Many others of the Parrot's stories might be cited, but we shall merely
glance at one more, as it calls up a very ancient and wide-spread
legend:
_The Tree of Life._
A prince, who is very ill, sends a parrot of great sagacity to procure
him some of the fruit of the Tree of Life. When at length the parrot
returns with the life-giving fruit, the prince scruples to eat it, upon
which the wise bird relates the legend of Solomon and the Water of
Immortality: how that monarch declined to purchase immunity from death
on consideration that he should survive all his friends and female
favourites. The prince, however, having suspicions regarding the
genuineness of the fruit, sends some trusty messengers to "bring the
first apple that fell from the Tree of Existence." But it happened that
a black serpent had poisoned it by seizing it in his mouth and then
letting it drop again. When the messengers return with the fruit, the
prince tries its effect on an old _pír_ (holy man), who at once falls
down dead. Upon seeing this the prince doomed the parrot to death, but
the sagacious bird suggested that, before the prince should execute him
for treason, he should himself go to the Tree of Life, and make another
experiment with its fruit. He does so, and on returning home gives part
of the fruit to an old woman, "who, from age and infirmity had not
stirred abroad for many years," and she had no sooner tasted it than she
was changed into a blooming beauty of eighteen!--Happy, happy old woman!
* * * * *
A different version of the legend occurs in a Canarese collection,
entitled _Kathá Manjarí_, which is worthy of reproduction, since it may
possibly be an earlier form than that in the Persian Parrot-Book: A
certain king had a magpie that flew one day to heaven with another
magpie. When it was there it took away some mango-seed, and, having
returned, gave it into the hands of the king, saying: "If you cause this
to be planted and grow, whoever eats of its fruit old age will forsake
him and youth return." The king was much pleased, and caused it to be
sown in his favourite garden, and carefully watched it. After some time,
buds having shown themselves in it became flowers, then young fruit,
then it was grown; and when it was full of ripe fruit, the king ordered
it to be cut and brought, and that he might test it gave it to an old
man. But on that fruit there had fallen poison from a serpent, as it was
carried through the air by a kite, therefore he immediately withered and
died. The king, having seen this, was much afraid, and exclaimed: "Is
not this bird attempting to kill me?" Having said this, with anger he
seized the magpie, and swung it round and killed it. Afterwards in that
village the tree had the name of the Poisonous Mango. While things were
thus, a washerman, taking the part of his wife in a quarrel with his
aged mother, struck the latter, who was so angry at her son that she
resolved to die [in order that the blame of her death should fall on
him]; and having gone to the poisonous mango-tree in the garden, she cut
off a fruit and ate it; and immediately she was more blooming than a
girl of sixteen. This wonder she published everywhere. The king became
acquainted with it, and having called her and seen her, caused the fruit
to be given to other old people. Having seen what was thus done by the
wonderful virtue of the mango, the king exclaimed: "Alas! is the
affectionate magpie killed which gave me this divine tree? How guilty am
I!" and he pierced himself with his sword and died. Therefore (moralises
the story-teller) those who do anything without thought are easily
ruined.[52]
[52] There is a very similar story in the Tamil _Alakésa
Kathá_, a tale of a King and his Four Ministers, but the
conclusion is different: the rájá permits all his
subjects to partake of the youth-bestowing fruit;--I
wonder whether they are yet alive! A translation of the
romance of the King and his Four Ministers--the first
that has been made into English--will be found in my
_Group of Eastern Romances and Stories_, 1889.
The incident of fruit or food being poisoned by a serpent is of frequent
occurrence in Eastern stories; thus, in the _Book of Sindibád_ a man
sends his slave-girl to fetch milk, with which to feast some guests. As
she was returning with it in an open vessel a stork flew over her,
carrying a snake in its beak; the snake dropped some of its poison into
the milk, and all the guests who partook of it immediately fell down and
died.--The Water of Life and the Tree of Life are the subjects of many
European as well as Asiatic folk-tales. Muslims have a tradition that
Alexander the Great despatched the prophet Al-Khizar (who is often
confounded with Moses and Elias in legends) to procure him some of the
Water of Life. The prophet, after a long and perilous journey, at length
reached this Spring of Everlasting Youth, and, having taken a hearty
draught of its waters, the stream suddenly disappeared--and has, we may
suppose, never been rediscovered. Al-Khizar, they say, still lives, and
occasionally appears to persons whom he desires especially to favour,
and always clothed in a green robe, the emblem of perennial youth. In
Arabic, Khizar signifies _green_.
