Rájá came home to his dinner, she put the curry and some
rice on the table before him; but the Rájá, seeing his boy was not
there, would not eat. He went and looked everywhere for his son,
crying very much, and the little girl cried very much too, for she
loved her brother dearly. After they had hunted for him for some time,
the little boy appeared. His father embraced him. "Where have you
been?" said he. "I cannot eat my dinner without you." The little boy
said, "Oh, I was in the jungle playing with other boys." They then
sat down to dinner, and the curry changed into a kid curry. The Rání
was greatly astonished when she saw the boy. She said to herself, "I
cut his head off; I cut him into little pieces, and I made him into a
curry, and yet he is alive!" She then went into the garden to see if
his head, and nails, and feet were in the hole where she had buried
them. But they were not there; it was quite empty. She then called a
sepoy, and said to him, "If you will take two children into the jungle
and kill them, I will give you as much money as you like." "All
right," said the sepoy. She then brought the children, and told him to
take them to the jungle. So he took them away to the jungle, but he
had not the heart to kill them, for they were exceedingly beautiful,
and he left them in the jungle near their dead mother's grave. Then he
returned to the Rání, saying he had done as she wished, and she gave
him as much money as he wanted.
The poor Pomegranate Rájá was very unhappy when he saw his children
were not in the palace, and that they could not be found. He asked his
Rání where they were, but she said she did not know; they had gone out
to play and had never returned. From the day he lost his children the
Pomegranate Rájá became melancholy. He did not love the Rání any more;
he hated her.
Meanwhile the children lived in a little house built close to their
mother's grave. God had given her life again that she might take care
of them. But they did not know she was their mother; they thought she
was another woman sent to take care of them. God sent also a man to
teach them. Somehow or other the Rání Sunkásí heard they were still
alive in the jungle. She did not know how she could kill them. So at
last she pretended she was very ill, and she said to the Rájá, "The
doctor says that in the jungle there are two children, and he says if
you will have them killed, and will bring their livers for me to
stand on when I bathe, then I shall get well." The Rájá sent a second
sepoy to kill the children, and this man killed them and brought their
livers to the Rání. She stood on them while bathing, and then said she
was quite well. She then threw the livers into the garden, and during
the night a tree grew up there with two large beautiful flowers on it.
Next morning the Rání looked out and said, "I will gather those
flowers to-day." Every day she said she would gather them, and every
day she forgot. At last one day she said, "Every day I forget to
gather those flowers, but to-day I really will do so," and she sent
her servant to pluck them. So he went out, and, just as he was going
to gather them, the flowers flew up just out of his reach. Then the
Rání went down, and when she was going to pick them they flew up so
high that they could not be seen. Every day she tried to gather them,
and every day they went high up, and came back again to the tree as
soon as she had gone. Then the flowers disappeared and two large
fruits came in their stead. The Rání looked out of her window: "Oh,
what delicious fruits! I'll eat them all myself. I won't give a bit to
anybody, and I'll eat them by myself quite quietly." She went down to
the garden, but they flew high up into the sky, and then they came
down again. So this went on, day after day, until she got so cross she
ordered the tree to be cut down. But it was of no use. The tree was
cut down, but the fruits flew high up into the sky, and in the night
the tree grew up again and the fruits came back again to it. And so
this went on for many days. Every day she cut down the tree, and every
night it grew up again, but she could never get the fruits. At last
she became very angry, and had the tree hewn into tiny bits and all
the bits thrown away, but still the tree grew again in the night, and
in the morning the fruits were hanging on it. So she went to the Rájá
and told him that in the garden was a tree with two fruits, and every
time she tried to get them, the fruits went up into the air. She had
had the tree cut down ever so many times, and it always grew up again
in the night and the fruits returned to it. "Why cannot you leave the
tree alone?" said the Rájá. "But I should like to see if what you say
is true." So the Rájá and the Rání went down to the garden, and the
Rání tried to get the fruits, but she could not, for they went right
up into the air.
That evening the Rájá went alone to the garden to gather the fruits,
and the fruits of themselves fell into his hand. He took them into his
room, and putting them on a little table close to his bed, he lay down
to sleep. As soon as he was in bed a little voice inside one of the
fruits said, "Brother;" and a little voice in the other fruit said,
"Sister, speak more gently. To-morrow the Rájá will break open the
fruits, and if the Rání finds us she will kill us. Three times has God
made us alive again, but if we die a fourth time he will bring us to
life no more." The Rájá listened and said, "I will break them open in
a little while." Then he went to sleep, and after a little he woke and
said, "A little while longer," and went to sleep again. Several times
he woke up and said, "I will break the fruits open in a little while,"
and went to sleep. At last he took a knife and began cutting the
fruits open very fast, and the little boy cried, "Gently, gently,
father; you hurt us!" So then the Rájá cut more gently, and he stopped
to ask, "Are you hurt?" and they said, "No." And then he cut again and
asked, "Are you hurt?" and they said, "No." And a third time he asked,
"Are you hurt?" and they answered, "No." Then the fruits broke open
and his two children jumped out. They rushed into their father's arms,
and he clasped them tight, and they cried softly, that the Rání might
not hear.
He shut his room up close, and fed and dressed his children, and then
went out of the room, locking the door behind him. He had a little
wooden house built that could easily catch fire, and as soon as it was
ready he went to the Rání and said, "Will you go into a little house I
have made ready for you while your room is getting repaired?" "All
right," said the Rání; so she went into the little house, and that
night a man set it on fire, and the Rání and everything in it was
burnt up. Then the Pomegranate Rájá took her bones, put them into a
tin box, and sent them as a present to her mother. "Oh," said the
mother, "my daughter has married the Pomegranate Mahárájá, and so she
sends me some delicious food." When she opened the box, to her horror
she found only bones! Then she wrote to the Mahárájá, "Of what use are
bones?" The Mahárájá wrote back, "They are your bones; they belong to
you, for they are your daughter's bones. She ill-treated and killed my
children, and so I had her burnt."
The Pomegranate Rájá and his children lived very happily for some
time, and their dead mother, the Gulíanár Rání, having a wish to see
her husband and her children, prayed to God to let her go and visit
them. God said she could go, but not in her human shape, so he changed
her into a beautiful bird, and put a pin in her head, and said, "As
soon as the pin is pulled out you will become a woman again." She flew
to the palace where the Mahárájá lived, and there were great trees
about the palace. On one of these she perched at night. The doorkeeper
was lying near it. She called out, "Doorkeeper! doorkeeper!" and he
answered, "What is it? Who is it?" And she asked, "Is the Rájá well?"
and the doorkeeper said, "Yes." "Are the children well?" and he said,
"Yes." "And all the servants, and camels, and horses?" "Yes." "Are you
well?" "Yes." "Have you had plenty of food?" "Yes." "What a great
donkey your Mahárájá is!" And then she began to cry very much, and
pearls fell from her eyes as she cried. Then she began to laugh very
much, and great big rubies fell from her beak as she laughed. The next
morning the doorkeeper got up and felt about, and said, "What is all
this?" meaning the pearls and the rubies, for he did not know what
they were. "I will keep them." So he picked them all up and put them
into a corner of his house. Every night the bird came and asked after
the Mahárájá and the children and the servants, and left a great many
pearls and rubies behind her. At last the doorkeeper had a whole heap
of pearls and rubies.
One day a Fakír came and begged, and as the doorkeeper had no pice, or
flour, or rice to give, he gave him a handful of pearls and rubies.
"Well," said the Fakír to himself, "I am sure these are pearls and
rubies." So he tied them up in his cloth. Then he went to the Rájá to
beg, and the Rájá gave him a handful of rice. "What!" said the Fakír,
"the great Mahárájá only gives me a handful of rice when his
doorkeeper gives me pearls and rubies!" and he turned to walk away.
But the Mahárájá stopped him. "What did you say?" said he, "that my
doorkeeper gave you pearls and rubies?" "Yes," said the Fakír, "your
doorkeeper gave me pearls and rubies." So the Mahárájá went to the
doorkeeper's house, and when he saw all the pearls and rubies that
were there, he thought the man had stolen them from his treasury. The
Mahárájá had not as many pearls and rubies as his doorkeeper had. Then
turning to the doorkeeper he asked him to tell him truly where and how
he had got them. "Yes, I will," said the doorkeeper. "Every night a
beautiful bird comes and asks after you, after your children, after
all your elephants, horses, and servants; and then it cries, and when
it cries pearls drop from its eyes; and then it laughs, and rubies
fall from its beak. If you come to-night I dare say you will see it."
"All right," said the Pomegranate Rájá.
So that night the Mahárájá pulled his bed out under the tree on which
the bird always perched. At night the bird came and called out,
"Doorkeeper! doorkeeper!" and the doorkeeper answered, "Yes, lord."
And the bird said, "Is your Mahárájá well?" "Yes." "Are the children
well?" "Yes." "And all his servants, horses, and camels and
elephants--are they well?" "Yes." "Are you well?" "Yes." "Have you had
plenty of food?" "Yes." "What a fool your Mahárájá is!" And then she
cried, and the pearls came tumbling down on the Mahárájá's eyes, and
the Mahárájá opened one eye and saw what a beautiful bird it was. And
then it laughed, and rubies fell from its beak on to the Mahárájá.
Next morning the Mahárájá said he would give any one who would catch
the bird as much money as he wanted. So he called a fisherman, and
asked him to bring his net and catch the bird when it came that night.
The fisherman said he would for one thousand rupees. That night the
fisherman, the Mahárájá, and the doorkeeper, all waited under the
tree. Soon the bird came, and asked after the Mahárájá, after his
children, and all his servants and elephants, and camels and horses,
and then after the doorkeeper, and then it called the Mahárájá a fool.
Then it cried, and then it laughed, and just as it laughed the
fisherman threw the net over the bird and caught it. Then they shut it
up in an iron cage, and the next morning the Mahárájá took it out and
stroked it, and said, "What a sweet little bird! what a lovely little
bird!" And the Mahárájá felt something like a pin in its head, and he
gave a pull, and out came the pin, and then his own dear wife, the
Pomegranate-flower Rání, stood before him. The Rájá was exceedingly
glad, and so were his two children. And there were great rejoicings,
and they lived happily ever after.
Told by Dunkní at Simla, 26th July, 1876.
[Decoration]
III.
THE CAT AND THE DOG.
_Introduction._
Now all cats are aunts to the tigers, and the cat in this story was
the aunt of the tiger in this story. She was his mother's sister. When
the tiger's mother was dying, she called the cat to her, and taking
her paw she said, "When I am dead you must take care of my child." The
cat answered, "Very well," and then the tiger's mother died. The tiger
said to the cat, "Aunt, I am very hungry. Go and fetch some fire. When
I go to ask men for fire they are afraid of me, and run away from me,
and won't give me any. But you are such a little creature that men are
not afraid of you, and so they will give you fire, and then you must
bring it to me." So the cat said, "Very good," and off she started,
and went into a house where some men were eating their dinner: they
had thrown away the bones, and the cat began to eat them. This house
was very near the place where the tiger lived, and on peeping round
the corner he saw his aunt eating the bones. "Oh," said he, "I sent my
aunt to fetch fire that I might cook my dinner as I am very hungry,
and there she sits eating the bones, and never thinks of me." So the
tiger called out, "Aunt, I sent you to fetch fire, and there you sit
eating bones and leave me hungry! If ever you come near me again, I
will kill you at once." So the cat ran away screaming, "I will never
go near the tiger again, for he will kill me!" This is why all cats
are so afraid of tigers, or of anything like a tiger. And this is why,
when the cat in the story saw the tiger, her nephew, fighting with the
man, she ran away as hard as she could.
_The Story._
There were once a dog and a cat. It was a very rainy day, and some men
were eating their dinner inside their house. The cat sat inside too,
eating her dinner, and the dog sat on the door-step. The cat called
out to the dog, "I am a high-caste person, and you are a very
low-caste person." "Oh," said the dog, "not at all. I am the
high-caste person and you are of very low caste. You eat all the men's
dinner up, and snatch the food from their hands just as they are
putting it into their mouths. And you scratch them, and they beat you;
while I sit away from them, and so they don't beat me. And if they
_give_ me any dinner I'll eat it; but if they don't, I won't." "Oh,"
says the cat, "not a bit of it. I eat nice clean food; but you eat
nasty, dirty food, which the men have thrown away." "No," said the
dog, "I am high caste and you are very low caste, for if I gave you a
slap you would tumble down directly." "No, no!" said the cat. And they
went on disputing and began to fight, till the dog said, "Very well,
let us go to the wise jackal and ask him which of us is the better."
"Good," said the cat. So they went to the jackal and asked him. Said
the cat, "I am of the higher caste, and the dog is of the lower
caste." "No," said the jackal, "the dog is of the higher caste." The
cat said, "No," and the jackal said, "Yes," and they began to fight.
Then the jackal and the dog proposed to go and ask a great big beast
who lived in the jungle and was like a tiger. But the cat said, "I
cannot go near a tiger or anything like one." So then they said, "When
we come near the beast, you can remain behind, and we will go on and
speak to him." So they ran into the jungle, where there was a tiger
who had been lying on the ground with a great thorn sticking in his
foot. When his aunt, the cat, saw him, she scampered off, for she was
dreadfully frightened.
The thorn had given the tiger great pain; for a long while he could
get no one to take it out, so had lain there for days. At last he had
seen a man passing by, to whom he called and said, "Take out this
thorn, and I promise I won't eat you." But the man refused through
fear, saying, "No, I won't, for you will eat me." Three times the
tiger had promised not to eat him; so at last the man took out the
thorn. Then the tiger sprang up and said, "Now I will eat you, for I
am very hungry." "Oh, no, no!" said the man. "What a liar you are! You
promised not to eat me if I would take the thorn out of your foot, and
now that I have done so you say you will eat me." And they began to
fight, and the man said, "If you won't eat me, I will bring you a cow
and a goat." But the tiger refused, saying, "No, I won't eat them; I
will eat you."
At this moment the jackal and the dog came up. And the jackal asked,
"What is the matter? why are you fighting?" So then the man told him
why they were fighting; and the jackal said to the tiger, "I will tell
you a good way of eating the man. Go and fetch a big bag." So the
tiger went and fetched the bag, and brought it to the jackal. Then the
jackal said, "Get inside the bag, and leave its mouth open and I'll
throw the man in to you." So the tiger got inside the bag, and the
jackal, the dog and the man quickly tied it up as tight as they could.
Then they began to beat the tiger with all their might until at last
they killed him. Then the man went home, and the jackal went home, and
the dog went home.
[Decoration]
IV.
