In a certain city there was a nobleman. [214] There had been a great
quantity of the nobleman's goods, but the goods in time having become
destroyed, he arrived at a very indigent condition. During the time
while he was [thus], existing by his son and daughter's continuing
to strongly exert themselves as much as possible, at last this
nobleman died.
After that, at the time when his son arrived at full age, his
mother began to say to the son, "Son, because I am now a person
who is approaching old age, you are unable quite alone to provide
for me. Because it is so, thou must take in marriage a woman from a
suitable family," she said.
Well then, after he had married, the woman does not exert herself for
his mother. Her husband having succeeded in ascertaining that she
does not exert herself in this manner, and having thought that for
[counteracting] this he must make a means of success, collected a
quantity of fragments of plates that were at the whole of the places
in the village; and taking a large skin, and having caused a purse
to be made from the skin, and put in the skin purse the quantity
of fragments of plate that he collected, he says to his mother,
"Mother, when you have come near that woman, open the box so as to
be visible from afar, and having behaved as though there were great
wealth in it, and shaken this skin bag, place it in the box [again],
and put it away."
When he said thus, his mother, taking [to heart] her son's saying,
having made a sound with the skin bag in the manner he said, so as
to be noticed by her son's wife, and having treated it carefully,
placed it in the box.
From the day on which the son's wife saw it, she began to exert herself
for her mother-in-law. During the time when she is exerting herself
thus, a leprosy disease attacked her mother-in-law. Thereupon the
son spoke to his mother, and said, "Mother, taking that skin bag,
and placing it at the spot where you sleep, say in this manner to
your relatives and my wife, that is, 'Beginning on the day when I
was little (podi dawase patan) until this [time] I gathered together
these articles. For not any other reason but in order to give them at
the time of my being near death, to a person who has exerted herself
for me, I gathered these together. Should any person out of you exert
[herself] for me, to that person I will give these.' You say [this],"
he said secretly to his mother.
After that, his mother having gathered together her relatives, and
having called her daughter-in-law near, while in front of the whole of
them she said in the mode which her son taught her, that to the person
who exerted herself for her she will give the skin bag of masuran.
Thereupon each one, competing according to the measure of her power,
attended on this female leper. That son's mind arrived at [a state of]
much delight. [After] in this manner enjoying pleasure, when a little
time had gone this female leper died. Thereupon, anybody among the
relatives not having hidden it, the son's wife, stealing the masuran
bag, concealed it.
Having buried the corpse, after the disturbance was done with the
son's wife unfastened the bag of masuran. When she looked [in it],
having seen that it had been filled with only the fragments of the
plates that were in the village, she arrived at extreme grief.
That woman's mother also having come at this time, very noisily asked,
"Did my daughter receive the bag of masuran?"
Thereupon her daughter having told her that she was cheated, when she
had shown her the bag of fragments of plates both of them wept; and
that woman having become angry with her husband separated from him,
and went to her own house.
Western Province.
In The Orientalist, vol. iv, p. 121, Miss S. H. Goonetilleke published
nearly the same story without the introductory part, presumably as it
is found in Kandy. The son gave his mother a bag containing stones,
telling her to pretend that it held valuables. She threatened to
leave owing to her daughter-in-law's neglect of her, and to go to her
own daughter's house, and she went off while the daughter-in-law was
asleep. The son scolded his wife, and told her the bag of gold would
now be left to his mother's daughter, so she went off next morning,
coaxed her back, and attended to her carefully afterwards, and only
learnt about the trick when the woman was dying.
In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 241, an old man who
was wealthy, thinking he was about to die, divided his property among
his sons, who afterwards neglected and abused him, and treated him
with cruelty. A friend to whom he related his troubles afterwards came
with four bags of stones, and told him to pretend that he had returned
to pay off an old debt of large amount, on no account allowing the
sons to get the bags. This had the desired effect; the sons attended
carefully to him until he died, and then greedily opening the bags
learnt how they had been tricked.