Thereupon the other Prince said, "The scarves are extremely good. I
want to get knitted and to take about ten or fifteen of them."
Having said [this], and having come to the place where this Princess
and Prince are living, and given a deposit of part of the money for
the month, he got a resting-place there that day night.
In this manner getting a resting-place and having been there, in the
middle of the night stealing the Princess, the Prince who got the
resting-place took her to his palace. This Prince, for the Princess
whom he stole and the Prince who was her lord to become unconscious,
caused them to drink a poisonous drug while they were sleeping. This
Prince who stole the Princess was a person who at first having gone to
marry her, was not wealthy [enough] to procure the masuran [amounting]
to five tusk elephants' loads.
Well then, on the day on which he went stealing the Princess, he
received a letter from his father the King, that he must go for a
war. Because of it, having put the Princess whom he stole in the
palace, and placed guards, and commanded that they should not allow
her to go outside it, he went for the war.
While she was [there] in this manner, in the morning consciousness
having come to the Prince who had married the Princess and become
her lord, he opened his eyes, and having seen that the Princess was
not there, as though with madness he began to walk to that and this
hand. While going thus, he went to go by the street near the palace
in which his Princess is put. When going there, after the Princess
had looked in the direction of the street from the floor of the upper
story, she saw that her Prince is going; and at that very time having
written a letter she sent it to the Prince by the hand of a messenger.
In the letter was said, "At night, at such and such a time please
come to such and such a place. Then I having arrived there, and both
of us having joined together, let us go by stealth to another country."
The Prince as soon as he received the letter went near a jungle,
and thinking, "Here are no men," read the letter somewhat loudly.
Then a man who, having gone into the jungle to draw out creepers
and having become fatigued, was lying down near there, heard his
reading of the letter. Because the man heard this matter, in the
night time, at the time which was written in the Princess's letter,
taking a sword also, he went to the place which she mentioned. When
the Princess, too, at the appointed time went to the said place, the
man who went to cut creepers having waited there, seized her hand,
and they quickly travelled away. While they were going, in order that
the guards and city residents should not be able to recognise them,
not doing much talking they journeyed quickly in the darkness, by
the jungle, to the road.
The Prince who was appointed the husband of the Princess, having read
without patience the letter which the Princess sent, arrived at the
place mentioned before the appointed time; and having [sat down and]
leaned against a tree until she comes, after the journey he made
went to sleep. At this time the man who went to cut creepers came,
bringing the sword. If he had met with the Prince, he would have even
killed him, with the design to take away the Princess.
This Princess, together with that man, having arrived at a great
forest wilderness, both persons went to sleep under a tree. After
it became light, having opened her eyes, and when she looked having
seen that she had come with a very ugly man, unpleasing to look at,
becoming very distressed she began to weep.
Then the man said, "After you have now come so far with me, should
you leave me you will appoint yourself to destruction. Because of it,
are you willing that I should marry you?" he asked.
The Princess said, "I am willing; but in our country there is a
custom. In that manner we must keep it," she said.
The creeper cutter agreed to it, that is, the woman and man, both of
them, who are to marry, having looked face to face, with two ropes of
fine thread are to be tied at a post, and after they have proclaimed
their willingness or unwillingness for their marrying, they must
marry. "Well then, because in this forest wilderness there are not
ropes of fine thread, let us tie ourselves with creepers," she said.
Because there was not anyone to tie the two persons at once (eka
parata), the other having tied one person, after this one proclaimed
her or his willingness the other was to be tied. Firstly having tied
the Princess with a turn of creeper, after she proclaimed her consent
he unloosed her. After that, the Princess, having very thoroughly
made tight and tied to the tree the creeper cutter, quickly went away
backward to seek her lord.
While going in that way she met with two Vaeddas. Thereupon the two
Vaeddas, with the design to take this Princess, began to make uproar.
Thereupon the Princess said, "Out of you two, I am willing to come
with the skilful one in shooting furthest," she said.
At that time the two Vaeddas, having exerted themselves as much as
possible, shot the two arrows [so as] to go very far, and to fetch
the arrows went running to the place where they fell. While they were
in the midst of it the Princess went off very stealthily.
The two Vaeddas having come and having seen that the Princess
had gone, began to seek her. When they were thus seeking her, that
creeper cutter whom she had tied and placed there when she came away,
somehow or other unfastening the tying, came seeking the Princess;
and having joined with these Vaeddas began to seek [her with them].
While they were in the midst of it, the Princess having gone walking,
met with a trader. The trader, taking her and having journeyed, at noon
became wearied, and went to sleep in the shade under a tree. Then the
Princess taking a part of the trader's clothes and putting them on,
went like a man, and arrived at a royal palace. The King having said
to this one, "What can you do?" [after] ascertaining it, gave this
one the charge to teach the King's son and also the Minister's son.