THE CAT WHICH COULD NOT BE KILLED.
There were once a dog and a cat, who were always quarrelling. The dog
used to beat the cat, but he never could hurt her. She would only
dance about and cry, "You never hurt me, you never hurt me! I _had_ a
pain in my shoulder, but now it is all gone away." So the dog went to
a _mainá_[1] and said, "What shall I do to hurt this cat? I beat her
and I bite her, and yet I can't hurt her. I am such a big dog and she
is rather a big cat, yet if I beat her I don't hurt her, but if she
beats me she hurts me so much." The _mainá_ said, "Bite her mouth
very, very hard, and then you'll hurt her." "Oh, no," said the cat,
who had just come up, laughing; "you won't hurt me at all." The dog
bit her mouth as hard as he could. "Oh, you don't hurt me," said the
cat, dancing about. So the dog went again to the _mainá_ and said,
"What shall I do?" "Bite her ears," said the _mainá_. So the dog bit
the cat's ears, but she danced about and said, "Oh, you did not hurt
me; now I can put earrings in my ears." So she put in earrings.
The dog went to the elephant. "Can you kill this cat? she worries me
so every day." "Oh, yes," said the elephant, "of course I can kill
her. She is so little and I am so big." Then the elephant came and
took her up with his trunk, and threw her a long way. Up she jumped at
once and danced about, saying, "You did not hurt me one bit. I _had_
a pain, but now I am quite well." Then the elephant got cross and
said, "I'll teach you to dance in another way than that," and he took
the cat and laid her on the ground and put his great foot on her. But
she was not hurt at all. She danced about and said, "You did not hurt
me one bit, not one bit," and she dug her claws into the elephant's
trunk. The elephant ran away screaming, and he told the dog, "You had
better beware of that cat. She belongs to the tiger tribe." The dog
felt very angry with the cat. "What shall I do," said he, "to kill
this cat?" And he bit her nose so hard that it bled. But she laughed
at him. "Now I can put a ring in my nose," said she. He got furious.
"I'll bite her tail in half," said he. So he bit her tail in half, and
yet he did not hurt her.
He then went to a leopard. "If you can kill this cat I will give you
anything you want." "Very well, I'll kill her," said the leopard. And
they went together to the cat. "Stop," said the cat to the leopard; "I
want to speak to you first. I'll give you something to eat, and then
I'll tell you what I want to say." And then she ran off ever so far,
and after she had run a mile she stopped and danced, calling out, "Oh!
I'll give you nothing to eat; you could not kill me." The leopard went
away very cross, and saying, "What a clever cat that is."
The dog next went to a man, and said, "Can you kill this cat, she
worries me so?" "Of course I can," said the man; "I'll stick this
knife into her stomach." And he stuck his knife into the cat's
stomach, but the cat jumped up, and her stomach closed, and the man
went home.
And the dog went to a bear. "Can _you_ kill this cat? I can't." "I'll
kill her," said the bear; so he stuck all his claws into the cat, but
he didn't hurt her; and she stuck her claws into the bear's nose so
deep that he died immediately.
Then the poor dog felt very unhappy, and went and threw himself into a
hole, and there he died, while the cat went away to her friends.
Told by Dunkní at Simla, July 26th, 1876.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] A kind of starling.
[Decoration]
[Decoration]
V.
THE JACKAL AND THE KITE.
There was once a she-jackal and a she-kite. They lived in the same
tree; the jackal at the bottom of the tree, and the kite at the top.
Neither had any children. One day the kite said to the jackal, "Let us
go and worship God, and fast, and then he will give us children." So
the jackal said, "Very good." That day the kite ate nothing, nor that
night; but the jackal at night brought a dead animal, and was sitting
eating it quietly under the tree. By-and-by the kite heard her
crunching the bones, instead of fasting. "What have you got there,"
said the kite, "that you are making such a noise?" "Nothing," said the
jackal; "it is only my own bones that rattle inside my body whenever I
move." The kite went to sleep again, and took no more notice of the
jackal. Next morning the kite ate some food in the name of God. That
night again the jackal brought a dead animal. The kite called out,
"What are you crunching there? Why are you making that noise? I am
sure you have something to eat." The jackal said, "Oh, no! It is only
my own bones rattling in my body." So the kite went to sleep again.
Some time after, the kite had seven little boys--real little boys--but
the jackal had none, because she had not fasted. A year after that the
kite went and worshipped God, asking Him to take care of her children.
One day--it was their great day--the kite set out seven plates. On one
she put cocoa-nuts, on another cucumbers, on a third rice, on a
fourth plantains, and so on. Then she gave a plate to each of her
seven sons, and told them to take the plates to their aunt the jackal.
So they took the seven plates, and carried them to their aunt, crying
out, "Aunty, aunty, look here! Mamma has sent you these things." The
jackal took the plates, and cut off the heads of the seven boys, and
their hands, and their feet, and their noses, and their ears, and took
out their eyes. Then she laid their heads in one plate, and their eyes
in another, and their noses in a third, and their ears in a fourth,
and their hands in a fifth, and their feet in a sixth, and their
trunks in the seventh, and then she covered all the plates over. Then
she took the plates to the kite, and called out, "Here! I have brought
you something in return. You sent me a present, and I bring you a
present." Now the poor kite thought the jackal had killed all her
seven children, so she cried out, "Oh, it's too dark now to see what
you have brought. Put the plates down in my tree." The jackal put the
plates down and went home. Then God made the boys alive again, and
they came running to their mother, quite well. And instead of the
heads and eyes, and noses and ears, and hands and feet, and trunks,
there were again on the plates cocoa-nuts and cucumbers, and plantains
and rice, and so on.
Now the jackal got hold of the boys again. And this time she killed
them, and cooked them and ate them; and again God brought them to
life. Well, the jackal was very much astonished to see the boys alive,
and she got angry, and said to the kite, "I will take your seven sons
and throw them into the water, and they will be drowned." "Very well,"
said the kite, "take them. I don't mind. God will take care of them."
The jackal took them and threw them into the water, and left them to
die, while the kite looked on without crying. And again God made them
alive, and the jackal was so surprised. "Why," said she, "I put these
children into the water, and left them to drown. And here they are
alive!" Then God got very angry with the jackal, and said to her, "Go
out of this village. And wherever you go, men will try to shoot you,
and you shall always be afraid of them." So the jackal had to go away;
and the kite and her children lived very happily ever afterwards.
Told by Dunkní.
[Decoration]
[Decoration]
VI.
THE VORACIOUS FROG.
There were a rat and a frog. And the rat said to the frog, "Go and get
me some sticks, while I go and get some flour and milk." So the frog
went out far into the jungle and brought home plenty of sticks, and
the rat went out and brought home flour and milk for their dinner.
Then she cooked the dinner, and when it was cooked she said to the
frog, "Now, you sit here while I go to bathe, and take care of the
food so that no one may come and eat it up." Then the rat went to take
her bath, and as soon as she had gone the frog made haste and ate up
the dinner quickly, and went away.
When the rat came back she found no dinner, and she could not find the
frog. So she went out to look for him, calling to him as loudly as she
could, and she saw him in the distance, and overtook him. "Why have
you eaten my dinner? Why did you go away?" said the rat. Said the
frog, "Oh, dear! it was not I that ate your dinner, but a huge dog
that came; and I was only a tiny, tiny thing, and he was a great big
dog, and so he frightened me, and I ran away." "Very well," said the
rat; "go and fetch me more sticks while I go for flour and milk." So
the frog went out far into the jungle and brought back plenty of
sticks. And the rat went to fetch flour and milk. Then she lit the
fire and cooked the dinner, and told the frog to take care of the
dinner while she went to bathe. As soon as she had gone, the frog ate
up all the dinner, and went away and hid himself. When the rat came
back she saw no frog, no dinner. She went away into the jungle and
called to him, and the frog answered from behind a tree, "Here I am,
here I am." The rat went to him and said, "Why did you eat my dinner?"
"I didn't," said the frog. "It was a great big dog ate the dinner, and
he wanted to eat me too, and so I ran away." The rat said, "Very well.
Go and fetch me some more sticks, and I will go for flour and milk."
Then she cooked the dinner again and went to bathe. The frog ate up
all the dinner, and went away and hid himself. When the rat returned
she saw no dinner, no frog. So she went far into the jungle, found the
frog, and told him that it was he that had eaten the dinner. And the
frog said, "No," and the rat said, "Yes." And the frog said, "If you
say that again, I will eat you up." "All right," says the rat, "eat me
up." So he ate her up and sat behind a tree, and the baker came past.
The frog called out, "Baker, come here! come here! Give me some
bread." The baker looked about everywhere, could not see anybody,
could not think who was calling him. At last he saw the frog sitting
behind a tree. "Give me some bread," says the frog. The man said, "No,
I won't give you any bread. I am a great big man, and you are only a
little frog, and you have no money." "Yes, I have money. I will give
you some pice, and you will give me some bread." But the man said,
"No, I won't." "Well," said the frog, "if you won't give me bread, I
will eat you up first, and then I will eat up your bread." So he ate
up the man, and then ate up his bread. Presently a man with oranges
and lemons passed by. The frog called to him, "Come here! come here!"
The man was very much afraid. He didn't know who had called him. Then
he saw the frog, and the frog said, "Give me some lemons." The man
wouldn't, and said, "No." "Very well," says the frog, "if you won't,
I'll eat you up." So he ate up the man with his lemons and oranges.
Presently a horse and his groom went by. The frog says, "Please give
me a ride, and I will give you some money." "No," said the horse, "I
won't let you ride on me. You are like a monkey,--very little--I won't
let you ride on my back." The frog said, "If you won't, I'll eat you
up." Then the frog ate him up, and his groom too. Then a barber passed
by. "Come and shave me," says the frog. "Good," says the barber, "I'll
come and shave you." So he shaved him, and he thought the frog looked
_very_ fat, and so as he was shaving him he suddenly made a cut in his
stomach. Out jumped the rat with her flour and milk--the baker with
his bread--the lemon-seller with his oranges and lemons--the horse and
his groom. And the barber ran away home. And the frog died.
[Decoration]
[Decoration]
VII.
THE STORY OF FOOLISH SACHÚLÍ.
There once lived a poor old widow woman named Hungní, who had a little
idiot son called Sachúlí. She used to beg every day. One day when the
son had grown up, he said to his mother. "What makes women laugh?" "If
you throw a tiny stone at them," answered she, "they will laugh." So
one day Sachúlí went and sat by a well, and three women came to it to
fill their water-jars. "Now," said Sachúlí "I will make one of these
women laugh." Two of the women filled their water-jars and went away
home, and he threw no stones at them; but as the last, who also had on
the most jewels, passed him, he threw a great big stone at her, and
she fell down dead, with her mouth set as if she were smiling. "Oh,
look! look! how she is laughing!" said Sachúlí, and he ran off to call
his mother.
"Come, come, mother," said he, "and see how I have made this woman
laugh."
His mother came, and when she saw the woman lying dead, she was much
frightened, for the dead woman belonged to a great and very rich
family, and she wore jewels worth a thousand rupees. Hungní took off
all her jewels, and threw her body into the well.
After some days the dead woman's father and mother and all her people
sent round a crier with a drum to try and find her. "Whoever brings
back a young woman who wears a great many gold necklaces and bracelets
and rings shall get a great deal of money," cried the crier. Sachúlí
heard him. "I know where she is," said he. "My mother took off all her
jewels, and threw her into the well."
The crier said, "Can you go down into the well and bring her up?"
"If you will tie a rope round my waist and let me down the well, I
shall be able to bring her up."
So they set off towards the well, which was near Hungní's house; and
when she saw them coming, she guessed what they came for, and she ran
out and killed a sheep, threw it into the well, and took out the dead
woman and hid her.
The crier got some men to come with him, and they let Sachúlí down the
well. "Has she got eyes?" said Sachúlí. "Of course, every one has
eyes," answered the men. "Has she a nose?" asked Sachúlí. "Yes, she
has a nose," said the men. "Has she got a mouth?" asked Sachúlí.
"Yes," said the men. "Has she a long face?"
"What does he mean?" said the men, who were getting cross. "No one has
a long face; perhaps she has, though. Yes, she has a long face," cried
the men.
"Has she a tail?"
"A tail! Why no one has a tail. Perhaps, though, she has long hair. No
doubt that is what he calls a tail. Yes, she has a tail."
"Has she ears?"
"Of course, every one has ears."
"Has she four feet?"
"Four feet!" said the men. "Why, no one has four feet. Perhaps you
call her hands feet. Yes, she has four feet. Bring her up quickly."
Then Sachúlí brought up the sheep.
The men were very angry when they saw the sheep, and they beat
Sachúlí, and called him a very stupid fellow and a great liar, and
they went away feeling very cross.
Sachúlí went home to his mother, who, as soon as she saw him coming,
ran out and put the woman's body back in the well, and when he got
home she beat him. "Mother," said he, "give me some bread, and I will
go away and die." His mother cooked him some bread, and he went away.
He walked on, and on, and on, a long way.
Now, some Rájá's ten camels had been travelling along the road on
which Sachúlí went, each carrying sacks of gold mohurs and rupees, and
one of these camels broke loose from the string and strayed away, and
the camel-drivers could not find it again. But Sachúlí met it, and
caught it and took it home.
"See, mother! see what a quantity of money I have brought you!" cried
Sachúlí. Hungní rushed out, and was delighted to see so much money.
She took off the sacks at once and sent the camel away. Then she hid
the rupees and the gold with the jewels she had taken from the dead
woman. And, as she was a cunning woman, she went and bought a great
many comfits and scattered them all about her house, when Sachúlí was
out of the way. "Oh, look! look!" cried Sachúlí, "at all these
comfits." "God has rained them from heaven," said his mother. Sachúlí
began to pick them up and eat them, and he told all the people in the
village how God had rained down comfits from heaven on his mother's
house. "What nonsense!" cried they. "Yes, he has," said Sachúlí, "and
I have been eating them." "No comfits have fallen on our houses," said
they. "Yes, yes," cried he, "the day my mother got all those rupees,
God rained comfits on our house." "What lies!" cried the people; "as
if it ever rained comfits. Why did not the comfits rain down on our
houses? Why did they fall only on your house? And what's all this
about rupees?" And then they came to see if there were any rupees or
comfits in Hungní's house, and they found none at all, for Hungní had
hidden the rupees and thrown away the comfits. "There," said they to
Sachúlí, "where are your rupees? where are your comfits? What a liar
you are! as if it ever rained comfits. How can you tell such stories?"
