_Old Deccan Days_, p. 133.
6. Indrásan (= Indra + Ásana, Indra's throne or home), says Dunkní, is
the name of the underground fairy country. Its inhabitants, the
fairies (parí) are called the Indrásan people; they delight in all
lovely things; everything about them is beautiful; they play
exquisitely on all kinds of musical instruments; they dance and sing a
great deal; they have wings and can fly. They taught the little Monkey
Prince (p. 42), and King Burtal's eldest son was taken to them as a
pupil by the fakír Goraknáth, p. 93. In Indrásan grows a tree of which
no man can ever see the flowers or fruit, as the fairies gather them
in the night and take them away. The Irish "good people" who live in
clefts of rocks, caves, and mounds, and the Irish fairies who live in
the beautiful land of youth under the sea, have many points in common
with the Indian fairies. They, too, dance beautifully, are wonderful
musicians, and have everything about them lovely and splendid. The
"good people" also sometimes impart their knowledge to mortals. See
pp. x, xii, and xviii of the Introduction to the _Irische
Elfenmaerchen_ translated into German by the brothers Grimm. Some of
the Cornish fairies, the Small People, like the Indrásan people, live
underground (Hunt's _Romances and Drolls of the West of England_, pp.
116, 118, 125), aid those to whom they take a fancy and are very
playful among themselves (_ib._ p. 81); they have the most ravishing
music (_ib._ pp. 86, 98); their singing is clear and delicate as
silver bells (_ib._ p. 100); everything about them is joyous and
beautiful (_ib._ pp. 86, 99, 100); they are a tiny race (_ib._ p. 81),
but can at pleasure take the size of human beings (_ib._ pp. 115, 122,
123); and their queen has hair "like gold threads" (_ib._ p. 102). The
fair-haired New Zealand fairies are, too, a kindly happy race. See
Grey's _Polynesian Mythology_, pp. 287 to 295. Nothing is said about
their dancing, but they are described as "merry, cheerful, and always
singing like a cricket" (_ib._ p. 295), and from one of their
fishing-nets left on the sea shore, when its fairy owners were
surprised by the rising of the sun, the Maoris learnt the stitch for
netting a net. Like the Indian fairies they appear to be as big as
human beings.
7. Phúlmati Rání is drowned in a tank and becomes a flower; she is
killed and brought to life several times: compare in this collection
the story of the "Pomegranate Children" and note to that story. In one
of Ralston's _Russian Folk-Tales_, "The Fiend," p. 15, the heroine is
killed through witchcraft: from her grave springs a flower which is
herself transformed: she afterwards regains her human shape.
8. With Phúlmati's last transformation compare the last that the
Bél-Princess goes through (p. 148 of this collection), and that of a
woman, who figures in a Dinájpur story published by Mr. G. H. Damant
in the _Indian Antiquary_ of April 5th, 1872, vol. I. p. 115. She,
though living in the Rakshas country, is not a Rakshas, but does not
appear to be an ordinary mortal, and when cut to bits by a certain
magic knife becomes a tree. "Her feet became a silver stem, her two
hands golden branches, her head ornaments were diamond leaves, all her
bracelets and bangles were pearly fruits, and her head was a peacock
dancing and playing in the branches." As soon as the magic knife is
thrown to the ground she regains her human form.
Eisenlaci in Stier's _Ungarische Sagen und Maerchen_ (pp. 107-109)
comes in the form of a horse to the twelve-headed dragon's house. He
is killed; the first two drops of his blood are thrown into the garden
and from them springs a tree with golden apples: the tree is cut
down, but the first two chips (which are flung into the pond) become a
gold fish: the gold fish turns into Eisenlaci himself in human form.
9. Winning a wife by seizing her dress while she bathes is an incident
common to fairy tales of many countries.
II.--THE POMEGRANATE KING.
