mother had left him. But the wife grew sadder and sadder every day,
for the pice grew fewer and fewer. She thought, "What shall we do when
they are all gone? My husband knows no trade, and can do no work." One
day when she was looking very sorrowful, her husband asked her, "What
is the matter? Why are you so unhappy?" "We have hardly any pice
left," she answered, "and what shall we do when we have eaten the few
we have? You know no trade, and can do no work." "Never mind," said
her husband, "I can do some work."
So one day when there were hardly any pice left, he took an axe, and
said to his wife, "I am going out to-day to work. Give me my dinner to
take with me, and I will eat it out of doors." She gave him some
food, wondering what work he had; but she did not ask him.
He went to a jungle, where he stayed all day, and where he ate his
dinner. All day long he wandered from tree to tree, saying to each,
"May I cut you down?" But not a tree in the jungle gave him any
answer: so he cut none down, and went home in the evening. His wife
did not ask where he had been, or what he had done, and he said
nothing to her.
The next day he again asked her for food to take with him to eat out
of doors, "for," he said, "I am going to work all day." She did not
like to ask him any questions, but gave him the food. And he took his
axe, and went out to a jungle which was on a different side to the one
he had been to yesterday. In this jungle also he went to every tree,
and said to it, "May I cut you down?" No tree answered him; so he ate
his dinner and came home.
The next day he went to a third jungle on the third side. There, too,
he asked each tree, "May I cut you down?" But none gave him any
answer. He came home therefore very sorrowful.
On the fourth day he went to a jungle on the fourth side. All day long
he went from tree to tree, asking each, "May I cut you down?" None
answered. At last, towards evening, he went and stood under a
mango-tree. "May I cut you down?" he said to it. "Yes, cut me down,"
answered the tree. God loved the merchant's son and wished him to grow
a great man, so he ordered the mango-tree to let itself be cut down.
Now the grain merchant's son was happy, for he was quite sure he could
make a bed, if he only had some wood; so he hewed down the mango-tree,
put it on his head, and carried it home. His wife saw him coming, and
said to herself, "He is bringing home a tree! What can he be going to
do with a tree?"
Next morning he took the tree into one of the rooms of his house. He
told his wife to put food and water to last him for a week in this
room, and to make a fire in it. Then he went up to the room, and said
to her, "You are not to come in here for a whole week. You are not to
come near me till I call you." Then he went into the room and shut the
door. The whole week long his wife wondered what he could be doing all
alone in that room. "I cannot see into it," she said to herself, "and
I dare not open the door. I wonder what he is about."
By the end of the week the grain merchant's son had carved a most
beautiful bed out of the mango-tree. Such a beautiful bed had never
been seen. Then he called his wife, and when she came he told her to
open the door, and when she opened it he said, "See what a beautiful
bed I have made." "Did _you_ make that bed?" she said. "Oh, what a
beautiful bed it is! I never saw such a lovely bed!"
He rested that day, and on the day following he took the bed to the
king's palace, and sat down with it before the palace gate. The king's
servants all came to look at the bed. "What a bed it is!" they said.
"Did any one ever see such a bed! It is a beautiful bed. Is it yours?"
they asked the merchant's son. "Is it for sale? Who made it? Did you
make it?" But he said, "I will not answer any of your questions. I
will not speak to any of you. I will only speak to the king." So the
servants went to the king and said to him, "There is a man at your
gate with a most beautiful bed. But he will not speak to any of us,
and says he will only speak to you." "Very good," said the king;
"bring him to me."
When the grain merchant's son came before the king with his bed, the
king asked him, "Is your bed for sale?" "Yes," he said. "What a
beautiful bed it is!" said the king. "Who made it?" "I did," he said.
"I made it myself." "How much do you want for it?" said the king.
"One thousand rupees," answered the merchant's son. "That is a great
deal for the bed," said the king. "I will not take less," said the
merchant's son. "Good," said the king, "I will give you the thousand
rupees." So he took the bed, and the merchant's son said to him, "The
first night you pass on it, do not go to sleep. Take care to keep
awake, and you will hear and see something." Then he took the rupees
home to his wife, who was frightened when she saw them. "Are those
your rupees?" she said. "Where did you find such a quantity of
rupees?" "The king gave them to me for my bed," he said. "I am not a
thief; I did not steal them." Then she was happy.