And they beat him. "But it did rain comfits," said Sachúlí, "for I ate
them. It rained comfits the day my mother got the rupees."
Now the Rájá who had lost his camel sent round the crier with his drum
to find his camel and his money-bags. "Whoever has found a camel
carrying money-bags and brings it and the money back to the Rájá, will
get a great many rupees," cried the crier. "Oh!" says Sachúlí, "I know
where the money is. One day I went out and I found a stray camel, and
he had sacks of rupees on his back, and I took him home to my mother,
and she took the sacks off his back and sent the camel away." So the
crier went to find the rupees, and the people in the bazar went with
him. But Hungní had hidden the rupees so carefully that, though they
hunted all over her house, they could find none, and they beat
Sachúlí, and told him he was a liar. "I am not telling lies," said
Sachúlí. "My mother took the rupees the day it rained comfits on our
house." So they beat him again, and they went away. Then Hungní beat
Sachúlí, and said, "What a bad boy you are! trying to get me beaten
and put into prison, telling every one about the rupees. Go away; I
don't want you any more, such a bad boy as you are! go away and die."
He said, "Very well, mother; give me some bread, and I'll go."
Sachúlí set off and took an axe with him. "How shall I kill myself?"
said he. So he climbed up a tree and sat out on a long branch, and
began cutting off the branch between himself and the tree on which he
was sitting. "What are you doing up there?" said a man who came by.
"You'll die if you cut that branch off." "What do you say?" cries
Sachúlí, jumping down on the man, and seizing his hand. "When shall I
die?" "How can I tell? Let me go." "I won't let you go till you tell
me when I shall die." And at last the man said, "When you find a
scarlet thread on your jacket, then you will die."
Sachúlí went off to the bazar, and sat down by some tailors, and one
of the tailors, in throwing away their shreds of cloth, threw a
scarlet thread on Sachúlí's coat. "Oh," said Sachúlí, when he saw the
thread, "now I shall die!" "How do you know that?" said the tailors.
"A man told me that when I found a scarlet thread on my jacket, I
should die," said Sachúlí; and the tailors all laughed at him and made
fun of him, but he went off into the jungle and dug his grave with his
axe, and lay down in it. In the night a sepoy came by with a large jar
of ghee on his head. "How heavy this jar is," said the sepoy. "Is
there no cooly that will come and carry my ghee home for me? I would
give him four pice for his trouble." Up jumped Sachúlí out of his
grave. "I'll carry it for you," said he. "Who are you?" said the
sepoy, much frightened. "Oh, I am a man who is dead," said Sachúlí,
"and I am tired of lying here. I can't lie here any more." "Well,"
said the sepoy, very much frightened, "you may carry my ghee." So
Sachúlí put the jar on his head, and he went on, with the sepoy
following. "Now," said Sachúlí, "with these four pice I will buy a
hen, and I will sell the hen and her eggs, and with the money I get
for them I will buy a goat; and then I will sell the goat and her milk
and her hide and buy a cow, and I will sell her milk; and then I will
marry a wife, and then I shall have some children, and they will say
to me, 'Father, will you have some rice?' and I will say, 'No, I won't
have any rice.'" And as he said, "No, I won't have any rice," he shook
his head, and down came the jar of ghee, and the jar was smashed, and
the ghee spilled. "Oh, dear! what have you done?" cried the sepoy.
"Why did you shake your head?" "Because my children asked me to have
some rice, and I did not want any, so I shook my head," said Sachúlí.
"Oh," said the sepoy, "he is an utter idiot." And the sepoy went home,
and Sachúlí went back to his mother. "Why have you come back?" said
she. "I have been dead twelve years," said Sachúlí. "What lies you
tell!" said she. "You have only been away a few days. Be off! I don't
want any liars here."
Sachúlí asked her to give him two flour-cakes, which she did, and he
went off to the jungle, and it was night. Five fairies lived in this
jungle, and as Sachúlí went along, he broke his flour-cakes into five
pieces, and said, "Now I'll eat one, then the second, then the third,
then the fourth, and then the fifth." And the fairies heard him and
were afraid, and said to each other, "What shall we do? Here is this
man, and he is going to eat us all up. What shall we do to save
ourselves? We will give him something." So they went out all five, and
said to Sachúlí, "If only you won't eat us, we will give you a
present." Now Sachúlí did not know there were fairies in this jungle.
"What will you give me?" said Sachúlí. "We will give you a
cooking-pot. When you want anything to eat, all you have to do is to
ask the pot for it, and you will get it." Sachúlí took the pot and
went off to the bazar. He stopped at a cook-shop, and asked for some
pilau. "Pilau? There's no pilau here," said the shopman. "Well," said
Sachúlí, "I have a cooking-pot here, and I have only to ask it for any
dish I want, and I get it at once." "What nonsense!" said the man.
"Just see," said Sachúlí; and he said to the cooking-pot, "I want some
pilau," and immediately the pot was full of pilau, and all the people
in the shop set to work to help him to eat it up, it was so good.
"Oh," thought the cook, "I must have that pot," so he gave Sachúlí a
sleepy drink. Then Sachúlí went to sleep, and while he slept the cook
stole the fairy cooking-pot, and put a common cooking-pot in its
place. Sachúlí went home with the cook's pot, and said, "Mother, I
have brought home a cooking-pot. If you ask it for any food you want,
you will get it." "Nonsense," said Hungní; "what lies you are
telling!" "It is quite true, mother; only see," and he asked the pot
for different dishes, but none came. Hungní was furious. "Go away,"
she said. "Why do you come back to me? I want no liars here." "Give me
five flour-cakes and I will go," said her son. So she baked the bread
for him, and he set off for the jungle where he had met the five
fairies, and as he went along he said, "I will eat one, and I will eat
two, and I will eat three, and I will eat four, and I will eat five."
The five fairies heard him, and were terrified. "Here is this bad man
again," said they, "and he will eat us all five. Oh, what shall we do?
Let us give him a present." So they went to Sachúlí, and said, "Here
is a box for you. Whenever you want any clothes you have only to tell
this box, and it will give them to you; take it, and don't eat us." So
he took the box and went to the bazar, and he stopped at the cook-shop
again, and asked the cook for a red silk dress, and a pair of long
black silk trousers, and a blue silk turban, and a pair of red shoes,
and the cook laughed and asked how he should have such beautiful
things. "Well," said Sachúlí, "here is a box; when I ask it for the
dress and trousers, and turban and shoes, I shall get them." So the
cook laughed at him. "Just see," said Sachúlí, and he said, "Box, give
me a red silk dress and a pair of long black silk trousers, and a blue
silk turban, and red shoes," and there they were at once. And the cook
was delighted, and said to himself, "I will have that box," and he
gave Sachúlí a good dinner and a sleepy drink, and Sachúlí fell fast
asleep. While he slept the cook came and stole the fairy box, and put
a common box in its place. In the morning Sachúlí went home to his
mother and said, "Mother, I've brought you a box. You have only to ask
it for any clothes you may want, and you will get them." "Nonsense,"
said his mother, "don't tell me such lies." "Only see, mother; I am
telling you truth," said he. He asked the box for coats and all sorts
of things--no; he got nothing. His mother was very angry, and said,
"You liar! you naughty boy! Go away and don't come back any more." And
she broke the box to pieces, and threw the bits away. "Well, mother,
bake me some flour-cakes." So she baked him the cakes and gave them to
him, and sent him away. He went off to the fairies' jungle, and as he
went he said, "Now I'll eat one, then two, then three, then four, then
five." The five fairies were very frightened. "Here is this man come
back to eat us all five. Let us give him a present." So they went to
him and gave him a rope and stick, and said, "Only say to this rope,
'Bind that man,' and he will be tied up at once; and to this stick,
'Beat that man,' and the stick will beat him." Sachúlí was very glad
to get these things, for he guessed what had happened to his
cooking-pot and box. So he went to the bazar, and at the cook-shop he
said, "Rope, bind all these men that are here!" and the cook and every
one in the shop were tied up instantly. Then Sachúlí said, "Stick,
beat these men!" and the stick began to beat them. "Oh, stop, stop
beating us, and untie, and I'll give you your pot and your box!" cried
the cook. "No, I won't stop beating you, and I won't untie you till I
have my pot and my box." And the cook gave them both to him, and he
untied the rope. Then Sachúlí went home, and when his mother saw him,
she was very angry, but he showed her the box and the cooking-pot, and
she saw he had told her the truth. So she sent for the doctor, and he
declared Sachúlí was wise and not silly, and he and Hungní found a
wife for Sachúlí, and made a grand wedding for him, and they lived
happily ever after.
Told by Dunkní.
[Decoration]
VIII.
BARBER HÍM AND THE TIGERS.
Once there lived a barber called Hím, who was very poor indeed. He had
a wife and twelve children, five boys and seven girls: now and then he
got a few pice. One day he went away from his home feeling very cross,
and left his wife and children to get on as best they could. "What can
I do?" said he. "I have not enough money to buy food for my family,
and they are crying for it." And so he walked on till he came to a
jungle. It was night when he got there. This jungle was called the
"tigers' jungle," because only tigers lived in it; no birds, no
insects, no other animals, and there were four hundred tigers in it
altogether. As soon as Barber Hím reached the jungle he saw a great
tiger walking about. "What shall I do?" cried he. "This tiger is sure
to eat me." And he took his razor and his razor-strap, and began to
sharpen his razor. Then he went close up to the tiger, still
sharpening his razor. The tiger was much frightened. "What shall I
do?" said the tiger; "this man will certainly gash me." "I have come,"
said the barber, "to catch twenty tigers by order of Mahárájá Káns.
You are one, and I want nineteen more." The tiger, greatly alarmed,
answered, "If you won't catch us, I will give you as much gold and as
many jewels as you can carry." For these tigers used to go out and
carry off the men and women from the villages, and some of these
people had rupees, and some had jewels, all of which the tigers used
to collect together. "Good," said Hím, "then I won't catch you." The
tiger led him to the spot where all the tigers used to eat their
dinners, and the barber took as much gold and as many jewels as he
could carry, and set off home with them.
Then he built a house, and bought his children pretty clothes and good
food, and necklaces, and they all lived very happily for some time.
But at last he wanted more rupees, so he set off to the tigers'
jungle. There he met the tiger as he did before, and he told him the
Mahárájá Káns had sent him to catch twenty tigers. The tiger was
terrified and said, "If you will only not catch us, I will give you
more gold and jewels." To this the barber agreed, and the tiger led
him to the old spot, and the barber took as many jewels and rupees as
he could carry. Then he returned home.
One day a very poor man, a fakír, said to him, "How did you manage to
become so rich? In old days you were so poor you could hardly support
your family."
"I will tell you," said Hím. And he told him all about his visits to
the tigers' jungle. "But don't you go there for gold to-night,"
continued the barber. "Let me go and listen to the tigers talking. If
you like, you can come with me. Only you must not be frightened if the
tigers roar."
"I'll not be frightened," said the fakír.
So that evening at eight o'clock they went to the tigers' jungle.
There the barber and the fakír climbed into a tall thick tree, and its
leaves came all about them and sheltered them as if they were in a
house. The tigers used to hold their councils under this tree. Very
soon all the tigers in the jungle assembled together under it, and
their Rájá--a great, huge beast, with only one eye--came too.
"Brothers," said the tiger who had given the barber the rupees and
jewels, "a man has come here twice to catch twenty of us for the
Mahárájá Káns; now we are only four hundred in number, and if twenty
of us were taken away we should be only a small number, so I gave him
each time as many rupees and jewels as he could carry and he went away
again. What shall we do if he returns?" The tigers said they would
meet again on the morrow, and then they would settle the matter. Then
the tigers went off, and the barber and the fakír came down from the
tree. They took a quantity of rupees and jewels and returned to their
homes.
"To-morrow," said they, "we will come again and hear what the tigers
say."
The next day the barber went alone to the tigers' jungle, and there he
met his tiger again. "This time," said he, "I am come to cut off the
ears of all the four hundred tigers who live in this jungle; for
Mahárájá Káns wants them to make into medicine."
The tiger was greatly frightened, much more so than at the other
times. "Don't cut off our ears; pray don't," said he, "for then we
could not hear, and it would hurt so horribly. Go and cut off all the
dogs' ears instead, and I will give you rupees and jewels as much as
two men can carry." "Good," said the barber, and he made two journeys
with the rupees and jewels from the jungle to the borders of his
village, and there he got a cooly to help him to carry them to his
house.
At night he and the fakír went again to the great tree under which the
tigers held their councils. Now the tiger who had given the barber so
many rupees and jewels had made ready a great quantity of meat, fowls,
chickens, geese, men the tigers had killed--everything he had been
able to get hold of--and he made them into a heap under the tree, for
he said that after the tigers had settled the matter they would dine.
Soon the tigers arrived with their Rájá, and the barber's tiger said,
"Brothers, what are we to do? This man came again to-day to cut off
all our ears to make medicine for Mahárájá Káns. I told him this
would be a bad business for us, and that he must go and cut off all
the dogs' ears instead; and I gave him as much money and jewels as two
men could carry. So he went home. Now what shall we do? We must leave
this jungle, and where shall we go?" The other tigers said, "We will
not leave the jungle. If this man comes again we will eat him up." So
they dined and went away, saying they would meet again to-morrow.
After the tigers had gone, the barber and fakír came down from the
tree and went off to their homes, without taking any rupees or jewels
with them. They agreed to return the next evening.
Next evening back they came and climbed into the great tree. The
tigers came too, and the barber's tiger told his story all over again.
The tiger Rájá sat up and said, fiercely, "We will not leave this
jungle. Should the man come again, I will eat him myself." When the
fakír heard this he was so frightened that he tumbled down out of the
tree into the midst of the tigers. The barber instantly cried out with
a loud voice, "Now cut off their ears! cut off their ears!" and the
tigers, terrified, ran away as fast as they could. Then the barber
took the fakír home, but the poor man was so much hurt by his fall
that he died.
The barber lived happily ever after, but he took good care never to go
to the tigers' jungle again.
Told by Dunkní.
[Decoration]
[Decoration]
IX.
THE BULBUL AND THE COTTON-TREE.