1. Such is the story as told by Dunkní in 1876; at that time, when it
was read over to her, she said it was correct. On my asking her in
1878, when the story was going through the press, to explain some
points in it, such as why the children said they had been brought to
life _three_ times, the boy having only died twice, and the girl once,
she told me the following variation: After the attempt to get rid of
the boy by making him into a curry had failed, the Rání Sunkásí sent
for a sepoy and bade him carry the two children to the jungle and
there kill them; and as a proof of their death he was to bring her
their livers. Once in the jungle with the children, the sepoy had not
the heart to kill them; so he left them in it, and brought the livers
of two goats to Sunkásí Rání. She buried the livers in the garden and
was content; but some months later as she was walking (literally
"eating the air") in the jungle she saw her step-children playing
about; she returned to the palace, sent for the sepoy, and asked him
why he had not killed the children. "I did kill them," said the sepoy,
"and brought you their livers." "Those livers were not the children's
livers," answered the Rání; "I have just seen the children alive and
playing in the jungle." "They must have been other people's children
that you saw," said the sepoy, "yours I killed." "Do not tell me
lies," said the Rání. "Now you must at once go to the jungle, kill the
children, and bring me their eyes." The sepoy went to find the
children, but when he found them he could not kill them, so he took
them to some people who lived in a hut, and said to these people,
"Take great care of the two children. Be very kind to them." He then
killed two goats and took their eyes to the Rání, who was now
satisfied for some time. But one day another of the Pomegranate
Rájá's sepoys passed near the hut, and saw the children playing about.
So he went to Sunkásí Rání and told her the children were alive and
well. At this the Rání was very angry, and she thought, "It is of no
use my sending the first sepoy again to kill them. I will send this
man." She said, therefore, to the second sepoy, "If you will kill
these children for me, you shall have a great reward." The sepoy
agreed, went to the little hut, and seized the children. The poor
people who took care of the children begged and prayed him to have
pity on them; but the sepoy said, "No." He had the Rání's orders to
kill them, and they must and should be killed. And so he killed them
and brought their livers to the Rání as she had bidden him. Sunkásí
Rání was very happy when she saw the livers, and she buried them close
to a large tank that was in her garden.
Some three months later her servants came to her and told her a
beautiful large bél-fruit was floating on the water of the tank.
Sunkásí Rání went at once with them to the tank, and when she saw the
fruit she was seized with a great longing to have it. So she sent all
her servants, one after the other, into the tank to fetch it; but all
to no purpose, for as soon as any one of them got close to the fruit
it floated away from him. Then the Rání herself went into the tank.
She, however, was not a whit more able to get it: when she thought she
had only to put out her hand to take it, the fruit rose up into the
air, and fell into the water again as soon as she had come up out of
the tank. She went to the Mahárájá and told him of this lovely
bél-fruit, and then went to her room while he came down to the tank.
He said, "I should like to catch the fruit: I wonder if I can do so.
What a lovely fruit!" As soon as he put his hand into the water the
fruit came floating towards him, and floated into it. "I think this
fruit is quite ripe," said the Mahárájá. "Quite ripe," said the
servants, and they struck it with a stone to break it open. "Oh, you
hurt us! you hurt us!" cried little voices from inside the bél-fruit.
"Gently, gently; don't hurt us." The Mahárájá and all the servants
were greatly surprised, and the Mahárájá went to Sunkásí Rání, and
told her all about the little voices. She at once guessed her
step-children were in the fruit, so she said to the Mahárájá, "You
had better take the fruit to the jungle and there break it open with a
big stone, so that anything inside it may be crushed to bits." "I will
not do that," said the Mahárájá. Then he went back to his servants and
made them cut the fruit's rind very carefully cross-ways and the fruit
broke into halves: in one half sat his little son, in the other his
little daughter. As soon as the halves were laid on the ground the
children stepped out, and at once grew to their natural size. Their
father was very angry when he saw them. "Why, I thought you were at
school," said he. "The Mahárání told me you were at school. Why are
you not there? What funny (Dunkní's own word) children you are to get
into this bél-fruit! What made you like to live in a fruit?" But to
all his questionings and scoldings the children said not one word. At
last he sent them up to the palace, and there they stayed with him for
some three months. But the Mahárání said to him, "These are not your
children. Yours are at school." "They _are_ my children," he answered.
All this time the Mahárání hated them more and more, and at last she
went to them and said, "Now I really will kill you." "Just as you
please," answered the children; "we don't mind being killed. You may
kill us three times, four times, as often as you like: it does not
matter in the least; for God will always bring us to life again."
At this Sunkásí Rání flew into a rage and she called her servants and
said, "Kill these children, cut them into mince-meat and throw them to
the crows and kites. When the crows and kites have eaten them, they
cannot come to life any more." So the servants killed the children,
and chopped them up very fine and fed the crows and kites with their
flesh; and now the Mahárání was very happy.