That night the king lay down on his bed, and at ten o'clock he heard
one of the bed's legs say to the other legs, "Listen, you three. I am
going out to see the king's country. Do you all stand firm while I am
away, and take care not to let the king fall." "Good," the three legs
answered; "go and eat the air, and we will all stand fast, so that the
king does not fall while you are away."
Then the king saw the leg leave the bed, and go out of his room door.
The leg went out to a great plain, and there it saw two snakes
quarrelling together. One snake said, "I will bite the king." The
other said, "I will bite him." The first said, "No, you won't; I will
climb on to his bed and bite him." "That you will never do," said the
second. "You cannot climb on to his bed; but I will get into his shoe,
and then when he puts it on to-morrow morning, I will bite his foot."
The bed-leg came back and told the other legs what it had seen and
heard. "If the king will shake his shoe before he puts it on to-morrow
morning," it said, "he will see a snake drop out of it." The king
heard all that was said.
"Now," said the second bed-leg, "I will go out and eat the air of the
king's country. Do you all stand firm while I am away." "Go," the
others answered; "we will take care the king does not fall." The
second bed-leg then went out, and went to another plain on which stood
a very old palace belonging to the king, and the wind told it the
palace was so ruinous that it would fall and kill the king the first
time he went into it: the king had never once had it repaired. So it
came back and told the three other legs all about the palace and what
the wind had said. "If I were the king," said the second bed-leg, "I
would have that palace pulled down. It is quite ready to fall; and the
first time the king goes into it, it will fall on him and kill him."
The king lay, and listened to everything. As it happened, he had
forgotten all about his old palace, and had not gone near it for a
long time.
Then the third bed-leg said, "Now I will go out and see all the fun I
can. Stand firm, you three, while I am away." He went to a
jungle-plain on which lived a yogí. Now there was a sarai[5] not far
off in which lived a woman, the wife of a sepoy, whose husband had
gone a year ago to another country, leaving her in the sarai. She was
so fond of the yogí, that she used to come and talk to him every
night. That very day her husband came back to her, and therefore it
was later than usual when she got to the yogí; so he was very vexed
with her. "How late you are to-night," he said. "It is not my fault,"
she answered. "My husband came home to-day after having been away a
year, and he kept me." "Which of us do you love best?" asked the yogí;
"your husband or me?" "I love you best," said the woman. "Then," said
the yogí, "go home and cut off your husband's head, and bring it here
for me to see." The sepoy's wife went straight to the sarai, cut off
her husband's head, and brought it to the yogí. "What a wicked woman
you are to do such a thing at my bidding!" he said. "Go away at once.
You are a wicked woman, and I do not want to see you." She took the
head home, set it again on the body and began to cry. All the people
in the sarai came to see what was the matter. "Thieves have been
here," she said, "and have killed my husband, and cut off his head,"
and then she cried again. The third bed-leg now went back to the
palace, and told the others all it had seen and heard. The king lay
still and listened.
The fourth bed-leg next went out to see all it could, and it came to a
plain on which were seven thieves, who had just been into the king's
palace, and had carried off his daughter on her bed fast asleep; and
there she lay still sleeping. They had, too, been into the king's
treasury and had taken all his rupees. The fourth bed-leg came quickly
back to the palace, and said to the other three legs, "Now, if the
king were wise he would get up instantly and go to the plain. For some
thieves are there with his daughter and all his rupees which they have
just stolen out of his palace. If he only made haste and went at once,
he would get them again."
The king got up that minute, and called his servants and some sepoys,
and set off to the plain. He shook his shoe before he put it on, and
out tumbled the snake (the other had quietly gone into the jungle, and
not come to the palace); so he saw that the first bed-leg had spoken
the truth.
When he reached the plain he found his daughter and his rupees, and
brought them back to his palace. The princess slept all the time, and
did not know what had happened to her. The king saw the fourth leg had
told the truth. The thieves he could not catch, for they all ran away
when they saw him coming with his sepoys.
The king sent men to the old palace to pull it down. They found it
was just going to fall, and would have fallen on any one who had
entered it, and crushed him. So the second bed-leg had told the truth.
