After that, the Princess marrying the Prince, when he was there for
a considerable time the Prince said, "I must go to our city and come
back." Then the Princess said, "I also must come."
The Prince having said, "Ha, it is good; let us go," the two went to
the Prince's city. Near the city there is a well; near the well there
is a tree. Having caused the Princess to stay in the tree, the Prince
went into the city to bring a horse for the Princess to go to the city.
After he went there, a woman of the smiths' caste (aciri gaeni) came
to the well for water. Having come, when the smith woman looked in
the direction of the well, the reflection of the Princess who was in
the tree appears in the well. She saw the figure, the smith woman.
Having seen it, the woman thought it was the woman's [own] figure,
and having seen the beauty of it, thought, "Ade! I am such a good
looking woman as this! Why came I for water?"
When she looked up the tree she saw that the Princess is [there],
and the smith woman says, "Ane! Having descended, please bathe with
a little water [that I will draw for you]. Why are you there?" The
Princess remained there without descending.
The smith woman once more said, "Please descend." Afterwards, the
Princess having descended, and taken off her clothes, while she was
bathing the smith woman said, "Please bend down for me to rub your
back." The Princess bent down. Then the smith woman raised her and
threw her into the well.
The Princess was unable to come to the ground. The smith woman,
putting on the clothes of the Princess, climbed up the tree.
Then the Prince having come there bringing a horse, the Prince stopped,
and thinking that the smith woman was the Princess, told the smith
woman to descend; and the Prince and the smith woman went to the city
on the horse.
Then a blind man came near the well for water. The Princess, being
in the well, said, "Having torn the cloth of the person who came for
water, and knotted the pieces together, put it into the well."
Afterwards, having torn the blind man's cloth, he put it into the
well. Seizing it, the Princess came to the ground; and making clear
the two eyes of the blind man, she went with the blind man [? to
her palace].
North-western Province.
In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 3, while a King and Queen were
travelling, a shoemaker's wife pushed the Queen into a well when
she was going to drink, and then took her place, and held the King's
head on her lap. Evidently she was accepted by the King as his wife,
since she accompanied him when he proceeded on his journey.
In the same work, p. 143, while a Prince was sleeping, his Princess,
who was sitting at his side, was induced by a woman who came up,
to exchange clothes and hand over her jewellery. Afterwards the two
strolled about, went, at the woman's suggestion, to look at themselves
in the water of a well, and the woman then pushed her in, and took
her place beside the Prince. When he awoke, the woman attributed the
change in her appearance to the bad air of the country, and he went
off with her, and married her.