There was once a bulbul, and one day as he was flying about, he saw a
tree on which was a little fruit. The bulbul was much pleased and
said, "I will sit here till this fruit is ripe, and then I will eat
it." So he deserted his nest and his wife, and sat there for twelve
years without eating anything, and every day he said, "To-morrow I
will eat this fruit." During these twelve years a great many birds
tried to sit on the tree, and wished to build their nests in it, but
whenever they came the bulbul sent them away, saying, "This fruit is
not good. Don't come here." One day a cuckoo came and said, "Why do
you send us away? Why should we not come and sit here too? All the
trees here are not yours." "Never mind," said the bulbul, "I am going
to sit here, and when this fruit is ripe, I shall eat it." Now the
cuckoo knew that this tree was the cotton-tree, but the bulbul did
not. First comes the bud, which the bulbul thought a fruit, then the
flower, and the flower becomes a big pod, and the pod bursts and all
the cotton flies away. The bulbul was delighted when he saw the
beautiful red flower, which he still thought a fruit, and said, "When
it is ripe, it will be a delicious fruit." The flower became a pod,
and the pod burst. "What is all this that is flying about?" said the
bulbul. "The fruit must be ripe now." So he looked into the pod, and
it was empty; all the cotton had fallen out. Then the cuckoo came and
said to the angry bulbul, "You see if you had allowed us to come and
sit on the tree, you would have had something good to eat; but as you
were selfish, and would not let any one share with you, God is angry
and has punished you by giving you a hollow fruit." Then the cuckoo
called all the other birds, and they came and mocked the bulbul. "Ah!
you see God has punished you for your selfishness," they said. The
bulbul got very angry and all the birds went away. After they had
gone, the bulbul said to the tree, "You are a bad tree. You are of use
to no one. You give food to no one." The tree said, "You are mistaken.
God made me what I am. My flower is given to sheep to eat. My cotton
makes pillows and mattresses for man."
Since that day no bulbul goes near a cotton-tree.
Told by Dunkní.
[Decoration]
[Decoration]
X.
THE MONKEY PRINCE.
Once upon a time there was a Rájá called Jabhú Rájá, and he had a
great many wives; at least he had seven wives, but he had no children.
Although he had married seven wives, not one of them had given him a
child. At this he was greatly vexed and said, "I have married seven
wives, and not one of them has given me a child." And he got very
angry with God: he said, "Why does not God give me any children? I
will go into the jungle and die by myself." The Ránís coaxed him to
stay, but he wouldn't; he would go out into the jungle.
So he went out into the jungle very far, and God sent him an old fakír
leaning on a stick. The Rájá met him, and the fakír said, "Why do you
come into the jungle? If you go far into the jungle you will meet
plenty of tigers, and they will eat you. Tell me what you want.
Whatever you want I will give you." "No, I won't tell you," said the
Rájá. But at last the Rájá told him, "I have seven wives, and none of
them has given me any children, and so here I will die by myself."
Then the fakír said, "Take this stick, and a little way off you will
find a mango-tree with some mangoes on it. Throw the stick at the
mangoes with one hand, and catch them as they fall with the other, and
when you have caught them all, take them home and give one to each of
your seven wives." So the Rájá went and knocked the mangoes off the
tree and caught them as the fakír had told him. Then he looked about
for the fakír, but he could not find him, for he had gone away into
another part of the jungle. So he went home and gave the seven mangoes
to his wives. But the fruit was so good that six of the wives ate it
up, and would not give the youngest wife any. She cried very much, and
went into the compound and picked up one of the mango stones which one
of the six wives had thrown away, and ate it. By and by each of the
six wives had a son; but the one who had eaten the stone had a monkey,
who was called in consequence Bandarsábásá, or Prince Monkey. He was
really a boy, but no one knew it, for he had a monkey-skin covering
him. His six brothers hated him. They went to school every day; and
the monkey went under the ground, and was taught by the fairies. His
mother did not know this; she thought, as he was a monkey, he went to
the jungle and swung in the trees. He was the best and the cleverest
of all the boys.
Now, in a kingdom a three months' journey off by land from Jabhú
Rájá's country, there lived a king called King Jamársá. He had a very
beautiful daughter whose name was Princess Jahúran, and as her father
wanted a very strong son-in-law, he had a large heavy iron ball made,
and he sent letters to all the Rájás and Rájás' sons far and near to
say that whoever wished to marry his daughter, the Princess Jahúran,
must be able to throw this heavy ball at her and hit her. So many
Rájás went to try, but none of them could even lift the ball. Now, one
of these letters had come to Jabhú Rájá, and his six elder sons
determined they would go to King Jamársá's country, for each of them
was sure he could throw the ball, and win the princess.
Prince Monkey laughed softly and said to himself, "I will go and try
too. I know I shall succeed."
Off, therefore, the six brothers set on their long journey, and the
monkey followed them; but before he did so, he went into the jungle
and took off his monkey-skin, and God sent him a beautiful horse and
beautiful clothes. Then he followed his brothers and overtook them,
and gave them betel-leaf and lovely flowers. "What a beautiful boy!"
they said. "Who is it owns such a beautiful boy? He must be some
Rájá's son." Then he galloped quickly away, took off his grand clothes
and put them on his horse, and the horse rose into the air. He put on
his monkey-skin and followed his brothers.
When they reached King Jamársá's palace they pitched their tents in
his compound, which was very big. Every evening the princess used to
stand in her verandah and let down her long golden hair so that it
fell all round her, and then the Rájás who wished to marry her had to
try to hit her with the great heavy ball that lay on the ground just
in front of where she stood.
King Jamársá's house had more than one storey, and you had to go
upstairs to get to the Princess Jahúran's rooms which led into the
verandah in which she used to stand.
Well, Prince Monkey's six elder brothers all got ready to go up to the
palace and throw the ball. They were quite sure they would throw it
without any trouble. Before they went they told their monkey brother
to take care of their tents, and to have a good dinner ready for them
when they returned. "If the dinner is not ready, we will beat you."
As soon as they were gone, Prince Monkey took some gold mohurs he had,
and he went to a traveller's resting-house, which was a little way
outside King Jamársá's compound, and gave them to the man who owned
it, and bade him give him a grand dinner for his six brothers. Then he
took the dinner to the tents, went into the jungle, and took off his
monkey-skin. And God sent him a grand horse from heaven, and splendid
clothes. These he put on, mounted his horse, and rode to King
Jamársá's compound. There he took no notice of either the king, or
his daughter, or of the ball, or of the Rájás who were there to try
and lift it. He spoke only to his brothers, and gave them lovely
flowers and betel-leaf. Meanwhile, everybody was looking at him and
talking about him. "Who can he be? Did you ever see any one so lovely?
Where does he come from? Just look at his clothes! In our countries we
cannot get any like them!" As for the Princess Jahúran she thought to
herself, "That Rájá shall be my husband, whether he lifts the ball or
not." When he had given his brothers the flowers and betel-leaf,
Prince Monkey rode straight to the jungle, took off his clothes, laid
them on his horse (which instantly went up to heaven), put on his
monkey-skin, went back to the tents, and lay down to sleep.
When his brothers came home they were talking eagerly about the
unknown beautiful Rájá. All the time they were eating their dinner
they could speak of nothing else.
Well, every evening for about ten evenings it was just the same story.
Only every evening Prince Monkey appeared in a different dress. The
princess always thought, "That is the man I will marry, whether he can
throw the ball or not." Then about the eleventh evening, after he had
given his brothers the flowers and betel-leaf, he said to all the
Rájás who were standing there, and to King Jamársá and to all the
servants, "Now every one of you go and stand far away, for I am going
to throw the ball." "No, no!" they all cried, "we will stand here and
see you." "You must go far away. You can look on at a distance," said
the Monkey Prince; "the ball might fall back among you and hurt you."
So they all went off and stood round him at a distance.
"Now," said Prince Monkey to himself, "I won't hit the princess this
time; but I will hit the verandah railing." Then he took up the ball
with one hand, just as if it were quite light, and threw it on the
verandah railing, and then he rode off fast to the jungle.
The next evening it was the same thing over again, only this time he
threw the ball into the Princess Jahúran's clothes.
The next evening the ball fell on one of her feet, and hurt her little
toe-nail. Now, Princess Jahúran was very angry that this unknown
beautiful prince should have thrown the ball three times, and hit her
twice, and hurt her the third time, and yet had never spoken to her
father, or let any one know who he was, and had always, on the
contrary, ridden away as hard as he could, no one knew where. She was
very much in love with him, and was very anxious to find this Rájá who
had hit her twice, so she ordered a bow and arrow to be brought to
her, and said she would shoot the Rájá the next time he hit her. She
would not kill him; she would only shoot the arrow at him. Well, the
next evening Prince Monkey threw the ball, and it fell on her other
foot and hurt her great toe-nail. When he saw she was hurt, he was
very sorry in his heart, and said, "Did I hurt you?" "Yes," she said,
"very much." "Oh, I am so sorry," said the prince. "I would not have
thrown the ball so hard had I thought it would hurt you." Then she
shot the arrow, and hit him in the leg, and a great deal of blood came
out of the wound; but he rode hard away to the jungle all the same,
only this time he did not take off his fine clothes, but he drew the
monkey-skin over them, and his horse went up to heaven, and he went
back to the tents. Then the princess sent a servant into the town, and
said, whoever or whatever he should hear crying with pain, he should
bring to her--were it a man, or a jackal, or a dog, or a wild beast.
So the servant went round the town. The six brothers had gone to
sleep, but the poor monkey brother could not sleep, but sat up crying
from pain. He could not help it, do what he would, and the servant, as
he went round the town, heard him crying. So he took him and brought
him to the princess, and the princess said she would marry him.
"What!" cried her father, "marry that monkey? Never! Who ever heard
of any one marrying a monkey, a nasty monkey?" But in spite of all the
king said, the princess declared marry that monkey she would. "I like
that monkey very, very much," she said. "I will marry him. It is my
pleasure to marry him." "Well," said the Rájá at last, "if it is your
pleasure to marry him, you must marry him; but who ever heard of any
one marrying a nasty monkey?"
So they were married at once; and the Monkey Prince wore his
monkey-skin for a wedding garment.
That night when they went to bed, the young prince drew off his skin
and lay down by Jahúran, and when she saw her beautiful husband she
was so glad, so glad. "Why do you wear a monkey-skin?" she asked. He
answered, "I wear it as a protection, because my brothers are naughty,
and would kill me if they knew what I really am."
They lived very happily with King Jamársá for six months, and the six
elder brothers went on living there too, and hating him more and more
for having such a beautiful wife.
But one night Prince Monkey thought of his mother, and he said to his
wife, "My mother perhaps is crying for me. Let us go to my father's
kingdom, and see her." Princess Jahúran agreed; so next morning they
spoke to King Jamársá, who said they might go.
The six brothers at once said, "We will go with you;" and they also
said, "Let us get two big boats, one for you and the princess, and one
for ourselves, and let us go by water, and not by land." Now by water
it took only six days to get to Jabhú Rájá's kingdom, by land it took
three months. The Monkey Prince agreed to all his brothers said.
Princess Jahúran heard them planning to throw the monkey into the
water on the journey, and then to take her home to their father as the
wife of one of them; so as she was very wise she went to her father
and begged him to have six large beautiful mattresses, well stuffed
with cotton, made for her.
"What can you want with six mattresses?" said the king. "I want my
bed to be very comfortable on board the boat," said his daughter. Her
father loved her dearly, so he had her mattresses made, beautiful
mattresses and well stuffed with cotton. The princess had them all
carried to her boat.
When everything was ready they went on board the boats with the
monkey's six brothers. Now, the princess had warned her husband of his
brothers' wicked plans, and she said to him, "Never go near your
brothers; never speak to your brothers; for they want to kill you."
The first day the six brothers said to the monkey, "Please bring us a
little salt." But the monkey said, "No; my wife will take you some."
"No," said the brothers, "your wife cannot bring us any. She is a
princess. Do you bring us some." So they threw a rope from one boat to
another, and the monkey went on the rope, and the brothers untied it,
and the monkey fell into the water. Then the princess cried out, "My
husband will be drowned! My husband will be drowned!" And she threw
out one of the mattresses; the monkey sat on it; it floated back to
his boat, and the crew drew him up.
The next day the six brothers begged Prince Monkey to bring them
water, and they threw a plank from their boat to his for him to cross
on. The prince set off with the water, in spite of all his wife's
entreaties, and his brothers tilted the plank into the water. The
prince would have been drowned had not the Princess Jahúran thrown him
a mattress. And the same thing happened during the next four days. The
brothers wanted something to eat or drink, and their monkey-brother
brought it them across a rope or plank, which they cut or dropped into
the water, and he would have died but for the mattresses which his
wife threw to him one by one.
When they reached Jabhú Rájá's kingdom, the eldest son went on shore
up to his father's palace. Each of the Rájá's seven wives had a house
to herself in his compound. He went to his mother's house and said,
"Give me your palanquin, mother, for I have brought home a most lovely
wife, and want to bring her to the palace."
At this news his mother was delighted, and she told it to the other
Ránís, and said, "My son has brought home such a lovely wife! I am so
glad! oh, I am so glad!" The youngest Rání began to cry bitterly. "My
son," she said, "is nothing but a monkey; he will never be married; he
will never have a wife at all."
Then the palanquin was got ready, and the seven Ránís and the prince
went with it to the boat. The Princess Jahúran came on land with her
monkey, and when the Ránís saw her, they all cried, "How lovely she
is! how beautiful!" And the eldest Rání was gladder than ever, and the
youngest cried still more. The princess got into the palanquin with
her monkey. "What are you doing with that horrid monkey?" said the
eldest prince. "Put him out of the palanquin directly." "Indeed I will
not," said the princess. "He is my husband, and I love him." "What!"
cried all the Ránís, "are you married to that monkey?" "Yes," said the
princess. "Then get out of my palanquin at once," said the eldest
Rání. "You shall not ride in my palanquin with that nasty monkey." The
youngest Rání was very glad her son had such a beautiful wife. So the
princess got out, and took her monkey in her arms and walked with him
to the youngest Rání's house, and there they all lived for some time.
Now the little Rání did not know her son was really a beautiful man,
for the princess never told her, as her husband had forbidden her to
tell any one.
One evening Jabhú Rájá's servants had a grand nautch in the Rájá's
compound, and the Rájá and his sons and the neighbouring Rájás all
came to see it. Prince Monkey said to his wife, "I, too, will go and
see this nautch." So he took off his monkey-skin, folded it up and
laid it under her pillow. Then he put on the clothes God had sent him
from heaven the last time he threw the ball, and which he had not
laid on his horse's back when he put his monkey-skin on again, and
when he came among all the Rájás and people who were looking on at the
nautch, they all exclaimed, "Who is that? Who can it be?" He was very
handsome, and he had beautiful hair all gold. When he had stayed some
time, Prince Monkey went quickly back to his wife, and in the morning
he put on his monkey-skin again.
