The Prince without lying down began to run away. At the time when
the Nagaya was going chasing after him the Prince fell. The Cobra
having mounted on his breast, [said], "Do you without fear extend
your tongue."
The Prince afterwards in fear stretched out his tongue. On his tongue
the Nagaya with the Nagaya's tongue wrote letters. "Having heard all
kinds of creatures talk you will understand them. Do not tell it to
anyone," [he said]. Afterwards the Nagaya died. He burnt up the Nagaya.
The Prince having come home, while he is [there], when the Prince's
wife is coming out from the house small red ants (kumbiyo) say,
"A woman like the boards of this door, having trampled [on us] on
going and coming, kills us," they said. The Prince having understood
it, laughed.
When his wife in various ways was asking, "Why did you laugh?" anger
having come to him [he determined to burn himself on a funeral pyre,
so] he said, "You in the morning having cooked food and apportioned
it to me too, eat you also."
Having eaten it, at the time when they are going, taking an axe, and a
[water] gourd, and fire, two pigs having been digging and digging at
a tank a pig says, "That Prince to-day will die."
The [other] pig says, "The Prince will not die. Having constructed
a funeral pyre (saeyak), the Prince will mount on it. Water-thirst
having come, he will tell his wife to bring water," it said. "She
having gone, when she is bringing the water she will slip and fall
and will die," it said.
He having constructed the funeral pyre, when the Prince mounted on
it a water-thirst came. He told his wife to bring water. She went
[to the tank for it], and having gone slipping through the amount of
the weight, she fell in the water and died. Having put his wife on
the pyre and burnt her, afterwards he went home.
North-western Province.
This story affords an illustration of a common belief in Ceylon,
that cobras sometimes pair with rat-snakes. The Prince is evidently
thought to have acted in a becoming manner in refusing to give the
milk to the female cobra when she was improperly associating with
the rat-snake during the absence of her mate.
Regarding the drinking of milk by cobras, mention is made in the Jataka
story No. 146 (vol. i, p. 311) of an offering of milk, among other
things, made to Nagas. Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, F.R.S., the Secretary
to the Zoological Society, has been good enough to reply as follows
to my inquiry regarding the drinking of milk by cobras:--"I have not
myself seen Cobras drinking milk, but I am sure that they will do so,
and I see no reason to doubt it, as certainly many other snakes will
drink milk."
In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 382, there
is a story the first part of which is a variant of this one, the
latter part being a variant of the tale which follows. The daughter
of a Naga King was beaten by a cow-herd, and complained to her father
that the King of the country had done it. The Naga went at night as a
snake, and while under the King's bed heard him tell the Queen that
he had saved the girl from the cow-herd. Next day the Naga appeared
before the King, offered to fulfil any wish of the King's, and at his
request gave him the power of understanding the speech of all animals,
informing him that he must be careful to let no one know of it (or,
as the translator added in a note, the penalty would be death).
When the King afterwards laughed on hearing the talk of some
butterflies about their food, the Queen vainly asked the reason. After
this occurred three times the Queen threatened to kill herself. The
Naga, to save the King, by its magic power caused hundreds of sheep to
cross a river in his presence. When the ram refused to return for a ewe
she threatened to commit suicide, and reminded him that the King was
about to lose his life because of his wife. The ram replied that the
King was a fool to perish for the sake of his wife, and that the ewe
might die, he had others. The King reflected that he had less wisdom
than the ram, and when his wife again threatened to kill herself told
her that she was free to do so; he had many wives and did not need her.
In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding),
p. 394, a cow-herd who had relieved a Bonga (deity) of a heavy stone
which had been placed on him, received from him the power to understand
the language of ants. To give him this knowledge the Bonga merely blew
into his ear. One day, when the man laughed heartily on hearing two
ants abuse each other over a grain of rice, his wife insisted on being
told the cause. On his telling her he lost the power conferred on him.