* * * * *
The faithful and sagacious Parrot having entertained the lady during
fifty-two successive nights, and thereby prevented her from prosecuting
her intended intrigue, on the following day the merchant returned, and,
missing the sharak from the cage, inquired its fate of the Parrot, who
straight-way acquainted him of all that had taken place in his absence,
and, according to Kádiri's abridged text, he put his wife to death,
which was certainly very unjust, since the lady's offence was only in
_design_, not in _fact_.[53]
[53] In one Telúgú version, entitled _Totí Náma Cat'halú_,
the lady kills the bird after hearing all its tales; and
in another the husband, on returning home and learning
of his wife's intended intrigue, cuts off her head and
becomes a devotee.
* * * * *
It will be observed that the frame of the _Tútí Náma_ somewhat resembles
the story, in the _Arabian Nights_, of the Merchant, his Wife, and the
Parrot, which properly belongs to, and occurs in, all the versions of
the _Book of Sindibád_, and also in the _Seven Wise Masters_; in the
latter a magpie takes the place of the parrot. In my _Popular Tales and
Fictions_ I have pointed out the close analogy which the frame of the
Parrot-Book bears to a Panjábí legend of the renowned hero Rájá Rasálú.
In the _Tútí Náma_ the merchant leaves a parrot and a sharak to watch
over his wife's conduct in his absence, charging her to obtain their
consent before she enters upon any undertaking of moment; and on her
consulting the sharak as to the propriety of her assignation with the
young prince, the bird refuses consent, whereupon the enraged dame kills
it on the spot; but the parrot, by pursuing a middle course, saves his
life and his master's honour. In the Panjábí legend Rájá Rasálú, who was
very frequently from home on hunting excursions, left behind him a
parrot and a maina (hill starling), to act as spies upon his young wife,
the Rání Kokla. One day while Rasálú was from home she was visited by
the handsome Rájá Hodí, who climbed to her balcony by a rope (this
incident is the subject of many paintings in fresco on the panels of
palaces and temples in India), when the maina exclaimed, "What
wickedness is this?" upon which the rájá went to the cage, took out the
maina, and dashed it to the ground, so that it died. But the parrot,
taking warning, said, "The steed of Rasálú is swift, what if he should
surprise you? Let me out of my cage, and I will fly over the palace, and
will inform you the instant he appears in sight"; and so she released
the parrot. In the sequel, the parrot betrays the rání, and Rasálú kills
Rájá Hodí and causes his heart to be served to the rání for supper.[54]
[54] Captain R. C. Temple's _Legends of the Panjáb_, vol. i,
p. 52 ff.; and "Four Legends of Rájá Rasálú," by the
Rev. C. Swynnerton, in the _Folk-Lore Journal_, 1883, p.
141 ff.
* * * * *
The parrot is a very favourite character in Indian fictions, a
circumstance originating, very possibly, in the Hindú belief in
metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls after death into other animal
forms, and also from the remarkable facility with which that bird
imitates the human voice. In the _Kathá Sarit Ságara_ stories of wise
parrots are of frequent occurrence; sometimes they figure as mere birds,
but at other times as men who had been re-born in that form. In the
third of the Twenty-Five Tales of a Demon (Sanskrit version), a king has
a parrot, "possessed of god-like intellect, knowing all the _shastras_,
having been born in that condition owing to a curse"; and his queen has
a hen-maina "remarkable for knowledge." They are placed in the same
cage; and "one day the parrot became enamoured of the maina, and said to
her: 'Marry me, fair one, as we sleep, perch, and feed in the same
cage.' But the maina answered him: 'I do not desire intimate union with
a male, for all males are wicked and ungrateful.' The parrot answered:
'It is not true that males are wicked, but females are wicked and
cruel-hearted.' And so a dispute arose between them. The two birds then
made a bargain that, if the parrot won, he should have the maina for
wife, and if the maina won, the parrot should be her slave, and they
came before the prince to get a true judgment." Each relates a
story--the one to show that men are all wicked and ungrateful, the
other, that women are wicked and cruel-hearted.
