The Brahman's Wife and the Mongoose.--We have, in this story,
an Indian variety of the well-known Welsh legend of Llewellyn and
his dog Gellert. A similar legend was current in France during the
Middle Ages. But our story--mutatis mutandis--is as old as the third
century B.C., since it is found in a Buddhist work of that period. It
also occurs in two Sanskrit forms of the celebrated Fables of Pilpay,
or Bidnaia namely the "Pancha Tantra" (five chapters), which is said
to date as far back as the 5th century A.D., and the "Hitopadesa"
(Friendly Counsels); also in the Arabian and other Eastern versions
of the same work. It is found in all the texts of the Book of
Sindibad--Greek, Syriac, Persian, Hebrew, Old Castilian, Arabic,
&c., and in the several European versions, known generally under
the title of "The History of the Seven Wise Masters," the earliest
form of which being a Latin prose work entitled "Dolopathos." There
are, of course, differences in the details of the numerous versions
both Western and Eastern, but the fundamental outline is the same in
all. In my work on the migrations of popular tales, I have reproduced
all the known versions of this world-wide story, with the exception
of that in the present romance, which is singular in representing the
woman as killing herself after she had discovered her fatal mistake,
and her husband as slaying his little son and himself. The author of
the romance probably added these tragedies, in order to enable the
supposed narrator to more forcibly impress the king with the grievous
consequences of acting in affairs of moment with inconsiderateness
and precipitation. In most versions it is the husband who kills the
faithful animal. Among the Malays the story of the Snake and the
Mongoose is current in this form:--A man left a tame bear in charge
of his house, and of his sleeping child, while he was absent from
home. On his return he missed his child, the house was in disorder,
as if some great struggle had taken place, and the floor was covered
with blood. Hastily concluding that the bear had killed and devoured
the child, the enraged father slew the animal with his spear, but
almost immediately afterwards found the carcase of a tiger, which the
faithful bear had defeated and killed, and the child emerged unharmed
from the jungle, where it had taken refuge.
In a black-letter English edition of the "Seven Wise Masters,"
the knight, having slain his hound and discovered his child safe in
its cradle, exclaims (and here the hand of the misogynist monkish
writer is very evident!)--"Woe be to me, that, for the words of my
wife, I have slain my good and best greyhound, the which had saved
my child's life, and hath slain the serpent; therefore I will put
myself to penance." And so he brake his sword in three pieces, and
travelled in the direction of the Holy Land, and abode there all the
days of his life. The preceding story of the Hunter and his Dog, it
will be observed, is closely allied to that of the Brahman's Wife and
the Mongoose; and in conclusion, where the hunter erects a stately
tomb over his dog's remains, it presents a striking resemblance to
the Welsh legend of Llewellyn and the dog Gellert, which is probably
not merely fortuitous.
A very curious version is found in a black-letter chapter-book,
entitled the "Seven Wise Mistresses," written in imitation of the
"Seven Wise Masters," by one Thomas Howard, about the end of the
seventeenth century, in which a knight and his lady are wrecked
and cast ashore on a desert island, and the knight soon afterwards
dies. His wife takes a thorn out of a lion's foot (Androcles in
petticoats), and the grateful animal follows her about, and provides
her with food, and this is how the story goes on:--
"At last she began mourning to herself, deploring her condition
in living in such obscurity in a foreign Country, and as her daily
companion, a savage Beast, her mind yearning after her own habitation,
she thus complained: 'Oh, how hath fortune frowned on me that I
am driven out from all human knowledge, and am glad to take up my
habitation with the Beast of the Field!'
"As she thus complained to herself, the Devil chanced to appear to her,
and demanded the cause of her complaint, and she related all to him as
you have heard. Then said he to her: 'What wilt thou give and I will
provide a ship which shall carry thee home to thy own country.' She
answered: 'Half my Estates.'