Now the little Rání, his mother, though she was very glad her monkey
son had such a wife, could never understand how it was that her
daughter-in-law was so happy with him. "How could you marry him?" she
used to say to her. "Because it pleased me to marry him," the princess
used to answer. "How can you be so happy with him?" said the mother.
"I love him," said the princess; and the poor Rání used to wonder at
this more and more.
Well, one day there was another nautch, and Prince Monkey went to it;
but he left his skin under his wife's pillow. As soon as he had gone,
she called the little Rání, and said, "See, you think my husband is a
monkey; he is no monkey, but a very handsome man. There is no one like
him, he is so beautiful." The Rání did not believe her. Then the
princess took the skin from under her pillow. "See," she said, "when
your son puts this on, then he is a monkey; when he takes it off he is
a beautiful man. And now, I think I will burn this skin, and then he
must always be a man. What do you say?" "Are you sure it won't hurt
him if you burn his skin?" said his mother. "Perhaps he may die if it
is burnt." "Oh, no, he won't die," said the princess. "Shall I burn
it?" "Burn it," said the little Rání. Then the princess threw the skin
on the fire and burnt it quite up.
Prince Monkey was sitting looking on at the nautch when suddenly his
heart told him his wife had burnt his skin. He jumped up directly and
went home, and when he found his heart had told him true, he was so
angry with his wife, that he would say nothing to her but "Why did you
burn my skin?" and he was in such a rage that he went straight to bed
and went to sleep.
In the morning, while he slept, the princess went to the little Rání,
and said, "Come and see your beautiful son." "I am ashamed to do so,"
said the Rání. "Ashamed to look at your own son? What nonsense! Come
directly," said Princess Jahúran. Then the little Rání went with her,
and when she saw her beautiful son she was indeed glad, and the prince
opened his eyes and saw her, and then he kissed her, and they were
very happy.
The news spread through the compound, and Jabhú Rájá and his sons and
everybody came at once to see if it were true. When they saw the
beautiful young prince, with his hair all gold, they could not stand,
but fell down. Prince Monkey lifted his father and loved him, and put
his arms round him, and said, "I am your son, your own son; you must
not fall down before me." "Why did you wear that monkey-skin?" asked
his father. "Because," he said, "my mother ate the mango stone instead
of eating the mango, and so I was born with this skin, and God ordered
me to wear it till I had found a wife." His brothers said, "Who could
have guessed there was such a beautiful man inside that monkey-skin?
God's decrees are good!" And they left off hating their brother,
Prince Monkey.
There were great rejoicings and feasts now, and all were very happy.
The six elder brothers lived always with their father and Prince
Monkey, but none of them ever married.
Told by Dunkní.
[Decoration]
[Decoration]
XI.
BRAVE HÍRÁLÁLBÁSÁ.
Once there was a Rájá called Mánikbásá Rájá, or the Ruby King, who had
seven wives and seven children. One day he told his wives he would go
out hunting, and he rode on and on, a long, long way from his palace.
A Rakshas was sitting by the wayside, who, seeing the Rájá coming,
quickly turned herself into a beautiful Rání, and sat there crying.
The Rájá asked her, "Why do you cry?" And the Rakshas answered, "My
husband has gone away. He has been away many days, and I think he will
never come back again. If some Rájá will take me to his house and
marry me, I shall be very glad." So the Rájá said, "Will you come with
me?" And the Rakshas answered, "Very well, I will come." And then the
Rájá took the pretended Rání home with him and married her. He gave
her a room to live in. Every night at twelve o'clock the Rakshas got
up and devoured an elephant, or a horse, or some other animal. The
Rájá said, "What can become of my elephants and horses? Every day
either an elephant or a horse disappears. Who can take them away?" The
Rakshas-Rání said to him, "Your seven Ránís are Rakshases, and every
night at twelve o'clock they devour a horse, or an elephant, or some
other creature."
So the Rájá believed her, and had a great hole dug just outside his
kingdom, into which he put the seven Ránís with their children, and
then he sent a sepoy to them and bade him take out all the Ránís'
eyes, and bring them to him. This the sepoy did. After a time the
poor Ránís grew so hungry that six of them ate their children, but the
seventh Rání, who was the youngest of them all, declared she would
never eat her child though she might die of hunger, "for," she said,
"I love him a great deal too much." God was very pleased with the
seventh Rání for this, and so every day he sent her a little food,
which she divided with the other Ránís. And every day her little boy
grew bigger, and bigger, and bigger, until he had become a strong lad,
when, as he thought it was very dark in the hole, he climbed out of it
and looked all about. Then he came back to his mothers (for he called
all the seven Ránís "Mother" now), who told him he was not to clamber
up out of the hole any more, for if he did, some one might kill him.
"Still, if you will go," they added, "do not go to your father's
kingdom, but stay near this place." The boy said, "Very well," and
every day he climbed out of the hole and only went where his seven
mothers told him he might go, and he used to beg the people about to
give him a little rice, and flour and bread, which they did.
One day he said to his mothers, "If you let me go now to my father's
kingdom, I will go." "Well, you may go," they said; "but come back
again soon." This he promised to do, and he went to his father's
kingdom. For some time he stood daily at the door of his father's
palace and then returned to the hole. One day the Rakshas-Rání was
standing in the verandah, and she thought, "I am sure that is the
Rájá's son." The servants every day asked the boy, "Why do you always
stand at the door of the palace?" "I want service with the Rájá," he
would reply. "If the Rájá has any place he can give me, I will take
it."
The Rakshas-Rání said to the Rájá, "The boy standing out there wants
service. May I take him into mine?" The Rájá answered, "Very well,
send for him." So all the servants ran and fetched the boy. The
Rakshas-Rání asked him, "Are you willing to do anything I tell you?"
The boy said, "Yes." "Then you shall be my servant," she said, and
first she told him he must go to the Rakshas country to fetch some
rose-water for her. "I will give you a letter," she said, "so that no
harm may happen to you." The lad answered, "Very well, only you must
give me three shields full of money." She gave him the three shields
full of money, and he took them and went home to his mothers. Then he
got two servants for them, one to take care of them, and one to go to
the bazar. His mothers gave him food for the journey, and he left them
the remainder of his money, telling them to take great care of it. He
then returned to the Rakshas-Rání for his letter. She told the Rájá
she was feeling ill, and would not be quite well until she got some
rose-water from the Rakshas country. The Rájá said, "Then you had
better send this boy for it." So she gave him a letter, in which she
had written, "When this boy arrives among you, kill him and eat him
instantly," and he set out at once.
He went on and on till he came to a great river in which lived a huge
water-snake. When the water-snake saw him it began to weep very much,
and cried out to the boy, "If you go to the Rakshas country you will
be eaten up." The lad, whose name was Hírálálbásá, said, "I cannot
help it; I am the Rání's servant, so I must do what she tells me."
"Well," said the water-snake, "get on my back, and I will take you
across this river." So he got on the water-snake's back, and it took
him over the river. Then Hírálálbásá went on and on until he came to a
house in which a Rakshas lived. A Rání lived there too that the
Rakshas had carried off from her father and mother when she was a
little girl. She was playing in her father the Sondarbásá Rájá's
garden, which was full of delicious fruits, which the Rakshas came to
eat, and when he saw Sonahrí Rání he seized her in his mouth and ran
off with her. Only she was so beautiful he could never find it in his
heart to eat her, but brought her up as his own child. Her name was
Sonahrí Rání, that is, the Golden Rání, because her teeth and her hair
were made of gold. Now the Rakshas who had carried her off, and whom
she called Papa, had a great thick stick, and when he laid this stick
at her feet she could not stir, but when he laid it at her head, she
could move again.
When the Rájá's son came up, Sonahrí Rání was lying on her bed with
the thick stick at her feet, and as soon as she saw the Rájá's son she
began to cry very much. "Oh, why have you come here? You will surely
be killed," she said. The Rájá's son answered, "I cannot help that. I
am the Rání's servant, so I must do what she tells me." "Of course,"
said Sonahrí Rání; "but put this stick at my head, and then I shall be
able to move." The Rájá's son laid the stick at her head, and she got
up and gave him some food, and then asked him if he had a letter.
"Yes," he answered. "Let me see it," said the Sonahrí Rání. So he gave
her the letter, and when she had read it she cried, "Oh, this is a
very wicked letter. It will bring you no good; for if the Rakshases
see it, they will kill you." "Indeed," said Hírálálbásá. And the
Sonahrí Rání tore up the letter and wrote another in which she said,
"Make much of this boy. Send him home quickly, and give him a jug of
rose-water to bring back with him, and see that he gets no hurt." Then
the Rájá's son set out again for the Rakshas-Rání's mother's house. He
had not gone very far when he met a very big Rakshas, and he cried out
to him, "Uncle." "Who is this boy," said the Rakshas, "who calls me
uncle?" And he was just going to kill him when Hírálálbásá showed his
letter, and the Rakshas let him pass on. He went a little further
until he met another Rakshas, bigger than the first, and the Rakshas
screamed at him and was just going to fall on him and kill him, but
the Rájá's son showed the letter, and the Rakshas let him pass
unhurt. When Hírálálbásá came to the Rakshas-Rání's mother he showed
her the letter, and she gave him the rose-water at once and sent him
off. All the Rakshases were very good to him, and some carried him
part of the way home. When he came to Sonahrí Rání's house she was
lying on her bed with the stick at her feet, and as soon as she saw
Hírálálbásá she laughed and said, "Oh, you have come back again? Put
this stick at my head." "Yes," said the Rájá's son, "I've come back
again, but I was dreadfully frightened very often." Then he put the
stick at her head, and she gave him some food to eat. After he had
eaten it he went on again, and when he came to the river the
water-snake carried him across to the other side, and he travelled to
his father's kingdom. There he went to the Rakshas-Rání and gave her
the rose-water. She was very angry at seeing him, and said, "I'm sure
my father and my mother, my brothers and my sisters, don't love me one
bit."
And she said to Hírálálbásá, "You must go to-morrow to the Rakshas
kingdom to fetch me flowers." "I will go," said Hírálál, "but this
time I must have four shields full of rupees." The Rakshas-Rání gave
him the four shields full of rupees; and the Rájá's son went to his
mother's hole and bought a quantity of food for them, enough to last
them all the time he should be away, and he hired two servants for
them, and said good-bye to his seven mothers and returned to
Mánikbásá's palace for his letter. This the Rakshas-Rání gave him, and
in it she wrote, "Kill him and eat him at once. If you do not, and you
send him back to me, I will never see your faces again." Hírálál took
his letters and went on his way. When he reached the river the
water-snake took him across to the other side, and he walked on till
he came to Sonahrí Rání's house. She was lying on the bed with the
stick at her feet. "Oh, why have you come here again?" she said. "How
can I help coming?" said the Rájá's son. "I must do what my mistress
bids me." "So you must," said the Sonahrí Rání; "but put this stick at
my head." This he did, and she got up and gave him food, and asked him
to let her see his letter, and when she had read it she cried, "This
is a very wicked letter. If you take it with you, you will surely
die." Then she tore up the letter and burnt it, and wrote another in
which she said, "You must all be very good to this boy. Show him all
the gardens and see that he is not hurt in any way." She gave it to
Hírálál, and he begged her to ask the Rakshas, her father, where he
kept his soul. Sonahrí Rání promised she would. She then turned
Hírálál into a little fly, and put him into a tiny box, and put the
box under her pillow. When the Rakshas came home he began sniffing
about and said, "Surely there is a man here." "Oh, no," said Sonahrí
Rání; "no one is here but me." The Rakshas was satisfied. When Sonahrí
Rání and her father were in bed she asked, "Papa, where is your soul?"
"Why do you want to know?" said the Rakshas. "I will tell you another
day."
The next day at nine in the morning the Rakshas went away, and Sonahrí
Rání took Hírálál and restored him to his human shape, and gave him
some food, and he travelled on till he reached the Rakshas-Rání's
mother, whom he called Grannie. She welcomed him very kindly and
showed him the garden, which was very large. The Rájá's son noticed a
number of jugs and water-jars. So he said, "Grannie, what is there in
all these jars and jugs?" She answered, showing them to him one by
one, "In this is such and such a thing," and so on, telling him the
contents of each, till she came to the water-jar in which were his
mothers' eyes. "In this jar," said the Rakshas, "are your seven
mothers' eyes." "Oh, grannie dear!" said Hírálál, "give me my mothers'
eyes." "Very well, dear boy," said the old Rakshas, "you shall have
them." She gave him, too, some ointment, and told him to rub the eyes
with it when he put them into his mothers' heads, and that then they
would see quite well; and he took the eyes and tied them up in a
corner of his cloth. His grannie gave him the flowers, and he went
back to Sonahrí Rání. She was lying on her bed with the stick at her
feet, and when she saw him she laughed and said, "Oh, so you have come
back again?" "Yes, I have," said Hírálál; "and I have got the flowers,
and my seven mothers' eyes too." "Have you indeed?" said Sonahrí Rání.
"Put this stick at my head." He did so, and she got up and gave him
some food, and he told her to ask her father the Rakshas where his
soul was. She promised she would, and she changed him into a little
fly, and shut him up in a tiny box, and put the tiny box under her
pillow. By and by home came the Rakshas, and began to sniff about
crying, "A man is here!" "Oh, no," said Sonahrí Rání; and she gave him
some dinner, and when they were in bed she asked him, "Papa, where is
your soul?" "I'll tell you another day," said the Rakshas. The next
day, when he had gone out to find food, Sonahrí Rání took the little
fly, Hírálál, and restored him to his human shape, and gave him some
food and sent him on his way. When he reached the river, the
water-snake took him over to the other side, and he journeyed on till
he came to his father's kingdom. First he went to his mothers' hole
and gave them their fourteen eyes, and he put them into their heads
with the ointment which the Rakshas-grannie had given him. Then he
went to Mánikbásá Rájá's palace, and when the Rakshas-Rání saw him she
was furious. "I am sure my father and my mother, my sisters and my
brothers, do not love me one bit. I will never see their faces again.
But I'll send him to them once more."
This is what she thought, but she took the flowers and said, "You must
go a third time to the Rakshas country."
"I will," said the boy: "only I'll not go till the fourth day from
to-day, for I am very tired. And you must give me four shields full of
rupees." "Good," said the Rakshas-Rání. "This time you must get me a
sárí."[2] And she gave him the four shields full of money. Then he
went to his mothers, and bought them a house and got food for them,
and stayed with them four days.
At the end of the four days he went to the Rakshas-Rání, who gave him
a letter in which she had written, "If you do not kill and eat this
boy as soon as he arrives, I will never see your faces again." The
Rájá's son took the letter and set out on his journey.