It must be confessed that the frame of the _Tútí Náma_ is of a very
flimsy description: nothing could be more absurd, surely, than to
represent the lady as decorating herself fifty-two nights in succession
in order to have an interview with a young prince, and being detained
each night by the Parrot's tales, which, moreover, have none of them the
least bearing upon the condition and purpose of the lady; unlike the
Telúgú story-book, having a somewhat similar frame (see _ante_, p. 127,
_note_), in which the tales related by the bird are about chaste wives.
But the frames of all Eastern story-books are more or less slight and of
small account. The value of the _Tútí Náma_ consists in the aid which
the subordinate tales furnish in tracing the genealogy of popular
fictions, and in this respect the importance of the work can hardly be
over-rated.
_ADDITIONAL NOTE._
THE MAGIC BOWL, pp. 152-156; 157, 158.
In our tale of the Faggot-maker, the fairies warn him to guard the Magic
Bowl with the utmost care, "for it will break by the most trifling
blow," and he is to use it only when absolutely necessary; and in the
notes of variants appended, reference is made (p. 158) to a Meklenburg
story where the beer in an inexhaustible can disappears the moment its
possessor reveals the secret. The gifts made by fairies and other
superhuman beings have indeed generally some condition attached (most
commonly, perhaps, that they are not to be examined until the recipients
have reached home), as is shown pretty conclusively by my friend Mr. E.
Sidney Hartland in a most interesting paper on "Fairy Births and Human
Midwives," which enriches the pages of the _Archæological Review_ for
December, 1889, and at the close of which he cites, from Poestion's
_Lappländische Märchen_, p. 119, a curious example, which may be fairly
regarded as an analogue of the tale of the Poor Faggot-maker--"far cry"
though it be from India to Swedish Lappmark:
"A peasant who had one day been unlucky at the chase was returning
disgusted, when he met a fine gentleman, who begged him to come and cure
his wife. The peasant protested in vain that he was no doctor. The other
would take no denial, insisting that it was no matter, for if he would
only put his hands on the lady she would be healed. Accordingly, the
stranger led him to the very top of a mountain where was perched a
castle he had never seen before. On entering, he found the walls were
mirrors, the roof overhead of silver, the carpets of gold-embroidered
silk, and the furniture of the purest gold and jewels. The stranger took
him into a room where lay the loveliest of princesses on a golden bed,
screaming with pain. As soon as she saw the peasant, she begged him to
come and put his hands upon her. Almost stupified with astonishment, he
hesitated to lay his coarse hands upon so fair a dame. But at length he
yielded, and in a moment her pain ceased, and she was made whole. She
stood up and thanked him, begging him to tarry awhile and eat with them.
This, however, he declined to do, for he feared that if he tasted the
food which was offered him he must remain there.
"The stranger whom he had followed then took a leathern purse, filled it
with small round pieces of wood, and gave it to the peasant with these
words: 'So long as thou art in possession of this purse, money will
never fail thee. But if thou shouldst ever see me again, beware of
speaking to me; for if thou speak thy luck will depart.' When the man
got home he found the purse filled with dollars; and by virtue of its
magical property he became the richest man in the parish. As soon as he
found the purse always full, whatever he took out of it, he began to
live in a spendthrift manner, and frequented the alehouse. One evening
as he sat there he beheld the stranger, with a bottle in his hand, going
round and gathering the drops which the guests shook from time to time
out of their glasses. The rich peasant was surprised that one who had
given him so much did not seem able to buy himself a single dram, but
was reduced to this means of getting a drink. Thereupon he went up to
him and said: 'Thou hast shown me more kindness than any other man ever
did, and willingly I will treat thee to a little.' The words were scarce
out of his mouth when he received such a blow on his head that he fell
stunned to the ground; and when again he came to himself the stranger
and his purse were both gone. From that day forward he became poorer and
poorer, until he was reduced to absolute beggary."
Among other examples adduced by Mr. Hartland is a Bohemian legend in
which "the Frau von Hahnen receives for her services to a water-nix
three pieces of gold, with the injunction to take care of them, and
never to let them go out of the hands of her own lineage, else the whole
family would fall into poverty. She bequeathed the treasures to her
three sons; but the youngest son took a wife who with a light heart gave
the fairy gold away. Misery, of course, resulted from her folly, and the
race of Hahnen speedily came to an end."--But those who are interested
in the study of comparative folk-lore would do well to read for
themselves the whole paper, which is assuredly by far the most (if not
indeed the only) comprehensive attempt that has yet been made in our
language to treat scientifically the subject of fairy gifts to human
beings.