Then the Prince thought, "When she brought so much to the house,
after we have gone to her house how much will she not give!"
Having said to the Princess, "Let us go," they take a cart also. On the
road on which they are going there is a spired ant-hill (kot humbaha).
Having gone near the ant-hill the Princess said, "Ane, Naga
King! Whence has our mother silver and golden things? Let a thunderbolt
strike me!"
Then the Cobra [came out, and] not having raised his hood, said,
"Look there. There are silver and golden things as much as you want
[in the cave]."
After that, the Prince and the Princess having taken the cart, and gone
near the rock cave, when they looked silver and golden things had been
created. Afterwards, loading them in the cart they brought them away.
The elder Princess's Prince having seen that they are bringing silver
and golden things, [and having heard their account of their journey for
them], said at the hand of the Princess, "Younger brother having gone
in that way, brought from your village silver and golden goods. Let
us also go to bring [some]."
When the elder Prince and Princess, having taken a cart, were going
near the spired ant-hill that was on the road, the Princess said,
"Ane, Naga King! Whence has our mother silver and golden goods? Please
give me a thunderbolt."
Then the Cobra having come and having raised his hood, bit the crown
of the Princess's head, and went back into the ant-hill.
The Prince, taking the cart, came to the city. The Princess died there.
Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.
In Tales of the Punjab (Mrs. F. A. Steel), p. 284, a poverty-stricken
girl who was driven from home by her mother, married a Prince. When
the mother came to her to claim a share of her good fortune, the
girl prayed to the Sun for help; and on her husband's entering the
room her mother had become a golden stool, which the girl declared
had come from her home. The Prince determined to visit it, and again
the girl appealed to the Sun for assistance. When they reached the
hut they found it transformed into a golden palace, full of golden
articles. When the Prince looked back after a three days' visit and
saw only the hut, he charged his wife with being a witch, so she told
him the whole story, and he became a Sun worshipper.
In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 18, a Raja's wife bore two puppies,
and their pet dog bore two girls which she deposited in a cave. A
Raja and his brother while hunting discovered the girls, whom they
carried away and married. When the bitch went in search of them,
the elder one treated it kindly, but the other ordered her servants
to throw stones at it and drive it away. One stone wounded it on the
head, and it died at the elder daughter's house. The Raja tripped
over the basket under which the body was placed, and found under it
the life-size figure of a dog made of precious stones set in gold,
which his wife said was a present from her parents. As her husband
determined to visit them she decided to commit suicide, and put her
finger in the open mouth of a cobra that was on an ant-hill; by doing
so she relieved it of a thorn which had stuck in the snake's mouth. The
grateful cobra agreed to assist her, and when she returned with her
husband they found a great palace built of precious stones and gold,
with a Raja and his wife inside to represent her parents. After a
visit of six months, when they looked back on their way home they saw
the whole place in flames which totally destroyed it. On seeing the
valuable presents they took back, and hearing her sister's story,
the younger sister went in the same manner, put her finger in the
cobra's mouth, was bitten by it, and died.
In Sagas from the Far East, p. 125, in a Kalmuk tale, after the girl
who had been taken out of a box found on the steppe [93] had three
children, the people began to complain of her want of respectable
relatives, and she went home with her sons. Instead of her former
poor dwelling she found there palaces, many labourers at work, and a
youth who claimed to be her brother. Her parents entertained her well,
and the Khan and Ministers came, and returned quite satisfied. On
the following morning the palaces and all had vanished, and she
returned to the Khan's palace, perceiving that the Devas had created
the illusion on her behalf. (As she had claimed to be the daughter
of the Serpent God, it would appear to have been the Nagas who had
exerted their powers and done this for her. In the story numbered 252
in this volume, Mara, the god of death, assisted the son of a woman
who had stated that he was her husband.)