When he came to the river, the water-snake took him across; and when
he arrived at Sonahrí Rání's house, there she was lying on her bed
with the thick stick at her feet. She said, "Oh, you have come here
again, have you?" "Yes," he said, "I have come for the last time."
"Put the stick at my head," said she. So he laid the stick at her
head. Then she gave him some food, and just before the Rakshas came
home, he bade her ask him where he kept his soul. When she saw him
coming, Sonahrí Rání turned Hírálálbásá into a little fly, put him in
a tiny box, and put the box under her pillow. As soon as she and the
Rakshas had gone to bed, she asked him, "Papa, where do you keep your
soul?" "Sixteen miles away from this place," said he, "is a tree.
Round the tree are tigers, and bears, and scorpions, and snakes; on
the top of the tree is a very great fat snake; on his head is a little
cage; in the cage is a bird; and my soul is in that bird." The little
fly listened all the time. The next morning, when the Rakshas had
gone, Sonahrí Rání took the fly and gave him back his human form, gave
him some food, and then asked to see his letter. When she had read it
she screamed and said, "Oh! if you go with this letter you will
surely die." So she tore it up into little bits and threw it into the
fire. And she wrote another in which she said, "Make a great deal of
this boy; see that he gets no hurt; give him the sárí for me; show him
the garden; and be very kind to him." She then gave Hírálál the
letter, and he journeyed on in safety till he reached his
Rakshas-grannie's house.
The Rakshas-grannie was very good to him; showed him the garden, and
gave him the sárí; and he then said his mother, the Rakshas-Rání, was
in great trouble about her soul, and wanted very much to have it. So
the Rakshas-grannie gave him a bird in which was the Rakshas-Rání's
soul, charging him to take the greatest care of it. Then he said, "My
mother, the Rakshas-Rání, also wants a stone such that, if you lay it
on the ground, or if you put it in your clothes, it will become gold,
and also your long heavy gold necklace that hangs down to the waist."
Both these things the Rakshas-grannie gave to Hírálál. Then he
returned to Sonahrí Rání's house, where he found her lying on her bed
with the thick stick at her feet. "Oh, there you are," said Sonahrí
Rání, laughing. "Yes," he said, "I have come." And he put the stick at
her head, and she got up and gave him some food.
He told her he was going to fetch her Rakshas-father's soul, but that
he did not quite know how to pass through the tigers and bears, and
scorpions and snakes, that guarded it. So she gave him a feather, and
said, "As long as you hold this feather straight, you can come to no
harm, for you will be invisible. You will see everything, but nothing
will see you."
He carried the feather straight as she had bidden him and reached the
tree in safety. Then he climbed up it, took the little cage, and came
down again. Though the Rakshas was far off, he knew at once something
had happened to his bird. Hírálál pulled off the bird's right leg, and
the Rakshas' right leg fell off, but on he hopped on one leg. Then
the Rájá's son pulled off the bird's left leg, and off fell the
Rakshas' left leg, but still he went on towards his house on his
hands. Then Hírálál pulled off the bird's wings, and the Rakshas' two
arms fell off. And then, just as the Rakshas reached the door of his
house, Hírálál wrung the bird's neck, and the Rakshas fell dead.
Sonahrí Rání was greatly frightened when she heard such a heavy thing
fall thump on the ground so close to the house, but she could not
move, for the thick stick lay at her feet. Hírálál ran as fast as he
could to Sonahrí Rání. When he arrived at the door of her house he saw
the Rakshas lying dead, and he went in and told Sonahrí Rání that her
Rakshas-father was killed. "Nonsense," she said. "It is true," said
Hírálál; "come and see." So he put the stick at her head. "I am sure
you are telling a lie," said Sonahrí Rání. "I should be very glad if
he were dead, for I do not like living with him, I am so afraid of
him." "Indeed he's dead. Do come and see," said Hírálál. Then they
went outside, and when Sonahrí Rání saw her Rakshas-father lying there
dead, she was exceedingly happy, and said to Hírálál, "I will go home
with you, and be your wife." So they were married, and then they went
into Sonahrí Rání's Rakshas-father's house and took all the money and
jewels they could find. And Hírálál gave the sárí, the stone, and the
necklace to Sonahrí Rání, and he took some flowers for the
Rakshas-Rání.
When they came to the river, the water-snake carried them across to
the other side, and they travelled on till they came to Mánikbásá
Rájá's kingdom. There Hírálál went first of all to his mothers, and
when they saw Sonahrí Rání they wondered who the beautiful woman could
be that their son had brought home. He said to them, "This is Sonahrí
Rání, my wife. But for her I should have died." Then he bought a grand
house for Sonahrí Rání and his seven mothers to live in, and he got
four servants for Sonahrí Rání, two to cook, and two to wait on her.
The seven mothers and Sonahrí used all to sit on a beautiful, clean
quilted cushion, as big as a carpet, Sonahrí Rání in the middle and
the seven mothers round her, while they sewed, or wrote, and talked.
Hírálál then went to the Rakshas-Rání and said, "I could not get the
sárí you sent me for, so I brought you these flowers instead." When
she saw the flowers she was frantic. She said, "My father, my mother,
my sisters, my brothers, don't care for me, not one bit! not one
scrap! I will never see their faces again--never! never! I will send
some other messenger to them."
One day the Rájá's son came to Mánikbásá and said, "Would you like to
see a grand sight?" Mánikbásá Rájá said, "What sight?" Hírálál said,
"If you would like to see a really grand sight you must do what I tell
you." "Good," answered Mánikbásá, "I will do whatever you tell me."
"Well, then," said his son, "you must build a very strong iron house,
and round it you must lay heaps of wood. In that house you must put
your present Rání." So Mánikbásá Rájá had a very strong iron house
built, round which he set walls of wood. Then he went to his
Rakshas-Rání and said, "Will you go inside that iron house, and see
what it is like?" "Yes, I will," answered she. The Rájá had had great
venetians made for the house, and only one door. As soon as the
Rakshas-Rání had gone in, he locked the door. Then Hírálál took the
little bird, a cockatoo, in which was the Rakshas-Rání's soul, and
showed it to the Rakshas-Rání from afar off. When she saw it she
turned herself into a huge Rakshas as big as a house. She could not
turn in the iron house because she was so huge. Mánikbásá was
dreadfully frightened when he saw his Rání was a horrible Rakshas.
Then Hírálál pulled off the bird's legs, and as the Rakshas was
breaking through the iron house to seize Hírálál, he wrung the
cockatoo's neck, and the Rakshas died instantly. They set fire to the
walls of wood, and the body of the wicked Rakshas was burnt to fine
ashes.
The Rájá's Wazír turned to the Rájá and said, "What a fool you were to
marry this Rakshas, and at her bidding to send your seven wives and
your seven sons away into the jungle, taking out your seven wives'
eyes, and being altogether so cruel to them! You are a great, great
fool!" The poor Rájá wept, and then the Wazír, pointing to Hírálál,
said, "This is your seventh and youngest Rání's son." The Rájá then
embraced Hírálálbásá and asked his forgiveness. And Hírálál told him
his story, how he and his mothers had lived a long, long time in the
hole; how six of the Ránís had eaten their children; how his mother
had not had the heart to eat him; how he had got his seven mothers'
eyes from the Rakshas-grannie; and lastly, how he had married Sonahrí
Rání. Then the Rájá ordered seven litters for his seven Ránís, and a
beautiful litter with rich cloth for Sonahrí Rání. The Rájá and his
Wazír and his attendants, and his son, all went with the litters to
Hírálál's house; and when the Rájá saw Sonahrí Rání he fell flat on
his face, he was so struck by her beauty. For she had a fair, fair
skin, rosy cheeks, blue eyes, rosy lips, golden eyelashes, and golden
eyebrows, and golden hair. When she combed her hair, she used to put
the hair she combed out in paper and to lay the paper on the river,
and it floated down to where the poor people caught it, and sold it,
and got heaps of money for it. Her sárí was of gold, her shoes were of
gold, for God loved her dearly. Then the Rájá rose and embraced all
his wives and Sonahrí Rání, and the seven Ránís walked into the seven
litters; but Sonahrí Rání was carried to hers, for fear she should
soil her feet, or get hurt. Then Mánikbásá Rájá gave Hírálál's house
to his Wazír, while his seven Ránís and Hírálál and Sonahrí Rání lived
with him in his palace. And they lived happily for ever after.
Told by Dunkní at Simla, 26th July and 1st August, 1876.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] A long piece of stuff which Hindú women wind round the body
as a petticoat, passing one end over the head, like a veil.
[Decoration]
XII.
THE MAN WHO WENT TO SEEK HIS FATE.
Once there was a very poor man who had a wife and twelve children, and
not a single rupee. The poor children used to cry with hunger, and the
man and his wife did not know what to do. At last he got furious with
God and said, "How wicked God is! He gives me a great many children,
but no money." So he set out to find his fate. In the jungle he met a
camel with two heavy sacks of gold on its back. This camel belonged to
a Rájá, and once it was travelling with other camels and with the
Rájá's servants to another country, and carrying the sacks of gold.
Every night they encamped and started again early in the morning; but
one morning the servants forgot to take this camel with them, and the
camel forgot the road home, and the sacks were too tightly strapped
for it to get rid of them. So it wandered about the jungle with the
sacks on its back for twelve years. The camel asked the poor man where
he was going. "I am going to seek my fate, to ask it why I am so
poor," he answered. The camel said, "Ask it, too, why for twelve years
I have had to carry these two sacks of gold. All this time I have not
been able to lie down, or to eat, or to drink." "Very well," said the
man, and he went on.
Then he came to a river in which he saw an alligator. The alligator
took him across, and when he got to the other side it asked him where
he was going. The man said, "I am going to seek my fate, to ask it
why I am so poor." "Then," said the alligator, "ask it also why for
twelve years I have a great burning in my stomach." "I will," said the
man.
Then he went on and on till he came to a tiger, who was lying on the
ground with a great thorn sticking in his foot. This tiger had gone
out one day to hunt for food, and not looking where he was going, he
put his foot on the thorn, and the thorn ran into his foot. And so God
grew very angry and said, "Because you are such a careless, stupid
fellow, and don't look where you are going, for twelve years this
thorn shall remain in your foot." "Where are you going?" the tiger
asked the man. "I am going to seek my fate, to ask it why I am so
poor. Some one told me that my fate was far, far away, a twelve years'
journey from my own country, and that it was lying down, and that I
must take a thick stick and beat it with all my might." "Ask it, too,"
said the tiger, "why for twelve years I have had this thorn in my foot
and cannot get it out, though I have tried hard to do so." "Yes, I
will," said the man.
Then he came to the place where every one's fate lives. The fates are
stones, some standing and others lying on the ground. "This must be
mine," he said; "it is lying on the ground, that's why I am so poor."
So he took the thick stick he had in his hand, and beat it, and beat
it, and beat it, but still it would not stir. As night was approaching
he left off beating it, and God sent a soul into the poor man's fate,
and it became a man, who stood looking at the poor man and said, "Why
have you beaten me so much?" "Because you were lying down, and I am
very poor, and at home my wife and my children are starving." "Oh,
things will go well with you now," said the fate, and the man was
satisfied. He said to his fate, "While coming here I met a camel who
for twelve years has had to wander about with two heavy sacks of gold
on its back, and it wants to know why it must carry them." "Oh," said
the fate, "just take the sacks off its back and then it will be free."
"I will," said the poor man. "Then I met an alligator who for twelve
years has had a great burning in its stomach." The fate said, "In its
stomach is a very large ruby, as big as your hand. If the alligator
will only throw up the ruby, it will be quite well." "Next I met a
tiger who has had for twelve years a great thorn in his foot which he
cannot take out." "Pull it out with your teeth," said the fate; and
then God withdrew the soul, and the fate became a stone again which
stood up on the ground.
Then the man set out on his journey home, and he came to the tiger.
"What did your fate say?" said the tiger. "Give me your foot and I
will take out the thorn," said the poor man. The tiger stretched out
the foot with the thorn in it, and the man pulled out the thorn with
his teeth. It was a very large thorn, as big as the man's hand. The
tiger felt grateful to the poor man, and as he was very rich, for he
had eaten a great many Rájás and people, and had all their money, he
said to the man, "I will give you some gold in return for your
kindness." "You have no money," said the man. "I have," said the
tiger, and he went into his den, and the poor man followed. "Give me
your cloth," said the tiger. The man laid it on the ground. Then the
tiger took quantities of gold and jewels and filled the cloth with
them. And the poor man took up his cloth, thanked the tiger, and went
his way. Then he met the alligator who took him across the river. The
alligator said, "Did you ask your fate why there is such burning in my
stomach?" "I did," said the man. "It is because you have a very large
ruby in your stomach. If you will only throw it up, you will be quite
well." Then the alligator threw the ruby up out of its mouth, and that
very instant the burning in its stomach ceased. "Ah," said the
alligator, looking at the ruby, "I swallowed that one day when I was
drinking." And he gave the ruby to the man, saying, "In return for
your kindness I will give you this ruby. It is a very precious stone."
(In old days every Rájá possessed such a ruby; now very few Rájás, if
any, have one.) The poor man thanked the alligator, put the ruby into
his cloth, and went on his way till he came to the camel, who said,
"Did you ask your fate why I have to carry these two sacks of gold?"
"I did," said the man, and he took the sacks off the camel's back. How
happy and grateful the camel felt! "How kind of you," he said to the
man, "to take the sacks off. Now I can eat, now I can drink, and now I
can lie down. Because you have been so kind to me, I give you the two
sacks of gold, and I will carry them and your bundle home to your
house for you, and then I will come back and live here in the jungle."
Then the poor man put the two sacks of gold and his bundle on the
camel, who carried them to his house. When he got there, he took the
sacks and his bundle off the camel, who thanked him again for his
kindness and went back to his jungle, feeling very glad at having got
rid of his heavy burthen.
When the poor man's wife and children saw the gold and jewels and the
ruby, they cried, "Where did you get these?" And the man told them his
whole story. And he bought food for his wife and children, and gave
them a beautiful house, and got them clothes, for now he was very
rich.
