In order to inquire further, the two persons, having joined together,
began to go through the midst of the forest. At the time when they
were going they saw yet a man who is looking upward. These two having
gone near asked, "What are you staying looking upward for?"
The man said, "I see the celestial nymphs [109] dancing in the
divine world."
The two persons spoke together: "In sight this person is more dexterous
than we." Thereupon these three having joined together, at the time
when they were going [they saw that] at the bottom of a Jak tree a
bride was staying, leaning against the tree. A cobra was preparing
to strike the woman.
Then the shooter said, "I do not see far. You aim the arrow and show me
[the direction]; then I will shoot." Then he shot at the cobra. The
arrow having entered the cobra in the quarter of the cobra's tail,
came out near the bride's head.
The three Vaeddas went to the place where the bride is. That they
had shot the cobra no one in the bride's party knows. Thereupon,
when they tried to call the bride and go away, the Vaeddas did not
allow them to call her and go. [They said], "If this cobra having
bitten her she had died, where would there be a bride for you?"
Both the parties instituted law-suits. Both the parties having gone
near the King told him to decide the law-suit. The King having heard
the law-suit, after he had looked [into the matter] was also unable
to decide it. At that time he asked the Vaeddas, "To whom must this
woman belong?"
Thereupon the Vaeddas said, "To both parties she cannot belong. She
must belong to our teacher."
Should you say, "Did they say who that was?" it was indeed that woman
who at first took the water.
North-western Province.
In Folk-Tales of Hindustan (Shaik Chilli), p. 83, a Prince while
travelling met with an archer who had shot an arrow at a star fourteen
years before and was awaiting its fall. He saw its approach when it
was still a thousand miles away, and warned the Prince to avoid it.
In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 297, the chief amusement of a
rich man was shooting his arrow every morning through one of the
pearls of his wife's nose-ring. When her brother came to take her to
visit her parents, he found her thin and miserable, as she feared the
arrow might some day strike her face. Each day the husband asked her,
"Was there ever a man as clever as I am?" and she replied that there
never was one. Her brother advised her to say next time that there
were many men in the world cleverer than he was. When she said this
her husband left her in order to find one of them. He met a clever
wrestler and a clever pandit, who joined him, and who frightened some
demons that were going to eat them.