Some months later, as she was walking in her garden, she saw two
beautiful flower-buds on a large bél-tree that grew in it. She showed
them to the gardener, and asked if he had seen them before. "Never,"
said the man. "On this tree there have never been either flowers or
fruit till now." "Gather the flowers for me," said the Rání, "I do so
wish to have them." The gardener said to her, "Wait till the buds are
fully blown and then I will gather them for you." At the end of three
or four days the Rání Sunkásí asked if the buds had grown into large
flowers, and the gardener said, "Yes, to-day I will gather them for
you." He got a long, long bamboo cane, and tied a piece of wood
cross-ways on one of its ends so as to make a sort of hook wherewith
to catch hold of and break off the flowers. He tried and tried to get
them, but all in vain. Then he made all the servants try. It was of no
use, no one could make the hook touch the flowers. They always bent
themselves just out of its reach. Then Sunkásí Rání tried, but with no
better success. She told the Mahárájá, who said, "I will try to-morrow
to gather these wonderful flowers."
That night as the Rání lay in her bed she suddenly thought, "Those
children are in the flowers," and she determined to be with her
husband when he gathered them, to get them into her own hands some way
or other.
The next morning Anárbásá Mahárájá and his wife went to the bél-tree,
and as soon as he held out his hand towards the flowers, they dropped
into it. "What lovely flowers! What beautiful flowers! Do give them to
me," said Sunkásí Rání. "No," said the Mahárájá, "I will keep them
myself." Then he carried them to his room and laid them on the table
while he shut the door and the venetians. Then he came and sat down
before them: he took them in his hand, and looked at them and laid
them again on the table; then he took them and smelt them, and they
smelt, oh! so sweet. This he did many times. At last he held them to
his ears, for the adventure of the bél-fruit had made him wise
(_hushyár_), and he heard little tiny voices, saying, "Papa" (Dunkní's
own word), "we want to stay with you; we should like to be with you."
The Mahárájá looked very carefully at the flowers, and at last, in one
of them he saw a little splinter of wood like a thorn sticking: he
pulled this out, and his own little son stood before him. Then he
looked at the other flower, and in that, too, was a little splinter of
wood sticking. When he pulled it out his little girl stood there.
The Mahárájá was vexed with his children, and asked them why they were
so naughty, and why they liked to live in fruits and flowers instead
of staying in the palace or going to school. The children answered,
"We go to school sometimes, and then we come back and live in our
flowers, and then we return to school, and then we come back to our
flower-homes again." "This is a lie you are telling me," said their
father. "You know quite well you have not been at school at all." The
Mahárání came in to hear what all this talking meant, and when she saw
the children she said to Anárbásá Mahárájá, "These are not your
children, yours are at school." "They are my children," he answered,
"and they have never been at school at all, and they are very
naughty." He then sent them away to play, and the Rání returned to her
room. But he sat alone in his room, for he was angry and cross. As he
sat there one of his chaprásís came to him and said, "Maháráj, you do
not know how ill the Mahárání treats your children, or you would not
be angry with them. She has killed them several times, and sent them
away into the jungle; and after they came out of the bél-fruit she
killed them and chopped them into small pieces, and fed the kites and
crows with their flesh." When the Mahárájá heard all this, he said to
the chaprásí, "You must have a beautiful little house built for me;
you must take care that it is chiefly made of wood; the flooring must
be very thin and of wood; and the hollow place under the flooring must
be filled with dry wood. Then you must put plenty of flowers inside
the house, and plenty outside so as to make it very pretty."
As soon as the house was ready the Mahárájá went to his wife and asked
her if she would go out with him to eat the air. "I should like to
show you a new house I have had built for you," he said. So she went
with him and thought her new house lovely. While she was inside
looking at the pretty flowers in the rooms, the Mahárájá slipped out,
and bolted the door so that she could not escape, and he told his
servants to set fire to the wood under the flooring. When the flames
began to rise the Rání got very frightened. She rushed to the window
and called to the Mahárájá and his servants, who were standing there
looking on, to save her. No one said anything to her. "Save me," she
cried, "or I shall be burnt to death." "If you are burnt, what does it
matter?" said the Mahárájá. "You ill-treated my children; you killed
them; so, now burn."