Another poor man who was not quite, but nearly, as poor as this man
had been, asked him where he had got his riches. "I got them out of a
river," answered the man. "I drew the water with a bucket, and in
every bucketful there was gold." The other man started off to the
river and began drawing up water in a bucket. "Stop, stop!" cried an
alligator, who was the king of the fishes; "you are taking all the
water out of the river and my fishes will die." "I want money," said
the man, "and I can find none, so I am taking the water out of the
river in order to get some." "You shall have some in a minute," said
the alligator, "only do stop drawing the water." Then a great wave of
water dashed on to the land and dashed back into the river, leaving
behind it a great heap of gold, which the man picked up joyfully. The
next day he came again, and night and day he drew water out of the
river. At last the alligator got very angry, and said, "My fishes will
all die for want of water. Once I gave the man a heap of gold, and yet
he wants more. I won't give him any," and the alligator thrust up his
head out of the river, and swallowed the man whole. For four days and
four nights the man lived in the alligator's stomach. At the end of
the fourth night the king of the fishes said to him, "I will let you
get out of my stomach on condition that you tell no man what has
happened to you. If you do, you will die instantly." The man jumped
out of the alligator's mouth and walked towards his house. On his way
he met some men and told them what had happened to him, and as soon as
he got home he told his wife and children, and the moment he had done
so he became mad and dumb and blood came out of his mouth, and he fell
down dead.
Told by Dunkní.
[Decoration]
[Decoration]
XIII.
THE UPRIGHT KING.
There was a great Mahárájá whose name was Harchand Rájá, and he had an
only son called Mánikchand. He was very rich and had a great deal of
money, and he also had a very large garden full of lovely flowers and
fruits which he prized greatly. Every morning before he bathed he used
to give some poor fakír two pounds and a half of gold. Now Harchand
Mahárájá used to pray a great deal to God, and God was very fond of
him, so he said one day, "To see if Harchand Mahárájá really loves me,
I will make him very poor for twelve years." And at night God came
down in the shape of a great boar, and ate up everything that was in
Harchand Mahárájá's garden. The boar then ran away into the jungle.
Next morning the gardener got up and looked out into the garden, and
what was his astonishment when he saw it was all spoilt. Nothing was
left in it; it was not a garden any more. He went quickly to the
Mahárájá and said, "Oh, master! oh, Mahárájá! your garden is quite
spoilt. Last night a boar came and ate up everything in it."
"Nonsense," said the Mahárájá, who would not believe him. "It is quite
true," said the gardener; "you can come and see for yourself." So the
Rájá got up at once and put on his clothes, and went into the garden,
and found it all empty. He went back to the house very melancholy.
Then as usual he gave a fakír his two pounds and a half of gold. After
breakfast he went out hunting. The boar which had run away into the
wood changed himself into a very old fakír, who shook from old age. As
Harchand Mahárájá passed, the old fakír held out his hand, saying,
"Please give me a few pice, I am so poor and hungry." The Mahárájá
said, "Come to my palace and I will give you two pounds and a half of
gold." "Oh, no," said the fakír, "surely you would never give me so
much as that." "Yes, I will," said the Mahárájá. "Every morning before
I bathe I give a fakír two pounds and a half of gold." "Nonsense,"
said the fakír, "you don't give away your money in that way." "Really,
I do," said the Mahárájá, "and I promise to give you two pounds and a
half of gold." So the fakír followed Harchand Mahárájá home, and when
they reached the palace, the Mahárájá told his treasurer to give the
old fakír two pounds and a half of gold. The treasurer went into the
treasury, but all the Mahárájá's gold and silver and jewels had become
charcoal! The treasurer came out again to the Mahárájá saying, "Oh,
Mahárájá, all your gold and silver and jewels are turned into
charcoal!" "Oh, nonsense," said the Mahárájá. "Come and see,
Mahárájá," said the treasurer, who was in a great fright. The Mahárájá
went into his treasury, and was quite sad at the sight of the
charcoal. "Alas!" he said, "God has made me very poor, but still I
must give this fakír his money." So he went to the fakír and said,
"All my gold and silver and jewels are turned into charcoal; but I
will sell my wife, and my boy, and myself, and then I will give you
the money I promised you." And he went and fetched his wife and son,
and left his palace, his houses, servants, and possessions.
He then went to a merchant, who bought from him his Mahárání, who was
called Hírálí, that is, the diamond lady, for she was very beautiful,
and her face shone like a diamond. Her hands were very small, and so
were her feet. The merchant gave the Mahárájá a pound of gold for the
Mahárání. Next, Harchand Mahárájá went to a cowherd and sold him his
son Mánikchand. The cowherd gave him for the boy half a pound of gold.
Then he went to a dom, that is, a man of a very low caste, who kept a
tank into which it was his business to throw the bodies of those who
died. If it was a dead man or woman, the dom took one rupee, if it was
a dead child he was only paid eight annas. To this dom Harchand sold
himself for a pound of gold, and he gave the two pounds and a half of
gold to the fakír, who then went home. The dom said, "Will you stay by
the tank for a few days while I go home and do my other work, which is
weaving baskets? If any one brings you a dead body you must throw it
into the water. If it is the body of a man or woman, take one rupee in
payment; if it is a dead child, take eight annas; and if the bearers
have got no money, take a bit of cloth. Don't forget." And the dom
went away, leaving Harchand sitting by the tank.
Well, Harchand Mahárájá sat for some days by the tank, and when any
one brought him dead bodies he threw them into it. For a dead man or
woman he took one rupee, for a dead child eight annas, and if the
bearers had no money to give him, he took some cloth. Some time had
passed, and Mánikchand, the Mahárájá's son, died; so Hírálí Rání went
to the cowherd to ask him for her dead child. The cowherd gave him to
her, and she took him to the tank. Harchand Mahárájá was sitting by
the tank, and when Hírálí Mahárání saw him she said, "I know that man
is my husband, so he will not take any money for throwing his child
into the water." So she went up to him and said, "Will you throw this
child into the tank for me?" "Yes, I will," said Harchand Mahárájá;
"only first give me eight annas." "You surely won't take any money for
throwing your own son into the tank?" said the Mahárání. "You must pay
me," said Harchand Mahárájá, "for I must obey the dom's orders. If you
have no money, give me a piece of cloth." So the Mahárání tore off a
great piece of her sárí and gave it him, and the Mahárájá took his son
and threw him into the tank. As he threw him in he cried out to the
king of the fishes, who was an alligator, "Take great care of this
body." The king of fishes said, "I will." Then the Mahárání went back
to the merchant.
And the Mahárájá caught a fish, and cooked it, and laid it by the
tank, saying, "I will go and bathe and then I will eat it." So he took
off his clothes and went into the tank to bathe, and when he had
bathed he put on fresh clothes, and as he took hold of his fish to eat
it, it slipped back alive into the water, although it had been dead
and cooked. The Mahárájá sat down by the tank again, very sad. He
said, "For twelve years I have found it hard to get anything to eat;
how long will God keep me without food?" God was very pleased with
Harchand for being so patient, for he had never complained.
Some days later God came down to earth in the shape of a man, and with
him he took an angel to be his Wazír. The Wazír said to God, "Come
this way and let us see who it is sitting by the tank." "No," said
God, "I am too tired, I can go no further." "Do come," said the Wazír;
"I want so much to go." God said, "Well, let us go." Then they walked
on till they came to the place where Harchand Mahárájá was sitting,
and God said to him, "Would you like to have your wife, and your son,
and your kingdom back again?" "Yes, I should," said the Mahárájá; "but
how can I get them?" "Tell me truly," said God, "would you like to
have your kingdom back again?" "Indeed I should," said the Mahárájá.
Then Mánikchand's body, which had never sunk to the bottom of the tank
like the other bodies, but had always floated on the water, rose up
out of the water, and Mánikchand was alive once more. The father and
son embraced each other. "Now," said God, "let us go to the dom."
Harchand Mahárájá agreed, and they went to the dom and asked him how
much he would take for Harchand Mahárájá. The dom said, "I gave one
pound of gold for him, and I will take two pounds." So they paid down
the two pounds of gold. Then they went to the merchant and said to
him, "How much will you take for Hírálí Rání?" The merchant said, "I
gave a pound of gold for her; I will take four pounds." So they paid
down the four pounds of gold, took Hírálí Rání, and went to the
cowherd. "How much will you take for Mánikchand?" said they to him. "I
gave half a pound of gold for him," answered the cowherd; "I will take
one pound." So they paid down the pound of gold, and Harchand Mahárájá
went home to his palace, taking with him Hírálí Rání and Mánikchand,
after thanking the strange man for his goodness to them. When they
reached the palace, the garden was in splendid beauty; the charcoal
was turned back into gold, and silver, and jewels; the servants were
in waiting as usual, and they went into the palace and lived happily
for evermore.
Told by Dunkní.
[Decoration]
[Decoration]
XIV.
LOVING LAILÍ.
Once there was a king called King Dantál, who had a great many rupees
and soldiers and horses. He had also an only son called Prince Majnún,
who was a handsome boy with white teeth, red lips, blue eyes, red
cheeks, red hair, and a white skin. This boy was very fond of playing
with the Wazír's son, Husain Mahámat, in King Dantál's garden, which
was very large and full of delicious fruits, and flowers, and trees.
They used to take their little knives there and cut the fruits and eat
them. King Dantál had a teacher for them to teach them to read and
write.
One day, when they were grown two fine young men, Prince Majnún said
to his father, "Husain Mahámat and I should like to go and hunt." His
father said they might go, so they got ready their horses and all else
they wanted for their hunting, and went to the Phaláná country,
hunting all the way, but they only found jackals and birds.
The Rájá of the Phaláná country was called Múnsúk Rájá, and he had a
daughter named Lailí, who was very beautiful; she had brown eyes and
black hair.
One night, some time before Prince Majnún came to her father's
kingdom, as she slept, God sent to her an angel in the form of a man
who told her that she should marry Prince Majnún and no one else, and
that this was God's command to her. When Lailí woke she told her
father of the angel's visit to her as she slept; but her father paid
no attention to her story. From that time she began repeating,
"Majnún, Majnún; I want Majnún," and would say nothing else. Even as
she sat and ate her food she kept saying, "Majnún, Majnún; I want
Majnún." Her father used to get quite vexed with her. "Who is this
Majnún? who ever heard of this Majnún?" he would say. "He is the man I
am to marry," said Lailí. "God has ordered me to marry no one but
Majnún." And she was half mad. Meanwhile, Majnún and Husain Mahámat
came to hunt in the Phaláná country; and as they were riding about,
Lailí came out on her horse to eat the air, and rode behind them. All
the time she kept saying, "Majnún, Majnún; I want Majnún." The prince
heard her, and turned round. "Who is calling me?" he asked. At this
Lailí looked at him, and the moment she saw him she fell deeply in
love with him, and she said to herself, "I am sure that is the Prince
Majnún that God says I am to marry." And she went home to her father
and said, "Father, I wish to marry the prince who has come to your
kingdom; for I know he is the Prince Majnún I am to marry." "Very
well, you shall have him for your husband," said Múnsúk Rájá. "We will
ask him to-morrow." Lailí consented to wait, although she was very
impatient. As it happened, the prince left the Phaláná kingdom that
night, and when Lailí heard he was gone, she went quite mad. She would
not listen to a word her father, or her mother, or her servants said
to her, but went off into the jungle, and wandered from jungle to
jungle, till she got farther and farther away from her own country.
All the time she kept saying, "Majnún, Majnún; I want Majnún;" and so
she wandered about for twelve years.
At the end of the twelve years she met a fakír--he was really an
angel, but she did not know this--who asked her, "Why do you always
say, 'Majnún, Majnún; I want Majnún'?" She answered, "I am the
daughter of the king of the Phaláná country, and I want to find Prince
Majnún; tell me where his kingdom is." "I think you will never get
there," said the fakír, "for it is very far from hence, and you have
to cross many rivers to reach it." But Lailí said she did not care;
she must see Prince Majnún. "Well," said the fakír, "when you come to
the Bhágírathí river you will see a big fish, a Rohú; and you must get
him to carry you to Prince Majnún's country, or you will never reach
it."
She went on and on, and at last she came to the Bhágírathí river.
There there was a great big fish called the Rohú fish. It was yawning
just as she got up to it, and she instantly jumped down its throat
into its stomach. All the time she kept saying, "Majnún, Majnún." At
this the Rohú fish was greatly alarmed and swam down the river as fast
as he could. By degrees he got tired and went slower, and a crow came
and perched on his back, and said, "Caw, caw." "Oh, Mr. Crow," said
the poor fish, "do see what is in my stomach that makes such a noise."
"Very well," said the crow, "open your mouth wide, and I'll fly down
and see." So the Rohú opened his jaws and the crow flew down, but he
came up again very quickly. "You have a Rakshas in your stomach," said
the crow, and he flew away. This news did not comfort the poor Rohú,
and he swam on and on till he came to Prince Majnún's country. There
he stopped. And a jackal came down to the river to drink. "Oh,
jackal," said the Rohú, "do tell me what I have inside me." "How can I
tell?" said the jackal. "I cannot see unless I go inside you." So the
Rohú opened his mouth wide, and the jackal jumped down his throat; but
he came up very quickly, looking much frightened and saying, "You have
a Rakshas in your stomach, and if I don't run away quickly, I am
afraid it will eat me." So off he ran. After the jackal came an
enormous snake. "Oh," says the fish, "do tell me what I have in my
stomach, for it rattles about so, and keeps saying, 'Majnún, Majnún; I
want Majnún.'" The snake said, "Open your mouth wide, and I'll go
down and see what it is." The snake went down: when he returned he
said, "You have a Rakshas in your stomach; but if you will let me cut
you open, it will come out of you." "If you do that, I shall die,"
said the Rohú. "Oh, no," said the snake, "you will not, for I will
give you a medicine that will make you quite well again." So the fish
agreed, and the snake got a knife and cut him open, and out jumped
Lailí.
She was now very old. Twelve years she had wandered about the jungle,
and for twelve years she had lived inside her Rohú; and she was no
longer beautiful, and had lost her teeth. The snake took her on his
back and carried her into the country, and there he put her down, and
she wandered on and on till she got to Majnún's court-house, where
King Majnún was sitting. There some men heard her crying, "Majnún,
Majnún; I want Majnún," and they asked her what she wanted. "I want
King Majnún," she said. So they went in and said to Prince Majnún, "An
old woman outside says she wants you." "I cannot leave this place,"
said he; "send her in here." They brought her in and the prince asked
her what she wanted. "I want to marry you," she answered. "Twenty-four
years ago you came to my father the Phaláná Rájá's country, and I
wanted to marry you then; but you went away without marrying me. Then
I went mad, and I have wandered about all these years looking for
you." Prince Majnún said, "Very good." "Pray to God," said Lailí, "to
make us both young again, and then we shall be married." So the prince
prayed to God, and God said to him, "Touch Lailí's clothes and they
will catch fire, and when they are on fire, she and you will become
young again." When he touched Lailí's clothes they caught fire, and
she and he became young again. And there were great feasts, and they
were married, and travelled to the Phaláná country to see her father
and mother.