When the king was sitting in his court-house he heard how during the
night thieves had gone into the sarai and killed a sepoy there and cut
off his head. Then he sent for the sepoy's wife, and asked her who had
killed her husband. "Thieves," she said. The king was very angry, for
he was sure the third bed-leg had told the truth as the other three
legs had done. So he ordered the man to be buried; and bade his
servants make a great wooden pile on the plain, and take the woman and
burn her on it. They were not to leave her as long as she was alive,
but to wait till she was dead.
He next sent for the grain merchant's son, and said to him, "Had it
not been for your bed, I should this morning have been bitten by a
snake; and, perhaps, killed by my old palace falling on me, as I did
not know it was ready to fall, and so might have gone into it. My
daughter would certainly have been stolen from me; and a wicked woman
been still alive. So now, to-morrow, bring as many carts as you like,
and I will give you as a present as many rupees as you can take away
on them in half a day."
Early the next morning the merchant's son brought his cart and took
away on them as many rupees as he could in half a day. His wife was
delighted when she saw the money, and said, "My husband only worked
for one week, and yet he earned all these rupees!" And they lived
always happily.
Told by Múniyá, February 23rd, 1879.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] That is, a resting-place for travellers, composed of a number
of small houses in a walled enclosure.
[Decoration]
[Decoration]
XXVII.
PÁNWPATTÍ RÁNÍ.
In a country a big fair was held, to which came a great many people
and Rájás from all the countries round. Among them was a Rájá who
brought his daughter with him. Opposite their tent another tent was
pitched, in which lived a Rájá's son. He was very beautiful; so was
the little Rání, the other Rájá's daughter.
Now, the Rájá's son and the Rájá's daughter did not even know each
other's names, but they looked at each other a great deal, and each
thought the other very beautiful. "How lovely the Rájá's daughter is!"
thought the prince. "How beautiful the Rájá's son is!" thought the
princess.
They lived opposite each other for a whole month, and all that time
they never spoke to each other nor did they speak of each other to any
one. But they thought of each other a great deal.
When the month was over, the little Rání's father said he would go
back to his own country. The Rájá's son sat in his tent and watched
the servants getting ready the little Rání's palanquin. As soon as the
princess herself was dressed and ready for the journey, she came out
of her tent, and took a rose in her hand. She first put the rose to
her teeth; then she stuck it behind her ear; and lastly, she laid it
at her feet. All this time the Rájá's son sat in his tent and looked
at her. Then she got into her palanquin and was carried away.
The Rájá's son was now very sad. "How lovely the princess is!" he
thought. "And I do not know her name, or her father's name, or the
name of her country. So how can I ever find her? I shall never see her
again." He was very sorrowful, and determined he would go home to his
country. When he got home he laid himself down on his bed, and night
and day he lay there. He would not eat, or drink, or bathe, or change
his clothes. This made his father and mother very unhappy. They went
to him often, and asked him, "What is the matter with you? Are you
ill?" "I want nothing," he would answer. "I don't want any doctor, or
any medicine." Not one word did he say to them, or to any one else,
about the lovely little Rání.
The son of the Rájá's kotwál[6] was the prince's great friend. The two
had always gone to school together, and had there read in the same
book; they had always bathed, eaten, and played together. So when the
prince had been at home for two days, and yet had not been to school
or seen his friend, the kotwál's son grew very anxious. "Why does the
prince not come to school?" he said to himself. "He has been here for
two days, and yet I have not seen him. I will go and find out if
anything is the matter. Perhaps he is ill."
He went, therefore, to see the prince, who was lying very miserable on
his bed. "Why do you not come to school? Are you ill?" asked his
friend. "Oh, it is nothing," said the prince. "Tell me what is the
matter," said the kotwál's son; but the Rájá's son would not answer.
"Have you told any one what is the matter with you?" said the kotwál's
son. "No," answered the prince. "Then tell me," said his friend; "tell
me the truth: what is it that troubles you?"
"Well," said the prince, "at the fair there was a Rájá who had a most
beautiful daughter. They lived in a tent opposite mine, and I used to
see her every day. She is so beautiful! But I do not know her name, or
her father's name, or her country's name; so how can I ever find her?"