During the time while she is thus educating in the sciences these
two Princes, one day the Minister's son, because of an accidental
necessary matter went into the room where this Princess who was made
his teacher is sleeping. At the time when he went, the Princess's
outer robe having been aslant, the Minister-Prince saw her two breasts,
and went seeking the King's son to inform him that she was a woman.
The Princess, ascertaining this circumstance, stealing from the
palace the clothes of a royal Prince and putting them on, went away
very hastily. She went away thus in the disguise of a Prince, by a
street near a palace of the chief city in another country.
Because a handsome husband, pleasing to the mind of the daughter of
the King of that country, had not been obtained by her, she remained
for much time without having married. Although many royal Princes
came she was not pleased with them. But having been looking in the
direction of the street from a window of the upper story floor, and
having seen this Princess of extremely beautiful figure going in the
disguise of a Prince, very hastily she sent to her father the King,
and informed him, "Please give me the hand of that Prince who is
travelling in the street, as my lord-husband."
Then the King, having sent a messenger and caused this Prince to be
brought near the King, and shown him the Princess, said, "You must
marry this Princess. If not, I shall appoint you to death." This
Princess who was in the disguise of a Prince through fear of death
consented to it.
After that, having appointed the wedding festival in a great
ostentatious manner, they married these two persons. In that night
the Princess who was in the disguise of a Prince, having told the
other Princess all the dangers that occurred to her, and told her
that she is a Princess, said to her, "Don't inform any one about it."
Remaining in this manner, the Princess who is in the Prince disguise
began to seek her husband. It was thus:--This Princess having caused
to be made ready a very spacious hall which causes the minds of the
spectators who saw it to rejoice to the degree that from the outer
districts men come to look at it, began to cause donations [of food]
to be given to all who arrive there.
Having caused her own figure to be made from wax, and having put
clothes on it, and established it at a place in front of this hall,
she caused guards to be stationed around, and commanded them, "Any
person having come near this wax figure, at the very time when he
has touched it you are to bring that person near me." She said [thus]
to the guards.
While a few days were going, men came from many districts to look
at this hall. Among them, having walked and walked seeking this
Princess, were her Prince and the creeper cutter, the two Vaeddas and
the trader, the royal Prince and the Minister-Prince. The whole of
them having come and seen this wax figure, touched the hand of the
wax figure. The guards who were stationed there, because the whole
of these said persons touched the wax figure, arrested them and gave
charge of them to the Princess.
Thereupon the Princess commanded them to kill the creeper
cutter. Having censured the Vaeddas she told them to go. To the son of
the King who caused her to teach, she gave in marriage the Princess
whom, having come in the disguise of the Prince, she married. Taking
charge of her own Lord she from that time lived in happiness.
Western Province.
The story of the Prince and Princess (No. 8, vol. i) bears a close
resemblance to this tale in some of the incidents; see also No. 108
in vol. ii.
In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. iii, p. 62) the story
of Ali Shar and Zumurrud also contains similarities. When the two had
no other means of support, Zumurrud sent her master or husband to buy
a piece of silk and thread for working on it. She then embroidered it
for eight days as a curtain, which Ali Shar sold for fifty dinars to a
merchant in the bazaar, after she had warned him not to part with it
to a passer-by. They lived thus for a year, till at last he sold one
to a stranger, owing to the urging of the merchants. The purchaser
followed him home, inserted opiates into a half plantain which he
presented to him, and when Ali Shar became unconscious fetched his
brother, a former would-be purchaser of Zumurrud, and they carried off
the girl. By arrangement with an old woman, a friend of the youth's,
she lowered herself from a window at midnight, but Ali Shar, who waited
there for her, had fallen asleep, and a Kurdish thief in the darkness
took her away, and left her in charge of his mother. When this woman
fell asleep she escaped on horse-back in male attire, was elected
King at a city at which she arrived, and by giving a monthly feast
to all comers in a great pavilion that she erected for the purpose,
seized all her captors, and caused them to be flayed alive. At last
she found her husband in this way.
In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding),
p. 301, the marriage of the disguised wife of a Prince to a Princess
occurs. While they were travelling the Prince was imprisoned on a
false charge, his wife dressed as a man, was seen by a Princess who
fell in love with her, and agreed to marry the Princess if according
to the custom of her own country the vermilion were applied to the
bride's forehead with a sword (the marriage to the sword). When she
told the Princess her story the latter informed the Raja, who released
the Prince and remarried his daughter to him.