Now Lailí's father and mother had wept so much for their daughter
that they had become quite blind, and her father kept always
repeating, "Lailí, Lailí, Lailí." When Lailí saw their blindness, she
prayed to God to restore their sight to them, which he did. As soon as
the father and mother saw Lailí, they hugged her and kissed her, and
then they had the wedding all over again amid great rejoicings. Prince
Majnún and Lailí stayed with Múnsúk Rájá and his wife for three years,
and then they returned to King Dantál, and lived happily for some time
with him.
They used to go out hunting, and they often went from country to
country to eat the air and amuse themselves.
One day Prince Majnún said to Lailí, "Let us go through this jungle."
"No, no," said Lailí; "if we go through this jungle, some harm will
happen to me." But Prince Majnún laughed, and went into the jungle.
And as they were going through it, God thought, "I should like to know
how much Prince Majnún loves his wife. Would he be very sorry if she
died? And would he marry another wife? I will see." So he sent one of
his angels in the form of a fakír into the jungle; and the angel went
up to Lailí, and threw some powder in her face, and instantly she fell
to the ground a heap of ashes.
Prince Majnún was in great sorrow and grief when he saw his dear Lailí
turn into a little heap of ashes; and he went straight home to his
father, and for a long, long time he would not be comforted. After a
great many years he grew more cheerful and happy, and began to go
again into his father's beautiful garden with Husain Mahámat. King
Dantál wished his son to marry again. "I will only have Lailí for my
wife; I will not marry any other woman," said Prince Majnún. "How can
you marry Lailí? Lailí is dead. She will never come back to you," said
the father. "Then I'll not have any wife at all," said Prince Majnún.
Meanwhile Lailí was living in the jungle where her husband had left
her a little heap of ashes. As soon as Majnún had gone, the fakír had
taken her ashes and made them quite clean, and then he had mixed clay
and water with the ashes, and made the figure of a woman with them,
and so Lailí regained her human form, and God sent life into it. But
Lailí had become once more a hideous old woman, with a long, long
nose, and teeth like tusks; just such an old woman, excepting her
teeth, as she had been when she came out of the Rohú fish; and she
lived in the jungle, and neither ate nor drank, and she kept on
saying, "Majnún, Majnún; I want Majnún."
At last the angel who had come as a fakír and thrown the powder at
her, said to God, "Of what use is it that this woman should sit in the
jungle crying, crying for ever, 'Majnún, Majnún; I want Majnún,' and
eating and drinking nothing? Let me take her to Prince Majnún."
"Well," said God, "you may do so; but tell her that she must not speak
to Majnún if he is afraid of her when he sees her; and that if he is
afraid when he sees her, she will become a little white dog the next
day. Then she must go to the palace, and she will only regain her
human shape when Prince Majnún loves her, feeds her with his own food,
and lets her sleep in his bed." So the angel came to Lailí again as a
fakír and carried her to King Dantál's garden. "Now," he said, "it is
God's command that you stay here till Prince Majnún comes to walk in
the garden, and then you may show yourself to him. But you must not
speak to him, if he is afraid of you; and should he be afraid of you,
you will the next day become a little white dog." He then told her
what she must do as a little dog to regain her human form.
Lailí stayed in the garden, hidden in the tall grass, till Prince
Majnún and Husain Mahámat came to walk in the garden. King Dantál was
now a very old man, and Husain Mahámat, though he was really only as
old as Prince Majnún, looked a great deal older than the prince, who
had been made quite young again when he married Lailí.
As Prince Majnún and the Wazír's son walked in the garden, they
gathered the fruit as they had done as little children, only they bit
the fruit with their teeth; they did not cut it. While Majnún was busy
eating a fruit in this way, and was talking to Husain Mahámat, he
turned towards him and saw Lailí walking behind the Wazír's son. "Oh,
look, look!" he cried, "see what is following you; it is a Rakshas or
a demon, and I am sure it is going to eat us." Lailí looked at him
beseechingly with all her eyes, and trembled with age and eagerness;
but this only frightened Majnún the more. "It is a Rakshas, a
Rakshas!" he cried, and he ran quickly to the palace with the Wazír's
son; and as they ran away, Lailí disappeared into the jungle. They ran
to King Dantál, and Majnún told him there was a Rakshas or a demon in
the garden that had come to eat them. "What nonsense," said his
father. "Fancy two grown men being so frightened by an old ayah or a
fakír! And if it had been a Rakshas, it would not have eaten you."
Indeed King Dantál did not believe Majnún had seen anything at all,
till Husain Mahámat said the prince was speaking the exact truth. They
had the garden searched for the terrible old woman, but found nothing,
and King Dantál told his son he was very silly to be so much
frightened. However, Prince Majnún would not walk in the garden any
more.
The next day Lailí turned into a pretty little dog; and in this shape
she came into the palace, where Prince Majnún soon became very fond of
her. She followed him everywhere, went with him when he was out
hunting, and helped him to catch his game, and Prince Majnún fed her
with milk, or bread, or anything else he was eating, and at night the
little dog slept in his bed.
But one night the little dog disappeared, and in its stead there lay
the little old woman who had frightened him so much in the garden; and
now Prince Majnún was quite sure she was a Rakshas, or a demon, or
some such horrible thing come to eat him; and in his terror he cried
out, "What do you want? Oh, do not eat me; do not eat me!" Poor Lailí
answered, "Don't you know me? I am your wife Lailí, and I want to
marry you. Don't you remember how you would go through that jungle,
though I begged and begged you not to go, for I told you that harm
would happen to me, and then a fakír came and threw powder in my face,
and I became a heap of ashes. But God gave me my life again, and
brought me here, after I had stayed a long, long while in the jungle
crying for you, and now I am obliged to be a little dog; but if you
will marry me, I shall not be a little dog any more." Majnún, however,
said "How can I marry an old woman like you? how can you be Lailí? I
am sure you are a Rakshas or a demon come to eat me," and he was in
great terror.
In the morning the old woman had turned into the little dog, and the
prince went to his father and told him all that had happened. "An old
woman! an old woman! always an old woman!" said his father. "You do
nothing but think of old women. How can a strong man like you be so
easily frightened?" However, when he saw that his son was really in
great terror, and that he really believed the old woman would come
back at night, he advised him to say to her, "I will marry you if you
can make yourself a young girl again. How can I marry such an old
woman as you are?"
That night as he lay trembling in bed the little old woman lay there
in place of the dog, crying, "Majnún, Majnún, I want to marry you. I
have loved you all these long, long years. When I was in my father's
kingdom a young girl, I knew of you, though you knew nothing of me,
and we should have been married then if you had not gone away so
suddenly, and for long, long years I followed you." "Well," said
Majnún, "if you can make yourself a young girl again, I will marry
you."
Lailí said, "Oh, that is quite easy. God will make me a young girl
again. In two days' time you must go into the garden, and there you
will see a beautiful fruit. You must gather it and bring it into your
room and cut it open yourself very gently, and you must not open it
when your father or anybody else is with you, but when you are quite
alone; for I shall be in the fruit quite naked, without any clothes at
all on." In the morning Lailí took her little dog's form, and
disappeared in the garden.
Prince Majnún told all this to his father, who told him to do all the
old woman had bidden him. In two days' time he and the Wazír's son
walked in the garden, and there they saw a large, lovely red fruit.
"Oh!" said the Prince, "I wonder shall I find my wife in that fruit."
Husain Mahámat wanted him to gather it and see, but he would not till
he had told his father, who said, "That must be the fruit; go and
gather it." So Majnún went back and broke the fruit off its stalk; and
he said to his father, "Come with me to my room while I open it; I am
afraid to open it alone, for perhaps I shall find a Rakshas in it that
will eat me." "No," said King Dantál; "remember, Lailí will be naked;
you must go alone, and do not be afraid if, after all, a Rakshas is in
the fruit, for I will stay outside the door, and you have only to call
me with a loud voice, and I will come to you, so the Rakshas will not
be able to eat you."
Then Majnún took the fruit and began to cut it open tremblingly, for
he shook with fear; and when he had cut it, out stepped Lailí, young
and far more beautiful than she had ever been. At the sight of her
extreme beauty, Majnún fell backwards fainting on the floor.
Lailí took off his turban and wound it all round herself like a sárí
(for she had no clothes at all on), and then she called King Dantál,
and said to him sadly, "Why has Majnún fallen down like this? Why will
he not speak to me? He never used to be afraid of me; and he has seen
me so many, many times." King Dantál answered, "It is because you are
so beautiful. You are far, far more beautiful than you ever were. But
he will be very happy directly." Then the King got some water, and
they bathed Majnún's face and gave him some to drink, and he sat up
again. Then Lailí said, "Why did you faint? Did you not see I am
Lailí?" "Oh!" said Prince Majnún, "I see you are Lailí come back to
me, but your eyes have grown so wonderfully beautiful, that I fainted
when I saw them." Then they were all very happy, and King Dantál had
all the drums in the place beaten, and had all the musical instruments
played on, and they made a grand wedding-feast, and gave presents to
the servants, and rice and quantities of rupees to the fakírs.
After some time had passed very happily, Prince Majnún and his wife
went out to eat the air. They rode on the same horse, and had only a
groom with them. They came to another kingdom, to a beautiful garden.
"We must go into that garden and see it," said Majnún. "No, no," said
Lailí; "it belongs to a bad Rájá, Chumman Básá, a very wicked man."
But Majnún insisted on going in, and in spite of all Lailí could say,
he got off the horse to look at the flowers. Now, as he was looking at
the flowers, Lailí saw Chumman Básá coming towards them, and she read
in his eyes that he meant to kill her husband and seize her. So she
said to Majnún, "Come, come, let us go; do not go near that bad man. I
see in his eyes, and I feel in my heart, that he will kill you to
seize me." "What nonsense," said Majnún. "I believe he is a very good
Rájá. Anyhow, I am so near to him that I could not get away." "Well,"
said Lailí, "it is better that you should be killed than I, for if I
were to be killed a second time, God would not give me my life again;
but I can bring you to life if you are killed." Now Chumman Básá had
come quite near, and seemed very pleasant, so thought Prince Majnún;
but when he was speaking to Majnún, he drew his scimitar and cut off
the prince's head at one blow.
Lailí sat quite still on her horse, and as the Rájá came towards her
she said, "Why did you kill my husband?" "Because I want to take you,"
he answered. "You cannot," said Lailí. "Yes, I can," said the Rájá.
"Take me, then," said Lailí to Chumman Básá; so he came quite close
and put out his hand to take hers to lift her off her horse. But she
put her hand in her pocket and pulled out a tiny knife, only as long
as her hand was broad, and this knife unfolded itself in one instant
till it was such a length! and then Lailí made a great sweep with her
arm and her long, long knife, and off came Chumman Básá's head at one
touch.
Then Lailí slipped down off her horse, and she went to Majnún's dead
body, and she cut her little finger inside her hand straight down from
the top of her nail to her palm, and out of this gushed blood like
healing medicine. Then she put Majnún's head on his shoulders, and
smeared her healing blood all over the wound, and Majnún woke up and
said, "What a delightful sleep I have had! Why, I feel as if I had
slept for years!" Then he got up and saw the Rájá's dead body by
Lailí's horse. "What's that?" said Majnún. "That is the wicked Rájá
who killed you to seize me, just as I said he would." "Who killed
him?" asked Majnún. "I did," answered Lailí, "and it was I who brought
you to life." "Do bring the poor man to life if you know how to do
so," said Majnún. "No," said Lailí, "for he is a wicked man, and will
try to do you harm." But Majnún asked her for such a long time, and so
earnestly to bring the wicked Rájá to life, that at last she said,
"Jump up on the horse, then, and go far away with the groom." "What
will you do," said Majnún, "if I leave you? I cannot leave you." "I
will take care of myself," said Lailí; "but this man is so wicked, he
may kill you again if you are near him." So Majnún got up on the
horse, and he and the groom went a long way off and waited for Lailí.
Then she set the wicked Rájá's head straight on his shoulders, and she
squeezed the wound in her finger till a little blood-medicine came out
of it. Then she smeared this over the place where her knife had
passed, and just as she saw the Rájá opening his eyes, she began to
run, and she ran, and ran so fast, that she outran the Rájá, who tried
to catch her; and she sprang up on the horse behind her husband, and
they rode so fast, so fast, till they reached King Dantál's palace.
There Prince Majnún told everything to his father, who was horrified
and angry. "How lucky for you that you have such a wife," he said.
"Why did you not do what she told you? But for her, you would be now
dead." Then he made a great feast out of gratitude for his son's
safety, and gave many, many rupees to the fakírs. And he made so much
of Lailí. He loved her dearly; he could not do enough for her. Then he
built a splendid palace for her and his son, with a great deal of
ground about it, and lovely gardens, and gave them great wealth, and
heaps of servants to wait on them. But he would not allow any but
their servants to enter their gardens and palace, and he would not
allow Majnún to go out of them, nor Lailí; "for," said King Dantál,
"Lailí is so beautiful, that perhaps some one may kill my son to take
her away."
Told by Dunkní.
[Decoration]
XV.
HOW KING BURTAL BECAME A FAKÍR.
Once there was a great king called Burtal, and he had a hundred and
sixty wives, but he had no children, which made him sad. One day he
said to his wives, "I am going to a very distant jungle which is full
of antelopes, to hunt them." "Very well," they answered, "go." So he
went. In that jungle lived neither tigers nor men, but only antelopes.
When King Burtal reached the jungle, some of the antelopes came to him
and said, "Pray don't kill the black antelope, for he is our Rájá, and
we have no other antelope like him among us; but try to kill any of
the others--the brown or the yellow antelopes--that you choose." Now,
the king was not a kind man, and he said, "I will kill your black
antelope, and no other." So he shot him dead. When the other antelopes
saw this they began to scream and cry with sorrow. But the dead
antelope's wife said to them, "There is a holy man, a fakír, in the
jungle. Let us take the dead body to him and ask him to bring our Rájá
to life." And King Burtal laughed at them and said, "How can any man
bring a dead antelope to life?" But the antelopes took the body of
their dead Rájá on their backs, and the dead antelope's wife went at
their head; and King Burtal went too; and they carried it to the
fakír, who was called Goraknáth, and who was resting in the jungle,
and they said to him, "Bring our Rájá to life again, for what can we
do without a Rájá? and he has left no son to succeed him." And the
queen antelope said, "I have no other husband. I had only this one
husband. Do bring him to life for me." King Burtal laughed and mocked
them, and said to the fakír, "I never heard of any man bei
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