Then the girl unfastened her hair knot; having unloosed it she went
to the rice field.
Afterwards the Prince thought to himself, "Because of the girl's
unloosing her hair knot she goes near the Kitul palm tree indeed." [97]
The Prince having gone near the Kitul tree to the girl's home,
remained lying down in the veranda until the girl came.
The girl having given the gruel came home. Having come there and cooked
for the Prince she gave him to eat. Then the girl's father came. After
that, the girl and the Prince having married remained there.
While they were [there], one day the Prince said, "I must go to our
city." Then the girl also having said that she must go, as the girl
and the girl's father and the Prince, the three persons, were going
along there was a rice field.
The girl's father asked at the hand of the Prince, "Son-in-law,
is this rice field a cultivated rice field, or an unworked rice field?"
Then the Prince said, "What of its being cultivated! If its corners
and angles are not cut this field is an unworked one."
When they were going still a little distance there was a heap of
fence sticks. Concerning it the Prince asked, "Father-in-law, are
these cut fence-sticks, or uncut fence-sticks?"
Then the father-in-law says, "What of their being cut! If they are
not sharpened these are uncut sticks."
Well then, having gone in that manner, and gone to the Prince's city,
he made the girl and the girl's father stay in a calf house near the
palace, saying, "This indeed is our house."
The Prince having gone to the palace said at the hand of the Prince's
mother, "Mother, I have come, calling [a wife] from such and such
a city. The Princess is in that calf house. Call her and come back
after going [there]."
After that, the Queen having gone near the calf house, when she looked
a light had fallen throughout the whole of the calf house. The girl
was in the house. After that the Queen, calling the girl and the
girl's father, came to the palace.
Well then, the girl, and the girl's father, and the Prince remained
at the palace.
Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.
The questions and answers remind one of those asked and given by
Mahosadha and Amara, the girl whom he married, in the Jataka story
No. 546 (vol. vi, p. 182), and one remark is the same,--that regarding
the river water.
Heroines are sometimes described as emitting a brilliant light,
as in No. 145, vol. ii. In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 158,
there is a Princess who "comes and sits on her roof, and she shines
so that she lights up all the country and our houses, and we can see
to do our work as if it were day."
In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 133, a heavenly maiden
illuminated a wood, though it was night. In the same volume, p. 145,
a girl "gleamed as if she were the light of the sun."
In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., pp. 484 ff., the son
of a Wazir asked a farmer whom he accompanied a number of cryptic
questions which were understood by the farmer's daughter, whom he
afterwards married. They have a general resemblance to those in the
Sinhalese story, but differ from them. In one he asked if a field of
ripe corn was eaten or not, meaning that if the owner were in debt
it was as good as eaten already.
In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (Rev. Dr. Bodding) there are
several instances of enigmatical replies of this kind. See pp. 269,
349, 368. In a Kolhan tale appended to the vol. by Mr. Bompas, p. 462,
a Princess who was in a Bel fruit had such brilliancy that the youth
who split it open fell dead when he saw her.
In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), a brilliant Prince
is described in vol. i, p. 301, and a heroine in vol. ii, p. 17. In
vol. iii, p. 172, a Prince's face shone like the moon among the
stars. Buddha is usually described as possessing great brilliancy.
In No. 237 below, there is a Prince whose brilliance dazzled a Princess
so much that she swooned.