As soon as she was burnt to death the Mahárájá had all her bones
collected and put into four dishes, and he gave them to one of his
servants to take to Sunkásí Rání's mother. When her mother uncovered
dish after dish and found nothing but bones, she asked the servant,
"Of what use are bones?" "These are your daughter's bones," said he:
"therefore Anárbásá Mahárájá sent them to you. Sunkásí Rání
ill-treated and killed his children, and so he burnt her."
The rest of the story she pronounced exact (_thík_).
2. The bél-tree is the _Ægle Marmelos_ of botanists.
3. With the different deaths and transformations of the children
compare in this book: Phúlmati Rání, pp. 3 and 4: the Kite's Children,
p. 22: the Bél-Princess, pp. 144, 145, 148: and in _Old Deccan Days_
Surya Bai, pp. 85, 86. In "Die goldenen Kinder" (Schott's
_Wallachische Maerchen_) the golden children are killed and buried (p.
122). From their hearts spring two apple-trees having golden leaves
and apples. The trees are destroyed; but a sheep has eaten an apple
and then has two golden lambs. The step-mother kills them at once and
sends the maid to wash the entrails in the stream, intending to cook
them for her husband to eat (compare the curry in the "Pomegranate
King," p. 8; the broth (_Suhr_) in Grimm's "von dem Machandelboom,"
_Kinder und Hausmaerchen_, vol. I. p. 271; and the stew in the
Devonshire story, "The Rose-Tree," told in Henderson's _Folk-lore of
the Northern Counties of England_, p. 314). A piece of the entrail
escapes, and as it floats away it swells and swells. On reaching the
opposite bank it bursts, and out of it step the golden children. In a
Hungarian story the children, one with a planet and one with a sun on
his forehead, and each with a ring on his arm, are killed by a wicked
woman who wants her daughter to take their mother's place as queen.
They turn first into two golden pear-trees. These are destroyed by
fire, but one glowing coal from the fire is eaten by an old she-goat.
The old goat then has two little golden-fleeced kids. They are killed,
an old crow swallows a piece of the entrails as they are being washed
in the brook; she flies to the seventy-seventh island in the ocean,
builds a nest and lays two golden eggs. Out of the eggs come the
golden-haired children with their planet, sun and golden rings. The
old crow sends them for seven years to school to a hermit (here is the
holy man again, see p. 283 of these notes), and then flies home with
them to their father. The pillar of salt, into which their mother was
changed, answers all the king's questions. It is not said that she
regained her human form ("Die verwandelten Kinder," Stier's
_Ungarische Volksmaerchen_, p. 58). In a Siebenburg story, "Die beiden
goldenen Kinder," the children are killed by an envious woman who
becomes queen in their mother's place. From their remains spring two
golden pine-trees which are burnt; a sheep eats two of the sparks and
has two golden lambs that are killed; from two pieces of the entrails
step forth the golden-haired children (Haltrich's _Siebenbuergische
Maerchen_, pp. 2, 3). In this tale the children are restored to their
father, the king, by the intervention of God himself (p. 4), who in
these _Siebenbuergische Maerchen_ plays a part just as often as
"Khudá" does in the Indian tales, taking for the purpose the form of a
"good old man," and often wearing a grey mantle that reminds one of
Odin. In the Netherlandish story of "The knight with the swan"
(Thorpe's _Northern Mythology_, vol. III. p. 302), King Oriant's
mother persuades the king his wife gave him seven puppies instead of
seven children (each born with a silver chain round its neck in "proof
of their mother's nobility"). She sends the children to the forest to
be destroyed. They are left there alive, and are fostered by an old
man. When the queen-mother learns this, she sends servants to kill
them. These are content with depriving six of the children of their
silver chains, on which the children instantly become swans. (The
seventh child is absent and so is saved.) A goldsmith makes two
beakers out of one of the chains, and keeps the others intact. When
the chains are hung again round the five swans' necks, and the beaker
shown to the sixth, they regain their human forms. See also paragraph
8 of the notes to Phúlmati Rání.