"I will take you to her," said his friend; "only get up and bathe, and
eat." "How can you take me to her?" said the prince. "You do not even
know where she is; so how can you take me to her?" "Did she never
speak to you?" said the kotwál's son. "Never," said the prince. "But
when she was going away, just before she got into her palanquin, she
took a rose in her hand; and first she put this rose to her teeth;
then she stuck it behind her ear; and then she laid it at her feet."
"Now I know all about her," said his friend. "When she put the rose to
her teeth, she meant to tell you her father's name was Rájá Dánt [Rájá
Tooth]; when she put it behind her ear she meant you to know her
country's name was Karnátak [on the ear]; and when she laid the rose
at her feet, she meant that her name was Pánwpattí [Foot-leaf]. Get
up; bathe and dress, eat and drink, and we will go and find her."
The prince got up directly, and told his father and mother he was
going for a few days to eat the air of another country. At first they
forbad his going; but then they reflected that he had been very ill,
and that perhaps the air of another country might make him well; so at
last they consented. The prince and his friend had two horses saddled
and bridled, and set off together.
At the end of a month they arrived in a country where they asked (as
they had asked in every other country through which they had ridden),
"What is the name of this country?" "Karnátak" [the Carnatic]. "What
is your Rájá's name?" "Rájá Dánt." Then the two friends were glad.
They stopped at an old woman's house, and said to her, "Let us stay
with you for a few days. We are men from another country and do not
know where to go in this place." The old woman said, "You may stay
with me if you like. I live all alone, and there is plenty of room for
you."
After two or three days the kotwál's son said to the old woman, "Has
your Rájá a daughter?" "Yes," she answered; "he has a daughter; her
name is Pánwpattí Rání." "Can you go to see her?" asked the kotwál's
son. "Yes," she said, "I can go to see her. I was her nurse, and she
drank my milk. It is the Rájá who gives me my house, and my food, and
clothes--everything that I have." "Then go and see her," said the
kotwál's son, "and tell her that the prince whom she called to her at
the fair has come."
The old woman went up to the palace, and saw the princess. After they
had talked together for some time, she said to the little Rání, "The
prince you called to you at the fair is come." "Good," she said; "tell
him to come to see me to-night at twelve o'clock. He is not to come in
through the door, but through the window." (This she said because she
did not want her father to know that the prince had come, until she
had made up her mind whether she would marry him.)
The old woman went home and told the kotwál's son what the Princess
Pánwpattí said. That night the prince went to see her, and every night
for three or four nights he went to talk with her for an hour. Then
she told her mother she wished to be married, and her mother told her
father. Her father asked whom she wished to marry, and she said, "The
Rájá's son who lives in my nurse's house." Her father said she might
marry him if she liked; so the wedding was held. The kotwál's son went
to the wedding, and then returned to the old woman's house; but the
prince lived in the Rájá's palace.
Here he stayed for a month, and all that time he never saw his friend.
At last he began to fret for him, and was very unhappy. "What makes
you so sad?" said Pánwpattí Rání. "I am sad because I have not seen
my friend for a whole month," answered her husband. "I must go and see
him." "Yes, go and see him," said his wife. The Rájá's son went to the
old woman's house, and there he stayed a week, for he was so glad to
see the kotwál's son. Then he returned to his wife. Now she thought he
would only have been away a day, and was very angry at his having
stayed so long from her. "How could you leave me for a whole week?"
she said to him. "I had not seen my friend for a month," he answered.
Pánwpattí Rání did not let her husband see how angry she was; but in
her heart she thought, "I am sure he loves his friend best."
The prince remained with her for a month. Then he said, "I must go and
see my friend." This made her very angry indeed. However, she said,
"Good; go and see your friend, and I will make you some delicious
sweetmeats to take him from me." She set to work, and made the most
tempting sweetmeats she could; only in each she put a strong poison.
Then she wrapped them in a beautiful handkerchief, and her husband
took them to the kotwál's son. "My Rání has made you these herself,"
he said to his friend, "and she sends you a great many salaams." The
Rájá's son knew nothing of the poison.