"'Nay,' said the Devil, 'If thou wilt give me thy Soul at the term of
twelve years, I will set thee down in thy own country, and thou shalt
live and flourish so long.' 'God forbid,' said the Lady. 'I would
rather end my wretched life in this solitary island than that.' 'Why
then,' said the Devil, 'I will make this bargain with you, that if you
abstain from sleeping all the time of our voyage, which shall be but
three days, I will have nothing to do with your Soul; if you sleep,
I will have it as I have said.'
"And upon this bargain the lady ventured, provided she might have her
Lion with her. So 'twas concluded, and a brave Ship came and took the
Lady and her Lion. When she lay down the Lion lay by her, and if she
slumbered the Lion would touch her with his paw, by which means he
kept her awake all the voyage, until she landed in her own country,
and being come to her Father's house, she knocked at the gate. Then
the Porter coming with all speed opened the gate and thought that it
was a Beggar.
"Frowningly he shut it again, saying, 'There's nothing here for
you.' Then she bounced at the gate again, and asked the Porter if such
a Knight lived there, meaning her Father, and he said 'Yes.' 'Then,'
said she, 'Pray, deliver this piece of ring unto him.' Now this ring
was it she brake betwixt her Father and she at her departure out of
the land. Then the Porter delivered the Ring to his Master, saying:
'The Beggar woman at the gate willed me to deliver the piece of ring
unto you.'
"When the Knight saw the ring he fell down in a swound but when he
was revived he said, 'Call her in, for she is my only Daughter, whom
I thought was dead.' 'Then,' said the Porter, 'I dare not call her in,
for there is a mighty Lion with her.' 'Though it be,' said the Knight,
'call her in.' Then said the Porter [to the Lady], 'You are to come
in, but leave your Lion outside.' 'No,' said the Lady, 'my Lion goes
whereever I go, and where he is not, there will I not be.'
"And when she came to her Father she fell down on her knees and
wept. Her Father took her up in his arms and kissed her, weeping as
fast, and after he clothed her in purple, and placed her by him in a
chair, and demanded an account of her travels, and she told him all
that had happened, and how the Lion had saved her life, and was the
greatest comfort she had in the Wilderness. It chanced afterwards
that as the Knight was going into his Wood to look after his young
Horses, he met with a wild Boar, with whom he fell in combat. The
Lion loved the Old Knight, and by accident walking along he scented
the Boar, and as the Lion ran toward the place where the Boar was,
the Steward espied him, and he ran into the Palace, and cryed out,
'the Lion is running after my Master to destroy him.'
"Then the Lady sent after him ten of her servants, who met the Lion,
his mouth all bloody, and they ran back and told the Lady the Lion
had destroyed her aged Father. Then said the Lady, 'O woe is me
that ever I was born, that have brought a Lion from far to destroy
my own Father.' Therefore she commanded her servants to slay the
Lion, which no sooner was done but her Father came in, and said;
'O, I have met with a wild Boar, with whom I fought, and there came
the Lion to my aid, and slew the Boar, and so saved my life, else I
had died by the Boar.'
"When the Lady heard this, O how she wept and wrung her hands, saying,
'For the words of a wicked Steward, I have slain my good Lion, who
hath saved my life and my Father's. Cursed be the time I was advised
by him.'"
The Faithless Wife and the Ungrateful Blind Man.--I do not remember
having met with this story in any other collection, although there are
there many tales in Asiatic story-books of women abandoning their blind
or infirm husbands, and going off with strange men. A very considerable
proportion, in fact of Eastern stories turn upon the alleged wickedness
and profligacy and intrigues of women. This most unjust estimate of
"the sex" seems to have been universal in Asiatic countries from
every remote times and probably was introduced into Europe through
the Crusades. Not a few of the mediaeval Monkish tales represent women
in a very unfavourable light, and this is also the case in our early
English jest-books, which were compiled soon after the invention of
printing. In the oldest Indian literature, however, especially the
two grand epics "Ramayana" and "Mahabharata," occur several notable
tales of noble women, such as "Dushyanta and Sakuntala," and the
charming romance of "Nala and Damayanti;" and in another work, the
"Adventures of the Ten princes," ("Dasa Kumara Charita,") the fine
story of Gomiui, who is held up as a pattern to her sex.