4. With the children in the fruit and flowers compare in these
stories, Phúlmati Rání, p. 3: Loving Lailí, p. 81: the Bél-Princess,
p. 146, and paragraph 5 of the notes to that story, p. 283: and in
_Old Deccan Days_, "Surya Bai," p. 86: and "Anár Rání and her two
maids," p. 95. With these may be compared the Polish Madey (Naake's
_Slavonic Fairy Tales_, p. 220). Madey is a robber who commits fearful
crimes; he repents, and sticks his "murderous club" upright in the
ground, swearing to kneel before it till the boy who has caused his
repentance returns as a bishop. Years go by: the boy, now a bishop,
passes through Madey's forest. The club has become an apple-tree full
of apples and he discovers Madey through their sweet odour. At Madey's
request the bishop confesses him; and as Madey confesses his crimes,
the apples on the tree, one after another, become white doves and fly
to heaven. They were the souls of those he had murdered.
In an unpublished story told by Dunkní, the incidents of the children
being in the fruit, and the fruit not letting itself be gathered by
any but the rightful owner of its contents (as is the case also with
the Bél-Princess), again occur. In this story there is a prince called
Aisab, who, as he wished very much to have children, married. At the
same time he took an oath that if his child, when he had one, cried,
he would kill it, and then if his wife cried he would kill her too.
His first wife gave him a child who died; she cried and was killed by
her husband. The same thing happened to the second wife. He then
married a third wife, called Gulíanár. She had a little son,
Dímá-ahmad, and two or three years later another son, called Karámat.
The first boy died, but Gulíanár did not cry--she only grieved for him
in her heart. Karámat was unhappy from seeing other children playing
with their brothers and sisters, and asked his mother "why he had no
brother or sister to play with?" She said, "Once you had a little
brother and he died." Then Karámat began to cry, and his father killed
him immediately with his sword because of his oath, though he loved
Karámat dearly. The "mother was still sadder than before, but she
never wept." Then God took pity on her and sent down into Prince
Aisab's garden a big bél-tree, and on this bél-tree was a fruit. Every
one tried to gather this fruit, even Prince Aisab tried, but each time
their hands approached it the fruit rose into the air and returned
again when the hands were withdrawn. Then Gulíanár stretched out her
hand "and the fruit fell into it." She took it into the house and
tried to break it open with a stone, and a voice called out, "Mother,
mother, not so hard; you hurt us." She was very much frightened,
thinking a Rakshas or a demon was in the fruit. Prince Aisab was
equally alarmed, but his wazír, Mamatsa, broke the fruit open gently
in obedience to the little voice that called out, "Don't knock so
hard, Mamatsa; you hurt us;" and out of it stepped the two little
children Dímá-ahmad and Karámat. Dímá-ahmad was very beautiful. On his
head was the sun, on his face the moon, and on his hands stars, and he
had long golden hair. He married a princess, Atása, who also had the
sun on her head, the moon on her face, stars on her hands, and "her
hair was of pure gold and reached down to the ground." The idea that
none but the rightful owner can catch the child is found too in Grey's
_Polynesian Mythology_ at pp. 116, 117, in the story of Whakatau, who
was fashioned in the sea from his mother Apakura's apron by the god
Rongota-kawiu. This child lived at the bottom of the sea; but one day
he came on shore after his kite, and all who saw him tried in vain to
catch him. Then said Whakatau, "You had better go and bring Apakura
here; she is the only person who can catch me and hold me fast." His
mother then comes and catches him.
5. Sunkásí's bones are sent to her mother. In the _Sicilianische
Maerchen_ collected by Laura Gonzenbach, it is a common practice for
husbands to punish their second wives' treachery with death, and then
to send their remains to their mothers, who feast on them, thinking
they are eating tunny-fish, and die of grief on learning what they
have really swallowed.
6. With Gulíanár's change into a bird compare Laura Gonzenbach's 13th
_Sicilianische Maerchen_, vol. I. p. 82, where the real bride is
transformed into a dove by a black-headed pin being driven into her
head, and regains her human form when the pin is pulled out. Schott
has a similar incident in his _Wallachische Maerchen_, p. 251. So has
Gubernatis (_Zoological Mythology_, vol. II. p. 242) in a story from
near Leghorn, where the woman is changed into a swallow (in all these
stories it is the husband who pulls out the pin); and he says similar
stories with a transformation into a dove are told in Piedmont, in
other parts of Tuscany, in Calabria, and are to be found in the
_Tutiname_. Ralston's Princess Mariya (_Russian Folk Tales_, p. 183),
and Thorpe's second story of "The Princess that came out of the water"
(_Yule Tide Stories_, p. 41), may also be compared.