The kotwál's son put the sweetmeats on one side, and said, "Let us
talk, and I will eat them by and by." So they sat and talked for a
long time. Then the kotwál's son said, "Your Rání herself made these
sweetmeats for me?" "Yes," said the Rájá's son. His friend was very
wise, and he thought, "Pánwpattí Rání does not like me. Of that I am
sure." So he took some of the sweetmeats, and broke them into bits and
threw them to the crows. The crows came flying down, and all the crows
who ate the sweetmeats died instantly. Then the kotwál's son threw a
sweetmeat to a dog that was passing. The dog devoured it and fell
dead. This put the Rájá's son into great rage. "I will never see my
Rání again!" he exclaimed. "What a wicked woman she is to try and
poison my friend--my friend whom I love so dearly; but for whom I
should never have married her!" He would not go back to his wife, and
stayed in the old woman's house. The kotwál's son often told him he
ought to return to his wife, but the prince would not do so. "No," he
said, "she is a wicked woman. You never did her any evil or hurt; yet
she has tried to poison you. I will never see her again."
When a month had passed, the kotwál's son said to the prince, "You
really must go back to Pánwpattí Rání; she is your wife, and you must
go to her, and take her away to your own country." Still the Rájá's
son declared he would never see her again. "If you would like to see
something that will please you," said his friend, "go back to your
wife for one day; and to-night 'when she is asleep' you must take off
all her jewels, and tie them up in a handkerchief, and bring them to
me. But before you leave her you must wound her in the leg with this
trident." So saying, he gave him a small iron trident.
The prince went back to the palace. His wife was very angry with him,
though she did not show her anger. At night 'when she was fast asleep'
he took off all her jewels and tied them in a handkerchief, and he
gave her a thrust in the leg with his trident. Then he went quickly
back to his friend. The princess awoke and found herself badly hurt
and alone; and she saw that her jewels were all gone. In the morning
she told her father and mother that her jewels had been stolen; but
she said nothing about the wound in her leg. The king called his
servants, and told them a thief had come in the night and stolen his
daughter's jewels, and he sent them to look for the thief and seize
him.
That morning the kotwál's son got up and dressed himself like a yogí.
He made the prince put on common clothes such as every one wears, so
that he could not be recognized, and sent him to the bazar to sell his
wife's jewels. He told him, too, all he was to say. The pretended yogí
went to the river and sat down by it, and the Rájá's son went through
the bazar and tried to sell the jewels. The Rájá's servants seized him
immediately. "You thief!" they said to him, "what made you steal our
Rájá's daughter's jewels?" "I know nothing about the jewels," said the
prince. "I am no thief; I did not steal them. The holy man, who is my
teacher, gave them to me to sell in the bazar for him. If you want to
know anything more about them, you must ask him." "Where is this holy
man?" said the servants. "He is sitting by the river," said the Rájá's
son. "Let us go to him. I will show you where he is."
They all went down to the river, and there sat the yogí. "What is all
this?" said the servants to him. "Are you a yogí, and yet a thief? Why
did you steal the little Rání's jewels?" "Are those the little Rání's
jewels?" said the yogí. "I did not steal them; I did not know to whom
they belonged. Listen, and I will tell you. Last night at twelve
o'clock I was sitting by this river when a woman came down to it--a
woman I did not know. She took a dead body out of the river, and began
to eat it. This made me so angry, that I took all her jewels from her,
and she ran away. I ran after her and wounded her in the leg with my
trident. I don't know if she were your Rájá's daughter, or who she
was; but whoever she may be, she has the mark of the trident's teeth
in her leg."
The servants took the jewels up to the palace, and told the Rájá all
the yogí had said. The Rájá asked his wife whether the Princess
Pánwpattí had any hurt in her leg, and told her all the yogí's story.
The Rání went to see her daughter, and found her lying on her bed and
unable to get up from the pain she was in, and when she looked at her
leg she saw the wound. She returned to the Rájá and said to him, "Our
daughter has the mark of the trident's teeth in her leg."
The Rájá got very angry, and called his servants and said to them,
"Bring a palanquin, and take my daughter at once to the jungle, and
there leave her. She is a wicked woman, who goes to the river at night
to eat dead people. I will not have her in my house any more. Cast her
out in the jungle." The servants did as they were bid, and left
Pánwpattí Rání, crying and sobbing in the jungle, partly from the pain
in her leg, and partly because she did not know where to go, and had
no food or water.